Real estate associations in British Columbia are again urging the federal government to exempt several ski resort communities from the foreign buyer ban, saying the rules are unintentionally harming local economies.

The Association of Interior Realtors (AOIR), along with the British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA), says the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act continues to apply to B.C. ski communities that fall within Statistics Canada’s census metropolitan areas or census agglomerations. 

The associations say that in BC’s Interior, this classification captures nine communities and their surrounding regions, and argue that using those boundaries has swept in ski resort areas that are geographically distinct from population centres and dependent on tourism-related investment.

“Another year has gone by and we’ve yet to see any action on this,” said Seth Scott, AOIR’s director of government relations and communications. “The Interior has some of the province’s most important tourism regions and most popular ski hills. Homes on these mountains serve a different purpose than those in the centre of communities.”

The ban does not apply to some other major ski destinations in B.C., including Whistler and Big White, or to ski communities in other provinces, such as Mont Tremblant in Quebec, the associations note.

“This is a matter of fairness and consistency,” said Trevor Hargreaves, BCREA’s senior vice-president of government relations, marketing and communications. “Including some ski resort areas and excluding others simply by chance really isn’t good policy making.”

AOIR and BCREA are calling on the federal government, along with CMHC,  to issue a regulatory exemption for Interior ski resort communities such as Sun Peaks, Apex Mountain and SilverStar.