If new construction wasn't so aggressively blocked in some major cities (San Francisco, Boston, all of Canada it seems), then the rents would not be nearly as high as they are.
Wealthy property owners are behaving a lot like a cartel in many places.
This is why trade with known tax havens should be banned, because no tax havens have large markets to capitalise. It's such a racket.
I'm not surprised that some Chinese (or any) immigrants in Canada try to take advantage of the linguistic barrier to obtain credit. And since important Canadian documents are often less standardized than in other countries, one can surely employ a bit of artistic creativity with a stamp here and a stamp there to put through a false document.
I've personally dealt with fraudulent credit applications, submitted and approved, because the bank employee (Canadian, no relation to the client) wanted to improve his numbers. At least when I was involved in credit, because of the workflow, the middle office made decisions first based on the numbers provided to them by the front office. Of course they were supposed to control all supporting documents but they weren't exactly zealous and if you knew their work habits, you could probably deduce the best time and language for the submission of a questionable application.