[evandyk]

I don't care for Poilievre, and haven't for more than a decade (due to stuff like this, or his role in the ill-fated Fair Elections Act), but I think this article says it better. It's a problem afflicting all of them, Poilievre just happens to practice it in a little more odious fashion than the rest of them.

Parliament declined in real time over the fall sitting - Loonie Politics

The continued decline of our Parliament to a deeply unserious clown show accelerated at an alarming rate over the fall sitting.

looniepolitics.com

The absolute decay in what is happening in Parliament was on full display, in large part because nobody is actually worrying about public policy any longer—nearly everything is now just about their comms strategies, and pushing it out over social media. Everything is just performance—substance has almost entirely left the building, and every party shares the blame in this. Canadians cannot afford for our political leaders to be taking their eye off the ball at such a critical juncture in history, and yet all we have to show for this are stupid games that are eroding our institutions. It’s time for all parliamentarians to grow up, before it’s too late.

 

[picard102]

• Provide the provinces with no-strings funding for healthcare, housing, transit and infrastructure. Let their experts deem where it's best spent.

Might as well just send the cheques to the Provincial parties donors directly.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Might as well just send the cheques to the Provincial parties donors directly.

Yes.

 

[Northern Light]

It would be nice for Aldi/Trader Joe's to come to Canada. I expect that the incumbent grocers would have a panic attack and launch their own similar formats to crowd out their entry.

Loblaws already tested such a format the last time Aldi kicked the tires here..............

They tested a variant of No Frills called 'The Box'.

It was it NF compacted to ~10,000ft2, a bit less selection, slightly tighter margins.

A Visit to The Box by No Frills Store in Hamilton - Tea & Nail Polish

A review of my visit to the opening of The Box, a new small format grocery store from No Frills, in Hamilton, Ontario - Tea & Nail Polish

teaandnailpolish.com

The format was shuttered after it was clear Aldi wasn't coming..............

One or two were closed, the others rebannered as straight-up No Frills.

 

[kEiThZ]

It would be nice for Aldi/Trader Joe's to come to Canada. I expect that the incumbent grocers would have a panic attack and launch their own similar formats to crowd out their entry.

Aldi maybe. I feel like we already have a version of Trader Joe's: Farm Boy.

When we lived in California within 15 mins walk of our place, we had a Safeway, a Trader Joe's and a Lucky's. Our usual was Safeway. We bought some bougie items at Trader Joe's. Farm Boy feels a little bit like a knockoff version of Trader Joe's with worse prices and fewer unique products. Lucky's was great too but I'm general my wife found it a bit more expensive than Safeway. Their ready to eat counter was amazing though.

Provide the provinces with no-strings funding for healthcare, housing, transit and infrastructure. Let their experts deem where it's best spent.

Vehemently disagree with this. You are literally arguing that the feds should give up the power of the purse. I wouldn't trust the provinces at all to not just dole out tax cuts or spend on their pet projects. How's Ontario doing with all that no-strings COVID healthcare top up?

Work with Alberta on their demands for equalization reforms.

Disagree with this one too. This is Alberta pretending they're entitled to federal tax revenue. People really need to understand how equalization works and why it exists. And it has zero to do with provincial governments.

 

[kamira51]

Any public suggestions to the contrary notwithstanding, the Federal Liberals are all-in on their strategy to exasperate the housing crisis and drive down wages:

From Stats Can:

The Daily — Canada's population estimates, third quarter 2023

Canada's population was estimated at 40,528,396 on October 1, 2023, an increase of 430,635 people (+1.1%) from July 1. This was the highest population growth rate in any quarter since the second quarter of 1957 (+1.2%), when Canada's population grew by 198,000 people. At the time, Canada's...

www150.statcan.gc.ca

View attachment 528424

That's right, we added more people as a percentage of population in the last quarter than most countries do in a year.

Annualized it would read at 4.4% population growth.

Our growth rate, annually in the 2010s was more like 0.7% annually.

*****

Its not just growth though, its the type of growth. Its not economic-class immigrants coming through Canada's much vaunted points-system.

Nope:

View attachment 528427

This is a recipe for disaster.

It already has been for years. One need only glance at the cost of housing (both purchase and rental).

Man, I'm never gonna own a house.

 

[afransen]

I did think about Farm Boy, but they are a pale imitation of Trader Joes. Trader Joes was actually decent value. I struggle to find that with Farm Boy. I wouldn't go out of my way to shop there, especially since it is not a complete shop.

I did check out one of the Box stores in Hamilton. I think it missed the mark a bit as an Aldi clone.

 

[Northern Light]

Farm Boy feels a little bit like a knockoff version of Trader Joe's with worse prices and fewer unique products.

