Why is a Richmond B.C. neighbourhood with many expensive mansions also one of the city’s ‘poorest’?

Why does a Richmond neighbourhood with many expensive mansions also appear to be one of the city’s poorest?

The upscale neighbourhood of Thompson, where properties typically sell in the $1-million to $3-million range, ranks high for poverty, according to Statistics Canada figures.

But former Richmond Mayor Greg Halsey-Brandt said the predominantly single-family Thompson neighbourhood has “the most expensive homes and the second highest level of household poverty” in Richmond because many residents under-report their global incomes to Canadian tax officials.

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More than six out of 10 Richmond residents were born outside the country, the highest rate of any city in the country. If many people who live in luxury Richmond houses are reporting low incomes to Revenue Canada, Halsey-Brandt is among those worried it means many are not paying their fair share of taxes for social services.

The former mayor said it’s revealing that the roughly 16,000 residents of Thompson, most of whom live in single-family homes, are second only to those who live in the downtown core of Richmond for reporting poverty-level incomes. Richmond’s downtown consists mostly of small condos and rental units.

“Those of us who live here know that this is nonsense. Since many of the families live in over $1-million homes. It is simply under-reporting of income that causes the problem.”

Overall across Richmond, 22.4 per cent of the population is listed as low income.

But the proportion of near-poverty-level households rises to 26.2 per cent in Thompson, which is in the northwest corner of Richmond, across the Fraser River’s Middle Arm from Vancouver International Airport.

Halsey-Brandt points out households in the less-luxurious neighbourhood of Steveston, which has the fewest immigrants in Richmond, report the smallest portion of low-income households, at 11.4 per cent.

Albert Lo, head of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, is concerned residents with expensive assets in Canada, particularly houses, are earning most of their money outside the country and not reporting it to the B.C. and Canadian governments.

The Canadian Race Relations Foundation, which operates on a $24-million endowment from the federal government and ethnic groups, is urging the Canada Revenue Agency to more closely examine the earnings of immigrants who “park large amounts of money” in Canadian real estate and then “go back to work in China” or elsewhere, said Lo, a longtime Richmond resident and Realtor.

Jiun-Hsien Henry Yao, who ran for Richmond city council in 2014, is also troubled by the income-reporting problem. Normally, he said, “you would need a family income of $150,000 to $200,000 just to feel you can afford any home in Richmond.” But in high-end Thompson, most households report income well under $100,000.

Both Halsey-Brandt and Lo said even though the problem of low reported incomes seems most exaggerated in Thompson, it is also occurring in other parts of Richmond.

“Statistics Canada continues to show (the entire city of) Richmond as one of the poorest cities in British Columbia, with a very high child poverty rate,” says Halsey-Brandt, who also represented Richmond as a B.C. Liberal cabinet minister.

This is a “serious financial issue,” Halsey-Brandt said, “because of the demands placed on our health care and education systems by newcomers.”

Although people who live in expensive houses pay property taxes, Halsey-Brandt said, many appear to not be paying an appropriate share of provincial and federal income taxes, which fund highways, transit, universities, hospitals and much more.

The Metro Vancouver Housing Data Book says Richmond, on average, has the third highest prices for single-family dwellings of any municipality, behind only Vancouver and West Vancouver.

But that appears to contradict the reported poverty levels in Richmond, particularly among immigrant households.

The Housing Data Book says that, statistically, Richmond has the highest proportion of households maintained by immigrants who are, based on their reported incomes, judged to be in “extremely dire housing” situations.

Across Metro Vancouver, the Housing Data Book reports 51 per cent of the households that report spending at least half of their incomes on shelter, which is the definition of “extremely dire,” are maintained by immigrants. In Richmond, that figure jumps to 71 per cent.

Lo said the issue of low reported incomes relates in part to Richmond’s large number of so-called astronaut parents.

“If a family moves here, but the head of the family goes back to China or East Asia to make money, that means Richmond often ends up with the spouse and children. That family is not going to declare earning much money in Canada,” said Lo.

A federal government analysis recently showed that immigrants to Canada from China, as well as Taiwan and Korea, are most likely to declare the lowest incomes in Canada.

If a family moves here, but the head of the family goes back to China or East Asia to make money, that means Richmond often ends up with the spouse and children. That family is not going to declare earning much money in Canada

The 2014 analysis found recent immigrants from these countries are also more likely to be business-class investors who own significant unreported assets and might be “strategic” in telling government about their incomes.

