Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[GGG]

Originally Posted by photon

Or a minority conservative government. Trudeau would probably had to have resigned already for that to happen though.

A minority Liberal NDP Government is the end result of the conservatives minority. Trudeau would be asked first by the GG to attempt to form a government and would give enough to the Bloc and NDP to elect a speaker.

Then we would have to listen to people cry about it being undemocratic. This seems like the worst outcome.

[chemgear]

Criminal contempt 7 different times.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...rowth-protests

Green deputy leader sentenced to jail for Fairy Creek old growth protests

Angela Davidson was convicted in January of seven counts of criminal contempt for breaching a court injunction and later her bail conditions.

Angela Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, was convicted in January of seven counts of criminal contempt for breaching a court injunction and later her bail conditions.

She was subsequently arrested six more times, including for returning to the area when she had been ordered not to, and for violating house arrest.

Davidson was named the deputy leader in February, after her conviction.

[timun]

The first respectable news about a member of the Green Party in a long time. I can respect someone who believes that logging old-growth rainforest on Vancouver Island is so wrong they're willing to go to jail over it.

[Azure]

Given Canada's ability, and specifically the province of BCs ability to manage forests, with 10 billion trees planted since 1930, I do not understand why old growth forests are even part of the conversation for harvesting.

[Muta]

Awesome news about Honda's 4-plant, $15 billion investment in Ontario / Canada today!

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Azure

Horgan is even tackling the housing shortage, which is apparently isn't possible in the rest of the country.

Well Eby has been premier since 2022 after Horgan had health problems, but he also abandoned a lot of his activist positions for pragmatic ones.

I think his approach to housing is an upgrade on Horgan's but still not doing enough.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Yeah, the hope is that after a few years of PP’s populism, Canadian voters will welcome the return of a a sober establishment figure like Mark Carney.

Sure, why not? Worked out great for the Weimar Republic, and is doing wonders for the U.S.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Muta

Awesome news about Honda's 4-plant, $15 billion investment in Ontario / Canada today!

$5 billion of government spending for 1000 manufacturing jobs seems like a lot to me. That's $5MM per job.

That $5MM would generate like $200k/year just in interest - seems like it might be more efficient to just cut those Ontario voters cheques directly...

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

$5 billion of government spending for 1000 manufacturing jobs seems like a lot to me. That's $5MM per job.

That $5MM would generate like $200k/year just in interest - seems like it might be more efficient to just cut those Ontario voters cheques directly...

It's also about retaining the existing jobs. If they didn't invest to transition to EV production, how viable would the plants be 15-20 years down the line?

But yeah, the price of the tax credits is steep. But if we're going to compete with the US government spending like drunken sailors to subsidize businesses, that's kind of the reality. And maintaining a manufacturing base is also important long term given the geopolitical uncertainties in the coming decades.

[Geraldsh]

The part I liked about the announcement was the determination to integrate vertically right down to the precious metals mines.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

$5 billion of government spending for 1000 manufacturing jobs seems like a lot to me. That's $5MM per job.

That $5MM would generate like $200k/year just in interest - seems like it might be more efficient to just cut those Ontario voters cheques directly...

Is that direct jobs though? If it’s only direct jobs the indirect jobs portion is much larger. Still a lot in terms of corporate handouts, but this one seems like a nit terrible choice.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I wish we could legitimately vote "none of the above" and if the majority vote that way, we get a caretaker government while all the parties have to flush their leaders and start over.

If you want a Caretaker all you get is Star Trek Voyager...

[chemgear]

Couldn't find an isolated imaged of this graph outside of the tweet (other than it embedded in original Bank of Canada report of course). Crazy how the disconnect has been sustained over the last two and half years.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1778225529516085433


https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-conte...2024-04-10.pdf

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by Locke

If you want a Caretaker all you get is Star Trek Voyager...

Alright, lets do this...

Trudeau is totally Neelix. Friendly, talks too much, really has no discernable skills, and wears on you after a time. Usually successful by accident.

