CPC Policy Convention 2023

[Queenmandy85]

7 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Polls show that parents support all of the provisions of the LGBTQ curriculum.

A more important poll would gage the opinion of the people who will be personally impacted and will have to live with the results.

[blackbird]

7 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Polls show that parents support all of the provisions of the LGBTQ curriculum.

Informing them of pronouns is a new idea, and yes it's broadly supported.

I'm pretty sick of dishonest arguments, hopefully Canadians are also.

I don't know where you get your facts.  I think most parents when asked if they have a right to know what their kids are doing and what decisions they make, they will say parents have a right to know what is going on.  Seems to me polls show the great majority of parents feel they have the right to know what is going on with their kids in schools.

Seems to me you claimed to be a Christian, but now argue in favour of the LGBTQ agenda, teaching little kids that all that is normal, and allowing kids to "come out" as being gay or trans and keeping it secret from the parents.  You can't have it both ways.

Edited September 14, 2023 by blackbird

[Michael Hardner]

22 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

A more important poll would gage the opinion of the people who will be personally impacted and will have to live with the results.

So you mean.. parents and who else?

[blackbird]

23 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

The situation for the governing party has deteriorated to the point where Liberal MP's are beginning to call for a new leader.

The thing is this.  Canada is short about 3-1/2 million homes.  Nine out of ten young people cannot afford to buy a home because the cost of owning a home has doubled or tripled since Trudeau took over eight years ago.  The situation is dire and the Liberals/NDP have no solution.  Another two years of Liberal/NDP rule will mean that things just get progressively worse for millions of Canadians.  They are not capable or willing to do anything to solve the crisis.  They are like a natural disaster happening.  They need to go NOW.  If people think things will be rectified under the NDP/Liberal coalition in the next two years, they are only fooling themselves.  Things need to turn around now so the millions of Canadians will have a chance.

Edited September 14, 2023 by blackbird

[CdnFox]

5 hours ago, Nexii said:

I think Trudeau will be ousted. It's not just the party numbers but that upwards of 75% polled think he needs to step down.

He can't be 'ousted'.  There's no provision in the liberal party charter to remove a leader until he loses an election. Certainly not the prime minister.

They can beg, cajole, pressure. offer rewards or punishments for after he's no longer prime minister, etc.  But they can't force him.

And he's put all his most loyal people in key positions - they'll move to squash anyone who even looks like they're thinking of getting uppity. That's already happened with a few of his cabinet demotions.

All they could do is get all the backbenchers to revolt and embarrass him into calling an election. You may recall the backbench revolt during Chretien's time, where he eventually was pressured into stepping down for paul martin but he mostly agreed to that because adscam was about to blow up and he left that for martin to take the hit.

If trudeau doesn't feel like stepping down then we're stuck with him till next election, and as i mentioned elsewhere very quickly the party would be running out of time to hold a leadership race and give the  winner enough time to get ready.  And who'd want to take the job on knowing how bad the libs are right now?

 

[CdnFox]

17 minutes ago, blackbird said:

The thing is this.  Canada is short about 3-1/2 million homes.  Nine out of ten young people cannot afford to buy a home because the cost of owning a home has doubled or tripled since Trudeau took over eight years ago.  The situation is dire and the Liberals/NDP have no solution.  Another two years of Liberal/NDP rule will mean that things just get progressively worse for millions of Canadians.  They are not capable or willing to do anything to solve the crisis.  They are like a natural disaster happening.  They need to go NOW.  If people think things will be rectified under the NDP/Liberal coalition in the next two years, they are only fooling themselves.  Things need to turn around now so the millions of Canadians will have a chance.

It's just that simple. If the libs had the skills to reverse the downward trend we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. All they know how to do is spend money and it's not really a money problem.

So they'll dink around and spend some cash and nothing will get better. And a year from now they'll be in the same place or worse and then it's REALLY too late for him to step down.

[Queenmandy85]

If the government, whether Liberal or CPC, fast tracks construction of housing (Every party wants to do that) they have to be cognaicent of the pitfalls. A few years ago, there was a surge in condo construction in the lower mainland. Soon after, we had the "leaky condo" crisis. the new units were so rushed that people ended up with moldy dumps they couldn't sell and couldn't live in. 

I keep hearing how people are struggling and I accept that. I just wonder what happened to people's savings accrued in the early months of the pandemic. People had enough extra money to undertake home renovations. A year ago, air travel was jammed with people. So, they must have had a lot of money. Now unless a person never studied history, we all know that plague and war result in inflation. The governments of Harper and Trudeau warned continuously that the super low interest rates would not last and if you are looking at borrowing, be prepared for interest rates to return to normal. The governments even brought in "stress tests" for borrowers to get that message across. 

