Meanwhile in Canada

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WhyCzar said:
RIP Gill Scott-Heron @Kimmio Laughterlove

Meanwhile in North America:

From the Indians who welcomed the pilgrims
And to the buffalos who once ruled the plain
Like the vultures circling beneath the dark clouds
Looking for the rain


Just like the cities staggered on the coastline
In a nation that just can't stand much more
Like the forest buried beneath the highway
Never had a chance to grow


The Constitution, a noble piece of paper
Would free society. It struggled but then died in vain
And now Democracy is ragtime on the corner
Hoping for some rain

And I see the robins perched in barren treetops
They’re watching last-ditch racists marching across the floor
But just like the peace sign that vanished in our dreams
Never had a chance to grow


It's winter in America -Gill Scott-Heron
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Yup. That’s one of my favourite songs. We’re probably interpreting it a bit differently.


citationsneeded.libsyn.com

Citations Needed: Episode 95: The Hollow Vanity of Libertarian "Choice" Rhetoric

“'Right-to-work' means freedom and choice,” a Boston Globe op-ed explains. “As housing costs rise, some people are choosing to live on the road instead,” a Fox Business headline states. “If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice,” reads Joe...
citationsneeded.libsyn.com

The racism and peace lines are important for the whole context, too, but you didn’t highlight those.
 
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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
The racism and peace lines are important for the whole context, too, but you didn’t highlight those.
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I did not deliberately highlight any of the lines. I copied and pasted it and when I tried to get rid of the red font after many tries I gave up. What I did intentionally was to interpret it as reflective of NORTH America as this thread was meant to FOCUS on Canadian perspectives.
 
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You quoted Winter In America, to put it into a North American context. And I also am thinking in a North American context. What happens both in the US and in Canada, doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

While this language is superficially appealing, it’s also profoundly deceitful. The notion of “choice” as a gateway to freedom and a sign of societal success isn’t a neutral call for people to exercise some abstract civic power; it’s free-market capitalist ideology manufactured by libertarian and neoliberal think tanks and their mercenary economists and media messaging nodes. Its purpose: to convince people that they have a choice while obscuring the economic factors that ensure they really don’t
citationsneeded.libsyn.com

Citations Needed: Episode 95: The Hollow Vanity of Libertarian "Choice" Rhetoric

“'Right-to-work' means freedom and choice,” a Boston Globe op-ed explains. “As housing costs rise, some people are choosing to live on the road instead,” a Fox Business headline states. “If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice,” reads Joe...
citationsneeded.libsyn.com
 
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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
Its purpose: to convince people that they have a choice while obscuring the economic factors that ensure they really don’t
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What are the economic factors ensuring that you do not have a choice where you currently live or in your own lived experience?
 
Those with wealth and power have the best choices and thus thye hammer all else ... out ... of course!

Thus the item goes like free will ... dune, gone! It's life ... cruel ... and then we disperse ...

PS: Maybe for down time ... below the physical horizon? So many unknown factors ...
 
Why does a Country as vast, richly endowed with natural resources, and underpopulated as Canada have such massive challenges in providing affordable housing?
 
WhyCzar said:
Why does a Country as vast, richly endowed with natural resources, and underpopulated as Canada have such massive challenges in providing affordable housing?
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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
The “Free Market”
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What she said.

To expand, though, we rely on private developers with a profit motive and affordable housing rarely pulls in the kind of profits that high rent apartments or selling high end houses can bring in. Plus we have people using real estate as an investment and they are focussed on their income, not the ability of those in need of housing to pay. And I say that as someone who kind of benefits from the latter since it has pushed up housing prices here and I will likely make a tidy profit if I ever sell my place simply because of the inflated real estate market, not anything I have done.

