BC Lags Behind Other Provinces in Life Satisfaction

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

Vancouver has never allowed mass scale building of higher density housing. AKA the missing middle. They've heavily restricted building and only allowed high end condos to slowly leak out, and always at a rate far below demand.

They have not heavily restricted building. The Crane Index is a good judge of building activity (basically the number of active cranes a city has). Vancouver currently has 197; compare that to Los Angeles (50), Seattle (38), Boston (14), Portland (9), San Francisco (8), New York (5), and Chicago (3). There is an insane amount of building relative to the population growth.

The GVRD added about 85,000 residents into an already overpopulated city. Maybe, percentagewise that's smaller than previous years, but in absolute terms it's higher.

https://vancouversun.com/news/metro-...ents-this-year

You can't possibly believe that there isn't a shortage of housing units?

https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professi...e-need-by-2030

What is inherently different about Greater Vancouver's housing supply compared to where it was 20 years ago when it was much more affordable? In the last 20 years the population has increased by about 930K people. In that same time period, they have added 640K new housing units. Given Vancouver's average household size of 2.1 people, that represents a surplus of about 200K units over what would have been needed to maintain the housing-to-population ratio they had back then. So if it was purely population-driven demand, you would have expected only modest price increases over that period.

So why the discrepancy? The answer is clearly non-population growth based demand. So lower interest rates, increased demand by investors, increased demand by people buying secondary homes, increased costs of construction, etc. That CMHC report is based on none of the latter things changing. They're saying if investors keep snapping up units, government keeps juicing the market, etc., then we need to build x number of houses to bring prices down to early '00s levels (which really isn't a realistic target given historical prices). But building that many units is basically impossible, so the more sensible (and far more cost effective) solution is to tackle those other things while continue to build new units at a realistic pace.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Housing affordability is markedly worse in Canada than in the U.S., and that isn’t because we take a more free market approach to housing.

It's actually not that different these days. Recent data I've seen shows price to income ratios in Canada at about 7.7 vs about 6.7 in the US. And virtually all of that discrepancy can be explained by interest rates and mortgage rules, as Canadians have about 15% more buying power at a given monthly payment.

And obviously the only real reason the US has been more affordable in recent years is because 2008 happened, so I'm not sure I'd hold the US up as some kind of housing ideal. Many of Canada's problems are the same as the US's. Things like letting private interests almost solely dictate construction activity, having loose lending standards, and allowing unrestrained investment in rental properties are things that by their nature will lead to higher prices.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by opendoor

I mean, banning it was kind of stupid, but not for the reasons he's talking about. More because it's not really viable in BC for a host of reasons, and would never make financial sense. A good chunk of the province is seismically unstable, and BC already has significant baseload capacity with hydro. So adding expensive nuclear power to also act as a baseload doesn't do a whole lot other than raise the cost of power.

Whereas, because hydro output can be modulated almost instantaneously, it's well-suited to overcome the downsides of renewable intermittent power sources like wind. If you have significant renewable capacity generating for part of the day/week/month, then you raise the dams and rely less on hydro for those periods. Then when renewables aren't producing, you rely more on hydro.

1) If nuclear was/is not viable, then why even bother banning? All forms of energy should be part of the conversation, some will make more sense than others depending on the circumstance. Let science/geography/economics dictate the right answer, not politics or dogma.

2) I'm also a fan of hydro for many of the reasons you mention. It can definitely can make more sense than nuclear under the right circumstances and geography...which in BC it often does. Having said that, how confident are you that when it comes time to expand that baseload capacity, you’ll be able to build more dams in BC under the current environment? You’ll have the same roadblocks/concerns that we see with every large energy infrastructure project in Canada…land rights, first nations issues, environment concerns, habitat disruption, flooding risks, eco-terrorist disruption, political infighting. Costs will balloon, timelines will increase, and politicians will flip flop.

Doing a quick scan, I see that there is currently one dam being built in the northeast part of the province... started in 2015, at a cost of $16 billion and counting (apparently the most expensive public infrastructure project in BC history). All the other ones were built prior to the 80s. How realistic is it going to be built more of these?

