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Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
I’d go to usa in a heartbeat. Seattle is very similar to vancouver and only 2.5hr drive away
1. No state income tax
2. “My healthcare” US companies that sponsor foreigners have gold-plated health insurance plan. Go get an MRI in 2 days instead of a year.
3. “Gonna get shot” Really depends on part of the city or state. Overblown too
4. “Schools suck” Public schools in good suburbs (bellevue, irvine) are good.
5. Go to oregon for no sales tax shopping
My friends who went to the usa originally had the same thoughts, make money and come back. Only one did and thats for family reasons. The US rewards success unlike Canada where they hunt success to make you pay your “fair share”
Lived in Seattle for a few years. Healthcare and earnings were way better but holy shit, double or triple the amount of driving for errands/ski/beach/mountains and if you're in Bellevue, how freaking boring it is
For someone in their 20s tho, easy to meet other tech bros, travel a bit, and try a bunch of hobbies. They either buy a townhouse and disappear at 26 or move to New York (guilty)
Like.. you're going to benefit from this financially... and you know you can't kill it by voting no because you're outnumbered, but you can say you're gong to vote no to look good/look fiscally responsible.... you're going to oppose it knowing full well you will look good but also get the financial benefits when it passes.
I mean, if a bunch of Conservative MP's or BQ MP's abstain or return their pension??? Then we got something to talk about.
Oh I agree, but if they all end up voting against it, can’t say you didn’t try even though you likely know it would passed based on NDP and lib participation. There isn’t anything else you could do.
__________________
Dank memes cant melt steel beams
I'm sure the 99 Conservative/BQ MP's that aren't getting a benefit will be very upset.
That said, do you really think the entire reason for pushing this through is so that 28 out of 180 MP's on the Liberal/NDP side can benefit?! that's like 10% of their party... who the heck is going to risk looking that bad for 10% especially when 30% of the opposition is benefitting?
Methinks this bill has more to do with re-election strategy than pensions. Not that shit like that is any better... but it's hardly partisan.
British Columbia’s newly resurgent Conservative party envisions sweeping changes to schools, housing, climate and reconciliation with First Nations if it’s elected to form government this fall for the first time in nearly a century.
The party, which has been climbing steadily in the polls and is now well ahead of the BC United, the current Opposition, would repeal the provincial Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in favour of pivoting to an approach of “economic reconciliation” by signing business deals with individual First Nations.
As well, the party would strike a committee to review all school textbooks and literature to ensure they are “neutral,” party leader John Rustad said during a wide-ranging meeting with The Globe and Mail’s editorial board in Vancouver earlier this month.
“It shouldn’t be about indoctrination of anything, whether that’s environmental or whether that’s political or whether that’s sexual,” Mr. Rustad said, referencing his proposal to censor books deemed by his Conservative government to be inappropriate for students.
...
Mr. Rustad is a five-term MLA from the Nechako Lakes riding west of Prince George and, for four years, was the minister of Indigenous reconciliation in Christy Clark’s Liberal government.
Mr. Rustad and Bruce Banman, of Abbotsford South, both sit as BC Conservatives in the legislature after being elected as members of BC United in 2020. Mr. Rustad was ejected from the BC United caucus in 2022 after his social-media posts cast doubt that people are directly responsible for the climate changing around the globe. Mr. Banman crossed the floor to join Mr. Rustad last September and has refused to say whether he agrees or disagrees with climate change.
...
At the meeting with The Globe, he said his party is not yet ready to unveil the planks of its election platform that will address these problems, but did say he wants to scrap most of the NDP’s housing policies.
“It’s more of the question ‘Is there anything I’d like to keep?’ Which is: probably not much,” Mr. Rustad said.
He singled out the “authoritarian” way the province has selected 30 communities to produce a targeted number of new homes over the next five years, an effort the NDP says is spurring these cities to do more to confront their housing shortages.
“I don’t believe that they should come in and override local government and local government decision-making,” Mr. Rustad said.