Agreed, they need to be more creative/novel; and have higher standards for some of their HMR stuff as well (Home meal replacement, industry jargon for the hot / cold counter grab 'n go etc.)

 

[Northern Light]

Vehemently disagree with this. You are literally arguing that the feds should give up the power of the purse. I wouldn't trust the provinces at all to not just dole out tax cuts or spend on their pet projects. How's Ontario doing with all that no-strings COVID healthcare top up?

Can I split the difference on this one?

I think the Feds micro managing narrow specifics, by and large, isn't every useful. But I agree their power of the purse could be leveraged to achieve better outcomes. I'm not convinced it is though, for the most part.

Just to provide an example in health; what I would prefer to see is the feds demand a better outcome or result of one type or another in exchange for their 'extra' money; and then pay-on-delivery of the better outcome.

So, for instance, the Feds don't need to dictate the number of PET Scanners in Ontario or which hospitals they are located at; but could dictate that no one referred for a scan should ever wait more than 28 days.

To hit that target would require both more machines and more funded hours/scans; but let the province work out the details.

But don't pay the province upfront for more scanners or staff training, pay on delivery for hitting the 28 day or less wait time 3 months in a row.

That gives the province every incentive to deliver and in a timely way.

Disagree with this one too. This is Alberta pretending they're entitled to federal tax revenue. People really need to understand how equalization works and why it exists. And it has zero to do with provincial governments.

I agree w/you, but, I do think its important to add that the formula is a bit on the torqued side. I'm not sure there's any 'perfectly clean' formula that would ever make everyone happy, but the current version is a wee bit distorting.

There's a current article on this up at the Globe:

Opinion: Canada’s $25-billion equalization program needs major fixing. No one in Ottawa wants to talk about it

Despite calls for reforms, the Trudeau government has locked in the current equalization formula until 2029

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[Towered]

Agreed, they need to be more creative/novel; and have higher standards for some of their HMR stuff as well (Home meal replacement, industry jargon for the hot / cold counter grab 'n go etc.)

Agreed - every time I go there I do a quick walk-around of the hot counter, and everything looks dried out, like it's been sitting there for many hours without any attention given to it. Not appetizing. They need to do better. I find the hot counters at Loblaws a bit better.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

'Worst-ever' affordability levels: Only 22 per cent of Ont. households can afford a single-family home​

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/worst-ev...lds-can-afford-a-single-family-home-1.6697313

Fewer than one-quarter of Ontario households actually have the income required to own a single-family home and affordability levels are now at or near “worst-ever” levels, a new report from RBC suggests.

The report, authored by RBC Economist Robert Hogue, shows that fewer than 50 per cent of Ontario households have “sufficient income” to own a condominium in the province amid “sky-high” prices and borrowing costs.

There’s a very long way to go before affordability is meaningfully restored,” Hogue writes. “Buyers in many of Canada’s large markets will contend with extremely difficult conditions for some time. We expect home resale activity to stay especially quiet in Ontario and British Columbia until interest rates fall materially. And then, the recovery that will follow is likely to be gradual at first.”

The report notes that in Toronto about 84 per cent of the average household income would have went to home ownership costs in the third quarter, based on current real estate values.

That is less than in Vancouver where the number rises to 102.6 per cent.

Still, the report says that ownership costs in Toronto have reached “crushing levels” with an index RBC uses to track affordability levels surpassing the previous all-time low set at the end of 2022.

The good news is that Hogue believes “the latest bout of housing affordability deterioration has likely run its course” and the situation will improve in 2024 “as home prices drift lower or stabilize” and incomes rise.

But he says that housing affordability is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon, even with the Bank of Canada likely to cut interest rates in the second half of 2024.

“The significant loss of affordability during the pandemic has shrunk the pool of homebuyers in Canada,” the report notes. “Close to 60 per cent of all households could afford to own at least a regular condo apartment in 2019 based on their income. That share has plummeted to 45 per cent in 2023.”

The average price of a home across all property types in the GTA peaked at $1,334,062 in February 2022, prior to the Bank of Canada’s first interest hike.

It eventually dropped to a low of $1,037,542 but prices have rebounded since then, with the latest data from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board pegging the average cost of a home in the GTA at $1,125,928.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

This is an old article but it rings absolutely true:

Douglas Todd: Eight reasons politicians don’t really want house prices to fall​

Opinion: Most politicians believe, apparently mistakenly, voters will punish them if house prices fell. Their financial self-interests might also be getting in the way, at both party and personal levels.

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/co...wcm/5b925cf0-031f-41eb-a842-2c4d2b3bdb33/amp/

His comments, although painfully obvious, amount to an abrupt change in Liberal communications strategy — since, earlier this year, Trudeau’s housing minister refused to acknowledge the country is in a “housing crisis”.