Common sense tells us that if we cannot afford a house, don't buy it. We are hypocritical if we demand our governments live within their means when we don't. 

Today, Canadians owe $107 billion on credit card debt and 500,000 Canadians are unable to pay off their credit card ballance at the end of the month. We should never ask the government to be more fiscally responsible than we are.

 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Queenmandy85
Verbose

[CdnFox]

46 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

If the government, whether Liberal or CPC, fast tracks construction of housing (Every party wants to do that) they have to be cognaicent of the pitfalls. A few years ago, there was a surge in condo construction in the lower mainland. Soon after, we had the "leaky condo" crisis. the new units were so rushed that people ended up with moldy dumps they couldn't sell and couldn't live in.

That is not remotely accurate.  And i know this story intmately.

There wasn't a "rush".  And it wasn't a few years ago.  It was more like 30 years ago when condos were still a relatively new idea

It had to do with building techniques that were popular with deveolpers in the states and were thought to be a great design by everyone.  They were a less expensive but sturdy design and the city approved them and developers though they'd work great. Turns out that in vancouver's climate they weren't so great and that this design and structure which was used in many buildings trapped moisture and caused rot that woudln't happen in other places in the states as much.

So - it was just a crappy design but no one knew it.  It had nothing in the slightest to do with  rushing anything or gov't.

And at the end of the day - we don't have enough homes. We need to have enough homes,  So we're going to have to build more homes. That's where we're at.

 

[eyeball]

Everything we're hearing about building housing is that new buildings will be years in the making.The only potential fast solution to provide housing within a year or two is to increase density within existing single residence neighborhoods.

This could be coupled with incentives and grants to help people get started on the necessary renovations.

There's an awful lot of attention being given to cracking down on illegal short-term rentals in the hopes that shutting a bunch down will result in freeing up a bunch of long-term space. Why? Most of the long-term spaces are just as illegal for the same reason.... Nimby's in a word.

 

[blackbird]

In the present climate there are countless NIMBY groups opposing home construction or apartment construction in towns and cities across Canada.  A company where I live was planning to build a billion dollar housing development on the edge of town.  All the NIMBYs got together and made big protests to the town council.  This project would have created homes for  many people and created thousands of construction jobs for years. I have not heard what happened to this project the past couple of years.  This is one of the problems.  It takes years for projects to be approved or they are destroyed by environmentalists, NIMBYs, and foot dragging politicians and red tape.  The BC building code is a frightening mass of regulations that would fill many books. 

As example of excessive government over reach and authoritarianism is in 2014, Vancouver banned the round door knob in new homes and required levers to be install instead. Ban the doorknob? Building code change removes choice for renovations contractors | Canadian Contractor

Edited September 15, 2023 by blackbird

[Michael Hardner]

57 minutes ago, eyeball said:

1. The only potential fast solution to provide housing within a year or two is to increase density within existing single residence neighborhoods.

 

1. Cut foreign students...

[eyeball]

4 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. Cut foreign students...

That might help near universities.

[Nexii]

4 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

So you mean.. parents and who else?

People who have gone through transition from a young age. What's the detransition rate and common reasons for it? We don't know.

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

That might help near universities.

Colleges and side campuses are everywhere...

56 minutes ago, Nexii said:

People who have gone through transition from a young age. What's the detransition rate and common reasons for it? We don't know.

Well that's good but we're taking about the political process here.

[blackbird]

PP raised a good question.  Why are apartment buildings not being built on a massive scale close to rapid transit stations?  This would make sense for students, seniors, and everyone.  It would reduce the need for a motor vehicle for many people as well.  Also PP plans to take 15% of federal land and sell it to developers to build housing and apartments.  That is a great idea.  He also promises to withhold funding from municipalities that do not approve a minimum number of building permit applications and reward municipalities that do meet or exceed the requirement.  Again he hits the target.  He will also go after the CMHC and fire executives or withhold bonuses if they are not speeding up the building of homes and force them to do so.  Apparently the CMHC has put up roadblocks to getting homes built.  Why have the liberals not done these things the past eight years?

[blackbird]

6 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Common sense tells us that if we cannot afford a house, don't buy it. We are hypocritical if we demand our governments live within their means when we don't. 

Oh yes, spread the blame around and let the government off the hook.  The truth is nine out of ten young people will never be able to afford a home, no matter what, because the prices are far out of their ability to afford.   If you are a young person and you must pay $2,000 or $3000 or more per month for rent, buy groceries, pay for gas for your car, etc., you will never be able to save up 5% or $50,000 to buy a home for a million dollars.  Many young people do not make $40 or $50 an hour either and their monthly income is just not enough to save much money.