The only solution may be for government to get into the business themselves or setup a non-profit housing agency to develop properties in an affordable range and fund it with some kind of tax on high end real estate or even an expanded capital gains tax that targets gains from real estate properties. However, that will require buy-in from provincial and municipal governments who are often beholden to developers. Ontario's government, for instance, is being extremely developer-friendly even as they claim to be trying to build more affordable housing.

Controversial hot take: Put a cap on the capital gains exemption for principal residence. If it exceeds, say, $500K or something like that, then the excess is included in capital gains vs. now where it is fully exempted. Not likely to happen, but it would be an option for funding an affordable housing agency.
 
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Mendalla said:
What she said.

To expand, though, we rely on private developers with a profit motive and affordable housing rarely pulls in the kind of profits that high rent apartments or selling high end houses can bring in. Plus we have people using real estate as an investment and they are focussed on their income, not the ability of those in need of housing to pay. And I say that as someone who kind of benefits from the latter since it has pushed up housing prices here and I will likely make a tidy sum if I ever sell my place (built it for c. $250k-300k in 2000, prices in the neighbourhood are now in the $800k-1M range).

The only solution may be for government to get into the business themselves or setup a non-profit housing agency to develop properties in an affordable range and fund it with some kind of tax on high end real estate or even an expanded capital gains tax that targets gains from real estate properties. However, that will require buy-in from provincial and municipal governments who are often beholden to developers. Ontario's government, for instance, is being extremely developer-friendly even as they claim to be trying to build more affordable housing.
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The city I live in is looking at more not-for-profit co-op models, I read recently. That would be nice but it’s still just a consideration. Like you said, for profit developers don’t want to be in the business of building below market housing - especially low income housing.
 
Politicians fearing voter backlash?
Mendalla said:
To expand, though, we rely on private developers with a profit motive and affordable housing rarely pulls in the kind of profits that high rent apartments or selling high end houses can bring in. Plus we have people using real estate as an investment and they are focussed on their income, not the ability of those in need of housing to pay. And I say that as someone who kind of benefits from the latter since it has pushed up housing prices here and I will likely make a tidy profit if I ever sell my place simply because of the inflated real estate market, not anything I have done.
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Rezoning = "ruining suburbs."

Benefit from scarcity = Homeowner "equity gains"
 
WhyCzar said:
Politicians fearing voter backlash?


Rezoning = "ruining suburbs."

Benefit from scarcity = Homeowner "equity gains"
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Sums it up pretty well.

To be fair, a good chunk of those homeowners do need those equity gains. There's still a lot of people who treat their home's value as their retirement plan and will be in for a shock if the bottom ever falls out of residential real estate. Not I, but a lot of people.
 
Here is another "unaffordable housing" bottom line.


Canada’s Skilled Brain Drain: Driven by Housing Unaffordability (Leaky Bucket 2025 Summary)
  • The more skilled the immigrant, the faster they leave: PhDs (22% gone in 5 years), healthcare pros (49%), engineers (42%), senior executives (58–61%).
  • Housing is now the #1 reason skilled immigrants cite for leaving (63% of 2022–2024 leavers).
  • 71% of Canadian tech/healthcare employers say housing costs are the biggest barrier to keeping immigrant talent.
  • 60% of the brain drain goes straight to the United States — often just a short flight or drive away.
  • Annual economic loss: ~$30 billion in taxes, GDP, and replacement costs.
 
Yep. While my son and his partner (both computer engineers) have personal reasons for staying in Canada, we know a lot of best and brightest GenZ folks in tech who have gone South. Not that Silicon Valley is exactly affordable (San Francisco is kind of the American Vancouver in terms of housing), but they can command better incomes and pay lower taxes, which offsets that to a degree.
 
WhyCzar said:
Why does a Country as vast, richly endowed with natural resources, and underpopulated as Canada have such massive challenges in providing affordable housing?
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"Imposed stupidity" as we are preached at ... that the tree of knowledge is evil! I've heard that multiple times in the scripture ... powers keep reading it out loud! Bau' line ... like Brahma ...
 
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