New data reveals Canada's senior population is expected to exceed 11 million people by 2043. This rapid rise in the number of older Canadians will have wide-reaching implications on sectors such as health care and employment, with experts sounding the alarm that Canada is not prepared to handle an aging population.
Considering the situation with old-care homes we’ve been hearing these last five years, not even close. Everything from school to medical care, retirement homes and normal homes is a half-century behind in what’s needed. Instead of change we need, we’re constantly fed all the damn feel-good measures that amount to things that should’ve been done decades ago, and no longer fix current issues.
A group of protesters that demonstrated at a rally in support of Palestinians over the weekend in Toronto say a man who was protesting was injured during his arrest — which included an officer kneeling on his neck, something Toronto's former police chief said officers are not trained to do.
To be honest, I’m guessing that they’re trained to push their body weight into the person’s back, but only trained in a controlled environment with compliant trainers, rather than someone out in the open with others yelling, screaming, and throwing objects while the subject is trying to resist.
Ten guys try to do it with minimal training in terrible situations, and at least one of them is going to fuck it up like this. While on camera since everybody’s got one in their pocket nowadays.
While I think this is an issue, I think it’s a minor one. If it was a big problem, we’d see a whole bunch of 2 storey apartments sprinkled amongst single family homes. But I’ve never seen one in all my time in Toronto. Because there’s a whole ton of regulations that make it impossible by just plain making it illegal without jumping through a whole ton of other hoops that make it far too expensive.
I’m not saying fixing this won’t help, but it’s just one of dozens of issues, and a minor one compared to some of them.
The data found about 68 per cent of car shoppers in 2022 who did not own an EV showed an intent to purchase one, but that dropped to 56 per cent this year.
The faster the charger, the more powerful of a charging station you need, and the more expensive they are. No matter how fast your car is capable of charging, it’ll be limited by the charging station so the speed itself won’t change.
On the other hand, solid state batteries are supposed to have quite the increase in charge density so there’s the hope that they can be a lot cheaper since you don’t need as big of a battery.
On the other other hand, isn’t the car market slowing down as a whole? Sales seems to have slowed dramatically these last few years as people are relying on other ways to get around more and more, so rather than replacing cars with EVs, it’s more like cars are just plain disappearing, even it’s only at the rate of partial replacement levels.
Well, that, and Musk’s been torpedoing his own reputation by opening that mouth of his more and more these last few years. Tesla owners always though he was one of them, but he’s been proving them wrong more and more every time he opens that mouth of his, so it’s no surprise that people who are pro-EVs are seriously thinking about ditching Teslas.
Probably more like 4x that, but on the other hand, this is finally a project that is starting to get a little close to the level of added housing that is needed in a single city (presuming this is concentrated around central Vancouver, not being placed around smaller towns or something stupid like that.
Most proposals only amount to 10% those numbers, and 10 years is a realistic time scale as building homes takes time in the first place.
Specifically it’s bad for rich people who own offices, but good for rich people who own businesses that don’t need offices and now aren’t expected to waste money on them.
The issue is that office space is leased for several years at a time, with the shortest leases being something like 5 years. It looks bad on the spread sheets when you have 3 years left on your lease, yet you’re not using those offices because people want to work from home, so a lot of companies are trying to force people to go back to offices so they can get their yearly bonuses, even if it costs the company millions doing so.
Promises mean nothing. We’ll start talking once we get some contract written up.
That, and why 2050? It only takes 10 years to build nuclear plants, so why can’t it be 2040? Or just pump in more money into the joint effort into SMRs?
Honestly, until I see money exchange hands, this is no better than China commiting towards climate change goals while simultaneously building up a dozen new coal power plants.
It’s time to increase fines from $85 to $500 for blocking the box on any and all intersections. Doing so would make it’s safer for everyone including pedestrians.
I remember reading about a particular speeding camera that is actually turned off the majority of the time due to the sheer number of speeding tickets that are produced from it alone. It’s so much that it clogs up the entire system so they just gave up and turned it off for like 2/3rd of the time so the people processing those tickets have time to work on other cameras.