3) Everyone wants something that's cheap, and safe, and quick, and won't take up any space, and won't harm anyone or anything...when nothing of that sort exists. There is no free lunch with any energy source, there are only trade-offs. Like hydro, nuclear isn't perfect either, but has proven to be a highly reliable, safe, efficient (both in energy generation and land use!) form of energy use for almost a century now. It may not always be the answer... but to not even consider it part of the conversation is plain idiotic.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by opendoor

They have not heavily restricted building. The Crane Index is a good judge of building activity (basically the number of active cranes a city has). Vancouver currently has 197; compare that to Los Angeles (50), Seattle (38), Boston (14), Portland (9), San Francisco (8), New York (5), and Chicago (3). There is an insane amount of building relative to the population growth.

What is inherently different about Greater Vancouver's housing supply compared to where it was 20 years ago when it was much more affordable? In the last 20 years the population has increased by about 930K people. In that same time period, they have added 640K new housing units. Given Vancouver's average household size of 2.1 people, that represents a surplus of about 200K units over what would have been needed to maintain the housing-to-population ratio they had back then. So if it was purely population-driven demand, you would have expected only modest price increases over that period.

So why the discrepancy? The answer is clearly non-population growth based demand. So lower interest rates, increased demand by investors, increased demand by people buying secondary homes, increased costs of construction, etc. That CMHC report is based on none of the latter things changing. They're saying if investors keep snapping up units, government keeps juicing the market, etc., then we need to build x number of houses to bring prices down to early '00s levels (which really isn't a realistic target given historical prices). But building that many units is basically impossible, so the more sensible (and far more cost effective) solution is to tackle those other things while continue to build new units at a realistic pace.

Firstly I dispute your numbers. They also don't take into account the quality of housing being supplied. With the exception of Surrey, which saw a bunch of row type housing, although nowhere near the downtown core, there's been almost no row or semi-detached housing:

https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-p...Name=Vancouver

The vast majority of the housing is small condos, and most of the construction, generally, has been in Surrey. You can still buy places in Surrey for $500/square foot. Don't know what that has to do with increasing supply in Vancouver.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Table 5

1) If nuclear was/is not viable, then why even bother banning? All forms of energy should be part of the conversation, some will make more sense than others depending on the circumstance. Let science/geography/economics dictate the right answer, not politics or dogma.

Because the government that banned it were pack of idiots who liked to make a big show about things like that. The funny thing is, Rustad was actually part of that government, but maybe he was less of a climate change skeptic back then.

2) I'm also a fan of hydro for many of the reasons you mention. It can definitely can make more sense than nuclear under the right circumstances and geography...which in BC it often does. Having said that, how confident are you that when it comes time to expand that baseload capacity, you’ll be able to build more dams in BC under the current environment? You’ll have the same roadblocks/concerns that we see with every large energy infrastructure project in Canada…land rights, first nations issues, environment concerns, habitat disruption, flooding risks, eco-terrorist disruption, political infighting. Costs will balloon, timelines will increase, and politicians will flip flop.

Doing a quick scan, I see that there is currently one dam being built in the northeast part of the province... started in 2015, at a cost of $16 billion and counting (apparently the most expensive public infrastructure project in BC history). All the other ones were built prior to the 80s. How realistic is it going to be built more of these?

New baseload isn't really what BC needs. With Site C coming online, BC Hydro is still expecting a surplus of production into the 2030s even with the anticipated increase in demand. But because BC has a lot of electric heating, there are narrow demand peaks during cold snaps that they need to satisfy. Now theoretically they could build nuclear to satisfy baseload demand and then reduce hydro output to save for peak periods. But that is going to raise rates far more than the other option of developing cheap renewables (i.e. wind, small-scale hydro, etc.) to reduce the load on dams and then relying on small amounts of gas or imported electricity to cover peak periods that hydro can't handle.

3) Everyone wants something that's cheap, and safe, and quick, and won't take up any space, and won't harm anyone or anything...when nothing of that sort exists. There is no free lunch with any energy source, there are only trade-offs. Like hydro, nuclear isn't perfect either, but has proven to be a highly reliable, safe, efficient (both in energy generation and land use!) form of energy use for almost a century now. It may not always be the answer... but to not even consider it part of the conversation is plain idiotic.

I guess, but it's just not all that suitable for BC. Just like solar isn't for a lot of the province due to cloud cover during peak demand periods in the winter.

The fact is, there are places that are far more well-suited to nuclear power and with far less paranoia around nuclear, but they aren't building any plants either. So why would BC? Particularly given that there is no real nuclear expertise in the province given hydro's dominance.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

Firstly I dispute your numbers. They also don't take into account the quality of housing being supplied. With the exception of Surrey, which saw a bunch of row type housing, although nowhere near the downtown core, there's been almost no row or semi-detached housing:

https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-p...Name=Vancouver

The vast majority of the housing is small condos, and most of the construction, generally, has been in Surrey. You can still buy places in Surrey for $500/square foot. Don't know what that has to do with increasing supply in Vancouver.

