Article on rising rental / house prices in Canada, and the various parties plans for dealing with it: cbc.ca/news/canada/…
Liberals plan to build more affordable living, conservatives plan to do uh, nothing.
> But the Conservatives have said little about housing specifically, arguing instead that the government needs to get its hand out of Canadians' pockets in areas like the carbon tax, which they describe as ineffective. The party has promised to ease building regulations to increase housing supply.
NDP plan to build even more affordable housing than the liberals, 100k vs 500k.
The greens don't seem to be mentioned, but I may have missed it. Greens still need to do more work on fleshing out their platform, it seems.
> It is an old axiom of financial planners that renters should never spend more than 30 per cent of their gross earnings on rent and utilities. In Charlottetown, low income renters (those earning less than $21,361) spend on average 62 per cent of their earnings on housing.
@Wipqozn Good to see 'conservatives' fight against carbon taxes. Given that the average conservative politician is corrupt that must mean they're working
There's a lot of rebates around the carbon taxing program as well, so the average person gets almost all of it back. It's just the big businesses that'll hurt by it.
But tbh the Canadian conservatives always go on about taxes every election anyways. It's just their thing.
They know their base doesn't really understand or care about what those taxes go towards, or understand just how little money the average household will save with a small tax cut.
Like, if they don't work then I'm against them buuuut, if conservatives fight against a thing meant to promote some good then generally it's because said thing actually works in accomplishing that good... otherwise why would the people with money pay them to fight against it?
@murgatroid99 (Reviving a conversation from Friday) I know the conventional wisdom is that impeaching Trump wouldn't matter because the Senate wouldn't vote to remove, but I'm not actually convinced that either are true (that the Senate wouldn't vote to remove, or that even if they didn't, that it wouldn't matter)
If the House votes on a detailed, clear set of articles of impeachment, then sends them over to the Senate, it puts Senate republicans in an impossible bind:
A public vote for removal (yah!) or a public vote for corruption
Staying "off the record" and being all vague and weasel-wordy has been the foam shield that Republicans have been hiding behind for the last 3 years
(I suppose there is a 3rd option: McConnell refuses to hold hearings. This might, in fact, be the most likely, but it again clearly, loudly, and publicly puts Republicans on the side of corruption)
Forcing Republican Senators up for re-election to clearly state where they stand on Trump's corruption can be used against them by their Democratic challengers
(If Democrats can even do THAT right, and don't make all the ads about health care :P )
Liberals promise improved access to family doctors, mental health care and prescription drugs cbc.ca/news/politics/…
> Leader Justin Trudeau commits to $6B over 4 years as 'down payment' to improve system
> The Liberals are promising to ensure all Canadians have access to a family doctor, mental health services and prescription drugs, but have released few details about how a re-elected Liberal government would implement a national pharmacare program or how much it would cost.
Oh he took a jab at Doug Ford
That's good, since Ford is terrible
I wonder if NDP have said anything around Healthcare
Don't know if any of you watch the NBC sitcom "The Good Place", but in season 3 one of the main characters, Michael, convinces a committee of heavenly beings to take action on an urgent matter, which... they agree to fast track, and so should only take... 400 years... just to select the members of the committee...
I definitely think the writers of the Good Place had the Democratic party in mind when they wrote that scene
(There are other good lines that poke fun at other current events... in the same episode, Jason says "but we're refugees! What kind of place would turn away refugees?")
> “We have rules, procedures,” says Meg (Tatiana Carr), one of the committee’s members. “We can’t just do stuff.”
> “Just so you know,” Michael reminds them, “the whole time you’re doing this, the bad guys are continuing to torture everyone who ends up in the bad place. Which is everyone!”
> “And that deeply concerns us,” Andie (Denise Sanchez), another committee member notes. “Have you seen the memorandum we wrote about how concerned we are?”
I'm torn on Swalwell's story because on the one hand it has all the hallmarks of a hipster cafe tale but on the other if I actually saw someone from Congress right now I'd…well probably not "punch" them because the police would materialize out of nowhere and assault me but otherwise would definitely be like "wtaf are y'all doing?"
> A Conservative government would allow 30-year mortgages, Scheer says
> Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is promising that, if he's elected, he'll review the so-called "stress test" to help first-time homebuyers get approved for mortgages and allow people to take out longer mortgages for lower monthly payments.
So instead of building afforadable housing, the PC will just help people be in debt for longer.
Also, I feel like it's the down payment that's the biggest problem for the vast majority of Canadians.
> CIBC published a report earlier this year calling for a review of the stress test. In 2018, the total value of new mortgages fell by eight per cent, or $25 billion, it said. The report estimates the impact of the new stress test accounted for $13 billion to $15 billion of that drop — or 50 to 60 per cent.
> "It is important that we have strong regulations around the financial sector to ensure that our housing industry and our mortgage industry is strong and robust, but we believe that for first-time home buyers a 30-year amortization period is appropriate," he said.
@Wipqozn Well, considering that "starter" houses in the large cities are going for $1mil easily, you're still talking about a $50,000 down payment at a minimum. Few first time home-buyers can afford that, even with the larger salaries in those cities.
The inability to afford a down payment is directly related to the skyrocketing housing costs in those cities.
> "It’s deeply reckless for Ukraine to push us towards investigating criminal behavior, especially so close to an election year, and we hope this resolution will put an end to that." - Pelosi
> The survey, by the polling firm Ipsos for the multinational 3M company, also found that nearly half of those surveyed thought scientists are elitist and that a significant number of respondents discounted findings that don't accord with their personal beliefs.
> At a time when accelerating climate change and wildlife loss are placing science at the top of the public agenda, the survey found 32 per cent of respondents were skeptical about it. That was up from 25 per cent the previous year.
> A 2017 Leger poll for the Ontario Science Centre found 29 per cent of respondents thought that because scientific theories are subject to challenge, they can't be trusted. Another question suggested 43 per cent considered science to be a matter of opinion.
> "We have a real responsibility to make [science] accessible. We're still doing a relatively poor job of translating the data — by and large paid for by taxpayers — and passing it to the public."
