Investigative journalist EXPOSES Carney’s condo bailout

Conservative leader Pierre Polya was calling on the Kearney government to scrap its Vancouver condo bailout.Prime Minister Kearney has pledged $3 .2 billion to bail out developers and bankers stuck with 2 ,200 overpriced BC condos.Polya says Kearney is trying to reinflate the housing bubble at taxpayers' expense.

Having created the housing bubble, and now bursting that bubble, now they want to come and bail out the bankers and developers who profited from it.This is another example of a tiny club of liberal elites, billionaires and insiders getting rich by making hard -working Canadians poor.And so I'm calling for the Kearney condo bailout of developers and bankers to be cancelled.As for the condos themselves, You know what the solution is for them to become affordable?The developers need to lower the sale price.

Well, that would mean that the developers would end up losing money.Here now is Prime Minister Carney's explanation, this was last week, about why the government should buy overpriced condos from developers stuck with bad investments.

And at the same time, there's too many completed condos sitting empty.Metro Vancouver alone, around 2 ,500 finished units are standing vacant with no buyers.With higher interest rates, weaker investment demand, developers are stuck.They don't want to sell at a loss.They can't afford to hold those empty units indefinitely.And the problem is that those empty homes don't just sit idle.

They also disincentivize new construction.Unsettled lenders and investors create a housing market that, in effect, feels frozen.Result, too many British Columbians still can't find the homes that they can afford.

Our guest today is journalist Sam Cooper, author of Willful Blindness, How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons, and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West.Welcome to the show once again, Sam.Great to be with you, Mark.What do you make of the Vancouver condo bailout, and could Toronto be next?

Well, focusing on Vancouver, it's just a wild story in so many ways.We could start with Mark Carney, the superstar central banker.He is an expert on the concept called moral hazard, and that is when financially you encourage bad behavior and capitalism by bailing out private businesses that have made very bad investment decisions.So that's where to start.You know, I think this story of Carney and D .C.

Premier David Eby offering you know, up to over $3 .2 billion for some still -to -be -developed innovative financial plan to take off the books of these private developers some 2 ,000 units or something like that, that are deeply overpriced.No one wants them.And I say no one wants them, Mark, because As my book that you read the title shows, Vancouver's market has been driven by mystery money from China, underground banking from China and speculation driven by private developers and sketchy foreign investors that have basically used Vancouver Unfortunately, as a money laundering tool, this is very well documented.So Mark Carney, the central banker, should know that he's rewarding people that have profited massively for over two decades on selling essentially condos to Chinese buyers, you know, upzoning single family land, turning condosyou know, towers into 300, 400 square foot boxes that no one lives in.They're sold offshore in China and Hong Kong.

Everyone knows this.And now because China's market has taken a deep dive, because it's the same sort of speculative criminal driven market, that's what's happening in Vancouver.And Mark Carney is about to bail them out.And Mark, I'll add this.There's so many more things I could say.Yes, I do think the same thing is going on in Toronto.

My work for the Bureau has shown how Chinese underground banking driven mortgage fraud is a major factor in Canada's banks and the Toronto market.about a trillion dollars in shady banking largely driven by Chinese underground banking and organized crime and what's called Chinese capital flight.Other nations too.That's happened in Vancouver and Toronto for the past decade and this is pretty well sourced investigative research.So Mark Carney as a central banker both in Canada and the United Kingdom He knows that foreign bad actors have infiltrated Canada's banking and real estate system.And I say he's rewarding them with this bailout.

And I think there's probably a lot of landmines in that deal if it goes forward.

Yeah, it makes you wonder who he's Carney is beholden to most, whether it's Chinese or whether it's his liberal friends, you know, in the condo developing business in Vancouver.But clearly, I guess he's owing somebody.And I guess this is payback time, but just the ugliness of it just looks the optics of it are horrible.And I mean, to think that the the premier of British Columbia signed on to it, the whole thing just looks very ugly, doesn't it?

It's terrible, Mark.You know, my book, a national bestseller, still selling well to this day, Willful Blindness, published in 2021, it dove into the history of real estate speculation and massive transnational casino money laundering in Vancouver, British Columbia, all driven by Chinese organized crime, essentially.And Mark, this has been going on as my book detailed back to the late 1980s, where developers from Hong Kong, you know, after Expo 86 in Vancouver, developed major portions of downtown Vancouver And Mark, you know, I would draw a through line directly to this bailout that Mr Carney announced last week, because those same major developers, their successor companies are the ones that sell condos directly to China and Hong Kong end buyers.My book shows how they were connected to senior levels.of foreign organized crime.Some of these major developers connected to the CCP and this is open source records.