Raising the fines is good and all (rather it really should be done), but I think the entire ticketing system needs to be overhauled as well so that it’s far more streamlined to handle massive loads without hiring thousands of more people to brute force the problem.
The number of people who brag about their fines is staggering, treating them like badges of honor. If you check out automotive forums, you’ll see it all the time, with people trading tips on how to push the limits of the demerit system to avoid having their license revoked without actually fixing their habits. There’s even tips on how to legally obscure your license plate so you can’t get caught on speed cameras.
Also regarding those highway speeding cameras, normal speeding cameras just take two pictures and measure how far the vehicle has moved during that time. Though if you just equip the camera with a doppler radar, you can just directly measure the speed that way.
Rather than the most engagement, it’s starting to become the emotion that creates any engagement at all.
Political apathy has gotten pretty ingrained in the democratic world, let alone here in Canada. And frankly, I can’t blame anybody when it feels like even going out to the polls is a lose-lose situation. Not a single viable candidate you really want to back means that why should you even bother to show up to vote? No matter who gets in the seat, they’ll screw over the majority of the population and hold back any of the real change that’s needed to actually fix any of the prevalent problems that hurt not only the regular folk, but the economy, health, safety, and any number of other things that make a good and prosperous country.
This isn’t China, yet why does it sometimes feel like the upper echelons are growing to more and more resemble the CCP? Or the oligarchy of Russia?
Yup. But it still has brand recognition and most people order something like a triple triple nowadays so it’s little more than liquid coffee crisp. At that point, the quality of the coffee hardly matters, and Tim Horton’s is way cheaper than Starbucks.
The federal government says it will build more than 2,800 homes on its properties, putting it on track to build nearly 30,000 homes on public lands over the next six years.
That’s right. Most likely this is only going to be a sale of public land wholesale on the premise that the buyer will build homes on it. No way anybody short of one of the huge corporations can afford to buy a thousand pieces of land at a time. The land’ll be resold at an exorbitant price once they’re done in the end.
What we need isn’t thousands of detached single family homes, but hundreds of low and mid-rise buildings that each house dozens. There is no system in the world that’ll make single detached homes viable for the entire population. Not to mention that suburbs cost the government more in taxes than they take in, whereas high density neighbourhoods with mixed use buildings are second in economic revenue to downtown cores while providing massive amounts of housing.
I work at a place that spends over a million a year in rent because it uses space from the mixed use first floor of a 30 floor condo. There’s dozens of stores like mine that do the same in the area. Imagine how much property tax the city gets from this? How much money must pass through each and every store to be able to afford such rent? And how pretty much every store in the area is doing pretty well despite stores just a few blocks away are crumbling and dying off because there’s almost no housing in the area unlike this neighbourhood.
People wanting detached homes is fine. But what about us that don’t care about such things? Why don’t we get an option for a small but low cost home?
Immigrants to Canada are increasingly leaving this country for opportunities elsewhere, according to a study(opens in a new tab) conducted by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the Conference Board of Canada....
It’s especially bad when those same newspapers also write articles about how most millennials are living paycheck to paycheck, and a single unexpected $1000 expense is enough to bankrupt them.
I can’t count on how many people I’ve seen who’s become borderline alcoholics as they can’t handle life between work and bills without a steady supply. I live and work in relatively better off parts of Toronto, yet I see dozens of people who are homeless or dealing with serious psychiatrics problems. Seeing someone begging on the streets or trains has become almost a daily occurrence despite it having been quite rare a decade ago. Not to mention all those who sleep on the trains and buses rather than trying to get anywhere.
We as a country have been steered the wrong way for a good decade now, and every measurement I’ve seen regarding the human life index, happiness, international reputation, etc, have all pointed that out. Canada isn’t the bastion of freedom and equality that it used to be. Virtually all our leaders on every level have failed the population, including the opposition.
The sad thing is that Canada is actually in one of the best places to make it’s individual targets compared to most other countries. We’re a rich nation with plentiful resources and all our needs are met domestically. Our major sources of greenhouse emissions are well known and clearly defined. They are also things that all have existing solutions to.
Even if complete elimination isn’t possible, at least doing enough to reach our climate goals should’ve been easy. Heating and fossil fuel production account for more than 30% of our CO2 emissions, both things that could be replaced with electricity from clean sources like nuclear.
