The issue of beneficial ownership has been particularly acute in British Columbia as a result of our out-of-control real estate market. Metro Vancouver's real estate market was reviewed by Transparency International Canada. They looked at the top 100 properties, by value, in the assessment authority, and then they looked at the land title registrations for those properties. They found that for almost half of those properties, it was impossible to determine the true owner of the property. The properties were held by international trusts or by companies where the sole director was, for example, a lawyer, or were owned by a student or a housewife. The recommendations from that report, quite obviously, were of significant interest to British Columbians, who note that the average price for a family home in metro Vancouver far exceeds the average salary for a family. People naturally ask where the money is coming from.
It has been a priority for our government. The Minister of Finance has committed to establishing a land title registry in British Columbia in which the beneficial owner of the property must be declared. We're looking at international examples. I understand that the United Kingdom has adopted a beneficial ownership land registry based on similar concerns, and we anticipate introducing one in British Columbia. There is also a significant opportunity for British Columbia around corporate beneficial ownership. The Province of Alberta has a beneficial ownership scheme for its corporate entities.
I think it's important to underline how important it is for there to be a Canadian standard around corporate and land registry beneficial ownership, because we'll end up displacing the activity. If in British Columbia you have to declare beneficial ownership, they'll just move the money somewhere else.
I wouldn't wish the kind of issues that we've seen in British Columbia on other jurisdictions in Canada, so I think that a national standard would be welcome there. We've had good support, and I understand there's great interest among federal government officials and elected members around introducing beneficial ownership disclosure requirements. I hope that we can work together on that in ensuring national standards.