I mean, it's all part of Metro Vancouver. People who can't afford to live in Vancouver proper move to the suburbs like they do everywhere else.

And if condos that no one wants are in massive oversupply, then why have they risen in price at almost the same rate as other forms of housing in Metro Vancouver? Over the last 15 years:

Condos: +98%
Townhouses: +113%
SFH: +148%

Yeah, SFHs have risen more than the other two because their supply is constrained due to being in an urban area. But as you say there's no shortage of condos in Metro Vancouver, yet their prices have skyrocketed. As for Surrey, even with all that construction, condo prices have gone up 160% in the last 15 years, significantly outpacing the price increases of any form of housing in the City of Vancouver.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by opendoor

The fact is, there are places that are far more well-suited to nuclear power and with far less paranoia around nuclear, but they aren't building any plants either. So why would BC? Particularly given that there is no real nuclear expertise in the province given hydro's dominance.

There are currently 60 reactors being built around the world, with another 100+ planned...most of them are in Asia, so it doesn't make the news here. Plenty of countries are also reversing their previous no-nuclear positions (Japan, Britain, Sweden, etc...and hey even California reversed a shutdown). Here in North America, we're still meandering our way out of nuclear paranoia...but there's been a sizeable shift the last couple of years. Just gotta wait for the Jane Fonda hippies to die out.

But I do agree with you, BC will probably be the last place in Canada to build a nuclear plant, for practical reasons or otherwise.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Table 5

There are currently 60 reactors being built around the world, with another 100+ planned...most of them are in Asia, so it doesn't make the news here. Plenty of countries are also reversing their previous no-nuclear positions (Japan, Britain, Sweden, etc...and hey even California reversed a shutdown). Here in North America, we're still meandering our way out of nuclear paranoia...but there's been a sizeable shift the last couple of years. Just gotta wait for the Jane Fonda hippies to die out.

But I do agree with you, BC will probably be the last place in Canada to build a nuclear plant, for practical reasons or otherwise.

I think another reason that BC might not be the best suited for a nuclear is the sheer amount of wildfires we get every year. You can't really build one on the island or lower mainland because of the fault line concerns. The north and eastern interiors are just getting wrecked by wildfires every year.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I think another reason that BC might not be the best suited for a nuclear is the sheer amount of wildfires we get every year. You can't really build one on the island or lower mainland because of the fault line concerns. The north and eastern interiors are just getting wrecked by wildfires every year.

I understand the seismic activity risk, but I don't really see how wildfire risk is any more elevated for a nuclear plant compared to other energy sources. Especially compared to things like wind and solar farms, which are much more exposed, and where we've seen plenty of real-world examples of significant fire damage (both internal and externally sourced).

Multiple layers of safety and security is a big reason why nuclear plants are expensive. Apart from usually being built with sizeable clearance, and close to a water source, these plants are typically built with concrete thick enough to withstand missile attacks. That's gonna have to be one mother of a fire to take that down.

Fire in general is a much bigger risk for renewables. It seems like every few months we hear stories batteries exploding and burning down cars, or entire cargo ships, or buildings. Not that long ago, 22 people were killed in a Lithium battery plant fire in South Korea. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-...fire-1.7244362

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I understand the seismic activity risk, but I don't really see how wildfire risk is any more elevated for a nuclear plant compared to other energy sources. Especially compared to things like wind and solar farms, which are much more exposed, and where we've seen plenty of real-world examples of significant fire damage (both internal and externally sourced).

Multiple layers of safety and security is a big reason why nuclear plants are expensive. Apart from usually being built with sizeable clearance, and close to a water source, these plants are typically built with concrete thick enough to withstand missile attacks. That's gonna have to be one mother of a fire to take that down.

Fire in general is a much bigger risk for renewables. It seems like every few months we hear stories batteries exploding and burning down cars, or entire cargo ships, or buildings. Not that long ago, 22 people were killed in a Lithium battery plant fire in South Korea. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-...fire-1.7244362

Yeah, this is one of those areas I defer to people with more knowledge on the subject. I definitely do not have the expertise to engage in much more than asking questions.

