Canadian Politics Thread

[Bob Long]

23 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

yep. Singhs are cool. 

 

can you expand a bit? I don't know anything about it, curious why you like it so much? I thought religious stuff was not really in your zone. 

[bishopshodan]

3 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

can you expand a bit? I don't know anything about it, curious why you like it so much? I thought religious stuff was not really in your zone. 

 

I like that its a statement against the caste system.

 

I found this on the google...

Since the Sikh religion opposes caste, Sikhs traditionally do not use their family name. Sikhs have accommodated to naming systems outside India either by using their actual family name or by using Singh as the family name for everyone.

 

One funny thing is that we have 3 Singhs at our work. We all use radios. 'Control' had been reminded to make sure to use thier call signs for the  Singhs. One night when control was calling for`Singh' we had multiple dudes trying to respond. 

[Bob Long]

2 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

 

I like that its a statement against the caste system.

 

I found this on the google...

Since the Sikh religion opposes caste, Sikhs traditionally do not use their family name. Sikhs have accommodated to naming systems outside India either by using their actual family name or by using Singh as the family name for everyone.

 

ah ok that makes a lot of sense. 

 

2 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

One funny thing is that we have 3 Singhs at our work. We all use radios. 'Control' had been reminded to make sure to use thier call signs for the  Singhs. One night when control was calling for`Singh' we had multiple dudes trying to respond. 

 

whats it like working in that environment? is it tense all the time, or do you enjoy it?

 

[bishopshodan]

Just now, Bob Long said:

 

ah ok that makes a lot of sense. 

 

 

whats it like working in that environment? is it tense all the time, or do you enjoy it?

 

I love it. Not tense all the time but it has it's moments. 

 

Lots of very cool co-workers and you get a sense that you could make a small difference in the world. Some guys inside really just need some guidance and structure in their lives....some are POS.

I am also inspired by all the different deparments/posts that are available down the road. I love to learn and there is lots to bite into in this job,

[Bob Long]

1 minute ago, bishopshodan said:

I love it. Not tense all the time but it has it's moments. 

 

Lots of very cool co-workers and you get a sense that you could make a small difference in the world. Some guys inside really just need some guidance and structure in their lives....some are POS.

I am also inspired by all the different deparments/posts that are available down the road. I love to learn and there is lots to bite into in this job,

 

a long way from your other careers, I bet.

[Miss Korea]

26 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

 

I already provided you with evidence.  You just don't like it, that's your problem not mine.  Explain to me how a person is better off in 2024 than they were in 1998 when the price of a house has gone up by 8x.  Can you explain that?  Gas has gone up by over 4x.  It isn't arrogance, it's called providing factual information.  You just don't like the facts, so it bothers you and then you resort to name calling like you do with every other poster.

 

The average income has gone up by 3x since 2000?  Really?  Like with who?  Maybe you're the one that needs to back that up.

 

Here, I'll actually do some work and provide some history on that.  This is from the government of Canada website.  The average hourly wage in 1998 was $17.57 for people between the ages of 25-54.  In 2022 it was $34.78.  How exactly is that TRIPLE the amount like you claim, or are you "cherry picking" jobs?  There literally isn't even one single job on this website that shows that incomes have tripled since 1998.

 

Employee wages by occupation, annual, 1997 to 2022, inactive (statcan.gc.ca)

 

So, why don't YOU provide some goddamn evidence to support YOUR position?

 

Average income was $37,000 in 1998 and you could buy a house for $250,000 and gas was .50 per litre.  Fast forward to 2022 and the average income was $72,000 and the average price of a house was $1.7 million and gas was 2.07 per litre.  But somehow I am better off today than in 1998?

 

You haven't provided me with shit until just now.  In the past, you just used your own past experience as proof, and nothing more.  You said this verbatim: "I just know because that's what I remember."

 

Disregard my triple statement.  Here's what the numbers are suggesting.

 

 

 

Using a CPI inflation calculator, $1 in 2001 is now $1.62 in 2024.  That number was heavily affected by the recent years of high inflation, no doubt.  But you can also see in the first chart that the median income has risen well above that 62%.

