Foreclosures are rising. Ottawa’s answer? A condo bailout.

Once a month I try to make a point of door-knocking in different neighbourhoods in my riding. I have always believed knocking on doors is not something you should only do at election time. At people’s doorsteps you can hear firsthand what local citizens’ concerns and questions are relating to events and challenges occurring in their everyday lives.

In my last few outings, the topic that is on the minds of many citizens is affordability. However, I have also come to appreciate that affordability concerns impact people differently.

For some it is the high price of groceries. For others, often on a fixed income, it is the inability to have their income keep pace with their expenses. More recently I have also come across citizens facing a mortgage renewal they cannot afford.

I sometimes get asked how it is that people who would have passed a mortgage “stress test” five years ago are unable to afford a mortgage renewal today. The answers are different and sometimes complex, but generally it comes down to a harsh reality: our overall costs have skyrocketed. Groceries, property taxes, insurance, utilities, wireless fees, and interest on existing debt are all piling up. When you layer a much higher renewed mortgage interest rate on top of that mountain, the math simply stops working for a lot of families, especially when someone loses their job. In the latest labour force data by Statistics Canada, the region that includes Kelowna (including Lake Country and Peachland) is at 9% unemployment- reported as the highest among major urban areas in the country.

For some I have met in this situation, they have very limited options. They can try to sell their home; however, for some who bought in 2021 or 2022, selling means potentially taking a substantial loss that they cannot afford to absorb. In other situations, including an inability to sell, a foreclosure- which leads to a court-ordered sale- may become the only option.

This is why court-ordered sales are now increasing across B.C. In Metro Vancouver alone, court-ordered listings increased from 28 in October 2023 to 66 in October 2024 and 119 in October 2025, a clear sign that financial pressures are starting to surface in the housing market. At the same time, broader data from Equifax shows that mortgage delinquencies in British Columbia are rising sharply, with missed mortgage payments increasing by roughly 36% year-over-year in high-cost markets.

Here in the Central Okanagan, 232 properties were sold through court-ordered sales last year alone, showing that while our local numbers are smaller than in larger metropolitan centres, the financial stress is very real right here at home. This increase is largely driven by higher borrowing costs compared to the rock-bottom mortgage rates that were available during the pandemic.

Suffering these types of financial losses causes serious hardship, not to mention the stress of needing to find another place to live. This is why over the past week my office calls and emails have been flooded by many citizens who are irate that PM Carney and his Liberal government, working with Premier Eby and his NDP government, have announced their plan to subsidize luxury Vancouver condominium developers.

The logic behind it is baffling. As Prime Minister Carney stated at his announcement on subsidizing condo developers in Vancouver: “…with higher interest rates, weaker investment demands, developers are stuck…they don’t want to sell at a loss…they cannot afford to hold those empty units indefinitely.”

This, of course, is the exact same situation affecting many regular homeowners who also cannot afford to sell at a loss, nor can they hold onto their homes indefinitely. But while a local family faces foreclosure, the government steps in to socialize the losses of private corporations. For regular Canadians, there is no taxpayer bailout. Instead, as taxpayers, they will be forced to help pay for Prime Minister Carney’s bailout of Vancouver condo developers.

The Liberal government justifies this move by promising that these luxury unsold condominium units- approximately 2,200 of them- will be purchased and “converted into affordable housing.” Many of these unsold units are tiny investor-focused layouts rather than liveable housing for families, and the government is potentially buying them up at yesterday’s peak prices using your tax dollars.

Details as to exactly how this would be done and at what cost remain a mystery. No further details have been released by the federal Liberal or provincial NDP government on how this costly program would work; we are told to wait until the fall to see the actual framework.

My question this week: Do you support Prime Minister Carney’s plan to subsidize Vancouver developers in purchasing luxury unsold condos to be used for “affordable housing”?

Your feedback helps me do my job. As always, you are welcome to share your thoughts on my Facebook page, by email at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca, or by calling toll-free at 1-800-665-8711.1.