Occasionally we have some commenters here who seem to be pretty sure (or at least proclaim to be pretty sure) that Vancouver is hell on earth.
We suspect this isn’t entirely true, because most anyone you meet here has the ability to move away to a number of other options yet they hang around.
But one recent comment references the fear that Vancouver will become ‘hell on earth’ by slowly crushing the economy into two strata:
Soon there will be two classes of Vancouverites.
The service class will live in 200 square foot mini-apartments, twenty such units per building, working for 50,000 dollars a year, paying 2,500 a month in rent, and paying a big chunk of their paychecks on taxes at the provincial and federal levels to pay for schools, hospitals, universities, and the coast guard. They will service the rich class and take the bus to get there.
The rich class will live in 7,000 square foot rectangular box houses, worth three million each, ridiculously crammed on 45 foot lots, their BMWs and Bugattis parked out front. Each household will claim poverty status, claiming to be earning just ten thousand dollars a year. That way the wives and kids and grandparents in those houses will not have to pay anything for their healthcare and education. It is all paid for by the income taxes of the suckers in the service class.
Meanwhile, unknown to Ottawa or Victoria, the businessman head of those rich homes is earning a million dollars a year in China, in activities that are often associated with phrases like “rule breaking” and “money laundering”.
That allows them to own another three houses and condominiums in Vancouver, places that are empty, places the government thinks his kids and nephews own because he put their names on the deeds.
Vancouver is turning into hell on earth.
Original comment from a Globe and Mail article referenced by Yunak.
