Canadian, especially BC politicians are very naive, and/or extremely self-serving and/or do not serve their populace very well in this regard. Taxation of Canadian real estate, especially rare SFH is far too low for non-residents. Land transfer taxes and property taxes ought to be tripled at least ! One could easily argue that 25% is the right figure for land transfer taxes and maybe half that for condos in BC.
With a billion+ Chinese and Indians each, plus a host of other large, rich yet unstable regions of the world ( Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, S-America, N-Africa, ...) we need to learn from other overpriced regions like Singapore, London, Sydney etc and tax foreign real estate ownership far FAR higher as surely many of them will want to park their legal ( or illegal or unlawfully moved) money to safer real estate havens, including its top two Canadian destinations: Vancouver and Toronto.
Why go to war if you can buy real estate in the best lost ions on the cheap, in-taxes or certainly under-taxed ?