 

I'll even craft a counterpoint for you: the CPI basket does not account for gas prices.  Gas prices are extremely volatile and can skew CPI numbers for completely random reasons.  For what it's worth, gas prices don't even constitute a major portion of the average Canadian's monthly expenses, unless you are in the transportation industry.  Housing is factored into the CPI basket, and might help explain why the number has jumped up as much as it has over the past two years.  No doubt housing is driving inflation.  No doubt your HOME purchasing power has been severely affected.  But you did not make such a distinction.  You attempted to make a more general claim with nothing to back it up.

 

You're just cherry-picking the handful of items that have spiked in cost.  Housing is a big one for sure.  What about clothing?  Footwear?  Health products?  Personal products?  Household appliances?  Telecommunications?  Alcohol/tobacco/cannabis?  Other recreational goods/services?  Why is it that you are trying to only use the few things that have seen disproportionate amounts of inflation and apply it to literally everything else?  What kind of bullshit argument are you trying to craft here?

 

P.S.: What happened to you attitude about Statistics Canada?  I thought you dismissed is as nonsense propaganda.

[The Arrogant Worms]

[Optimist Prime]

So, as nice as we agree Jagmeet Singh is, his caucus is shrinking by the minute. 

 

Blaikie left to join Wab Kinew's team in Manitoba (a team I am enthusiastic to watch grow and do well in the 'third' priairie province. Randall Garrison is retiring on Vancouver Island, although his replacement nominee is an amazing person that I know very well and have worked for in her local politics career, (maybe leadership potential there on the national stage). and Richard Cannings has declared he is not running again.

 

NOW we have three more of the 20 hanging it up. Charlie Angus, Carol Hughes and Richel Blaney are done and won't run again. 

 

That is 6 of 19 MP's under Singh's NDP banner who are not returning to fight the next election. What is up with that? Will there be any NDP left by October 2025?

[Chicken.]

2 hours ago, The Arrogant Worms said:

Trudeau says news on mortgages is coming in federal budget

https://financialpost.com/real-estate/mortgages/trudeau-news-mortgages-coming-federal-budget

 

 

Yay 50 year amortization periods…?

[Bob Long]

34 minutes ago, Chicken. said:

Yay 50 year amortization periods…?

 

The potential for negative equity would be too high... But then again, maybe that's the only way some kids get in the market. But it would really have to be an option for really solid properties. 

[Bob Long]

1 hour ago, Optimist Prime said:

So, as nice as we agree Jagmeet Singh is, his caucus is shrinking by the minute. 

 

Blaikie left to join Wab Kinew's team in Manitoba (a team I am enthusiastic to watch grow and do well in the 'third' priairie province. Randall Garrison is retiring on Vancouver Island, although his replacement nominee is an amazing person that I know very well and have worked for in her local politics career, (maybe leadership potential there on the national stage). and Richard Cannings has declared he is not running again.

 

NOW we have three more of the 20 hanging it up. Charlie Angus, Carol Hughes and Richel Blaney are done and won't run again. 

 

That is 6 of 19 MP's under Singh's NDP banner who are not returning to fight the next election. What is up with that? Will there be any NDP left by October 2025?

 

Maybe it's a problem with not really having a focus? 

 

[Chicken.]

4 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

The potential for negative equity would be too high... But then again, maybe that's the only way some kids get in the market. But it would really have to be an option for really solid properties. 

Putting more demand in the market with relaxed mortgage terms certainly won’t help prices but wdik. I can only imagine the interest one would pay over ~50 years the banks must be giddy if my guess is true.
 

[Bob Long]

3 minutes ago, Chicken. said:

Putting more demand in the market with relaxed mortgage terms certainly won’t help prices but wdik.

 

 

Depends on supply. We need way more supply no matter what the government does.

 

3 minutes ago, Chicken. said:

I can only imagine the interest one would pay over ~50 years the banks must be giddy if my guess is true.
 

 

Yea, it would be fugly. But many people would be able to renew to something far less onerous when it comes up for renewal.

[Gurn]

Mort- from the latin 'death'

gage   "debt'.

Intergenerational mortgages, coming soon.

[Chicken.]

1 minute ago, Bob Long said:

 

Depends on supply. We need way more supply no matter what the government does.

 

 

Yea, it would be fugly. But many people would be able to renew to something far less onerous when it comes up for renewal.

