[Northern Light]

In regards the national, standardized residential lease, I concur that:

1) This really does nothing to improve affordability at all.

2) Its jurisdictional over-reach

3) Its needlessly bureaucratic and cumbersome to little obvious advantage except for a handful of national REITS.

*****

There is a case to be made for Ottawa pushing the provinces, even in areas of provincial jurisdiction, to the extent that there is a clear, and substantial advantage for the country. That might be recognition of labour credentials across provincial lines; a single capital markets system for the country, a smart-grid of electricity, or some other item where one can imagine goosing national GDP by a full percent or more by way or relatively easy cooperation/harmonization.

But the above is really none of that. Its somewhere between a foolish diversion and something of low benefit to a special interest group known as REITS.

Silly, at best.

 

[evandyk]

Given that each province has its own set of things that either have to be in a residential lease, or cannot be in a residential lease, a national standard lease seems like a figment of someone's imagination (someone who is a political/comms staffer who doesn't know much about this issue)

 

[kamira51]

Every time I look in this thread, I realize how much I hate our federal politics. It's so tiresome, I'm tired of our tax dollars being wasted on programs that I don't benefit from.

For instance, about two summers ago, our company was installing a new xray machine in Ottawa at CHEO, We booked a hotel room at the Holiday Inn near there and noticed alot of refugees walking around the hotel, we got our hotel rooms and noticed we had no fridge, called up the front desk only to be told "there are no spare fridges available" I was quite baffled considering my boss was paying over $200 a night.

My tax dollars were being used to pay a hotel to keep refugees, and did it make my life better? No.

In London we stopped going to a hotel because it started to smell really bad in the hallways because of all the refugees, I had a co-worker tell me that he could never use the laundry machine because It was always in use by refugees.

I don't hate refugees, I hate how the federal government is letting all these people in, and my money is being wasted on them, when we have more urgent issues affecting native born canadian citizens.

 

[Richard White]

Every time I look in this thread, I realize how much I hate our federal politics. It's so tiresome, I'm tired of our tax dollars being wasted on programs that I don't benefit from.

For instance, about two summers ago, our company was installing a new xray machine in Ottawa at CHEO, We booked a hotel room at the Holiday Inn near there and noticed alot of refugees walking around the hotel, we got our hotel rooms and noticed we had no fridge, called up the front desk only to be told "there are no spare fridges available" I was quite baffled considering my boss was paying over $200 a night.

My tax dollars were being used to pay a hotel to keep refugees, and did it make my life better? No.

In London we stopped going to a hotel because it started to smell really bad in the hallways because of all the refugees, I had a co-worker tell me that he could never use the laundry machine because It was always in use by refugees.

I don't hate refugees, I hate how the federal government is letting all these people in, and my money is being wasted on them, when we have more urgent issues affecting native born canadian citizens.

When I was in Niagara Falls last summer, the Wyndham Garden Inn was packed full of Refugees and Asylum Seekers who were partying and drinking on the balcony at 10 am.

I am not anti-refugee (My Grandparents were Hungarian refugees in 1956) but at some point we need to say no. We need to focus on domestic issues not just letting every Singh, Ahmed and Kovalchuk into the country.

I get it.. they need help but so do millions of other Canadians. The money spent on refugees, asylum seekers and foreign aid can be better spend on things like UBI, Pharmacare, Enhanced Military contributions, etc.

I feel like this is where the Liberals have lost the plot. They focus more on everyone else than they do actual Canadians and it is going to cost them in the next election.

 

[kEiThZ]

There will always be problems. It's not a reason to turn away refugees. Maybe the government should get better at processing these claims so they aren't kept in hotels very long.

 

[Richard White]

There will always be problems. It's not a reason to turn away refugees. Maybe the government should get better at processing these claims so they aren't kept in hotels very long.

Maybe so but they still need to keep the numbers in check.

 

[Northern Light]

Every time I look in this thread, I realize how much I hate our federal politics. It's so tiresome, I'm tired of our tax dollars being wasted on programs that I don't benefit from.

This, with respect, is a very dangerous line of thinking.

Why should you pay for someone else's healthcare if you're not sick? Why should you pay for roads if you don't drive? Why should you pay for schools if you don't have kids?

Governments absolutely must invest in things that will never benefit every person, and often, you ought to be grateful that its so ( do you really want to need the fire department?)
Governments will also invest in things you don't need right now; but may later.

My tax dollars were being used to pay a hotel to keep refugees, and did it make my life better? No.

You do understand that Canada has legal obligations as it pertains to asylum seekers under international law.

Are we specifically required to put them up in a hotel? No.