Freeland will be Kes. Could be powerful on her own, but really stuck on Neelix and only really good after she separates from him.

PP is Lon Suder. Mild Mannered, seems to be intelligent and focused, but really just a psyco under it all.

Jagmeet is a Harry Kim. Totally wants to do good and be the guy.. still an ensign.

Blanchet as Joe Carey. Good enough to do the job but nothing special or flashy

And for fun lets add Danielle Smith in as Seska. Thinks she's all that, and tries to use TBA (The Kazon) but instead ends up being used by them.

Finally Nenshi as the Doctor. Full of himself and thinks he is the smartest person in the room. He usually is, but his bedside manner could use some work.

[CliffFletcher]

Pretty clear we aren’t going to catch up on the supply side of housing any time soon. So we need to work on both supply and demand.

The Trudeau government’s promise of 3.87 million new homes is next to impossible

The centrepiece of last week’s federal budget was the Trudeau government’s plan to build 3.87 million homes by 2031. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. estimates that 1.87 million homes are already going to be built – and Ottawa aims to more than double that pace.

How likely is that? Not very.

There are two extremely large obstacles: labour and capital.

Canada already has a record number of people employed in construction. Almost 1.6 million Canadians work in the sector, or 7.8 per cent of the labour force. Both figures are historic highs.

Also already at all-time highs: construction. There were 773,00 housing starts between 2021 and 2023 – more than any other three-year period in Canadian history.

… I asked Mike Moffatt, an economist who has advised the government on housing, what he thought of the work force challenge. “Labour shortages won’t be the issue,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The sector will run out of capital before it runs out of labour.”

That’s because Canada’s economy is already heavily tilted to residential real estate. Last year, 8 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product came from homebuilding. That’s double the U.S. level. It’s nearly double the average of countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

“An extra two million homes will require at least an additional $1-trillion in investment,” wrote Mr. Moffatt. “A trillion dollars isn’t exactly easy to come by.”

…And the Trudeau government’s unreachable building target may aim too low. To achieve affordability solely through more housing, CMHC last year said the number of homes needed could be almost six million. CIBC economist Benjamin Tal pegs the shortfall at closer to seven million.

The logical conclusion is that we can’t build our way to affordability, at least not any time soon. Ottawa has to lean harder on the demand side of the equation. That means significantly reversing the unprecedented spike in the number of temporary residents. Population growth has to come down – way down.


https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...homes-is-next/

[Ironhorse]

It is almost like the Trudeau government didn't think at all about the trickle down effects of importing millions of new residents...

[opendoor]

Building excess inventory to drive down housing prices isn't realistic for a host of reasons. Nor does it even solve the issue if other demand pressures remain intact. Here's a good counter to the conventional and simplistic wisdom that seems to dominate the discourse:

However, where we fundamentally diverge from the conventional wisdom is on two points: 1) ramped-up supply alone is not going to “solve” Canada’s affordability issues, and 2) raging demand, including investment demand, has been every bit of a driver of the lack of affordability as a perceived supply shortfall. Accordingly, the current all-consuming focus on dramatically boosting supply may be misplaced and is frankly unrealistic.

Building is currently at an all time high even in per-capita terms:

There are currently almost 400,000 housing units under construction in Canada, the highest level on record in raw terms, and even surpassing the 1970s building boom in per-capita terms

CMHC using the early 2000s as a benchmark for affordability is disingenuous, as that was a historical aberration caused by a confluence factors, most of which we don't want to repeat (double digit unemployment in the '90s, a decade and a half of declining growth of the 25-40 year old population, etc.):

Moreover, let’s dig into CMHC’s basic assumptions. We believe it is not appropriate to arbitrarily pick 2003 as the benchmark for affordability. It just so happens that Canada’s housing market was unusually affordable (at least relative to history) in the early 2000s, and may thus be an unrealistic benchmark

If we instead look at average housing affordability levels in the 1995-to-2020 period, the homebuilding task becomes much more manageable and within the realm of reality. And the BoC’s affordability measure just happened to clock in at 32% on average over that long time period; that’s typically viewed as a roughly appropriate percentage of disposable income that should be directed to housing costs. And, in fact, housing was not far from these norms as recently as 2019, and really only became unhinged during the pandemic buying frenzy. That frenzy was particularly stoked by not only record-low borrowing costs, which have since been more than reversed, but also by a wide variety of additional factors that created a wave of demand. And we believe that it was this sudden shift in demand that has been the leading cause of the affordability strain—supply didn’t suddenly shift; it never does.

