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After census figures this week revealed alarming gaps between housing costs and average incomes in Metro Vancouver, veteran real-estate analyst Richard Wozny is preparing a speech for B.C. politicians that blames the disparity in part on tax avoidance.

A reason why residents of Metro Vancouver municipalities with expensive housing tend to report lower incomes than people in less-costly municipalities is that many of the former avoid declaring their total wealth, said Wozny, whose company has produced 1,200 studies on real-estate trends in Canada and the U.S.

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“Canada has become a freeloader society” in which some mansion owners have found ways to avoid reporting their total incomes to the Canada Revenue Agency, said Wozny, who will speak on Sept. 25 at the convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities in Vancouver.

Census figures released this week show Metro Vancouver, which has one of the world’s most expensive housing markets, lags behind 14 other Canadian cities on average wages.