Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[lucky1]

Should be interesting to see how Patty Hajdu manages the current Canada Post debacle. the latest report and recommendations issued by the govt appointed mediator are pretty damning - Can Post is basically insolvent and cannot sustain its current operating model (let alone meeting any of the Union Current demands) unless the Fed Govt (taxpayers) bail out the crown corporation. Can Post has always been run at arms length, supporting itself with its own revenues - seems its to the point where the govt has to abandon this model take over the budget ad hoc. Its a cornerstone of being a country to have reliable mail service I would think

[GGG]

End door to door delivery and put the community boxes everywhere. They never should have stopped it despite it being politically unpopular.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by GGG

End door to door delivery and put the community boxes everywhere. They never should have stopped it despite it being politically unpopular.

And how's that going to work in rural/remote communities where some people can't drive and are reliant on door to door?

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by rubecube

And how's that going to work in rural/remote communities where some people can't drive and are reliant on door to door?

The rural community where I grew up never had door to door mail. It was a weird thing for me when I moved to the city.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by rubecube

And how's that going to work in rural/remote communities where some people can't drive and are reliant on door to door?

At no point should they have to deal with any consequences of their own decisions! Hear! Hear!!

[puffnstuff]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montr...onne-1.7535613

The Bloc Québécois#is calling on the#Superior Court of Quebec#to order a byelection#in the riding of Terrebonne, where the party#lost by one vote,#as Elections Canada revealed issues with five more mail-in ballots.

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet#announced at#a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday#that the party is challenging the result of the riding.#



So if a judicial ruling determines a by-election is warranted and then called, shouldnt someone wanting to be an MP, say because they lost their election, run there instead of triggering a costly election somewhere else?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GGG

End door to door delivery and put the community boxes everywhere. They never should have stopped it despite it being politically unpopular.

I’d be curious to see how much of a savings that is, compared to a lot of the other issues they face. Things like the reluctance to love to 7 day delivery and that lack of competitive instinct seem like far bigger issues than home delivery.

It’s strange that while online shopping and all of the shipping that comes with that could’ve been an enormous boon to CP, they’ve managed to completely miss the boat and are instead working on survival.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Yeah, no government is going to make it their stated policy to drastically reduce nominal home values. That has a bunch of side effects, is largely counterproductive (as it kills investment in new housing), and is politically unpalatable.

And given the drop in nominal prices we've already seen, it really doesn't take a whole lot to get back into a somewhat reasonable range for real property prices.

The problem is, everyone (including the CMHC) uses the early 2000s as a sort of baseline that we need to return to, but that's really not appropriate or realistic. The very cheap housing that existed then stemmed from a confluence of factors that we really don't want to repeat if we can avoid it (e.g. double digit unemployment for a lot of the '90s, a decade and a half of declining growth among the 25-40 year old population, etc.). In fact, that era was an aberration historically (see chart below).

A more realistic target would be the 2010-2019 period which is roughly the median level of the last 30 years and more affordable than almost any point in the 1980-1995 period:



To get housing affordability back to what it was in that era, we need a drop of about 25% (the chart is a bit old, so some of the drop has already happened). For that to happen in 5 years or so, would require:

-continued moderation of mortgages rates into the ~3-3.5% range (which is already on its way to happening)

-flat prices or slight declines

-~2.5-3% annual wage growth, which is lower than average for recent years

None of that is particularly extreme and it doesn't require a huge housing crash. That's not to say a crash won't happen if there's a recession, but it should never be government policy to induce that. The goal should always be a soft landing.

Thanks for the housing affordability graph. I think a lot of younger Canadians would be surprised to learn housing affordability was worse in the early 80s and early 90s.

How do you reconcile this data and your observation that it won’t take much to restore historically-normal housing affordability, with your earlier post justifying generational resentment around housing affordability?

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpo...ostcount=25201

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by rubecube

And how's that going to work in rural/remote communities where some people can't drive and are reliant on door to door?

