I find this a more interesting question outside of Toronto, which we've discussed ad nauseum here, and vancouver, where the answer is obvious (china)
eg, why is calgary building tons of new highrises, despite $5 oil and 25% office vacancies?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...tion-1.5393055
I kind of feel like if Calgary were in the US, and had the same current economic fundamentals, we would be seeing very little investment in real estate there..there may be some peculiarity with canadian financial markets that leads to the difference
with 1/4 of total office space vacant, Calgary basically has a 25% larger skyline that it should have, based on economic fundamentals.