Canadian politics thread

[Hondaracer]

Good point I actually didn’t mind Horgan, and to his credit he admitted faults and backtracked on things like the Museum etc.

Imo he’s a dieing breed of politician though. He definitely had that “Everyman” feel which virtually no one has anymore

[68style]

^ Well, even he's turned around now and taken a board position with Teck Resources who are actively trying to ruin the environment with coal and other mining operations in BC.

[JDMDreams]

I wonder what stupid shit Canada will say now that Israel exploded. Ww3 time send some weapons to the plastines to defend their territory who's the war hero now

[Hondaracer]

Trudeau says he stands with Israel so surely the Palestinians are wrong

[underscore]

We'll see how helpful this actually is for affordable housing, but at least the feds are doing something.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tru...deal-1.6987716

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government has struck a $59 million deal with the city of Vaughan, Ont. to fast-track the construction of thousands of new housing units over the next three to 10 years.

The deal is the second such agreement the Liberal government has signed under its Housing Accelerator Fund.

According to a media statement, the funding will "fast-track over 1,700 new housing units" over the next three years and "help spur the construction of more than 40,000 homes" over the next decade.

"This is going to be really powerful here in Vaughan, but we also need to see this kind of thinking, this kind of leadership, right across the country," Trudeau said in Vaughan Thursday.

Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca described the announcement as "phenomenal" for the people of his city.

"Thank you so much for making this investment in our city ... to help make sure that we have more affordable and accessible housing options for the people that call this incredible community home," Del Duca said.

Trudeau said the agreement will allow for the construction of high-density housing near public transit, including both GO train and subway stations.

The deal will also prioritize the building of apartments and affordable housing, fix "outdated permitting systems to speed up development," said a government statement.

"This will literally mean that our extraordinary team at Vaughan can help improve our system [and] deal with applications quicker and more seamlessly," Del Duca said.
The Housing Accelerator Fund

The Housing Accelerator Fund, first announced during the 2021 election campaign and introduced in the 2022 federal budget, allocates $4 billion until 2026-27 to encourage more homebuilding in cities.

The Housing Accelerator Fund's stated objective is to build 100,000 more units across the country than would have been built without the fund, by streamlining land-use planning and development approvals.

Municipalities with populations of more than 10,000 can apply by pitching initiatives to increase the annual rate of home building in their cities by at least 10 per cent.

Last month, Trudeau announced the first deal under the Housing Accelerator Fund with the City of London, Ont. Under that deal, the city got $74 million to help build 2,000 new homes over three years.

A day after that announcement, Trudeau said his government would be eliminating the GST from the construction of new rental apartments to spur new development.
Canada's housing need

When asked if his government's efforts to tackle the housing crisis are coming too late to make a significant difference, Trudeau defended his government's record.

"We have been investing over the past many years in a national housing strategy that has delivered homes for two million Canadian families, but there's lots more to do," he said.

Trudeau accused Conservative MPs of holding up legislation in the House of Commons to strip the GST from rental construction.

"We're moving forward as quickly as possible on this bill ... the Conservative Party of Canada is choosing to obstruct debate on this … We know we need to deliver this quickly," Trudeau said.
Deal with Quebec for $900M in funding

Speaking later in the day, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said there re too many communities in Canada that have made it illegal to build "the kinds of homes that are going to help us get to where we need to be."

Fraser said cities need to build up housing density.

He also said his government is working to finalize Housing Accelerator Fund deals with Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax and Brampton, Ont.

"We're seeing ambitious cities step up with extraordinary growth plans," he said.

He also said discussions between Ottawa and Quebec on unlocking $900 million in accelerator funding might soon be completed.

"We have a little bit of work left to do to finalize the details, but I strongly sense we want the same thing," he said.

Trudeau announces new measures to deal with housing, grocery prices

CMHC examines 1970s tax shelter as agency seeks solutions to rental crisis

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the Liberal government's new Tax-Free First Home Savings Account, rolled out in April of this year, has seen significant uptake.

"More than 150,000 Canadians have already opened their Tax-Free First Home Savings Account," she said.

The program allows Canadians to contribute up to $8,000 per year to the accounts, with a maximum lifetime contribution limit of $40,000.

Contributions to the account provide people with tax rebates. Growth in the accounts is not taxed and money can be taken out tax-free for a down payment.
Overall home construction in 2023 flat: CMHC

Earlier Thursday, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) issued a report showing that while new home construction inched up by one per cent in the first half of this year, that increase was largely driven by growth in Toronto and Vancouver, while homebuilding almost everywhere else contracted.

Of the six cities examined, CMHC said, Vancouver and Toronto recorded growth in housing starts over last year of 49 per cent and 32 per cent respectively. Montreal saw 58 per cent fewer housing starts compared with the first half of 2022, Edmonton and Ottawa saw decreases of 29 per cent and 18 per cent respectively, and Calgary's housing starts were flat.

The booming construction in Toronto and Vancouver can be attributed to projects that got started a while ago, before interest rates rose, said Kevin Hughes, CMHC's deputy chief economist.

Last month, CMHC released a new report estimating that another 3.5 million housing units will be required by 2030, over and above the number of units expected to be built by that time, in order to restore housing affordability to 2004 levels.

