What do you think of that plan?

Well, again, it sort of smacks of we're going to tell you what prices you can and can't charge.

You know, obviously we do have rent control, but that isn't as much of an intervention because when a lease rolls over or on a new unit...

the owner gets to set the price um you know the problem is there's potential downside with no upside so what's the downside the obvious downside is you're telling real estate builders but investors generally when things go wrong we we as a government might might push you uh and and do adverse stuff uh when you're already in a position of losing money And that could reduce business investment.

I don't know.

You know, that's hard to measure that sort of vibe stuff.

But but it seems like a real concern.

What do you think about the message that these two major parties have sent to voters here, final day of the campaign?

And I'd just be interested, is there a path to resolve this where people can still potentially own a single family home and we don't have to go down the path of everybody living in smaller and smaller apartments?

Well, let me say a few things.

First of all, I'm sensitive to what you said.

It's not like I totally disagree.

You know, Camukna Sartre said, hell is other people, right? So, and someone else said, good fences make good neighbors.

So, you know, it's nice not to have to deal with other people.

There's no doubt.

providing affordable housing or making it easier for the public sector to build or as often is said, cut the red tape.

So what should we be doing? What do you think we should be looking at?

Well, like I said, you know, one thing you could do is say if you're not paying income tax, uh, proportional to your property, then you've gotta pay a surtax.

So for example, I know that for, uh, greater Vancouver and greater Toronto, both of them, you could raise a couple of billion dollars a year if you made sure that everybody's income tax payments, uh, were at least 1% of their property value.

And so just do that.

Say, you know, you owe tax, 1% of property value.

With- if your income tax doesn't cover it, you owe the rest as an additional surcharge.

You don't have to do anything about nationality.

How would you describe the state of the real estate market today?

But according to Tom Davidoff at the Sauter School of Business, more rental construction, not necessarily a bad thing.

The number one affordability issue is rental, right? Low income people are more disproportionately renters.

What's wrong with, with that logic if government is trying to help, um, taxpayers, in this case fans, en-enjoy, enjoy their time, enjoy life? [laughs] That's part of what government should be doing, should it not?

Well, first of all, let's talk about what a fan is.

I mean, how do you measure how big of a fan of, uh, you know, uh, the soccer somebody is? Is it, uh, you know, they're the first one online clicking buy, uh, at 3:00 in the morning? Or is it the person who's most willing to pay for the seat? If you say...

You know, you have to measure it somehow.

You can't ration the tickets based on who expresses the most love, who's the most worthy, 'cause that's not something that can be observed.

How much you're willing to pay is a pretty good measure of how much you value something, and so, uh, clearing the market is just fine.

The puzzle, and what, you know, we have to think through and I think matters is, why is money being left on the table for scalpers, right? Taylor Swift, right, you know, she produces something that's worth a ton to people, uh, you know, for whatever reason.

But i-i-is there a, um, a way we could recreate this industry to where fans still have access, uh, to tickets to concerts and, and sporting events they wanna go to, rather than what we see today, where there are... tickets are sold, but they're sold out in five minutes, and everything ends up on a resale site?

Uh, at the top of your co- the comments you made there, uh, did you mention that Airbnb, y- y- you don't like the ban on Airbnb?

Not one little bit.

I mean, i- i- if, so suppose somebody can own a, a property and, uh, rent it out on Airbnb for, you know, just for argument's sake, 20,000 bucks a month, and the rent is five, you know, 3,000 bucks a month.

There's a tax that they can pay where society's better off and the owner's better off, right? I mean, suppose they paid $10,000 in tax on a unit that would rent for $3,000 a month.

Society hasn't lost more than 3,000 because it's not a rental, and you've collected 10,000 in tax.

Now, I'm not, you know, that, that isn't how taxes work currently, but a tax has to be a better idea than a ban.

I mean, look at the World Cup and the insanity that's gonna happen here.

What, what do you mean they don't pay any tax? How, how does that work?

Does the city need to start asking a deeper question, which is, do we need to get out of business in some of these things? Because there has been downsizing by the federal and provincial governments, but we can't save everything, and it's not our responsibility to do so.

Yeah, two remarks.

First of all, I don't think services at the per capita level of Surrey is what anybody wants.

Now, part of the issue is the schools there, but I think there has to be a lot of overcrowding and under services given the huge immigration that's gone into Surrey.

And I know there's tremendous complaints about, you know, overflows, part days in school.

Schools aren't the city budget, but I suspect we probably don't want to be there.

However, I think you're absolutely right to think about scope.

What is happening? How have we gotten here in your mind in regards to some of these incredibly large property tax increases we seem to be dealing with year over year?