But we are required to let them stay until we can adjudicate whether they have a legitimate claim. Now that they're here, what alternatives to hotels would seem reasonable? I hear a detention centre coming on...... But you know those are paid for w/taxes too, and they're typically more expensive too.

****

To be clear, we have an issue w/people seeking asylum who frankly do not have, at first blush, legitimate claims, the sheer volume has slowed our adjudication process to the point where someone may wait not just weeks or months but well over a year for a hearing/disposition of their case.

That is absolutely untenable, and there are options we can and should look at.

These include:

reinstating VISA requirements for travel from certain countries.
clarifying eligibility/ineligibility and empowering initial contact border staff to reject people w/o a hearing who have no reasonable prospect of admission.
expediting hearings (more staff), and removing those whose claims have been rejected forthwith.

Turfing people out into street or turning them around at the border w/o any due process is not really reasonable.

I don't hate refugees, I hate how the federal government is letting all these people in, and my money is being wasted on them, when we have more urgent issues affecting native born canadian citizens.

Um, the bolded looks really bad. 51% of all Toronto residents were born outside of Canada; 23% of Canada's population overall.

Perhaps you might have meant, that you would like to see more attention paid to the concerns of citizens and permanent residents of Canada (native born or not)

I might add, purely on a budgetary basis, asylum seekers are costing 1.5 - 3B per year to all levels of gov't depending on how one totals the math.

That is a lot of money......but in the grand scheme of a 300B federal budget, its well less than 1% of spending. If it went down 75% tomorrow, its unlikely the reallocation of dollars would make a massive change to anyone's life in terms of dramatic new or enhanced services.

 

[gabe]

When I was in Niagara Falls last summer, the Wyndham Garden Inn was packed full of Refugees and Asylum Seekers who were partying and drinking on the balcony at 10 am.

I am not anti-refugee (My Grandparents were Hungarian refugees in 1956) but at some point we need to say no. We need to focus on domestic issues not just letting every Singh, Ahmed and Kovalchuk into the country.

I get it.. they need help but so do millions of other Canadians. The money spent on refugees, asylum seekers and foreign aid can be better spend on things like UBI, Pharmacare, Enhanced Military contributions, etc.

I feel like this is where the Liberals have lost the plot. They focus more on everyone else than they do actual Canadians and it is going to cost them in the next election.

My sister stayed at a Vancouver airport hotel that was like that. She said the cigarette smoke was so thick in the hallways and common areas, she couldn't breath. Refugees were smoking everywhere. And there was kids playing with the elevator like it was a toy every time she went to use it. She didn't stay, she checked out, left a complaint, and went some place else.

 

[kamira51]

This, with respect, is a very dangerous line of thinking.

Why should you pay for someone else's healthcare if you're sick? Why should pay for roads if you don't drive? Why should you pay for schools if you don't have kids?

Governments absolutely must invest in things that will never benefit every person, and often, you ought to be grateful that its so ( do you really want to need the fire department?)

Governments will also invest in things you don't need right now; but may later.



You do understand that Canada has legal obligations as it pertains to asylum seekers under international law.

Are we specifically required to put them up in a hotel? No.

But we are required to let them stay until we can adjudicate whether they have a legitimate claim.

Now that they're here, what alternatives to hotels would seem reasonable? I hear a detention centre coming on...... But you know those are paid for w/taxes too, and they're typically more expensive too.

****

To be clear, we have an issue w/people seeking asylum who frankly do not have, at first blush, legitimate claims, the sheer volume has slowed our adjudication process to the point where someone may wait not just weeks or months but well over a year for a hearing/disposition of their case.

That is absolutely untenable, and there are options we can and should look at.

These include:

reinstating VISA requirements for travel from certain countries.
clarifying eligibility/ineligibility and empowered initial contact border staff to reject people w/o a hearing who have no reasonable prospect of admission.
expediting hearings (more staff), and removing those whose claims have been rejected forthwith.

Turfing people out into street or turning them around at the border w/o any due process is not really reasonable.



Um, the bolded looks really bad. 51% of all Toronto residents were born outside of Canada; 23% of Canada's population overall.

Perhaps you might have meant, that you would like to see more attention paid to the concerns of citizens and permanent residents of Canada (native born or not)

I might add, purely on a budgetary basis, asylum seekers are costing 1.5 - 3B per year to all levels of gov't depending on how one totals the math.

That is a lot of money......but in the grand scheme of a 300B federal budget, its well less than 1% of spending. If it went down 75% tomorrow, its unlikely the reallocation of dollars would make a massive change to anyone's life in terms of dramatic new or enhanced services.

Thanks for your point of view, I know very little regarding what Canada has signed and was unaware that we need to take in people seeking asylum.