Edited September 15, 2023 by blackbird

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Colleges and side campuses are everywhere...

I wonder what sort of impact the education industry has on the supply of rental housing compared to the tourism/BNB industry?

This big city problem is similar in nature to the housing issues in small tourist towns. In both cases there's a clear demand for more people to fuel a local economy. As it is with BNB hosts and tourists there's more money to be made off short term student renters.

How many educators and campuses would lose their jobs or go broke if the supply of foreign students was reduced?

 

[Michael Hardner]

42 minutes ago, eyeball said:

I wonder what sort of impact the education industry has on the supply of rental housing compared to the tourism/BNB industry?

 

Yea, both need to dealt with... not giving money to developers to make homes in five years.

 

Also end renovictions.

[CdnFox]

6 hours ago, eyeball said:

Everything we're hearing about building housing is that new buildings will be years in the making.The only potential fast solution to provide housing within a year or two is to increase density within existing single residence neighborhoods.

 

Easily one of the less informed things you've said.  Increasing density actually takes more time and is more expensive. Density is a long term planning issue. 

What  - did you think justin could just say "i'd like to buy a billion dollars worth of density please - could have that shipped to me?"

The short term fix is to reduce population growth to lower than the buildings currently in the pipe.  That can have a massive effect on rents and home prices within months.

The longer term plans have to revolve around reducing application and permit times and incentivising developers to build ahead of need rather than behind it which essentially means building before all the homes are sold.  Do that and the problem with slowly vanish

But density?  no - where the hell did you get it in your head that was a 'fast ' solution?

[CdnFox]

47 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

 

Also end renovictions.

When you try to make landlords some sort of social safety net, it tends to go badly. When tenants have all the rights and a landlord cannot even upgrade his personal property to get a higher value for it, you're creating an unworkable lopsided arrangement,

What you end up with is fewer rental units and sky high rent prices.

Oh ... wait....

You can't 'communist' your way out of this. Turning the free market off is how we got into this mess, you can't repress people hard enough to make this go away.

SIgh, and people wonder how the problem came up in the first place. It's no wonder fewer and fewer people want to be landlords.

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

Yea, both need to dealt with... not giving money to developers to make homes in five years.

Also end renovictions.

Many if not most councillors around here own and operate strs. It's a tough nut to crack, especially given how long its taken for local governments to tackle the issue.  I feel pretty fortunate our regional district staff and planners acted early to develop a permitting regime. That said I'm only one out of 4 permitted operators in a small sea of bnb's operating without permits.

Given the way the crackdown is unfolding in different places I doubt there's going to be a lot of sympathy for the unpermitted. That said it'll be interesting to see how much latitude there might be for allowing some of these to convert to long-term rentals.  There's been latitude for local property owners who have hosted urban campgrounds for people desperate for a place to live.  There's been pressure on municipalities from local employers desperate for workers to show that latitude.

It's interesting times in the local land use planning world around here.

Edited September 15, 2023 by eyeball

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

PP raised a good question.  Why are apartment buildings not being built on a massive scale close to rapid transit stations? PP raised a good question.  Why are apartment buildings not being built on a massive scale close to rapid transit stations?  This would make sense for students, seniors, and everyone.  It would reduce the need for a motor vehicle for many people as well.  Also PP plans to take 15% of federal land and sell it to developers to build housing and apartments.  That is a great idea.  He also promises to withhold funding from municipalities that do not approve a minimum number of building permit applications and reward municipalities that do meet or exceed the requirement.  Again he hits the target.  He will also go after the CMHC and fire executives or withhold bonuses if they are not speeding up the building of homes and force them to do so.  Apparently the CMHC has put up roadblocks to getting homes built.  Why have the liberals not done these things the past eight years?

Nimby's.

Like Trudeau, Poilievre will also fail to build apartments on massive scales, for the same reason. Municipal and Regional District governments are where the rubber hits the road on getting development in their jurisdictions moving and these governments are accountable to people that elect them.  These governments are quite capable of dealing with the issue, look for example at the fact the vast bulk of action taken to combat climate change has happened at their level.    

Poilievre inadvertently though does highlight, through his suggestion for apartments, that by far the real issue with affordable housing is affordability for renters.  As for perceived shortages of new homes for new owners...the most optimistic estimates I've seen for affordable new houses starts at 500 grand a pop delivered years from now. 