Thats true but the supply can only go up so fast due to labour market capacity/shortages and other factors. Everyone likes to blame municipalities and zoning rules, red tape etc but if developers drag their feet during the application process for whatever reason (high interest rates), or construction companies don't have the capacity to build more than not much progress will be made. Certainly not in the short term anyway regardless of how much money is thrown at the problem, imo.

im a bit bias since in coquitlam where i live we are already building a fuck ton as is surrey but i suppose some cities do need a push from above like port moody/langley/poco/west van and the like but again the lower mainland only has so much construction labour to go around. I think the desire for many folks to get into those skilled manual labour jobs has dipped and business is booming for them already with crazy high demand. 
guess we’ll see lol going off on a tangent now. 

[Alflives]

14 minutes ago, Gurn said:

Mort- from the latin 'death'

gage   "debt'.

Intergenerational mortgages, coming soon.

Yup. When the debt is paid the pledge dies. 

[Bob Long]

11 minutes ago, Chicken. said:

Thats true but the supply can only go up so fast due to labour market capacity/shortages and other factors. Everyone likes to blame municipalities and zoning rules, red tape etc but if developers drag their feet during the application process for whatever reason (high interest rates),

 

I've met a few developers in my lifetime, not one of them struck me as the drag their heels type. Governments driven by nimby voters not wanting changes, yeah thats out there. The developments being created by First Nations developers in Eby's riding is the funniest to me, you know his constituents hate the idea of developing high rises near them. I even read recently one person at a meeting said high rises weren't traditional homes so First Nations people didn't have an inherent right to build them 

 

11 minutes ago, Chicken. said:

 

or construction companies don't have the capacity to build more than not much progress will be made. Certainly not in the short term anyway regardless of how much money is thrown at the problem, imo.

 

We're really bad a pre-fab in Canada. This should be something BC in particular is killing it on. Why factory built homes aren't more popular is something that confuses me, they are higher quality than what you'll likely get by traditional building and can be produced far more rapidly. 

 

 

11 minutes ago, Chicken. said:

im a bit bias since in coquitlam where i live we are already building a fuck ton as is surrey but i suppose some cities do need a push from above like port moody/langley/poco/west van and the like but again the lower mainland only has so much construction labour to go around. I think the desire for many folks to get into those skilled manual labour jobs has dipped and business is booming for them already with crazy high demand. 
guess we’ll see lol going off on a tangent now. 

 

its not really a tangent, all this stuff is connected.

 

All of the old us vs them, or its the other guys responsibility, or nimbyism, etc. all has to be chucked. We need more homes now. 

 

Edited April 6 by Bob Long

[Chicken.]

14 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

I've met a few developers in my lifetime, not one of them struck me as the drag their heels type. Governments driven by nimby voters not wanting changes, yeah thats out there. The developments being created by First Nations developers in Eby's riding is the funniest to me, you know his constituents hate the idea of developing high rises near them. I even read recently one person at a meeting said high rises weren't traditional homes so First Nations people didn't have an inherent right to build them 

 

 

We're really bad a pre-fab in Canada. This should be something BC in particular is killing it on. Why factory built homes aren't more popular is something that confuses me, they are higher quality than what you'll likely get by traditional building and can be produced far more rapidly. 

 

 

 

its not really a tangent, all this stuff is connected.

 

All of the old us vs them, or its the other guys responsibility, or nimbyism, etc. all has to be chucked. We need more homes now. 

 

I know of multiple development applications that are stalled on the developers side, likely playing hardball with the city planners to concede to their preferred demands (ie no rental housing, affordable units, or commercial units), along with multiple examples of developers obtaining a full building permit application permit and waiting years to even begin excavation. Many times the reason application processes take so long is due to waiting for the developer/consultants to make required revisions discovered during plan reviews whether that is urban design/building code/plumbing issues. It happens for sure and while the City's take some of the blame for having old archaic processes (all governments lack innovation, but that is slowly improving and tbh the best use of pouring money into fixing municipal delays) and typical union slowness both sides contribute to the length of time it can take. 
Quality Developers that are quick to revise plans and don’t drag their feet can go from a development application to full building permit inside of 24 months which when you think of all the work that goes into that process isnt bad imo. Of course it then takes years to build after the permit is approved as well lol. And this will get faster as Cities improve their progress towards digitization and automation (again all governments are slow to embrace this but it seems that is finally changing)

 

An insane number of developments are under construction in burnaby/surrey/coquitlam but there is only so much capacity to build at one time.

