Incidentally, for what it is worth, I do not even agree with the columnist's sentence, the one I poked fun at.

Which is to say that, look, if you want to talk plain cause and effect, I do not actually buy the simplistic argument that Toronto's house prices skyrocketed simply because Vancouver imposed a foreigner tax.

Consider two items about Vancouver houses:

1. The demand for Vancouver houses for many years has been mainly NOT foreign buyers, but instead has been rich new Canadians and their families, meaning rich people arriving (mainly from China and Hong Kong) after buying passports through investor immigrant programs here.

2. The demand, by overseas money for Vancouver houses, was actually already dropping a lot before the foreigner tax became an element.

The above are consistent with a lot of Toronto actually having to do with investor immigrants and their families (new Canadians) seeing more bang for their buck in Toronto than in hyper-priced Vancouver - NOT foreign buyers.