University of B.C. geography professor David Ley, author of Millionaire Migrants, said the problem of under-reporting of incomes is one of the key reasons the federal government drastically cut back the immigrant-investor program in 2014.

Richmond’s Thompson neighbourhood is bordered by Granville Street, No. 2 Road, the Fraser River and Georgia Strait. Significant parts were developed by Milan Ilich on the site of Terra Nova farmland, which was controversially removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve in the late 1980s. More than six out of 10 residents of Thompson have an immigrant language, most commonly Chinese, as their mother tongue, according to the 2011 Statistics Canada General Household Survey.

Based on ethnicity maps created by The Vancouver Sun’s Chad Skelton, the portion of Thompson’s population that is ethnic Chinese has roughly doubled, to 70 per cent of all residents, since 1996.

David Yau, 69, interviewed in a mini-mall in the Thompson neighbourhood, said he believes many ethnic Chinese who have addresses in the neighbourhood have “big houses in Canada, but they make their money in the U.S.A. or Asia.”

Richmond Councillor Alexa Loo, an accountant, said the phenomenon of residents reporting surprisingly low incomes to tax officials reflects the “weird economy” developing in Richmond.

Many wealthy trans-national Chinese and other migrants maintain expensive, near-empty homes in Richmond, as well as elsewhere around the world, Loo said. “There’s a lot of $2 million homes,” she said, “and it doesn’t seem the people who might own them have jobs” in Metro Vancouver.

The Source :http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-is-richmond-neighbourhood-with-many-expensive-mansions-also-one-of-the-citys-poorest?utm_source=feedbur--FULL

Comment:

"Getting Down to Reality

The attached article about millionaires and immigration goes to the core of Canada’s immigration policy which keeps out European trades workers … it’s all about rich people and real estate.

Developers, contractors and the unions have big power in Canada. They use that power to make sure that as many rich foreign families as possible get immigrant visas. More visas means more sold houses, more sold condos and more financed real estate.

A few years ago, Ottawa realized that it had lost control of its investor and business immigrant programs. Over 50 % of Asian immigrants walked away from Canada after they had obtained Canadian status for the simple convenience of their children.

Jason Kenney etc talked tough against these rich “immigrants of convenience“ who rarely showed up in Canada .They never paid taxes . They never started business. Ottawa killed the investor program. Ottawa killed the business immigration program.

But developers, contactors and unions did not become rich by being concerned with good public policy .   

The real estate boys, together with powerful education lobby, convinced Harper and Kenney to put the immigration focus on the new real estate customers… student’s with rich fathers.

I have nothing against the construction sector or the children of rich people. God bless them. May they live long and prosper. 

The problem is that Canada plays an absurd zero sum immigration game. Every visa for a rich student is one visa less for a European trades worker. The classic example of this “I win –you lose” lunacy is the Ottawa –Queen’s Park shell game over PNP quotas. 

A couple of years ago Ottawa gave Ontario a quota of 1,300. Believe it or not, this quota fairly efficiently serviced both the trades and the rich student’s.

Last year Ottawa shafted both European trades workers and rich Asian students who wanted to stay in Canada as workers or immigrants. The outcome was that both groups flooded to the PNP program.

Reacting to the flood, the PNP quota was increased to 2,500.

Ottawa turned up the screws on workers and students. More flooded to the PNP program. The quota was raised to 5,000.

Ottawa, knowing full well what was about to happen, allowed Kathleen Wynne to decide who would get Ontario’s landed immigrant visa quota. 

Young Kathleen asked Michael Chan to achieve the balance between Euro workers and Asian students.

Imagine Minister Chan’s pleasant surprise when Steve Del Duca agreed that students with rich, real estate buying fathers absolutely trump Euro trades workers.

So here we have it:

• The Immigration Minister / Beijing’s PLA Agent, gets all the visas

• The Transport Minister / Developer-Union shill, gets :

1.    A lot of sold real estate

2.    20,000 illegal union members who don’t complain when they get ripped off for about $3 billion /year on unpaid overtime and a shit load of unpaid pension benefits

Personally, I have nothing against economic interests, including foreign police agencies, unions and assorted money launderers, lobbying for their betterment.

What pisses me off is the blatant breach of trust by those Canadians entrusted with the reins of good public policy.

We cannot stop all corruption. We cannot stop all influence peddling.

But Holy Mary, Mother of God, why have we been saddled with third world political leadership at all levels. Their collective behavior has crossed the line from sleaze to treason.  "

Richard Boraks, June 18 2015