House prices have virtually doubled during the Liberals’ time in charge, and unaffordability, the ratio of house prices to average wages, is now among the worst in the world, especially in Metro Vancouver and Toronto.


The Liberals’ former parliamentary secretary on housing, Toronto MP Adam Vaughn, has been more revealing about what the Liberals have really been thinking all along.


Even though Vaughn recognized prospective owners want prices to decline, he has explained his party doesn’t want them to fall — even by one-tenth.


“Hands up if you’d like to see 10 per cent of the equity in your home suddenly disappear overnight,” Vaughn said. “We know Canadians rely on home ownership to secure their place in the economy now and also as they retire. We have to be very careful whatever steps we take to protect Canadians’ investment in their homes.”


Here are eight reasons why most politicians don’t really want prices to decrease:

1. Politicians, and the Canadian public, have a false belief house prices must rise and rise​

“Politicians seem stuck believing that Canadians want home prices to rise forever,” says UBC professor Paul Kershaw, founder of Generation Squeeze. “We have long believed there is a cultural addiction to high and rising home prices in Canada, and politicians are leery to disrupt it.”


Ron Butler, a mortgage broker, says, “No politician alive wants to be associated with the concept that a voter would buy a home and the politician would want it to be worth less than what the voter paid for it. That would be political suicide.”



Canadians love real estate because “they love the wealth, mainly tax free, it has created for the last 20 years,” said Butler, even while he firmly believes price reductions are necessary to restore “housing fairness”.

2. Politicians fear homeowners at election time​

3. Politicians also fret about the wrath of those who bought in a panic​

Younger people who stretched to buy a home, often from fear of missing out, “could go underwater if prices dropped significantly,” says Wright, who has lamented how Ottawa’s policies are accelerating prices.


The value of their mortgage would exceed the value of their dwelling. “One would presume a number of them will punish the politicians they feel are responsible for that. While I believe strongly that housing prices relative to average incomes needs to fall significantly if we are to provide younger Canadians with a pathway to home ownership, it is understandable why politicians fear falling house prices.””

4. Housing dominates Canada’s economy​

“Rising home prices have fuelled Canada’s economic growth. It has allowed Canadians to borrow against their own homes to spend, and invest in more real estate,” says housing analyst John Pasalis, head of Realosophy.


It’s also led to Canada’s housing industry, especially in B.C. and Ontario, making up a much higher bulk of the economy than in most nations.

5. Civic politicians are especially reactive to property prices and taxes​

6. Politicians prefer leaving the dirty work to the ‘non-political’ Bank of Canada​

“Politicians keep repeating slogans about tackling affordability by densifying and creating more housing supply, but it doesn’t make housing more affordable for locals or immigrants with moderate incomes,” says former developer and planner Arny Wise.


“The dirty work, to make home prices fall, is left to the ‘non-political’ Bank of Canada’s relentless mission to tame inflation … particularly in the super-inflated housing market. Higher interest rates are having the desired effect of lowering home prices slowly, by curbing excessive demand and increasing the financing costs of investors.”

7. Developers are massive political donors​

Developers like prices to go up during the several years it takes to build new homes, says D’Eathe. If prices or rents go down during the risk-filled construction process, their profit margins can be shot.


And developers, along with affluent homeowners, are the biggest donors to political parties

8. Politicians’ personal self-interest might muddy their housing goals​

We can never really know what motivates a politician. But it is of genuine concern that thousands of Canadian politicians, at all levels, are in a potential conflict of interest on housing prices because they belong to the landlord class.

 

[kEiThZ]

No doubt that politicians fear falling home prices. But propping up prices at any cost has other effects too. And those effects usually aren't helpful to incumbent governments.

Canada's population is now growing by 400k per quarter. That's an Oshawa every 3 months. The consequences of this kind of growth aren't going to go unnoticed come the next election.

 

[Richard White]

No doubt that politicians fear falling home prices. But propping up prices at any cost has other effects too. And those effects usually aren't helpful to incumbent governments.

Canada's population is now growing by 400k per quarter. That's an Oshawa every 3 months. The consequences of this kind of growth aren't going to go unnoticed come the next election.

The way I see it they have 4 options.

1. Burst the bubble
2. Curtail immigration
3. Invest in lesser known cities like Kenora, Saskatoon, Yellowknife and Truro to accommodate new immigrants.
4. Restrict home purchases to Canadian Citizens who actively reside in Canada and only to their primary residence

If we curtailed immigration and put restrictions on speculation watch how fast prices would drop. Prices would sink faster than the Titanic.

 

[kEiThZ]

Apparently they incompetently assumed growth would automagically level off:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1737769223508660374