The problem is that there is no existing truly green technology as it stands. Wind and solar causes so much pollution in its construction that it’s not much better than natural gas as it stands. Especially once you consider that they need to be replaced every 10 years.
On the other hand, I do agree that we should push on energy development for export. The Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Albertan governments have teamed up to develop SMRs, and hopefully we’ll have a working model in the near future, ripe for mass production and export. It’s not 100% green, but far cleaner than any other technology we can expect to have within the next decade.
Unfortunately politics works counter to economics. You can bankrupt an entire country, yet if you can convince people that it was someone else’s fault, you’ll still get reelected and get a nice fat 7 figures while everything around you burns to the ground.
There is no incentive to make things better beyond pure patriotism, which we all know is pretty damn short in supply in the first place (and always has been at the top). The only incentive for the leaders is how to gain and keep all the benefits of the rich and powerful as they enjoy 5 star accommodations everywhere they go while receiving kickbacks from all the political favours they do to the corporations that helped them get to where they are.
We only get band-aid solutions because they know they can get away with just that. Because all they have to do is yell loud enough that they’re trying really hard to solve the problem, and together with billions spent on propaganda campaigns, enough people are convinced that the system is somewhat working that serious change never happens.
All the while, we’re dealing with a mental health and homeless crisis that you’d more expect from somewhere like Somalia or Myanmar.
According to Rentals.ca and real estate research firm Urbanation, the Canadian market continued its upward trajectory with data suggesting a monthly increase of 1.5 per cent from August, and an annual surge of 11.1 per cent....
I once ran the numbers, and it turned out that even if all my other bills are quadrupled, if my rent alone is halved in return, I’d come out vastly on top. How come one bill come out to more than double of all my other bills combined?
Few military assets are more expensive than fighter jets. Our CF-18s are verging on obsolete and the costs of just keeping them in the air is ballooning as every single part of them are going beyond their operational lives.
We basically won’t have an air fleet in 2 decades if we don’t buy the F-35s now, and trying to refurbish the CF-18s while we hold out for the next generation or something will cost us tens of billions in refurbishment and maintenance fees alone while running an air fleet that can only keep up with 3rd rate air forces. Even if we can somehow hold on until a newer and more cost effective jet comes to market, any discount we can get from that will be nothing compared to the extra cost of keeping the CF-18s running. Not to mention the pure reduction in capacity in the meantime. We still have to patrol the north, and anything we use for that can’t be spending weeks under maintenance between sorties.
In 2016, 13.5% of those between 30-34 lived with their parents, and it’s been rising.
Also in 2011, 73% of 25-29 year olds have never been married where in 1981 it was 26%. I mean, how can you marry when you can’t even get a place of your own? How will people even seriously think about having kids if having a home of their own becomes more and more of a pipe dream?
I might be in the minority, but I’m on the side of just washing our hands from this crap and let the genocidal zealots and the world’s largest prison camp shoot each other like they have for the last half century and focus our energies on more important matters. Like giving names to newborn whales in the Pacific.
This. 90% of modern waste comes from excesses. Everything from kitchen waste to disposables and clothes. We build cheap crap and throw them out after one use all the time, rather than getting quality and enjoying their use for years.
There’s a reason why fast fashion is considered one of the greatest sources of waste in the world.
Theoretically carbon capture can work, but just like you said, it takes additional energy to capture carbon, and that amount is more than what it takes to produce the needed electricity if you’re using a carbon based energy source.
That said, if you go for something like nuclear, than you do get a clean source of energy that can be used to capture existing carbon. But we’re already at the point where our energy infrastructure is inadequate for just electrifying what we currently have, and in a few years the Pickering plant is going to have to shut down due to being so old (though apparently the government is trying to delay it as there’s no plans for building a new plant of any sort to replace the Pickering plant).
So even in the best case scenario, it’ll be more than a decade before any sort of large scale carbon capture scheme can even be started, as that’s how long it’ll take to build enough new plants to cover existing demand, let alone accounting for future demand.
