text: Homeowners can defer their property taxes and the only penalty is simple (i.e. non-compounding) interest at a low rate.
  
  Would-be homeowners can pillage their RRSPs and get new buyer grants.
  
  Taxpayers guarantee mortgage loans to the tune of nearly a Trillion dollars now nation-wide, encouraging market participation and reinforcing market gains.
  
  Etc.
  
  Enhancing the on-paper wealth of home owners has been a fixation of governments at all levels. Increasingly special treatment for people's housing investments - relative to other investments - has been the status quo for a long time.
  
  BC won't have hope of building other facets of its economy or retaining its future tax base until this trend is reversed. Yet a lot of people feel entitled to this sort of support. (It remains odd to see people un-ironically call tightened CMHC rules that REDUCE the taxpayer footprint in the market "s.o.c.i.a.l.i.s.m.".) I'm not holding my breath that things will change.