Certainly you won't find many people in Canadian reporting it, but I've reported it based on documents.And so you mentioned who Carney's beholden to.I say absolutely the CCP and Chinese organized crime connected to it will have some skin in the game with this bailout and have had skin in BC's real estate game for decades.But you also mentioned liberal fundraisers.Mark, I mean, I don't want to name names today, but there's been fundraisers for Mark Carney, over the past two years for Justin Trudeau, for years before, they were held, you know, brokered by the major real estate developers who will be involved in this bailout, who are also kingmakers in BC politics, and major backers of Mark Carney and Justin Trudeau.And I've even seen the donation records.

Those people were at the table for the past two years for major fundraisers for Mark Carney.And they're the same ones that were lobbying him to open up to the foreign market again.And I would say they're probably behind the scenes the ones asking for this bailout.

Do they have something on Carney?And I'm talking about the Chinese here.

I mean, could the prime minister be compromised Well, my work, Mark, has pointed to how Mark Carney, as the former head of Brookfield, was doing a lot of traveling to Beijing and Shanghai and China in 2024, you know, before he stepped into Justin Trudeau's chair in a pretty neat switcheroo, as I call it.You know, he was over in, for Brookfield, he secured a $250 million bailout from the Bank of China for Brookfield's high -end real estate holdings in Shanghai in 2024.So, I mean, is there any known connection to, you know, Chinese investors somehow in the background getting a bailout in Vancouver.I don't know about that, but Brookfield is in Mark Carney's background.They're a real estate investor in Canada.Apparently they're a real estate investor in Vancouver.

Look, Mark Carney has done a lot of dealings privately with China before, as you know, I've reported in detail very clearly.He becomes prime minister.And what do you know?Suddenly, Canada is now a strategic partner with China again in everything from, you know, EV deals to I am very sure if Justin Trudeau's history is instructive that Chinese investors and real estate developers were lobbying Justin Trudeau to flood money in from China to Canada.It would make sense if those same type of people are lobbying Mark Carney.

Yeah, that's that's what it gets really terrifying.I mean, for one thing, if the bailout is fine for Vancouver, well, that sets a precedent.Right.I mean, why just Vancouver then?You know, you've got to look at other cities, look at Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa.They all have issues.

They all have toxic assets.They all have developers left holding the bag on a number of condos.I mean, in Toronto's double, probably twice as many as in Vancouver.that are completed but remain unsold and many under construction that are almost finished.I mean, by the time they're done bailing out the real estate sector, we could be spending tens of billions of dollars in order to do that.All of that is very dangerous.

I mean, is it possible that this is almost a trial balloon?And let's see if it flies in Vancouver and if we're sort of able to get away with it over the summer when a good chunk of the media is not even paying attention, maybe we can you know, do it in other cities.What do you think?

That's a great point, because that's exactly, in my experience, how the Prime Minister's Office of Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney work.They float trial balloons, as you said.They rammed this omnibus Canada surveillance bill through, you know, on the eve of going off for summer break, you know, that's exactly the type of thing that it seems that the Mark Carney government is trying to do to catch the media sleeping and much of the media in Ottawa is already asleep.So, Your point about the precedent in Toronto and politicians in Toronto saying, hey, what about us?I think that's dead on the point, and I'll tell you why.Because I reported for the Bureau on, I got a leak from an HSB whistleblower that was reporting on how their banking branches in the Toronto area were writing

massive known fraudulent mortgage loans to Chinese individuals that were claiming during the COVID pandemic to be working these remote jobs in China for insane amounts, $500 ,000, you know, fake data management job during COVID when everyone was locked down.And there were a lot of mortgages issued in Toronto to these very, that bank had, you know, they, I got the internal documents that showed people knew this was fraudulent.And I widened out my investigation to show that FinTrack, Canada's financial watchdog, has studied 48 ,000 diaspora banking transactions and pointed to that same type of fraud running into Canada's big banks and going into real estate development, going into law firms, going into mortgages.So I do think, I'll tell you at a granular level, while I won't say names today, I know that real estate developers very active in Vancouver, are the same ones from the Chinese communities that are developing in Toronto.And these would be, Mark, the type of people that the title of my book addresses.So CCP Connected, Narcos, and Money Launders.

These are people involved in election interference.They're people probably donating to Mark Carney and his party.I know they are, and they are real estate developing in Toronto for sure.So that's a concern, I do believe.