Yes, a few tons of high level nuclear waste from every reactor ever made each year is comparable to covering an entire farm for old windmill blades and burnt out solar panels aren’t comparable. Especially since nuclear waste can easily be recycled into new fuel while supposed “green energy” waste can’t.
Hydrogen is problematic, but all the points you’ve made are just typical disinformation on the matter.
First of all, hydrogen tanks don’t explode. Even if you set fire on them, they’ll simply leak and that leak will burn like a pressurized flame until the tank empties. Second, you can’t really transport hydrogen in liquid form, as the boiling temperature for it is far too low (33K). They’re always transported in gaseous form right now under high pressure, which is worse I’ll admit. The energy needed to pressurize hydrogen though, isn’t that much worse than LNG, since natural gas suffers all the same limitations as hydrogen as you’ve proposed.
In addition, the appeal of hydrogen isn’t the energy potential per volume of fuel, but that it is quick to fill a tank compared to charging a battery.
The real downsides of hydrogen is that it is so small, it gets in between the molecules that make up any tank, making them brittle over time. Hydrogen tanks simply don’t last very long, and are expensive to make if you have to replace them yearly. In addition, we haven’t discovered a way to produce hydrogen at an economic level yet. The energy required to produce hydrogen far too high as it is, putting it at something like 20% or so.
Thus, the downsides of hydrogen isn’t safety, but simply that it’s very expensive from making it all the way to storing it.
The volume doesn’t matter. Hydrogen can’t ignite without the presence of oxygen in the first place, and there isn’t any inside the tank. A new fully pressurized hydrogen tank is no more dangerous than a propane or natural gas tank. And we already ship natural gas in this state on specialized container ships.
Since things like iced coffee and unsweetened tea exists, I don’t really have a problem with options, especially since they’ve both become common enough to be canned.
That said, the term “sober curious” just sounds degrading, like you’re saying “that weirdo guy who’s actually wondering what it’s like to be sober” rather than someone who doesn’t want to be a publicly acceptable drug addict.
After selling his software business for millions, Marcel Lebrun decided to pour his time and money into an affordable housing project in Fredericton. CBC’s Harry Forestell takes a closer look at the 12 Neighbours community and its impact on the people who live there.
You know, the first thing I thought of is that you could build like 6x that many homes if you just didn’t bother with the yards and added a second story. I mean, yes, what was done is nice, but it’s basically just a trailer park. I bet that the land alone was like 70% of the cost if not 90% as well, so building the houses more densely would’ve provided for several times as many people for almost no extra cost.
Alternatively, a single mid-rise apartment building would’ve done the same thing on only a fraction of the land, and probably a lot more comfortable to live in, not to mention cheaper on amenities like heating and sewage.
Most of the cost of a home comes from the land sale itself, unless if you’re building somewhere nobody wants the land (in which case there’s nothing nearby to earn a living by as well). Considering that, building larger will only marginally increase the price. Doubly so if the larger building is for more than one resident.
A pair of townhouses can be built for almost the same cost of a single typical single family house, yet house two families on the same plot of land. A condo or apartment can house dozens for the cost of less than 10 normal houses.
Not to mention the reduced cost of plumbing and heating if you build one large building for a community rather than having dozens of separate systems for individual shacks.
Zoning is generally the #1 problem in regards to housing, though mostly as a result. It’s the NIMBY movement as a root cause and the reason why such strict zoning is even a thing.
I agree the bureaucracy is a huge issue. NIMBY is a scourge in the western world.
But still, while he could build one a week, he could also build a 40 unit low rise in a single year, occupying the space of only one block rather than fill a good hectare of wheelless trailers that all need separate sewage and heating systems, and have a total upkeep of only a small fraction of all the independant homes that’ll probably only last for a decade or two without being rebuilt on a regular basis unlike the apartment that could last for 50+.
But how long will that last? Are we talking about just making a few dozen homes one a week and call it a day after we’ve given homes to 1% of those who need it, and having used up all the space within 100km of anything decent? Those homes might be tiny, but they waste space like no tomorrow. Besides, building a low rise isn’t expensive nor takes long at all, yet is far more space effecient. Especially if people don’t mind such small homes.