What I said about tax dollars going towards stuff that doesn't affect me, I was being nit-picky and completely forgetting about the fire departments etc, it was stupid so please ignore what i said.

About native born Canadians, yes I did mean permanent citizens of Canada.

 

[lenaitch]

In regards the national, standardized residential lease, I concur that:

1) This really does nothing to improve affordability at all.

2) Its jurisdictional over-reach

3) Its needlessly bureaucratic and cumbersome to little obvious advantage except for a handful of national REITS.

*****

There is a case to be made for Ottawa pushing the provinces, even in areas of provincial jurisdiction, to the extent that there is a clear, and substantial advantage for the country. That might be recognition of labour credentials across provincial lines; a single capital markets system for the country, a smart-grid of electricity, or some other item where one can imagine goosing national GDP by a full percent or more by way or relatively easy cooperation/harmonization.

But the above is really none of that. Its somewhere between a foolish diversion and something of low benefit to a special interest group known as REITS.

Silly, at best.

At least the examples you cite - labour mobility, securities regulation (although the Court hedged on that) - have a degree of foundation under Sec. 91(2) of the Constitution. Meddling is rental agreements is none of that, and it could be argued is completely within the authority of the provinces.

 

[jje1000]

In regards the national, standardized residential lease, I concur that:

1) This really does nothing to improve affordability at all.

2) Its jurisdictional over-reach

3) Its needlessly bureaucratic and cumbersome to little obvious advantage except for a handful of national REITS.

*****

There is a case to be made for Ottawa pushing the provinces, even in areas of provincial jurisdiction, to the extent that there is a clear, and substantial advantage for the country. That might be recognition of labour credentials across provincial lines; a single capital markets system for the country, a smart-grid of electricity, or some other item where one can imagine goosing national GDP by a full percent or more by way or relatively easy cooperation/harmonization.

But the above is really none of that. Its somewhere between a foolish diversion and something of low benefit to a special interest group known as REITS.

Silly, at best.

It has the weary air of the late 2017-2018-ish Wynne Ontario Liberals, where most, if not all of the policy announcements were simply patchjobs (and some counteractive ones at that) to self-inflicted crises.

Heck, we even now have a retread of the high speed rail proposal (this time for VIA) lol

 

[kEiThZ]

This country. Every level of government wants to run the one below them and have their own core responsibilities shifted to the one above them.

Cities want provinces to build roads and transit. Provinces want to tell city councils what size they should be and what developments they should approve. And the federal government is doing everything from dictating pay for daycare workers to apparently writing master rental contracts. And none of this is actually delivering substantially for the average Canadian. Or at least not in ways that the average person can truly understand. That is why the average person is pissed.

 

[jje1000]

Canada 'not interested' in investing in LNG facilities, energy minister says​

March 31, 202412:54 PM EDT Updated a day ago

TORONTO, March 31 (Reuters) - Canada is not interested in subsidizing future liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, including electrification of projects currently in the works, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a television interview on Sunday.
Countries including Greece, Germany and Japan have expressed interest in purchasing Canada's LNG while the United States has paused expansion of American LNG exports.

"The government is opposed to using government money to fund inefficient fossil fuel subsidies... We are not interested in investing in LNG facilities," Wilkinson said on CTV. "That's the role of the private sector. They need to assess the business case and make the investments."

The minister said meeting a 2030 target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require that LNG production rely on clean electricity.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's federal government have set targets to cut emissions of the gases by 2030 and requires new LNG proposals to also be net-zero emissions in the same time frame.

Trudeau has emphasized the economic difficulties for new projects of exporting LNG to Europe from Canada's Atlantic coast and the need to decarbonize the global energy supply to fight climate change.

U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to pause expansion of American LNG exports has raised pressure from environmental groups on British Columbia and Canada's governments to do the same, although following suit may be politically difficult.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/canada-not-interested-investing-lng-facilities-energy-minister-says-2024-03-31/

 

[Admiral Beez]

It doesn't have to be LNG piped in from Alberta.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/canada-not-interested-investing-lng-facilities-energy-minister-says-2024-03-31/

It's a shame, as a LNG terminal piping from Alberta out of Churchill, MB would give real economic benefits to the north, and give Canada a place in the game as every other arctic nation is opening up trade routes.

Western Energy Corridor — Home Page

www.westernenergycorridor.ca

 

[Richard White]

It's a shame, as a LNG terminal out of Churchill, MB would give real economic benefits to the north, and give Canada a place in the game as every other arctic nation is opening up trade routes.

With the Liberal policy on Climate Change is it any shock they chose to abandon LNG?