[Bob Long]

1 minute ago, Chicken. said:

I know of multiple development applications that are stalled on the developers side, likely playing hardball with the city planners to concede to their preferred demands (ie no rental housing, affordable units, or commercial units), along with multiple examples of developers obtaining a full building permit application permit and waiting years to even begin excavation. Many times the reason application processes take so long is due to waiting for the developer/consultants to make required revisions discovered during plan reviews whether that is urban design/building code/plumbing issues. It happens for sure and while the City's take some of the blame for having old archaic processes (all governments lack innovation, but that is slowly improving and tbh the best use of pouring money into fixing municipal delays) and typical union slowness both sides contribute to the length of time it can take. 
Quality Developers that are quick to revise plans and don’t drag their feet can go from a development application to full building permit inside of 24 months which when you think of all the work that goes into that process isnt bad imo. Of course it then takes years to build after the permit is approved as well lol. And this will get faster as Cities improve their progress towards digitization and automation (again all governments are slow to embrace this but it seems that is finally changing)

 

I would think the guys who work with the cities are the ones doing most of the building, it would make a lot of sense. 

 

1 minute ago, Chicken. said:

An insane number of developments are under construction in burnaby/surrey/coquitlam but there is only so much capacity to build at one time.

 

true, which is why I like the idea of factory built so much. We should be putting these on crown land and selling leasehold opportunities for people like @Coconuts to have a viable option to live on Vancouver island, e.g.

[chris12345]

1 hour ago, Chicken. said:

Yay 50 year amortization periods…?

Wow I can't even imagine a 30 year.

[Chicken.]

1 minute ago, Bob Long said:

 

I would think the guys who work with the cities are the ones doing most of the building, it would make a lot of sense. 

 

 

true, which is why I like the idea of factory built so much. We should be putting these on crown land and selling leasehold opportunities for people like @Coconuts to have a viable option to live on Vancouver island, e.g.

I dont know much about this pre fab factory built home building… do they look like normal SF homes?

im picturing like shipping container stacked on one another style lol 

 

answered my own question, pretty neat concept. Not sure why its not mote popular;

 

https://builtprefab.com/?utm_term=prefab home builders&utm_campaign&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=7836952566&hsa_cam=20528231977&hsa_grp=161749095348&hsa_ad=672973511727&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-351021095514&hsa_kw=prefab home builders&hsa_mt=e&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw5cOwBhCiARIsAJ5njuadQWDSLGJy-5wHGoXfoiz4jbY4qozjXplleyct-R4DyjCB3i_CU58aAlIgEALw_wcB

[Elias Pettersson]

3 hours ago, Miss Korea said:

 

You haven't provided me with shit until just now.  In the past, you just used your own past experience as proof, and nothing more.  You said this verbatim: "I just know because that's what I remember."

 

Disregard my triple statement.  Here's what the numbers are suggesting.

 

 

 

Using a CPI inflation calculator, $1 in 2001 is now $1.62 in 2024.  That number was heavily affected by the recent years of high inflation, no doubt.  But you can also see in the first chart that the median income has risen well above that 62%.

 

I'll even craft a counterpoint for you: the CPI basket does not account for gas prices.  Gas prices are extremely volatile and can skew CPI numbers for completely random reasons.  For what it's worth, gas prices don't even constitute a major portion of the average Canadian's monthly expenses, unless you are in the transportation industry.  Housing is factored into the CPI basket, and might help explain why the number has jumped up as much as it has over the past two years.  No doubt housing is driving inflation.  No doubt your HOME purchasing power has been severely affected.  But you did not make such a distinction.  You attempted to make a more general claim with nothing to back it up.

 

You're just cherry-picking the handful of items that have spiked in cost.  Housing is a big one for sure.  What about clothing?  Footwear?  Health products?  Personal products?  Household appliances?  Telecommunications?  Alcohol/tobacco/cannabis?  Other recreational goods/services?  Why is it that you are trying to only use the few things that have seen disproportionate amounts of inflation and apply it to literally everything else?  What kind of bullshit argument are you trying to craft here?

