BC NDP have been in power for almost a decade now. The Liberals were terrible, but the NDP aren't much different on some fronts.

Arguably, the developer getting into a significant issue was triggered by the downturn in the market -- if all your financing is tied to housing assets, and all those assets are taking year over year declines for multiple years under NDP policies/immigration issues/international bullshit, then... yeah, your financing collapses, banks call the loans, you go bankrupt. Should be interesting to see what all goes for foreclosures, and how much they sell for in that auction process.

It's plausible that this person's issues are, as you note, just the start of it -- the developer in this case was seemingly a sole operator, but the financing structure where people leverage house/real estate property values as a security, in order to obtain financing, is pretty common -- most banks even at the federal level, require most loans to be 'secured' by real estate assets, even commercially. When those securities drop in value, it can be fairly easy to find yourself on the wrong side of a credit algorithm, with your financing disappearing as a result.

Could be a good time for buyers to just nope out of the 'regular' market, and just wait like vultures for court ordered sales. Underbid significantly on any offer, as it may be the only offer on file, and even with a low bid, if the bank/cu is able to be kept whole on the debt its owed, and/or if they want to cut their losses, there's a chance it'd get accepted I imagine.