Article content

On the eve of a comprehensive, 10-year housing strategy going before Vancouver city council, Gregor Robertson reflected on the impact of offshore money in local real estate over his three terms as mayor of Canada’s most-expensive city.

“In my travels this year in Sydney (Australia) and New York, my sense is that Vancouver’s seen the most rapid impact of global capital of any big city globally,” Robertson told Postmedia News on Monday. “We’re among a group of big cities that have attracted hundreds of billions of dollars each in investment, but Vancouver has seen that hit in less than a decade, where it took several decades in many of those other cities, so they had more time to adjust.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Dan Fumano: Global money hit Vancouver real estate 'like a ton of bricks,' Robertson says Back to video

“But it’s hit us like a ton of bricks.”

During the last nine years while Robertson has been mayor and his Vision Vancouver party has had a majority on council, Vancouver’s affordability crisis has deepened and the gap has widened between local incomes and home prices. But, Robertson stressed Monday as he’s said in the past, it’s not a problem that city hall can solve on its own.