VICTORIA — The B.C. NDP’s former headquarters in Burnaby was sold to a local hotel owner of Taiwanese descent.

The owner of the Best Western PLUS Inn on Kingsway, who declined to be identified by name, confirmed Wednesday he purchased the NDP property under his wife’s name.

He said he is a Canadian citizen, having emigrated from Taiwan in 1995. The purchase was for $2.15 million in 2015.

“The NDP sold the party headquarters to the hotel owner next door, a local business owner of Taiwanese descent,” said NDP MLA David Eby at the legislature on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, party president Craig Keating said NDP officials were unaware to whom they sold their party headquarters last year.

Property records show it was sold to Utmost Enterprises Ltd., which was created two months prior and which has a registered address of a Richmond tax firm that specializes in non-resident taxation matters. The mortgage on the land title is registered to a Taiwanese-based bank.

The provincial NDP has been sharply critical of the Liberal government for failing to act on the rising cost of home ownership, which some believe is due to foreign investment, as well as failing to close a loophole in the property transfer tax that has allowed wealthy foreign buyers to scoop up commercial properties in the Lower Mainland without paying proper taxes.

Finance Minister Mike de Jong mocked Eby in the legislature Wednesday for “at the same time that he and his colleagues have been decrying the entry of foreign investors into our market, the party coffers of the NDP seem to be benefiting quite nicely from some of those investments.”

rshaw@vancouversun.com

chchiang@postmedia.com