Regarding health care, he said Conservatives would commit to maintaining the universal system paid for by the government, but would look to increase the number of private clinics providing services and procedures such as hip replacements. This privately provided care would be covered for patients by the public system, he said, an approach that Ontario and Alberta have embraced as a way to reduce wait times and one even B.C.’s NDP government is increasingly using as well.
Mr. Rustad said a group of medical professionals recently told him the closest analogue to B.C.’s healthcare system is that of a totalitarian dictatorship across the Pacific.
“I’m told that there’s only one jurisdiction that even comes close to following what we do and that’s North Korea – and it’s not exactly a stellar model, from my perspective, of success in health care,” said Mr. Rustad, who added that his government would immediately fire Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry over her support for COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Mr. Rustad refused to identify the group of medical professionals that provided this analysis.
On climate change, Mr. Rustad has been vocal about ending the province’s carbon tax, which the BC Liberals created in 2008 as the first such levy in North America.
Mr. Rustad argues the science around human causes of climate change is “a theory and it’s not proven,” a position widely at odds with accepted science. But Mr. Rustad maintains there is no pressing need to legislate solutions.
“It’s not even a crisis,” he told The Globe.
These views prompted BC United Leader Kevin Falcon to kick Mr. Rustad out of caucus two summers ago on his birthday.
What a joke.
__________________ Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
Books are killing children: check
Climate change doesn't exist: check
Wants to fire the pro-vaccine PHO: check
No platform (to be unveiled -- and planks even, what a lovely blue collar construction word): check
Health care is North Korean-like and intends to fix it the same way the current govt already is: check
Won't disclose sources of information: check
Against housing measures because reasons: check
I was told that government agencies have budgets and if they don't spend enough they will not get the same budget for the following year, so what they do is just spend money just to hit their budget, and they spend on things they don't really need or upgrade things pre-maturing just to spend money.
I don't know what level of government you're talking about, but I can answer on federal.
And the answer is quite complicated/nuanced...
There's different types of money. There's Vote 5 or Capital money which is for things that are $10,000+ and then there's regular expenditures <10,000 and you can't cross over from one to the other, at least not easily or conventionally anyway.
Generally speaking, if you don't spend it you "lose" it, so there's definitely incentive to spend it... but you don't necessarily get punished for it with a lower budget in the next fiscal year and when I say you "lose" it, it just means it gets moved over to another program or silo that needed it more or overspent their budget within the same department. It's also become more popular to do what's called a "carry forward" especially on cap/vote 5 money so you can carry money into the next fiscal year and spend it then. Some managers/directors/ministers try to dissuade this though, I think it affects their bonuses somehow. Programs I work with do a lot of carry forwards because it can take Ford or GM up to 9 months to deliver a truck and if it's a custom build 5-tonne it can be over a year sometimes, so carry forwards are a must.
Anyway the simple answer is it's "somewhat" true but not really in the wasteful way you have heard or gets tossed around. What you are hearing is from programs that figured out they had money left over in a fiscal year, so they will look to spend it on things they thought they couldn't buy earlier in the year. You will see a big rush in March for the federal government because March 31st is the end of fiscal and at the very least delivery of an item purchased need to be physically confirmed by that date to be able to count it in that fiscal year. I have gone as far as to drive out to a dealership on March 31st and touch/take a photo of a VIN so we could claim it delivered in current fiscal. The worst thing I've ever seen was a manager say we could all get a new keyboard at the end of the year as long as it was <$150... so big whoop, I wouldn't call that wasteful I definitely felt like most people needed one and we couldn't buy f-all all year. Oh, and one program had extra capital money a couple years ago and they wanted to buy an eletric car since we're under massive pressure to do that right now, so I helped them replace a 2009 Malibu with a Tesla since we could deliver it fast enough to make the cutoff. I know, I know... ME helping a progam buy a friggin TESLA... it hurt me almost as much as you are imagining.
March seems wild for deliveries - VIN pic at the dealership on the 31st, that's hardcore!
