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Comment by desdiv | Hacker News Reader

A 2011 study by Landcor Data showed that 74 per cent of luxury purchases in Richmond and Vancouver’s west side were by buyers with mainland Chinese names with no western variant.

Not surprising, given that Richmond is 55% Chinese[0]. West side Vancouver is probably around the same.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_British_Columbia#Demo...

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So it hinges on Chinese people westernizing their last name to ensure they are counted as Canadian? Plus this is only counting luxury properties. Sadly it's really important now WHICH set of rich people own those properties.

Canada does not have any statute which says you need an Anglo last name to be counted as a Canadian.

I do not have such a name, and, by golly, I'm a citizen of this little patch of dirt.

I suspect that it would certain that such a renaming requirement would violate something in the Canadian Constitution and its Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Canada

In Vancouver it's well known that the overwhelming majority of Chinese people who emigrate here have English variants to their name. If anything the study underestimates the figure as many non-Canadian Chinese (particularly in HK) do have western variants.

To your last point (assuming I'm reading your last sentence correctly). I don't think its a race/nationalism thing - I think it's more of a concern because people don't want properties being used as investment vehicles for foreign money and driving up the price for people whose primary use of houses in the area is shelter.

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