For the space of four of those units, you could build a single building that could easily house a dozen. Hell, just build a normal house and give everybody their own room, sharing the kitchen and bathroom. It’ll be a nicer place to live on top of housing far more people on a fraction of the land. It’s basically just a college dorm house at that point.
The issue with your suggestion is that you’re presuming that this guy can keep building more buildings, but he sold his company to be able to do this. It’s a one-time deal, unless if he manages to start another company, raise it to a great value, then sell it off again. Even then, that’s a decade venture at least. Planning as well doesn’t take that long, it’s the approval process that does. Planning can be over with in less than a month, and that’s presuming he doesn’t go for an existing plan.
There are always people on the verge of destitution, so either save a handful today, or save several times that many a year or two later. Low and mid-rise apartments are not only massively space efficient, but cost only a fraction to build compared to a hundred individual homes, as the single building shares many of the same components for all the units. Not only does it use less parts, but the amount of labour is only a fraction of so many houses.
I seriously doubt the person built those things by himself. If he did, then I bet there’s no electricity or plumbing, and it would’ve just been better to buy actual trailers as he could have a fleet of them delivered in a few weeks rather than spend years of hard labour building them himself.
I would imagine that fund-raising would work regardless as long as you’re showing that this is a charity thing.
Of course, I bet any sort of joined home would be illegal there as it stands. Zoning laws are the absolute worst in most western countries, making anything but an expensive and space wasting single family house illegal to build in most housing zones. It’s the single biggest reason why housing prices are so out of control, and will likely crash taking 30% of the entire nation’s retirement savings with it in the next decade or so (since most people who buy houses and bet everything on being able to sell it at a massive markup for when they retire).
Can’t say I agree with this at all. The thing about fission that people regularly mistaken about is how much actual waste there is, and how little of a deal it is. Not to mention that all the safety processes and security issues that you mentioned had been solved since the 70s or so. I mean, there’s never been an incident in the entire world regarding nuclear fuel or waste being stolen. Only nations have ever produced a nuclear weapon, dirty or atomic.
And in regards to waste, the amount of high level nuclear waste that’s been produced world wide is only a few dozen tons, all of which can be recycled and reused, cutting down the half-life from millions of years down to only a bit above 200 years, and reducing the total quantity of waste to only a fraction of the original amount. I mean, when people throw around all the nuclear waste numbers, they include low level waste as well, which include things like the radiation suits the workers wear while working near the reactor. Waste that become non-nuclear waste after a holding time of two months and are generally tossed with the trash like normal.
In addition, the worry about natural disasters is entirely a red herring for most nations that build nuclear reactors in the first place. The containment building of a nuclear reactor is designed to survive an actual missile strike. You could have a 747 dive bomb the nuclear plant, and it wont’ crack the containment building. Nothing short of something on the level of a US bomber squadron dropping an entire flight of bombs, or a conventional nuclear weapon, directly on the plant will crack that thing. No natural disaster short of a magnitude 10.0 earthquake or a volcano sprouting underneath the plant will cause any decent nuclear plant to leak radiation.
And if you’re going to mention Fukushima as a counter example, then let me remind you, that it took a direct hit from both an earthquake and a tsunami to disable the plant (the containment building didn’t even crack from that), and the backup generator room drowning for a good 2 weeks without a single nuclear technician not being able to enter the entire city for that duration before the critical explosion happening. The damn reactor, a design that was considered flawed due to putting the generator room underneath the plant instead of above it like the original recommendations to lower the risk of terrorists that the US was worried about in the 70s in a nation without a history of terrorism before the 90s, managed to survive without power for its cooling systems nor any technicians to repair anything for 2 weeks. And to make matters worse, the Fukushima plant was actually slated to be retired a decade before it due to being too old, but was pushed to stay online until a newer plant could be built, so it was even way past its decommission date on top of every other factor going against it. And the worst that happened was a slight elevation of radiation for that one year, and the current discharge of tritium that is magnitudes lower than the amount that pretty much any nuclear plant discharges during normal operations. Far lower than the amount that anyone who sources water from Lake Ontario or the St Lawrence drinks on a regular basis, for example.
Every single point here is the same issues that go into every industry, especially important ones like energy. And nuclear is a far better option compared to any fossil fuel industry anyways.