Yeah, I mean, this relationship is getting more incestuous all the time, and you raise the issue of election tampering.All that was done for the liberals' benefit, really.That's probably why nothing was really done to stop it.And you've also linked in the Chinese EVs as possibly another bargaining chip.And then you've got the real estate empire.It just seems like all of this is in

towards a closer link economic ties with China, which many Canadians are not very comfortable with.And for good reason, on top of all that, we've got our negotiating team down in Washington, D .C.and the Kuzma deal very much on the rocks.So there's a lot of plates in the air right now in terms of our relationship with the Chinese and possibly at the expense of our relationship with the United States.

I do believe that's the case.And, you know, to your point that there's probably a lot more going on, I can point to something concrete in sort of this Vancouver real estate bailout that struck me.You know, I noticed among the real estate developers and marketers that were at this big sort of fundraiser for Mark Carney in February 2026.My colleague Bob Mackin has covered it.You know, in the crowd there is a First Nations leader who's now on the Canada Infrastructure Investment Bank.This is the very same infrastructure bank that we're told is behind this $1 billion British Columbia government BC ferries deal that's going straight to China.

And again, from Ottawa who's in charge, Gregor Robertson, the same one who's also behind the housing minister for this bailout.And I could go even further.This First Nations chief seems to be one of the ones that, you know, their lands have in a treaty deal you know, soon after, there's a major mall being sold to a Chinese developer group that I won't go too far into the weeds here, but that I know people involved in that are certainly, I say, of concern to the U .S.government and to some good police officers and intelligence agents in Canada.So absolutely, it's the type of facts and documented narrative I've covered in Willful Blindness.

I'm seeing it just bursting out of people'sColumbia right now with the players involved.

Yeah, it's an interesting year.You raise this issue of this very uncomfortable mix of business and political interests.You talk about people like Gregor Robertson and Mark Carney, who had his dealings with Brookfield and the Chinese.And these people seem to be pretty comfortable with the idea that they could have their political interests as well as their business interests, and that somehow they can exist comfortably when in fact you've got these massive conflicts of interest.I mean, it's blatant, really.

I mean, does that bother you?Well, there's a good clip circulating online where one of the Conservative MPs asks Housing Minister Gregor Robertson repeatedly in Parliament how many investment properties that he owns.Mr. Robertson can't answer the question.You know, as a Vancouver City Hall reporter, I started my career reporting on Gregor Robertson's mayoralty in Vancouver, and I quickly learned and documented, as I did in my book Willful Blindness, that the real estate developers we're not only major donors, but we're brokers of, you know, getting fundraising tables together with major fees.I covered one where each developer that would sit down for lunch with Gregor Robertson before, you know, his reelection bid, and I think it was, you know, around 2016, 2017, had to pay $25 ,000 for the privilege of sitting down.So you call that in my world a cash for access or potential influence peddling event.

And what do you know, people at that table would be the same ones now sort of, you know, fundraising for Mark Carney.And I say probably lined up to benefit from this bailout.So look, I would not put Gregor Robertson in the class of 2020.Mark Carney in terms of financial wherewithal and knowledge of international banking systems and how a bailout of the type of people involved would expose Canada probably to financial, I say, integrity risk with our worldwide partners, including in Washington.But I do see, I mean, the that the appearance of conflicts and potential self -dealing are emerging very quickly within days of this announcement by Robertson, Carney and Premier David Eby in the South Vancouver area, where I noted in my op -ed for the Bureau about a 10 -minute drive from the River Rock Casino that gave Canada, you know, the worldwide moniker of the Vancouver model of Chinese money laundering.

I think there needs to be some kind of parliamentary investigation on all of this.I mean, I don't know the degree to which this is going to blow up in Carney's face.We'll have to see in the days ahead.Last word to you, Sam.

Well, thank you.And I'll keep digging into this story because I see that it is it's only starting to get legs, but it is only getting legs with independent analysts and media so far.So we need to make sure that Canadians and parliamentarians are paying attention.

Yeah, it's funny, you know, organizations like the Globe and Mail have shown very little interest in this story.How do people find you online?

They can find me at the Bureau Dot News.I've been up and running as an independent investigative platform for three years now.Sam Cooper, thank you so much for coming on the show.We appreciate it.

Thanks, Mark.If you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great independent journalism by becoming a premier member of Juno News.Please go to Juno News dot com backslash straight up.You can find the link below.It helps us do what we do.Thank you so much for tuning in.

We'll see you next time.