Federal Government & Politics II

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by thewave46

The ability to borrow against the inflated value of the home, or do a reverse mortgage are not superficial concepts.

Indeed, consumer spending has been partly propped up by HELOCs in this country.

Accessing several hundred thousand dollars of liquidity in one’s retirement golden years without selling the residence is quite possible.

Just one more way to screw young buyers. Instead of reverse mortgages those older owners should sell and downsize if they need to finance their lifestyle.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Just one more way to screw young buyers. Instead of reverse mortgages those older owners should sell and downsize if they need to finance their lifestyle.

The crazy thing right now is that residential neighbourhoods full of 3-bedroom houses are full of 70-90 year old retirees living 1-2 people to a house while young families are stuffing 3, 4, even 5 people into 1-2 bedroom apartments with 800sf if they are lucky.

I live in a mature neighbourhood in suburban Hamilton built between the late 1960's and mid 1980's... In the 200 houses around me there are maybe 10-15 families with children. The rest are all old retirees.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The crazy thing right now is that residential neighbourhoods full of 3-bedroom houses are full of 70-90 year old retirees living 1-2 people to a house while young families are stuffing 3, 4, even 5 people into 1-2 bedroom apartments with 800sf if they are lucky.

I live in a mature neighbourhood in suburban Hamilton built between the late 1960's and mid 1980's... In the 200 houses around me there are maybe 10-15 families with children. The rest are all old retirees.

Yep, and yet many jurisdictions, including BC, allow those seniors to defer their property taxes. Of course leaving their kids to pay off that loan.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

the Liberal's response to last years insane, record-breaking population growth, which has been almost universally panned as absolutely insane policy by basically everyone across the political spectrum?

"Lets double it!"

Oh, but they've promised to something about it, eventually, and only if we reelect them in 2025 - this time they're super serious!

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Oh, but they've promised to something about it, eventually, and only if we reelect them in 2025 - this time they're super serious!

I seriously want to understand their logic. The only sense I can make of it, is that this is now a deliberate attempt to lay a minefield for their successors.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Groan… as we continue to sink further into the abyss.

Honestly, how many decades will it take to recover from this? Of course, recovery doesn’t start until the gates are closed, so I suppose it isn’t a fair question…

This thought that I just had might seem a little “out there”, but the whole scenario seems so nonsensical and illogical, one tends to wonder whether there is some ulterior motive behind all this. I never delve into the world of conspiracy theories, but WTF???

If we do reach 1.5 million newcomers this year, that would mean we’ve had as much population growth in 3 years as we would typically have had over 13 years based on pre-JT trends. This probably isn’t something we recover from but instead just get used to.

This policy was never publicly announced and for much of the last few years the Liberals used obfuscation to pretend it didn’t exist (“we’re only letting in 500k immigrants a year”). The ulterior motive is that they’re a corporatist party and beholden to those interests.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by thewave46

The ability to borrow against the inflated value of the home, or do a reverse mortgage are not superficial concepts.

Indeed, consumer spending has been partly propped up by HELOCs in this country.

Accessing several hundred thousand dollars of liquidity in one’s retirement golden years without selling the residence is quite possible.

I guess in my mindset the ability to take on more debt doesn’t seem like much of a win to me. I always thought that the goal was to pay off one’s mortgage eventually and attempt to live debt free, but these lucky people can now take on more debt than ever. I am obviously out of touch with the values of people out there now.

At least when they die the banks will be able to take ownership of the houses and get them out there to new families (hopefully). In some parallel universe where the Liberals weren’t putting a massive effort into screwing over the country, the bottom might drop out of the housing market, getting some of these houses out into the market at affordable prices. Dream on, right?

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by theman23

If we do reach 1.5 million newcomers this year, that would mean we’ve had as much population growth in 3 years as we would typically have had over 13 years based on pre-JT trends. This probably isn’t something we recover from but instead just get used to.

This policy was never publicly announced and for much of the last few years the Liberals used obfuscation to pretend it didn’t exist (“we’re only letting in 500k immigrants a year”). The ulterior motive is that they’re a corporatist party and beholden to those interests.

This scares the hell out of me.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The crazy thing right now is that residential neighbourhoods full of 3-bedroom houses are full of 70-90 year old retirees living 1-2 people to a house while young families are stuffing 3, 4, even 5 people into 1-2 bedroom apartments with 800sf if they are lucky.