That report said that in 2003-2004, an average household in Ontario spent about 40 per cent of its disposable income to cover the annual costs of owning a house, while that figure was 45 per cent in B.C. By 2021, that had risen to 60 per cent.

[68style]

I think that article was posted a few pages back, when you did the math it was laughable like they want 2,000 units and they have $60 mill... so that's $30,000 per unit???? Impossible.

[Hondaracer]

And watch interest rates go up again at the end of the month.

When interest rates go up it’s not like oh, ok now we can build 10 less units

Interest rates have a cascading effect on -every- aspect of this plan. It’s more like instead of building 2000 units now we’re building 1500

[Manic!]

Taking credit for something she voted against.

https://twitter.com/MarkGerretsen/st...eqv1XxTlQ&s=19

[mikemhg]

^Please, tell me more how the Cons and PP are going to "fix" this housing problem

Just like Doug Ford in Ontario, they don't have a fucking plan.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Manic!

Taking credit for something she voted against.

https://twitter.com/MarkGerretsen/st...eqv1XxTlQ&s=19

maybe she couldn't make the correlation between one and the other

Originally Posted by mikemhg

^Please, tell me more how the Cons and PP are going to "fix" this housing problem

Just like Doug Ford in Ontario, they don't have a fucking plan.

they had the plan for housing, they just had to cancel it

[68style]

Good lord that face, is she made out of wax?

[Hondaracer]

Conservative trans

[mikemhg]

I was about to say that, is she trans? If so that's even more hilarious.

[Hondaracer]

So taking a first aid course this morning for work, first time in 4 years or so, have done it a bunch previously L2 and L3

This is the first time I’ve heard the instructor lay out ambulance response times.

Apparently at peak times there are only 10 ambulances between Horseshoe bay and Abbotsford, and there have been numerous times in the last few months where the entirety of Burnaby has been served by 1 ambulance for an entire Saturday night.

Average response times for anything other than unresponsive or OD calls are 4-10 hours, with overdoses taking up to 300 calls a month.

Remember when Covid started and the healthcare system was in shambles? Well it’s 4 years later and it’s worse than ever! Lol fuck. Good luck with elderly parents etc. hope you can drive them to the hospital in time.

[Traum]

Did the instructor give any indications of what is causing so few ambulances to be available? (other than there being up to 300 calls a month for OD?)

Even at a max of 300 OD calls a month, that only averages down to 10 OD calls a day. It is still 10 calls too many, but if there are 10 ambulances in Metro Vancouver + Fraser Valley, then we are really only looking at 1 OD call per amulance per day.

I am not questioning the average wait times for ambulances. But why are there so few ambulances in service?

[68style]

There's gotta be stats on this... I've had instructors tell me lots of things over the years that were very much opinion/anecdotal.

[CivicBlues]

Sounds like BS, so you're telling me at any given time half of the ambulances in the Lower Mainland are randomly driving around downtown? And I've seen 2 or 3 attend the same accident at the same time.

No wait don't answer that...something something downtown is an apocalyptic hellscape something something

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by Traum

Did the instructor give any indications of what is causing so few ambulances to be available? (other than there being up to 300 calls a month for OD?)

Even at a max of 300 OD calls a month, that only averages down to 10 OD calls a day. It is still 10 calls too many, but if there are 10 ambulances in Metro Vancouver + Fraser Valley, then we are really only looking at 1 OD call per amulance per day.

I am not questioning the average wait times for ambulances. But why are there so few ambulances in service?

Said a regular number for paramedics being off on stress leave etc is 30% give or take

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

Sounds like BS, so you're telling me at any given time half of the ambulances in the Lower Mainland are randomly driving around downtown? And I've seen 2 or 3 attend the same accident at the same time.

No wait don't answer that...something something downtown is an apocalyptic hellscape something something

Well, it would make sense given that those OD calls are priority.

Anecdotally my wife’s grandma is 97 and has been to the hospital numerous times in the last few years, generally it’s 3-4 hours for the ambulance to arrive. But in that scenario I’d say it’s probably the right call to not prioritize a 97 year old lol

[westopher]

There are 30-40 ambulances in the lower mainland per shift. The part about the paramedics on leave is true though. The 10 ambulances thing might have happened once, but it's 100% not the norm. It's still absolutely fucked but those numbers are just made up.
Safe supply reduces ODs, and that's a fact, so if you're worried about it, don't fight against ONE of the solutions, albeit a small one.

[Hondaracer]

Apparently OD deaths have actually gone up since safe supply has been introduced?

[westopher]

Well it isn't from the safe supply, it's from the increase in drug use due to homelessness and inequality, which is still the governments fault, but it's a different fault.

[mikemhg]

We still pay EMTs shit for their services, whether on-call or actively working.

Get used to it, more often then not you're better off driving to the hospital yourself.

[westopher]

Paramedics are the worst paid job relative to importance in canada. It's not even fucking close to anything else how ridiculous it is.

[Hondaracer]

Those are the types of things we should be puting money into to entice more people to get into. But we just pump so much into irrelevant BS.

While being a paramedics is obviously a horrible job, (as far as I know) it’s not so difficult
To become one? You don’t need the extensive training that a nurse has etc. you’re only there to stabilize people.

So in theory, you’d think by incentivizing it financially you could relatively easily solve the issue. At least the issue of ambulance wait time. Hospitals etc. are another thing, which again, nothings been done since the “dire straights” of Covid