Canadian politics thread

[Manic!]

If anyone thinks the cons will not try to restrict access to abortion if elected. Every con voted for bill 311.

https://themapleleafbrief.substack.c...that-sparked-a

[mikemhg]

Originally Posted by Manic!

If anyone thinks the cons will not try to restrict access to abortion if elected. Every con voted for bill 311.

https://themapleleafbrief.substack.c...that-sparked-a

Ooof... And that's what makes it hard for me to vote for these asshats.

I'm not happy with Trudeau, but I can't vote for a party that is willingly looking to move us backwards in that aspect.

To their credit, the bill only stipulates a different sentencing standard for killing a woman that is pregnant, which on the surface sounds great.

It's not a bill to ban abortion, but it's interesting they're using that a guise to stipulate sentencing based on carrying a child, which opens the door to criminalizing abortion. Bit of a backdoor trick of sorts.

[MarkyMark]

The bill as it is doesn't bother me, after a certain point if you kill a woman that's pregnant you're essentially killing two people whether it's been born yet or not. It's pretty sleazy if it's all just to get their foot in the door to criminalize abortion though.

[murd0c]

so I have heard rumors floating around that there is going to be an election called once Trudeau is back from vacation. Having it right now doesn't really make sense to me unless he wants out with out giving up?

[westopher]

Well it's not going to be him making the call if that happens. It will be the NDP pulling out of the minority government coalition.
I don't doubt those rumours are probably being spouted by people with fuck Trudeau flags on their trucks though.

[Traum]

I know most of us are in BC, but news of the Ontario AG's scathing report on the (Ontario) Ford government over the Green Belt is something that Canadians should be aware of.

YouTube

With everything that the report has uncovered, I found it digustingly astounding that nobody has lost their jobs yet -- not Ford, not the Ontario Housing Minister, not the Housing Minister's Chief of Staff. The corruption is so blatant that Ford, Clark (Housing Minister), and the Housing Chief of Staff should all lose their jobs asap.

And on top of that, development plans at the Green Belt should be cancelled immediately, with the developers being put completely out of luck as far as their investment on the lands is concerned.

And kudos to the newscaster for holding the Housing Minster's feet to the fire. It sickens me that someone can still be spewing lies when they have been caught completely red handed. At least with the Housing Minister, you can tell he was put into an uncomfortable position (by the newscaster). But with Ford, the guy has absolutely no shame.

[westopher]

It always comes back to money in politics. It can not be expected to function as a true democracy when notoriety and recognition is directly attributed to donations. It will continue to be a system that is rigged to benefit the wealthy and only get worse as inequality increases

[mikemhg]

And yet PP and the rest of the Conservatives are gonna swoop in and fix this housing issue and inequality, right?

[MarkyMark]

There's no swooping in and fixing anything anymore, blame whatever party you want but no one is going to come in and make a place like Vancouver affordable for the average person ever again the ship has long set sail on that one.

If you aren't in the housing game by now or have a fat inheritance coming your way, good luck.

[whitev70r]

^ that there is the truth. PP will come in and blame JT for inheriting the economic crisis of inflation, housing, homelessness, stressed healthcare, etc.

[mikemhg]

Originally Posted by MarkyMark

There's no swooping in and fixing anything anymore, blame whatever party you want but no one is going to come in and make a place like Vancouver affordable for the average person ever again the ship has long set sail on that one.

If you aren't in the housing game by now or have a fat inheritance coming your way, good luck.

Trust me, I know that. None of these parties will fix this problem, we'd need an entire collapse to change anything in a meaningful way (think 2008, which would by catastrophic).

I just laugh when I see the random knuckle-dragging friend of mine profess that we need to vote PP in because he'll ban the immigrants, stimulate the economy, end wokeism, clean up the cities, and bring housing back to affordable levels.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

^ that there is the truth. PP will come in and blame JT for inheriting the economic crisis of inflation, housing, homelessness, stressed healthcare, etc.

While that is the party line for any incoming party, Canada is in about as bad shape as it’s been in recent history and the majority of this changed has happened under Justin

Covid or not or whatever else you want to say about it, they’ve been in power for a huge swing in the quality of life as a Canadian

[unit]

re: affordability

yep true, i definitely agree that life has gotten significantly worse in the last 10 years in terms of affordability, who can really deny that? the question is how much of it is due to global effects and how much from gov policy? also what would opposing parties have done differently, not in hindsight, that would have curtailed the affordability crisis?

[murd0c]

Hands down it's because of greed and the rich wanting to get richer. The government is happy because the more we pay means the more taxes we pay. It's a joke and its sad but that seems to be reality these days.

