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Klump said he believes that a speculation tax would be misguided because such measures typically do little more than temporarily change market sentiment — pushing buyers to the sidelines for a bit while they wait to assess the impact. Loopholes could also allow some speculators to get around paying the tax, Klump said.

Photo by Mark van Manen / Vancouver Sun

Eby encouraged people in Ontario to take recommendations from the real estate industry with a grain of salt because “time and again the information is inaccurate or misleading.”

“It’s been incredibly disappointing to see the real estate associations’ behaviour in British Columbia,” Eby said. “They have difficulty seeing beyond their own interests.”

However, he conceded that a new tax may not be the right way to tamp down the speculation the NDP believes is helping heat up the market.

“We don’t want to be forced into pursuing a tax. If experts say a tax isn’t going to address the issue, then we’ll look at other options — it doesn’t have to be a tax,” Eby said.

“But the outcome has to be that this kind of speculative action in the market has to end.”

The power-sharing accord between the NDP and Greens doesn’t go into specifics about how it would make housing affordable, simply that they would “take action to deal with the speculation and fraud that is driving up prices.”

However, the party platforms go into more detail.

The NDP is proposing a two-per-cent tax that would affect people who buy property in B.C. but don’t live or work here and leave their property empty, and be based on assessed value. All revenue collected will go into a B.C. Housing Affordability Fund. The NDP predicted that the tax would bring in about $200 million per year.