 

P.S.: What happened to you attitude about Statistics Canada?  I thought you dismissed is as nonsense propaganda.

Okay, so now that the name calling is out of the way we can have an actual discussion like the hockey threads. Here we go. 
 

I never made a distinction between housing and everything else because for most people the only thing that matters is housing. I mean what good is it if you have new clothes and lots of shampoo you can afford if you have nowhere to live?  That’s why I never made a distinction. People are worse off today than they ever have been when it comes to being able to live somewhere. There is an entire generation that has been completely wiped out from ever buying a home. That has never happened before in Canadian history. 
 

You say that gas isn’t important and doesn’t consume a lot of a person’s budget, but that is simply not true. It costs me over $400 to fill my car every month. That’s $5k per year in after tax dollars. Not everyone drives an EV. Most people can’t even afford one.  That’s like 5-10% of an average person’s total budget. 

You bring up clothing, footwear, telecommunications, smoking weed. I can tell you right now that I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in over 5 years. But I have to fill up my tank with gas every week. So how are shoes more important than gas?  People can live their life with not buying new shoes or even new clothes for years. I have suits that are 6 years old. Maybe you need to buy underwear and socks every year, but that’s about it. 
 

Gas is definitely more important than shoes or clothes. I can tell you if someone has no money they will scrounge enough to pay the rent, put food on the table, and put gas in their car. That’s it. Like nobody is smoking weed if they have no money. The only people that are happy about the free weed from the government are the people living on the streets in the downtown east side. With all the free drugs, yes they are better off today than they were in 1998. 
 

Not many people go out to eat anymore. It’s too expensive. However, this was not a problem in 1998. I know. Cause I lived it. We went out to eat every weekend.  Families can’t do that anymore. Every penny they have saved goes to paying the mortgage or the rent. 
 

At the end of the day, the housing crisis of today has superseded everything else. It’s just too damn expensive to live in Vancouver and people are leaving the city in droves. They are either going to the suburbs or just moving right out of the province. 
 

If you want to claim that shoes, clothing, weed and your Telus bill are cheaper now than in 1998, then you can take the W on that one. I don’t have the time to look that stuff up and nobody cares about that anyways. 
 

However, the “cherry picking” that I did with housing and with gas is all people really care about. And we are definitely not better off today than in 1998 on those two fronts. 

[Elias Pettersson]

1 hour ago, Chicken. said:

Putting more demand in the market with relaxed mortgage terms certainly won’t help prices but wdik. I can only imagine the interest one would pay over ~50 years the banks must be giddy if my guess is true.
 

If the government were to increase amortizations to 50 years, then prices would go through the roof. It would have the opposite effect of what they are trying to achieve. When they changed the amortization to 40 years that is exactly what happened.
 

Plus, if the market does tank you will have many people with negative equity and swimming in debt. They would simply walk away from their homes and give the keys to the bank. Like they did in the States. I mean why keep paying the mortgage if your mortgage is greater than the value of your home?

Edited April 6 by Elias Pettersson

[Elias Pettersson]

1 hour ago, Gurn said:

Mort- from the latin 'death'

gage   "debt'.

Intergenerational mortgages, coming soon.

Exactly. What families will be doing is simply transferring the house from the parents to the kids and the mortgage gets transferred with it. The mortgage actually never gets paid. It just gets refinanced through every generation. 

Edited April 6 by Elias Pettersson

[Chicken.]

7 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

If the government were to increase amortizations to 50 years, then prices would go through the roof. It would have the opposite effect of what they are trying to achieve. When they changed the amortization to 40 years that is exactly what happened.
 

Plus, if the market does tank you will have many people with negative equity and swimming in debt. They would simply walk away from their homes and give the keys to the bank. Like they did in the States. I mean why keep paying the mortgage if your mortgage is greater than the value of your home?

What is your guess on Trudeaus “news coming on Mortgages soon” announcement?

 

Also isnt the limit on insured mortgages 25 years? I always thought it was 30 but this article seems to be saying otherwise

edit; ah nvm i see more than 20% down = longer amortization period available so maybe 40 years is ok for those.

 

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/trudeau-says-news-on-mortgages-is-coming-in-federal-budget-1.2055827 

Edited April 6 by Chicken.