What rural communities are these that have door to door delivery? Mine sure as hell didn't. But we often picked stuff up for neighbours.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by chemgear

If you don't think that there is a long standing trend of increasing cost of living for people and (snip)

There is also a long standing trend of increased profits for big business.

Coincidence?

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by rubecube

And how's that going to work in rural/remote communities where some people can't drive and are reliant on door to door?

How many people live in rural/remote communities without access to a vehicle? How do they get groceries?

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by D as in David

How many people live in rural/remote communities without access to a vehicle? How do they get groceries?

They get their groceries mailed to them.

Spoiler!

I don't need green text there do I?

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by rubecube

And how's that going to work in rural/remote communities where some people can't drive and are reliant on door to door?

Pay the neighbors kid 10$ a week to grab your mail

[flamesfever]

As of 2020, 86.5 percent of the global population had access to postal services, with 86.5 percent able to have mail delivered to their home. This indicates that most countries have home mail delivery services available to their citizens.

IMO it would be a huge step backwards for Canada to dispense with home mail delivery.

[TorqueDog]

If you live in a rural community (not a small town, but properly 'middle-of-nowhere' rural) then they usually use rural mailbox clusters or community mailboxes, not door-to-door delivery.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

How do you reconcile this data and your observation that it won’t take much to restore historically-normal housing affordability, with your earlier post justifying generational resentment around housing affordability?

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpo...ostcount=25201

There are a few reasons why both can be true:

1) That chart doesn't include the era I was talking about in that post ('60s and '70s). By the '80s high interest rates and housing bubbles made housing pretty unaffordable before real prices retreated later in the decade. I don't think anyone would want to trade places with someone in the early '80s when housing was just as unaffordable, but you were talking about the '60s when things were extremely affordable and people with menial jobs could afford detached houses in cities.

2) That chart covers Canada as a whole. In some areas, things are more out of whack.

3) The current reality (which is a very unaffordable housing market) is what people are going to respond to, not what housing may cost in 5 years if such and such happens. If housing returns to its mean affordability for the last few decades, then I don't think we'll have nearly as much generational resentment.

4) Even where raw affordability metrics are similar between eras, it can be harder to get ahead in the current environment. For someone saving up a downpayment, moving up the housing ladder, or trying to pay their mortgage off earlier, those things are all much more easily accomplished in a low-price high-interest-rate environment like existed pre-2000. Getting a $250K house with a 15% mortgage is going to be significantly easier to manage than getting a $660K house with a 3% mortgage, even though they have the same payment.

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

As of 2020, 86.5 percent of the global population had access to postal services, with 86.5 percent able to have mail delivered to their home. This indicates that most countries have home mail delivery services available to their citizens.

IMO it would be a huge step backwards for Canada to dispense with home mail delivery.

First, I think we need to define 'delivered to their home'. Second, your stats are wrong if delivered to your home does not include a community mailbox as I get my mail to a community mailbox. I think sources are needed.

It is not a god given right to get mail to my house. Up the street is fine. Even in a more central location is fine (thinking Douglasdale with the big ass community mailbox complex is fine.

Why we fight certain things is beyond me.

[WideReceiver]

My mail has been delivered to a community mail box for four decades. I don’t mind it and think door-to-door delivery should be severely reduced or eliminated. I pick up my mail weekly and it’s two minutes one way.

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by rubecube

And how's that going to work in rural/remote communities where some people can't drive and are reliant on door to door?

If they’re that remote, they won’t care if they get a Canadian Tire flyer or not. In these communities the mail already goes to a post office, and everyone needs a way into town to get their useless flyers out of their P O Box.

Door to door service is totally unnecessary and a huge financial loss for Canada Post.

[Amethyst]

I grew up in small town Saskatchewan. The post office was downtown and everyone, from the town and surrounding farms, went there to get it.

If you need more help than asking/paying someone to get it for you, you probably need help with other things that preclude you from living alone in an isolated location.

If we want to say "right to our door" delivery is something we should have, great. Then we should also have a lot of other social services and probably pay taxes in line with countries that have those. Saying that mail delivery should be gold standard, while all other social services are not, seems like you're playing team politics with the current situation, not really caring about services.