[inv4zn]

Every poll that comes out is projecting a larger lead for CPC over the Liberals, which both makes sense and has been the case in recent history.

My fear though is that we're just falling into what happened in the US in 2015.
- Country is doing somewhat poorly mostly due to things beyond anybody's control and/or decades of ignoring issues
- Opposition comes along, blames everything on the current government. Throws around hot keywords, doesn't really propose any viable solutions, but runs on a campaign of get the current guy out.
- Current government continues to do small stupid things, further stoking the flame
- Opposition wins

...and this is where the US really shit the bed with Trump. I sincerely hope that even if PP becomes PM he won't pull Trump levels of stupidity but even then conservatives aren't really known for looking out for the Middle Class, despite what PP may say on cringey youtube ads.

Trudeau definitely needs to go, but I also can't conscientiously vote CPC. NDP is a sinking ship. Who do I vote for!? - every Canadian

tl;dr: we're probably fucked either way.

[unit]

PP says he wants to build more housing by cutting out the 'gatekeepers' which i guess means permitting and that sort of thing. is this even the real issue to why our supply is low?

if my memory serves me right, housing was doing just fine until the pandemic came along. lumber skyrocketed as well as other building supplies, container costs were through the roof and shipping delays were super long. labour shortage happened, then interest rates went up so high nobody wanted to start any new projects.

i seriously doubt PP can solve these global issues with just removing gatekeepers to help builders build. it may be one part of the solution but he makes it sound like housing supply he can simply fix with this one trick.

whether or not he curbs immigration is something we have to wait and see for ourselves, but he has not been clear on it, probably because he doesn't want to seem anti-immigration or 'racist'.

if you asked me a few years ago i would have definitely said he didn't have a chance, but now i think he honestly does. the problem is that he is not really that likeable, he is just another boring establishment candidate. about as forgettable as andrew scheer.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by unit

re: affordability

yep true, i definitely agree that life has gotten significantly worse in the last 10 years in terms of affordability, who can really deny that? the question is how much of it is due to global effects and how much from gov policy? also what would opposing parties have done differently, not in hindsight, that would have curtailed the affordability crisis?

IMO, the affordability crisis is largely a global phenomenon, although of course I don't think very many governments actively took proper measures to protect its citizens from it.

In the multiple rounds of Quantitative Easing (across the globe), the extra gob tons of money really had to go somewhere. On the other hand, the vast manufacturing prowess from China and other 3rd world countries also meant consumer goods didn't really see much inflation at all. In Canada, a very large chunk of that money went into inflating our RE market. In the US, it kept rallying the stock market.

And while this was occurring, of course it was the rich that was in the best position to capitalize on the opportunity because they have both the smarts and the wealth to pull it off. In that regard, they definitely played a big role in worsening affordability for the general public. But can I blame them for doing this? I am not so sure because anyone with the means to grow and protect their wealth would probably do so.

[underscore]

Originally Posted by unit

PP says he wants to build more housing by cutting out the 'gatekeepers' which i guess means permitting and that sort of thing.

Isn't zoning a municipal thing?

[unit]

^im not sure what he means by gatekeepers tbh, he is always extremely vague about it but he loves using that term. yes you're correct, permits are a city thing.

i reread my comment and just to clarify, housing wasn't 'fine', but what i meant was that a lot of developments were still being planned and executed. nowadays developers have all but stopped everything but towers that have already been presold.

[sonick]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

While that is the party line for any incoming party, Canada is in about as bad shape as it’s been in recent history and the majority of this changed has happened under Justin

Covid or not or whatever else you want to say about it, they’ve been in power for a huge swing in the quality of life as a Canadian

This is a much more subdued, reasonable response than I've come to be used to from Honda, nicely done.

That said, I am pretty annoyed by the inaction or even lack of acknowledgment the govt has had with this period of increasing costs, which I CAN feel right in blaming Justin for.

[Traum]

As far as housing affordability goes, you just need to look at Ford and what he is doing with the Green Belt to get a sense of what PeePee's playboook can be like.

Regional (government) representatives in the Green Belt area is saying large chunks of the land taken off the Green Belt for development is not even equipped with the basic necessary infrastructure (think water, sewage, power, etc.) to support any sort of development. To actually get those large swathes of land to provide livable space is gonna take some 20 - 25 years of work to do. Meanwhile, the AG's report already indicates Ontario has other available land that is readily available for development to meet Ontario's needs for housing a growing population.

But Ford keeps harping on how despite everything was done wrong with the Green Belt project, they are doing it because people need housing.

It is all a blatant lie, but some people are just lapping it up.