Poilievre would do better to address people's fears about increasing density because most of those fears, of crime especially, are often unfounded.  Unfortunately however Poilievre is likelier to try and exploit that fear so... Scratch that idea I guess.

But seriously a good deal of housing could be made available by legalizing secondary residences in single residence neighborhoods. Further to that a prospective landlord could probably do much of the work themselves or get contractors to make the renovations.  This should be the fastest route to meeting the demand for long term rentals and it could start happening very quickly given the right conditions.

This is where federal and provincial leaders should come in.  I suppose there will be room for some of the carrot and stick approach Poilievre prescribes but politicians should also strive to make this issue a human issue.  People need places to live, everyone gets that. People desperate for a place to live need advocates at the leadership level to appeal to existing homeowners for people who might have a place to rent.  In addition to nimbyism there also appears to be a relatively new big hurdle against renters these days, landlord hesitancy.  Stories abound these days about the difficulties landlords face with rules and a broken conflict resolution system that make it possible for tenants to virtually bankrupt them.

Yes there is a need for new construction but that's a long term solution that will take years.  Housing is a problem that's in our face now.  There are things we could be doing now to deal with it.

[eyeball]

I do wonder what will become of people who've invested in unpermitted strs.  My wife and I spent $50000 converting the house we built and raised our kids into a nice retirement income.  It's bleedingly obvious why landlords want to renovict and go short term.  What I don't get is why so many don't protect their investment and opportunity by having it legalised and permitted/licenced.  There will be pain.

The next step for us will be to rezone our property.  In theory that should result in something more permanent than a temporary use permit - like a boat with a fishing license or a taxi with a licence and the licence is where the real value lies.

Crackin' down and gettin' tough on unpermitted bnb's is going to be tough on governments tasked with the job, there will be blood.  That said given the potential money involved there will of course also be opportunities.

Keep a close eye on your councillors and planners.

[blackbird]

11 hours ago, eyeball said:

These governments are quite capable of dealing with the issue, look for example at the fact the vast bulk of action taken to combat climate change has happened at their level.    

I don't have much faith in municipal and regional district governments.  They can't even seem to manage the recycling facility properly.  I went to the recycling depot on a Tuesday with a trailer load of flattened cardboard boxes and their cardboard container was full to the brim and the guy told me I would have to travel to the landfill site many kilometers away outside of town because the cardboard bin would not be empty until Thursday morning.  I also tried to drop off a small 1 lb. propane bottle at the recycling depot and they said they don't take them and didn't know where to take it.  I tried several places like the Co-op gas station and they wouldn't take it, although I think they took the larger propane bottles (probably because there was some money in those ones).

For municipal or regional governments to try to fight climate change is a joke.  Man cannot control the climate.  The regional government started making everyone put organics in a bin and said this will keep it out of the landfill site and lower CO2 emissions.  This is a lie.  Doesn't matter where you place organics; it will still emit the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere.  This just proves their absolute ignorance.  They don't know what they are doing.

11 hours ago, eyeball said:

Like Trudeau, Poilievre will also fail to build apartments on massive scales,

I am not sure about that.  It is a very complicated subject.  But Trudeau just doesn't get it and is doing next to nothing.

I would be willing to give a different party and leader a chance to see what they can do because the Liberals and NDP have had eight years and the problem has just gotten a lot worse.   

I think drastic actions will have to be taken at all levels of government.  But basically we depend on private construction companies to do the job.  They will have to be given the keys, resources, and the gate keepers will have to be dragged out of the way, kicking and shouting.  That means local governments will have to be legislated out of way and environmentalists subdued and ignored.  I am not sure PP's financial incentives for municipalities will be enough to do the job.  It may take far more intervention by the federal government and provincial governments.

Edited September 15, 2023 by blackbird

[Michael Hardner]

9 hours ago, eyeball said:

Many if not most councillors around here own and operate strs. It's a tough nut to crack, especially given how long its taken for local governments to tackle the issue.  I feel pretty fortunate our regional district staff and planners acted early to develop a permitting regime. That said I'm only one out of 4 permitted operators in a small sea of bnb's operating without permits.

Given the way the crackdown is unfolding in different places I doubt there's going to be a lot of sympathy for the unpermitted. That said it'll be interesting to see how much latitude there might be for allowing some of these to convert to long-term rentals.  There's been latitude for local property owners who have hosted urban campgrounds for people desperate for a place to live.  There's been pressure on municipalities from local employers desperate for workers to show that latitude.

It's interesting times in the local land use planning world around here.

Yeah funny how conflict of interest goes.

Poilievre is said to be a landlord so does he have the integrity to crash his own investments ?