Household wealth as a % of disposable income has doubled in the last 30 years and that money is finding its way into the real estate market more and more.

One underlying demand force that we are dealing with, and which partly explains the seeming relentless strength in investment demand, is the tremendous rise in household wealth in the past 30 years.
...
After subtracting out debt, and even with last year’s widespread market downdraft, the net asset position of households has risen to a massive 1000% of income (doubling from 30 years ago). Looked at another way, household assets are more than six times the size of debt. And while real estate appreciation has accounted for a good portion of the enormous rise in household assets, financial assets have also risen rapidly and account for a bit more than half of the total. This run-up provides households with plentiful financial firepower, and at least some of this deep well is finding its way into real estate investments, whether on an individual basis, in partnerships, or through institutional channels.

https://economics.bmo.com/en/publica...using%20Supply

Abnormal population growth is fuelling demand to some extent. But given that the fastest price appreciation in 2020 to 2022 coincided with population stagnation, and prices have fallen in the fast population growth since, its clearly not the only, or even the primary, factor.

[ThisIsAnOutrage]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Pretty clear we aren’t going to catch up on the supply side of housing any time soon. So we need to work on both supply and demand.

The article is wrong. It's not impossible to build 3.8 million house by 2031. You just have to do it Soviet gulag style. Round up those in need of a home, put them on a train, drop them off in the middle if nowhere, and tell them to build houses.

I wouldn't put it past this government to think that is a good idea.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

It is almost like the Trudeau government didn't think at all about the trickle down effects of importing millions of new residents...

No, they knew. (Nevermind the basic math.)

From public access to information requests, we know that federal public servants warned the government, but the Federal government still actively chose this path.

Wouldn't be surprised if the public servants were accused of being "racists and unCanadian".


https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/gove...osts-1.6720963

Federal public servants warned the government two years ago that large increases to immigration could affect housing affordability and services, internal documents show.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press through an access-to-information request show Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada analyzed the potential effects immigration would have on the economy, housing and services, as it prepared its immigration targets for 2023 to 2025.

The deputy minister, among others, was warned in 2022 that housing construction had not kept up with the pace of population growth.

"In Canada, population growth has exceeded the growth in available housing units," one slide deck reads.

"As the federal authority charged with managing immigration, IRCC policy-makers must understand the misalignment between population growth and housing supply, and how permanent and temporary immigration shapes population growth."

The document reveals federal public servants were well aware of the pressures high population growth would have on housing and services.

"Rapid increases put pressure on health care and affordable housing," public servants warned. "Settlement and resettlement service providers are expressing short-term strain due to labour market conditions, increased levels and the Afghanistan and Ukraine initiatives."

Recent data shows Canada's pace of population growth continues to set records as the country brings in a historic number of temporary residents as well, largely through international student and temporary foreign worker programs.

Experts spanning from Bay Street to academic institutions have warned that Canada's strong population growth is eroding housing affordability, as demand outpaces supply.

The Bank of Canada has offered similar analysis. Deputy governor Toni Gravelle delivered a speech in December warning that strong population growth is pushing rents and home prices upward.

Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo who specializes in immigration policy, says the federal government appears to have "lost control" of temporary migration flows.

[blender]

Originally Posted by Azure

Given Canada's ability, and specifically the province of BCs ability to manage forests, with 10 billion trees planted since 1930, I do not understand why old growth forests are even part of the conversation for harvesting.

Not one of the 10 billion trees planted has grown into the equivalent of an old growth tree, and most likely never will. Old growth forests aren't replaceable. They are are a unique and interdependent ecosystem.