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When Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver ramped up his calls for a foreign-buyers ban in B.C. real estate, he was met with a quick rebuff from Premier John Horgan.

“I’m a child of an immigrant,” Horgan said, pointing to his Irish roots.

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“B.C. is the gateway to Canada and I don’t believe we should be curbing people from coming here.”

For Weaver, the response was infuriating.

“We’re not talking about immigrants or refugees,” Weaver told me. “We’re talking about people sitting around in office towers around the world who dump capital here as a safe haven to park their money.

“Despite what the premier says, the problem is not about the people who are coming here. The problem is the people who are not coming here.”

Now New Zealand has brought in a ban on foreign home ownership as it deals with runaway real-estate prices in an affordability crisis that mirrors our own.

Weaver is repeating his demand that British Columbia follow New Zealand’s lead and ban foreign real-estate purchases here.