Besides, the more electricity we generate, the less excuse we have to rely on natural gas for heating, which is one of the top sources of carbon in Canada. Thankfully because hydro generates like 70% of all of Canada’s electricity, but there’s a serious limit to that considering that most of that hydro is generated on the Eastern half of the country and the prairies have almost no waterfalls.
The thing is that people have a terrible level of patience in regards to long term benefits. For example, people constantly advocate for wind and solar, yet both only last ten years before having to be replaced. And as an alternative, natural gas is often proffered and employed, yet they only last about 20 years before being replaced. Nuclear fission plants have a typical lifespan of 60 years, with even existing plants having a theoretical lifespan of over 100 if the will to continuously refurbishing them exists. As things stand, we actually don’t have a single source of energy as cost efficient as nuclear fission as things stand aside from hydro. It’s just that it also has the single greatest initial investment cost as well, and won’t be paid back during the term of any administration that commissions it, as even in the best case scenario, they take 6 years to build, and can often take more than 10.
I do agree that SMRs are a great next step for nuclear as well as power generation in general, but they are also only a stepping stone. They only last 5 years or so before having to be replaced (as they generally cannot be refueled). But at the same time, we can survive using only stepping stones for the next few decades until a better alternative (aside from full scale fission) rounds the corner. I do hope fusion ends up being that power source, but traditional fission (as well as the newer advances in fission) are still one of the most cost effective, efficient, reliable, and safe. They just have a high political hurdle to face, as people fear what they don’t understand and there is no power source right now that people understand less than nuclear.
Culpability party. The whole point is to enact laws that make people culpable for the things they say. If a member of parliament accuse something, and it’s found not to be true, they get some sort of penalty. If they promise something during elections and it doesn’t happen after they get elected, they and their party gets a punishment.
And not just some sort of slap on the wrist, but something substantial enough that repeat offences can be career ending within the field of politics. Politicians need to be responsible for what they say, as words are their weapons of choice, and with the level of power they have, they should also carry that level of responsibility.
While there is something to be said about saying something wrong due to ignorance, it’s another matter to say something with authority on a subject one is ignorant about. You can’t just say something like abortions should be outlawed because women can just turn off their fertility (yes, a politician actually said that).
I know. It’s just idealism at its finest. Just like how proportional representation won’t ever be implement because it won’t ever benifit the one who has the power to put it into practice, such a policy could never actually be enacted.
But I like to dream, even if I know it’ll never happen.
$300k for a house in downtown Tokyo on average. If they can do it simply by having good zoning laws, anybody can do it with a bit of real work.
Not to mention that Finland is known for having zero homeless thanks to public housing as well. Having a safe place to live is the first step to fixing up your life, as if you’re always worried that your possessions can be taken the moment you look away or go do something, there’s no way you can take the time to find a job.
No, I think such low density housing is actually the cause of the problem, at least around the big cities. Toronto already has some pretty terrible transit times at the average being something like 100 minutes each way due to the distance from one’s home to their work place. Increasing density is the only option, though as a compromise, I think townhouses are extremely good.
Get rid of front yards and just make all the houses long, and you can fit as much as 3 units with the same or greater floor space as one of those houses on a single plot of land. Combine that with tons of mid-rise apartments and independent housing is accessible to even those stuck on minimum wage jobs.
A report commissioned by the Alberta government says the province would be entitled to more than half the assets of the Canada Pension Plan - $334 billion - if it were to exit the national retirement savings program in 2027.
And with the declining importance of oil, along with the lack of infrastructure and economic buildup because they didn’t tax that oil revenue properly over the decades, if they really went independent on this, if anything, all retirees would be fucked over the next decade.
Honestly, I bet that the number they came up with was simply based on theoretical contributions according to the profits made on oil without actually looking at the contributions themselves.
The guy who runs Generation Squeeze says building more homes isn’t enough to lower prices, because most people buying houses are already property owners. Property owners can either sell their current house to get a load of cash, or borrow against it to get a load of cash. Either way, they can pay a lot for their next property....
