Yes to a speculation tax

Re B.C. will not reconsider tax on foreign homebuyers in Vancouver, Sept. 7

Bravo to B.C. Premier Christy Clark for this bold move! I only wish our premier, Kathleen Wynne, would have the guts to do the same. The heated real estate market is doing nobody any good, except the developers and maybe the real estate agents.

Our policy should not be to serve the interest of a small group of people, but the population at large. We home owners dare not move out of our houses for fear of not being able to afford the next one. It is for this reason the real estate inventory is getting smaller and smaller. Those who dare to make the move feel sorry as soon as they sell when they see that their neighbours were selling for more.

Our children cannot live near us anymore and they have to move further and further away. I have seen real qualified buyers getting frustrated by sitting on the bench for years. And other buyers resort to different strategies to be able to successfully bid on one. Some lose heart, some get angry, some devise to scheme. Is this healthy?

If the 44.5-per-cent drop in sales in Vancouver since the introduction of the tax is the result of fewer foreign buyers, it shows they were creating the problem. When will Ontario start doing something for its young people? Ivy Yeung, Willowdale

In 1974, I worked for the Ministry of Revenue at Queen’s Park when the Conservative government under Bill Davis brought into effect the Land Speculation Tax on residential property purchases by foreign investors. It seemed to work overnight to stem the ever-increasing prices of real estate in the province of Ontario.

It worked then, why not now? John Fletcher, Scarborough