I live in a mature neighbourhood in suburban Hamilton built between the late 1960's and mid 1980's... In the 200 houses around me there are maybe 10-15 families with children. The rest are all old retirees.

If we were to adopt communism as our form of government, the feds could seize all of these houses, put the residents into ’commie block’ buildings, and redistribute the houses to needy families (after filtering off the best ones to friends of the government). Do we really want that, though?

Has there ever been a time in the history democratic/capitalist countries where people felt compelled to give up the very thing they worked their entire lives to pay for so others can have it instead? Especially when the situation was very preventable but forced through by an incompetent government?

Honest to god, people should be directing their ire at the folks who caused this, rather than your neighbour down the street (though the misdirection of anger must feel very convenient to the LPC at the moment…).

To your point, though, unless people have figured out a way to buy a longer life with all this amazing borrowing power they now have, most of those houses will become available to families within the next 10 years. Historically neighborhoods cyclically recycle themselves that way. Though now it will only be rich families, which is a break from the past, though.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by theman23

This policy was never publicly announced and for much of the last few years the Liberals used obfuscation to pretend it didn’t exist (“we’re only letting in 500k immigrants a year”). The ulterior motive is that they’re a corporatist party and beholden to those interests.

The Liberals have out-conservatived the Conservatives and implemented a neoliberal capitalist policy agenda the likes of which the Cons were never able to. During their now-9 year reign they've managed to:

-Oversee the biggest drop to lower, working & middle class prosperity in modern Canadian history.
-Bring income inequality to record highs.
-Increase the homeless population to record highs.
-Inflate property values to the sky, making the wealthiest segment of society even wealthier and creating a "neo feudalist" economy.
-Suppress wages and workers bargaining power by importing workers faster than we can create jobs.
-Benefit landlords at the expense of renters by raising rents faster than ever and bringing vacancy rates to near-zero.
-Bring record profits to our oligarchs & billionaire class.
-Give a big boost to the private healthcare industry by reducing public health care transfers.
-Give a big boost to the private security industry by overseeing a rise in crime & public disorder, by hobbling the justice system.

And so on. They've just wrapped it in a thin veneer of socially progressive rhetoric to sell it to the public. Gives them the added ability to shut down any criticism of their policies by just calling the critic a racist - the irony of course being that the groups most negatively affected by their work have been immigrants, refugees, people of colour, indigenous people, women, and any other marginalized minority groups. Those who've benefited the most skew older, wealthier, and whiter.

The only "liberal" thing about them is their spending and federal public service bloat. And the problem is that we don't really have a viable left-wing alternative. The NDP, for their part have been enablers to all of this; only meekly offering up the occasional bit of lip-service objection. If we're going to have a neoliberal corporatist party in power, might as well have it be the actual Conservatives - they at least have some semblance of interest in balancing the budget.

[lio45]

Indeed, the parties seem to have switched spots. The CPC is the closest thing to a workers' party now, while the Libs-NDP coalition is the party of wage depression and Landed Gentry enrichment. I certainly wouldn't have bet on this, a decade ago!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I seriously want to understand their logic. The only sense I can make of it, is that this is now a deliberate attempt to lay a minefield for their successors.

Exactly what I was going to say -- at this point they must be just trying to poison the well as much as they can, so that the CPC is in the worst position possible 2025-2029.

Yes, my carefully considered theory is that JT is at this point deliberately destroying median Canadian quality of life. No other explanation makes sense... unless maybe a worm ate nearly all of his brain, not just part of it like in RFK Jr's case...

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Has there ever been a time in the history democratic/capitalist countries where people felt compelled to give up the very thing they worked their entire lives to pay for so others can have it instead? Especially when the situation was very preventable but forced through by an incompetent government?

As has been said a hundred times, no one should be forced out of their homes; but the current system subsidizes and enables the elderly to age-in-place long past the point that is economically sustainable, through artificially low property taxes and even property tax deferral programs in some provinces (paid for on the backs of workers and those buying or renting newer, smaller homes through ever-inflating DC's).

In the past, older homeowners would more commonly have sold their large, costly, high-maintenance house and downsized into a smaller condo or townhouse once they reach the point that they can no longer maintain the costs associated with the property. That point has been extended or eliminated entirely. The policies that have created this situation aren't strictly the result of government incompetence: they've been created deliberately to appease the interests of those older homeowning voters & lobbyist groups - many of the same ones who've also voted for the politicians who block the development of more housing.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

As has been said a hundred times, no one should be forced out of their homes; but the current system subsidizes and enables the elderly to age-in-place long past the point that is economically sustainable, through artificially low property taxes and even property tax deferral programs in some provinces (paid for on the backs of workers and those buying or renting newer, smaller homes through ever-inflating DC's).

