It is time for real facts to replace the innuendo, cobbled-together best guesses, armchair estimates and uniformed hand-wringing about who owns residential properties in our towns and cities and who lives in them.

We need this information so that reactionary calls for immediate foreign investment restrictions and penalties can be replaced with a thoughtful public-policy analysis that will determine whether or not ownership and occupancy of our housing stock needs to be further regulated in order to maintain an orderly housing market.

An orderly housing market, driven by real supply and demand, ensures that housing is attainable for all income levels within our population. If the forces of supply and demand are allowed to work, the only segment of the population that requires assistance with the cost of housing is that segment of the population that suffers from some disadvantage and will never be able to afford housing regardless of where we are at in the supply-and-demand cycle. We must ensure this segment of the population is not left homeless.

Primary data, drawn from official records or new mandatory surveys, will inform an open, honest and thoughtful discussion about how ownership of residential real estate is affecting housing prices for the masses. This kind of data will also allow us to cut through all of the superfluous issues — many of them arising from veiled racism, bigotry and emotional reactions to perceived threats of community and social change — and get to the questions that really matter.

They are not simple questions.

If there is reliable data that shows that foreign ownership is altering the normal functioning of supply and demand — especially with vast numbers of vacant homes owned by people living overseas — then there are a number of further questions that need to be answered before we move to implementing restrictions on ownership. At that point, the questions will no longer be related to where these owners live and whether or not the local homes are being occupied. Instead, the questions will be about how you classify the owners and how you make distinctions between them without going down a slippery slope that quickly leads to discrimination.

For example, should a Canadian citizen who resides outside Canada for a period be penalized or restricted for leaving empty a local property they own? How much time should they be permitted to reside outside Canada before such restrictions or penalties come into effect? What if they are snowbird retirees who were born in Canada and have long resided full-time in Canada but have recently decided to live in the U.S. Southwest during the winter months?

Should they be treated differently from a recently naturalized Canadian who owns a Vancouver property but resides most of the year in Manila or Lima, visiting Vancouver for six weeks or so annually?

Should a landed immigrant, who recently arrived from China, and who owns three properties — only one of which they occupy and the other two they rent out — be taxed differently on their rental properties than a Canadian citizen who owns a single rental property?