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The B.C. economy is booming. Growth of 2.7 per cent this year will be the best in Canada, according to the Conference Board. New residents are flowing in from other provinces and overseas. The government boasts that during the third quarter last year the province experienced the highest net interprovincial migration since 1995. Manufacturing is picking up. To quote RBC’s latest forecast: “Hot housing market conditions, competitively priced exports, and a healthy labour market are poised to keep fuelling incomes and household spending in British Columbia and maintain the province at the top of our provincial growth rankings in 2016.”

Looks like a crisis. So what’s to be done? When the going gets too good, the good think about raising taxes. For more than a year the impact of the enviable B.C. economy on Vancouver housing prices has driven the policy-making left around the bend and up a tree in search of a solution. One persistent idea, proposed by Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson last year, is to impose a “luxury housing” surtax on high-value home sales. He also called for a crackdown on property flippers.