In the past, older homeowners would more commonly have sold their large, costly, high-maintenance house and downsized into a smaller condo or townhouse once they reach the point that they can no longer maintain the costs associated with the property. That point has been extended or eliminated entirely.

Exactly. It's not "forcing the people to give up their homes", it's "stopping the extremely unfair practice of having people poorer than them subsidize their property taxes". If you can't afford the property taxes, I wouldn't call that "the gubmint is forcing you out of your beloved home". Want to stay there, just pay the fair cost of the services you're using, and no one can get you out of there as long as you want to stay...

It's crystal clear that the only reason we offer tax deferral programs to multimillionaires at ~0% interest is that we're a gerontocracy. No politician dares cross the Boomers.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by lio45

Exactly what I was going to say -- at this point they must be just trying to poison the well as much as they can, so that the CPC is in the worst position possible 2025-2029.

Yes, my carefully considered theory is that JT is at this point deliberately destroying median Canadian quality of life. No other explanation makes sense... unless maybe a worm ate nearly all of his brain, not just part of it like in RFK Jr's case...

This was the possible ulterior motive I was musing about.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

As has been said a hundred times, no one should be forced out of their homes; but the current system subsidizes and enables the elderly to age-in-place long past the point that is economically sustainable, through artificially low property taxes and even property tax deferral programs in some provinces (paid for on the backs of workers and those buying or renting newer, smaller homes through ever-inflating DC's).

In the past, older homeowners would more commonly have sold their large, costly, high-maintenance house and downsized into a smaller condo or townhouse once they reach the point that they can no longer maintain the costs associated with the property. That point has been extended or eliminated entirely. The policies that have created this situation aren't strictly the result of government incompetence: they've been created deliberately to appease the interests of those older homeowning voters & lobbyist groups - many of the same ones who've also voted for the politicians who block the development of more housing.

Downsizing is no longer a thing? I’m still hearing of older people wanting to downsize, although the prospect of not being able to find a property to downsize to appears to be an issue.

Another factor was that provincial governments underfunded and neglected long term care facilities for years, such that there weren’t spaces available for those who could no longer stay in their homes unassisted. As a remedy, they created programs to provide homecare, keeping them in their homes.

[casper]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Monthly visa issuances are down a little, but not by much.

https://open.canada.ca/data/en/datas...c-bc6025fce2ab

That lists permanent residency visas. I think the more interesting one is student temp. visas.

https://open.canada.ca/data/en/datas...e-cef8601816ab

That is down dramatically. India alone went from 26,777 visas issued in February to 4,210 in March.

[casper]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Yep, and yet many jurisdictions, including BC, allow those seniors to defer their property taxes. Of course leaving their kids to pay off that loan.

It is a Lien on the property that must be paid before the property can be transferred to someone else. It is also not interest free.

The regular deferral program it is 5.2% for seniors (55+) and those on a disability.

For those who don't quality as a senior or on disability, they can also make use of the program if they kids. The interest rate is 7.2%.

For those who don't quality as seniors, disabled or families raising kids, but are under financial hardship, there can also do this at 7.2%.

Are you suggesting the program should be scrapped for senior only or for anyone that makes use of the program.

[savevp]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fed...tion-1.7208335

This is a big event in the flow of history surrounding the drug crisis. On the heels of BC's decriminalisation reversal, the Feds have surprisingly rejected Toronto's request for same. The tide seems to have come in on these policies; you can really feel the safe supply/decriminalisation approach of the last decade being seen as a failed experiment. This has changed very quickly.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by casper

It is a Lien on the property that must be paid before the property can be transferred to someone else. It is also not interest free.

The regular deferral program it is 5.2% for seniors (55+) and those on a disability.

For those who don't quality as a senior or on disability, they can also make use of the program if they kids. The interest rate is 7.2%.

For those who don't quality as seniors, disabled or families raising kids, but are under financial hardship, there can also do this at 7.2%.

Are you suggesting the program should be scrapped for senior only or for anyone that makes use of the program.

In BC they could start by scrapping it for anyone who owns a property worth over $1.5 million. At that level you have options.