LeafGm
Well-known member
Doug not realizing that Ottawa is actually in Ontario would explain him doing fuck-all during the trucker protest despite it being provincial jurisdiction.
New Canadian Politics Thread
- Thread starter MindzEye
- Start date
Doug not realizing that Ottawa is actually in Ontario would explain him doing fuck-all during the trucker protest despite it being provincial jurisdiction.
LeafGm
Well-known member
I love that he drives a pickup truck too.
Never once in his entire life has that man ever taken part in any activity that you'd actually need a pickup truck for.
lecoqsportif
Well-known member
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Fukkin berta baby
hockeylover
Well-known member
Leafyblue
Well-known member
GOLDSTEIN: Ford spending at faster pace than Wynne, study finds
"Ontario could balance its budget this spring by lowering its spending (levels) to those it inherited."
torontosun.com
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
Federal budget to include $10B housing plan, $8B for defence
As Canadians face a cost of living crunch, tackling housing affordability is going to be a main feature of Thursday's federal budget, seeing the Liberals earmark $10 billion towards this aim. The 2022 federal budget will also include a defence spending increase over multiple years, but the...
www.ctvnews.ca
Not sure how exactly the government will be able to enforce this foreign buyers ban. I can see a cottage industry popping up where Canadian citizens use foreigners' money to buy real estate on their behalf for a fee.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Federal budget to include $10B housing plan, $8B for defence
As Canadians face a cost of living crunch, tackling housing affordability is going to be a main feature of Thursday's federal budget, seeing the Liberals earmark $10 billion towards this aim. The 2022 federal budget will also include a defence spending increase over multiple years, but the...
Not sure how exactly the government will be able to enforce this foreign buyers ban. I can see a cottage industry popping up where Canadian citizens use foreigners' money to buy real estate on their behalf for a fee.
Mexico has had a foreign buyer ban on any property within 160km of the coast for decades and they've had no problem enforcing it. There is a legal mechanism that allows a real estate trust to hold the property for foreign buyers, but the trust holder (realty corp, lawyer, etc) has a ton of requirements or they risk losing their ability to hold in trust on a clients behalf.
Basically, there's all sorts of ways to skin that cat and keep foreign money out of the real estate market if we choose to. Increase financial account disclosure to show the down-payment has been in the buyers possession for a long time would be the easiest though. Scrutinize all cash real estate transactions more closely, etc.
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
I'm just wondering if this policy is just red meat for the voters while the reality will be that wealthy foreigners will be given some sort of key to the back door. I don't know if there's much political will to stop rich people from driving the real estate market higher. After all, real estate developers vote.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
The whole thing is red meat for voters, its largely a non issue. Foreign buyers represent about 5% of Toronto purchases and even then, only in select sub markets (mostly condos...and mostly condos that wouldn't get built without the foreign money pushing those pre orders over the finish line for the projects to get bank loans). Demographics (millennials coming of age before boomers have died off en masse, which is kind of a first in human history...the olds live a lot longer than our systems were build to expect), local politics (zoning has sucked for generations, building multi family outside of certain areas was a permitting/zoning nightmare, that's changing thankfully), and macro economics (an entire generation of extremely low interest rates) are the largest driver of GTA home purchasing, but are way harder to explain to the average voter than "evil rich foreigners" so here we are.
We live in a complicated world, but we're not capable of having complicated discussions so "fuck those foreigners" is what the Feds are going to sell us instead.
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MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Sure, but extend the financial disclosure window to whatever is necessary...12 months, 18, whatever. If they want to park their money in a Canadian bank account for 18-24 months before being able to use it to purchase a property...well, fuck, so be it. Hard to stop that.
But again, it's largely a red herring that is barely a top 5 issue effecting price imo. There's a bunch of things that can be done.
- End blind bidding. Allow all registered agents to see any legally binding bid. Right now buy side agents are cutting each other's throats to ensure their clients get the property they want by trying to bully bid. Get 2-3 of those with sufficiently deep pockets and before you know it, you're 30% over ask. The other thing this would do is take away the sales side tactic of strategic under pricing. Super common tactic by sales side agents right now is to list the property at 5-10% under market to "drive interest" and a bidding war.
- Fix the motherfucking zoning
Say hello to Toronto zoning:
Want to build a six-plex or any other multi family housing solution in the areas marked red? Go fuck yourself. This is fucking insane. "Single family zoning" is a thing that should have never existed and is largely an American invention that was meant to keep black/poor people out of the suburbs.
- Increase stress test requirements, especially on variable rate mortgages
- Improve regional transit
- Promote (with tax credits) remote work/flex schedule wherever possible.
- Require muni growth plans to include federally set density targets
- Extend capital gains primary residence exemption to 12+ months to discourage flipping
- Add a significant, significant "vacant home tax". This rubs elbows with foreign buyers, but would address wealthy domestic buyers who are in on the game as well.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
fyp
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
One last thing to mention, is that city planners need to start taking a European approach to density (this concept is starting to become more popular with planners, thankfully.
We've had a one track approach to increasing density over the last 30 years. Build condo towers close to transit access. That's it, that's all.
Europe has been showing us the way to improve cities for decades though...medium density neighbourhoods with walkability...fucking everywhere.
Barcelona:
Paris
Medium density low/mid rises creating walkable neighbourhoods with access to rapid transit >>>
We've had a one track approach to increasing density over the last 30 years. Build condo towers close to transit access. That's it, that's all.
Europe has been showing us the way to improve cities for decades though...medium density neighbourhoods with walkability...fucking everywhere.
Barcelona:
Paris
Medium density low/mid rises creating walkable neighbourhoods with access to rapid transit >>>
UWHabs
Well-known member
One last thing to mention, is that city planners need to start taking a European approach to density (this concept is starting to become more popular with planners, thankfully.
We've had a one track approach to increasing density over the last 30 years. Build condo towers close to transit access. That's it, that's all.
Europe has been showing us the way to improve cities for decades though...medium density neighbourhoods with walkability...fucking everywhere.
Barcelona:
Paris
Medium density low/mid rises creating walkable neighbourhoods with access to rapid transit >>>
It's one thing when you dig into it just absolutely surprises you, that all the big European cities like London, Madrid, and Paris actually have much larger population densities than even NY, LA or Chicago. Those cities are just dense everywhere, but you're not crammed in a condo tower.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
At some point (the 50's), North American society decided that a big back yard and a commute to the city every morning was the only way to properly live your life so they modeled an entire economy around the automobile, single family housing, and highways.
MapleLeafBlueJayBoy
Well-known member
Mayor Rob Ford: We have hundreds of cranes in the sky.