Going back to PeePee, I suspect he is gonna borrow a page from Ford by just writing off a bunch of requirements and restrictions on how and where housing can be built. Environment asssesment? Skim through it. Open and transparent process? What is that? (This is exactly what the Ford gov did and got called out for it now.)

Originally Posted by unit

PP says he wants to build more housing by cutting out the 'gatekeepers' which i guess means permitting and that sort of thing. is this even the real issue to why our supply is low?

if my memory serves me right, housing was doing just fine until the pandemic came along. lumber skyrocketed as well as other building supplies, container costs were through the roof and shipping delays were super long. labour shortage happened, then interest rates went up so high nobody wanted to start any new projects.

I would say that prior to the pandemic and all the chaos that it has caused, housing was already becoming unaffordable. IIRC, the previous high point was somewhere around 2017 - 2018, so that was before COVID, supply chain chaos, labour shortage, interest rate hike, Ukraine War and everything else. It's just that the recent few years really went full on insane.

[68style]

Didn't PP spend a bunch of time squirming last year about his own wife's housing investments? She's part of the fucking problem and he's married to her?

Yah he's totally going to bring out policy to make his own investments worth less. Sure. Makes total sense. What a hero, sacrificing his own future for all the poors lol.

I won't say what's happening in Vancouver is ideal, some blocks should have been in place like 30 years ago to prevent or at least mitigate what has happened in RE here, but it's too fuckin late... only 30% of the population rents, so why fuck 70% of the population to help out 30%? As for buying a place, if you can't keep up and compete with all the people who are already here because it's so great, then there's other places to go. Houses are $400-500k in Calgary, they're $200k in downtown Regina.

Does it suck there more than here? Yup. Welcome to capitalism. When you want the same thing as everyone else, the price goes up and you gotta pay to play.

I'd like to live in West London, but if I moved to the UK I'd have to face the truth and be in a suburb or choose a different city centre. San Francisco? New York?
Los Angeles? Sounds lovely! HUGE money required to own in those cities. Same goes for most other countries in the world. Why would anyone expect Canada to be vastly different?

I don't blame immigrants... heck I don't even blame China... if I was rich and Chinese I'd do exactly the same thing as them. The government is to blame for prices rising so rapidly, they fucked the pooch more than 30 years ago on foreign ownership and here we are -- you have to grind hard and be smart to compete from a lower level economically.

[68style]

Case in point, I have a co-worker who has been bitching about prices for like 15 years now. She constantly complains about the cost of everything and is one of those "renting because I can't afford anything" people even though magically all of us around her working at the same pay somehow own places. She loves to blame the government and bitch about Trudeau or whoever else has been in power.

I asked her the other day "Okay so real talk, it's minimum $600k for a 1 bedroom condo in the lower mainland correct?" and she is like "Yup, it's fuckin ridiculous blahhhrerehhjreh" and I was like "Yup it is... okay so what if I gave you a 50% discount... what if I had a condo for you for $300k... could you buy it?" and she's like "Well no I mean you need to get a mortgage good luck with that today fuckin interest rates blahfhdjhuhu fuckin downpayment roarrrrr cryyyyy" and I was like "Okay so what if it was $150k? Could you afford it then?" and she was like "Maybe... if my credit was better"

And I was like "Okay so you didn't buy 15 years ago when condos were about $300k... you aren't buying now when they're $600k... you need them to be $150k and even that is dicey... so every single person who owns a home in VAncouver or the surrounding area needs to lost 75% of their home value until you're at a place where MAYBE you can buy a place too... am I getting that right?" and she literally sat there just blinking her eyes rapidly at me for like 10 seconds before going on a tirade about greedy landlords and immigrants and how she "grew up in this city and is entitled to live here"... a lot of people just don't fucking get it and never will.

I just started laughing... acting like her problem is being a victim of circumstances. Yah sure.

[Manic!]

The cons have a strong morally conservative base. They have zero pro choice MP's. PP wanted a barbaric cultural practices hotline. If the cons get elected they will spend more time on restricting abortion access and gender rights then they will on housing.

To solve the housing issue the government needs to start building housing for working people and rent if for below market rates. That's what Burnaby is doing now.

https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/08/14/N...ing-Authority/

Burnaby is diving into the deep end by becoming its own developer of affordable housing. This fall, the city is planning to launch its own municipal housing corporation called the Burnaby Housing Authority.

The focus: housing that is “deeply affordable.”

Burnaby is aiming for units that rent at 20 per cent below the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s median for an area, which would put it at 50 per cent below market rents. For people in need of greater subsidy to afford a home, the rents could be even lower.

[68style]

That is literally the only way. Government funded and managed... there is no private enterprise on this planet that is going to sell or rent housing to anyone for less than market value.

Publicly funded is the only answer.