The average Canadian household is less than 3 people due to high rates of single child households and high divorce rates. That leaves quite a few families of 3-4 occupying 2 different residences. Not to mention all the single people who have their own place but are looking, then all the younger people who are past 30 yet still haven’t moved out of their parents places because they have no hope of affording their own home within 100km of where they already live.
You are an exception amongst exceptions. Not only are you still attached, but you have more than 2 children. And while divorce rates aren’t nearly as bad as some would perceive, the rates of families with more than one child, and especially more than two, are so dismally low that the official fertility rate of Canadians is currently at 1.484, with a ton of that being bolstered thanks to immigrants.
Frankly speaking, some of those proposals won’t work I think, and others are little more than bandage solutions.
Increasing the size of cities won’t work, as if you look at satellite photos, you can see that Toronto (as an example) is entirely urbanized about 40km from the lakeshore north, the entire coast westward to Niagra, and eastwards for almost 100km. The urban areas attached to Toronto is basically massive enough that you could spend 4+ hours on the highway just to get from your home to downtown Toronto, and that’s not taking into consideration that in Toronto, it’s actually faster to walk than drive in certain parts during rush hour due to all the traffic already in downtown.
No, what we need is to be allowed to grow upwards, not outwards. We don’t need more houses that are 3+ hours away from work and daily necessities, but places that are in walking distance from at least one of them, and no more than 30 minutes from the other. This can either be done by building 30 floor office buildings out in the suburbs, with a few square kilometers of parking dedicated to those buildings, or we can build up the major cities and tear down the single and two story detached houses. If you make it easy to build low and mid-rise buildings along with other high density mixed-use housing, home prices will naturally fall, making other big changes unnecessary.
I saw that bit, but the reason why I didn’t really mention it is because people tend to chose to live where the money is at, and that’s the big cities. I know how just saying that is a bit condescending towards small cities, but the fact of the matter is that it’s the big cities that are having the biggest housing problems (though I admit they’re not the only ones). Small cities have little issue doing the same mistake that big cities have been making the last hundred years as they haven’t reached a critical mass yet, and you can argue that it’s the small city charm of being more spread out, even if it gives them a massive economic disadvantage.
But the problem for big cities is that by spreading out, they swallow up and destroy small cities. That wouldn’t be much of a problem if development didn’t cause people who work in the big cities to start living in those small cities just to have a place of their own. I knew people who worked in Toronto, yet lived in Barrie, and from what I can tell, a significant percentage of people in Barrie do the same. The same goes for those who live in closer cities around Toronto, but I point out Barrie specifically because it’s over 100km away from Toronto, yet still suffers from this problem.
It’s the big cities that need to fix up their act when it comes to housing, not the small cities, as the small cities need to concentrate more on improving their economic activities. I do admit that they can do both at the same time, but creating a hearty downtown core should be the priority for them, or else they’ll forever just be the backyard of bigger cities that offload their housing crisis onto the small cities.
Hmm…looking closer at the stats, I suppose you have a point. The number of sales are definitely down, even if only marginally. Though the prices of property is going up, it’s not by as much as the drop in total sales.
While I refute that this is definite proof that the bubble is deflating (hopefully not bursting) I’ll admit that it is evidence pointing towards that as long as the trend holds in the grander scheme of things.
I’ll refrain from saying more until we see how the numbers move once interest rates drop back down, as I believe this is one of the biggest causes for the drop in home sales at the moment. Home prices were out of control back when interest was only 0.5%, so it’s a given that the market would cool off when it’s ten times that.
Honestly, I hope you’re right and this’ll mean that housing will cool off and slowly reach a decent level, but I doubt we’ll get it that easy and we’ll be dealing with a crash with the economic fallout going with it while still having a massive housing shortage a decade from now.
This is what Canada will look like in 20 years – are we ready for an aging population? (www.ctvnews.ca)
New data reveals Canada's senior population is expected to exceed 11 million people by 2043. This rapid rise in the number of older Canadians will have wide-reaching implications on sectors such as health care and employment, with experts sounding the alarm that Canada is not prepared to handle an aging population.
