Most homeowners in N.S., B.C. work for government

December 1, 2022



The majority of homebuyers in both British Columbia and Nova Scotia work at some level of government and have higher incomes relative to other residents, according to a Statistics Canada Housing Data survey released in pre-pandemic December 2019 that studied homeowners and income in three provinces.
“The largest share of owners in British Columbia and Nova Scotia worked in the public administration sector, which comprises federal, provincial, and municipal governments, while in Ontario they were employed in the manufacturing sector,” the StatsCan study states.
The study notes that, at the time, average wages in the public sector were $33.33 per hour, compared with $22.07 in the manufacturing sector and $16.00 in the retail sector (which had the lowest number of homeowners according to the study).
Dr. Andrey Pavlov, a Simon Fraser University finance professor, and Paul Sullivan, a Vancouver property tax expert, pointed to the study in rejecting recent research linking high-value homes to foreign buyers. The University of British Columbia research they cited called for higher income taxes and property taxes on owners of higher-priced homes.
“Governments, universities and some lobby groups seem focused on confiscating people’s home equity through additional taxation and adding more red tape rather than enabling more homes to be built easily and affordably, that would also grow our economy,” said Pavlov. Single-detached homeowners in Vancouver already pay the highest property taxes in Canada, he added.
 “That’s a major reason why so many younger people can’t afford to buy a home as they lose so much of their pay cheques to various, growing taxes here in Canada. Current government policies prevent people from earning and keeping a good income,” said Pavlov.
None of the new housing taxes introduced over the years have fixed the affordable home shortage, Sullivan added. But the taxes help pay for a growing number of public servants. Three out of every four net new jobs created in B.C. since 2020 were in the public sector, he noted, and 86 per cent of new jobs in Canada since the pandemic began were in government.
This has enabled several public servants and elected officials to own multiple homes and residential investment property, Sullivan said.
As an example, according to the disclosures filed with the federal conflict of interest commissioner in August 2022, 12 of the 39 federal Liberal cabinet ministers—31 per cent—hold real estate assets described by them in those filings as being either for “rental” or “investment” purposes.