The reason I brought up the wildfire concern is because I remember reading an article on how climate change and the associated volatile weather patterns associated increases the risk of meltdown, etc.

[GGG]

One other reason for BC to not go Nuclear is that it has almost unlimited hydro resources which is the perfect power source to pair with everything. So they don’t have the challenge that an Alberta or a Sask has in look for base load options.

[flylock shox]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Anyways, if we needed more evidence that this party and their leader are ####ing loons, here's John Rustad having a cool chat with Jordan Peterson.

https://vancouversun.com/news/bc-con...terson-podcast

I ended up watching that entire interview on YouTube, and came away impressed with Rustad in the end. Peterson isn't cut out to be an interviewer though - likes the sound of his own voice too much. Some of his questions took about 3 minutes to ask. Also, the long ads hawking his books and workshops are something else. It'll be NFTs next.

Overall, the quality of leadership in BC is multiple levels above where we're at on the national stage. I can see Rustad, Eby, and Furstenau having a really good, civil debate where each engages with issues in a rational way. Hopefully that's how it plays out.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

One other reason for BC to not go Nuclear is that it has almost unlimited hydro resources which is the perfect power source to pair with everything. So they don’t have the challenge that an Alberta or a Sask has in look for base load options.

Yeah. Probably the best investment for them would be more inter-tie with Alberta. They can import cheap power from us when it's windy/sunny here and save the water for other times. That has to be cheaper than new dams at $18 billion a pop.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by GGG

One other reason for BC to not go Nuclear is that it has almost unlimited hydro resources which is the perfect power source to pair with everything. So they don’t have the challenge that an Alberta or a Sask has in look for base load options.

The problem with hydro power in BC is that BCHydro runs it. You may as well start nuclear, it’ll get finished before BCHydro can build anything anyway. The definition of a bureaucratic, slow moving, inefficient mess.

[chemgear]

Pinky swear promise? You're free to go!



https://globalnews.ca/news/10742431/...eased-custody/

A man accused of dragging a young woman into an alley and threatening to stab her has been released from custody.

Vancouver police said the 23-year-old victim was leaving work in East Vancouver around 9 p.m. on Saturday when she was grabbed from behind by a man with a knife.

She was taken into a nearby laneway but three passers-by intervened and the suspect fled.

He was later arrested nearly 30 blocks away.

Vancouver police said they have seized the man’s car and recovered weapons but charges have not yet been approved by Crown counsel.

The 59-year-old has been released with a promise to appear in court at a later date.


https://vpd.ca/news/2024/09/09/vanco...2022-homicide/

A suspect has been arrested and charged with manslaughter following a VPD investigation into the August 2022 death of a Vancouver taxi driver.

VPD initiated an investigation on August 14, 2022, after victim Aden Hersi, 69, was assaulted by a passenger he had driven to the area of Nanaimo Street and East 2nd Avenue. Hersi was taken to hospital with serious injuries. He died more than three months later, on November 22, 2022.

Conway has been released pending his next court appearance on September 24.

[Locke]

But they took his car and his weapons tho...

[opendoor]

Are people really surprised that bail exists? Even in the US, most non-capital charges are eligible for bail, so why wouldn't they be here?

It's also funny that much like crime statistics show crime rates being at near all-time lows (despite people thinking the opposite), we currently have the most restrictive bail system in modern Canadian history. Not necessarily by intention, to be fair. But relative to the overall population, the current number of people being held in remand (either awaiting a bail decision or being denied bail) is about 4 times higher than it was 40 years ago. That's despite the overall incarceration rate remaining generally steady in that time period and with crime rates dropping precipitously.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Are people really surprised that bail exists? Even in the US, most non-capital charges are eligible for bail, so why wouldn't they be here?

It's also funny that much like crime statistics show crime rates being at near all-time lows (despite people thinking the opposite), we currently have the most restrictive bail system in modern Canadian history. Not necessarily by intention, to be fair. But relative to the overall population, the current number of people being held in remand (either awaiting a bail decision or being denied bail) is about 4 times higher than it was 40 years ago. That's despite the overall incarceration rate remaining generally steady in that time period and with crime rates dropping precipitously.

Feelings don't care about facts.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Feelings don't care about facts.

Here's a feeling I have. I feel like people accused of violent crime should be denied bail. Weird feeling I know. lol I'm so weird.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by White Out 403

Here's a feeling I have. I feel like people accused of violent crime should be denied bail. Weird feeling I know. lol I'm so weird.

Even the wrongly accused?