Video appears to show officer with knee on protestor's neck, police say it didn't happen (www.cbc.ca)
A group of protesters that demonstrated at a rally in support of Palestinians over the weekend in Toronto say a man who was protesting was injured during his arrest — which included an officer kneeling on his neck, something Toronto's former police chief said officers are not trained to do.
Why North America Can't Build Nice Apartments [Video, 12:09] (www.youtube.com)
Canada faces declining EV interest, report shows, despite push to boost sales (globalnews.ca)
The data found about 68 per cent of car shoppers in 2022 who did not own an EV showed an intent to purchase one, but that dropped to 56 per cent this year.
B.C. housing plan could see 293,000 new units over next decade, says report (www.nationalobserver.com)
It's not just COVID anymore, or a triple-demic. Welcome to the 'new norm' of seasonal illnesses (www.cbc.ca)
Canada vows to triple nuclear power production by 2050 | CTV (london.ctvnews.ca)
It’s time to increase the fines for drivers who block intersections (www.theglobeandmail.com)
It’s time to increase fines from $85 to $500 for blocking the box on any and all intersections. Doing so would make it’s safer for everyone including pedestrians.
Why Alberta says it's entitled to half of Canada’s Pension Plan | About That [Video, 12:14] (www.cbc.ca)
Is this true, Canada? (lemmy.world)
Found in Manchester, UK.
Ottawa says it will build nearly 30K homes on public lands over next 6 years (globalnews.ca)
The federal government says it will build more than 2,800 homes on its properties, putting it on track to build nearly 30,000 homes on public lands over the next six years.
Immigrants explain why they're leaving Canada (www.ctvnews.ca)
Immigrants to Canada are increasingly leaving this country for opportunities elsewhere, according to a study(opens in a new tab) conducted by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the Conference Board of Canada....
Liberal government set to miss 2030 emissions targets, says environment commissioner audit (www.cbc.ca)
Sign away his son or be homeless: Single dad struggling in St. John's housing crisis (www.cbc.ca)
A St. John’s man on the brink of homelessness is facing the possibility of losing his son due to a lack of housing options for people with kids....
Average rental prices in Canada surge to records highs in October 2023: report (www.ctvnews.ca)
According to Rentals.ca and real estate research firm Urbanation, the Canadian market continued its upward trajectory with data suggesting a monthly increase of 1.5 per cent from August, and an annual surge of 11.1 per cent....
F-35 fighter jet to cost Canada $74 billion, says PBO (ottawacitizen.com)
During the 2015 election campaign, Justin Trudeau vowed that his government would never purchase the F-35....
Point of No Return | The Walrus (thewalrus.ca)
Parliament Hill rally calls for a ceasefire in Israel's attacks in Gaza Strip (ottawacitizen.com)
Disposing of a mattress is ridiculously hard. So is the wider struggle for waste sustainability (www.cbc.ca)
Underground carbon storage is the future in Canada. But could it cause earthquakes? (www.cbc.ca)
As ‘sober curious’ trend grows, major brands tap into non-alcoholic drinks - National | Globalnews.ca (globalnews.ca)
Millionaire builds 99 tiny homes to help his community (www.cbc.ca)
After selling his software business for millions, Marcel Lebrun decided to pour his time and money into an affordable housing project in Fredericton. CBC’s Harry Forestell takes a closer look at the 12 Neighbours community and its impact on the people who live there.
Just over half (55%) of Canadians support using nuclear energy to generate electricity (www.ipsos.com)
Canada needs a new political party... What is its platform?
I think a majority of Canadians are kind, hardworking, and want what’s best for their families, friends, neighbours, and the country....
Liberals and Tories demolished Canada’s legacy of social housing (breachmedia.ca)
by The Breach
Alberta deserves more than half CPP assets if it exits program: report (calgary.ctvnews.ca)
A report commissioned by the Alberta government says the province would be entitled to more than half the assets of the Canada Pension Plan - $334 billion - if it were to exit the national retirement savings program in 2027.
Building more isn't enough to lower home prices (www.theglobeandmail.com)
The guy who runs Generation Squeeze says building more homes isn’t enough to lower prices, because most people buying houses are already property owners. Property owners can either sell their current house to get a load of cash, or borrow against it to get a load of cash. Either way, they can pay a lot for their next property....