Keyboard example might not be the most efficient use of funds, but hey, free upgrade! The Tesla...interesting use of the electric vehicle push, to say the least
Good info btw
__________________ 4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul.
yeah the provincial conservatives scare me.
see at least the federal ones know that they just have to be more to the right than the liberals to pull off a win.
the provincial ones know that they have to be even more to the right than bc united which is our normal right party, so they are swinging wildly right almost MAGA style to differentiate themselves.
unfortunately it's working because people are too dumb to realize they have nothing to do with the federal conservatives except they share the same name
One of the amusing things to me is that, at least the federal level, the idea of something being a "capital asset" hasn't changed from $10,000+ since like... the 90's as far as I can tell. Lots of stuff that shouldn't be a "capital asset" cost more than $10k nowadays.
Likewise, we also can't repair vehicles for more than $20,000 without going to tender... if a headgasket or transmission goes on a 5-tonne the minimum is going to be $25,000 to fix that as a starting point and goign to tender for this kind of work takes literally forever, so the truck just sits broken somewhere all that time? Do you violate treasury board policy and contract split? There's been zero adjustment to these dollar amounts to account for inflation or rising costs the last 25+ years lol
yeah the provincial conservatives scare me.
see at least the federal ones know that they just have to be more to the right than the liberals to pull off a win.
the provincial ones know that they have to be even more to the right than bc united which is our normal right party, so they are swinging wildly right almost MAGA style to differentiate themselves.
unfortunately it's working because people are too dumb to realize they have nothing to do with the federal conservatives except they share the same name
The fed and BC cons are the same. They have the same supporters. PP tries hard to hide some of his parties extreme vies but he can't. He is week.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he disagrees with a member of his caucus who says he wants to see more restrictions on abortion and would vote against same-sex marriage if there's a future bill on the issue in Parliament.
PP can disagree all he wants in public. But if his member put up a private member's bill to block something he will not stop them.
__________________ Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
honestly they're both bad. not sure how im going to vote next election, it might be the first time since i started voting that i might not cast a ballot.
I was told that government agencies have budgets and if they don't spend enough they will not get the same budget for the following year, so what they do is just spend money just to hit their budget, and they spend on things they don't really need or upgrade things pre-maturing just to spend money.
Is this actually true?
it's not uncommon, my mom was in health care, i was in IT selling to gov't.
No one wnats to be under budget. You always want to say our department is not getting enough funding - so they will grant you more.
It's true, if you get 1M to deal with 100 patients, and you now have 110, and you're stretched with same budget 1M, you're justifiying an increase.
why would i give you more if you're only spending 800k.
Standard negotiation for allowance tactics I learned when I was a kid.
It baffles my mind as to why these foreign cock-sucking MPs weren't named in the CSIS report. Rat them and and let public fury rip them a new one! Or at least, put them on the spot to see what kind of ridiculous justification they can try to spin to make them look even uglier.
The Turdeau gov's response is just as unacceptable. It pretty much amounts to shrugging its shoulders and say there isn't much they can do about it. Perhaps that's true because it is apparently so widespread -- it is occuring at every level of government. But it is still surprising because we have a federal gov election coming up next year, and by doing nothing, it basically looks like the Liberals have just given up, and isn't even trying to win much of anything in that 2025 federal election.
Maybe JT is just setting a trap. Get the cons really upset names are not being released and then when the election gets close release the names and watch the cons scramble because a punch of high profile cons are on it.
Remember pp's former boss and mentor Harper is friends with Modi.
From the sound of it, I'm sure there'll be MPs from all the different major parties. There have long been accusations of inappropriate ties between Liberal MPs and foreign govs in the past, with the most recent MP being Han Dong of Toronto with ties to the CCP. Conservative MPs having ties to India would not surprise me either, given Harper's ties with Modi and India. So if the news blows up, I'd expect all major parties to be affected. The question would only be -- which party has the largest number of sellouts?
I was told that government agencies have budgets and if they don't spend enough they will not get the same budget for the following year, so what they do is just spend money just to hit their budget, and they spend on things they don't really need or upgrade things pre-maturing just to spend money.
Is this actually true?
yes that is true, I have certain government customers that always order extra at the end of the year so they meet their budget numbers. They normally need everything they purchase but lets say an item will need to be replaced two months after the budget so they will replace it now instead.
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
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