• 4 Posts
  • 98 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • My problem with Ford has never been that he doesn’t like Canada, or is a sellout. I honestly just feel like he’s a very average small/mid business owner here, who got himself elected and is treating it like he’d run his own business, which is decidedly NOT how a government should be run. He seems to think he can get away with stuff like the Greenbelt development, or push his own viewpoints like the wind turbine cancellations, which are exactly the kind of short sighted/backroom deal I’d expect from a small business person.

    That being said, I’d take him over Trump-esque any day.


  • I work in road construction. I could maybe see this being feasible in highly localized critical areas, but this kind of road method can’t become commonplace. Canada just has too many roads.

    Maybe a bridge along the DVP in Toronto that always has bad ice accidents, or a major bike arterial path, but the numbers don’t make sense for anywhere else. If a road/bridge is truly that bad for accidents, the Municipality is likely cheaper to redesign the approach/descent angles or change the speed limit rather than try this.

    I note they don’t talk about how much road a 50 or 60 ton system would be able to serve, compared to the Vancouver budget, or what maintenance costs are on a system that size. The article they link to discussing the system costs is specifically looking at the costs of a BTES system for buildings/complexs.




  • I always feel a little confused by people using “populism” as a bad thing. The literal definition is “appealing to the masses who feel their concerns are being ignored by those in power.” That is a good thing, provided they aren’t lying about their goals. Cost of living is going up and corporations are raking in record profits, homelessness is on the rise, etc. These are all problems that I feel could be addressed better by non neoliberal policies that actually don’t further entrench those in power.

    Populism by itself isn’t bad.





  • Every letter still requires paid postage. The problem is, if you set the cost to be actual cost incurred, then anywhere remote or rural will be ridiculously expensive, and no one will send stuff, making the packages/letters that do need to be sent even more expensive, and creating a death spiral. It’s no different than a million other public services that we pay for despite not using (public rec centers are sponsored in part by taxes despite charging admission/membership fees, daycare facilities get partially paid by the government, universities get some tax money despite the crazy fees we pay, etc).

    But regarding the pension, I disagree - I believe that every job should be sufficient for someone to live comfortably on - why do we have jobs if someone can’t live on them? And the reason they pay well and have pensions is because they’re unionized, aznd have fought for the pay and pension they have.




  • This shouldn’t be a surprise, but I’m glad we have the data to prove it.

    Home prices have skyrocketed recently. Home owners whos earner is boomer-aged obviously bought long ago, and the housing prices have beaten investments in that time period (Assuming houses bough 30-40yrs ago). Anyone who rented and invested the difference is obviously not going to compete.

    Additionally, given the insanity of the rental market, anyone under 35 who has enough income to afford the monthly payments on a house has purchased in the last few years, so those who are still renting are likely those at the bottom, unable to purchase a house, and their income is likely the lowest, exacerbating this issue.

    I have yet to see anyone who can give me a good reason we don’t have laws preventing:

    • Corporate ownership of land zoned residential
    • Increasing property tax rates for each additional residential property (ie any property not classified as primary residence). It still leaves loopholes (my wife lives at house A full time, I live at house B full time), but seems like an easier way to try and shore up the speculators.

    Overall, the survey found the median net worth of Canadian households was $519,700, up 57 per cent from 2019 when it was last conducted.

    How big can a bubble get if its being artificially inflated and supported by government and businesses?-






  • Lol I quoted something from not just this article, but a second article they link to from the one above, but sure.

    They blocked her, at least in part, because she was an active alcoholic who had not shown any signs of changing her behaviour outside of time inside the hospital. Something that would have weighed on their decision included medical information such as previous attempts to stop drinking. Mental health care, including healthcare for addictions, is lacking in Canada. You can’t force someone to go into rehab, but offering better care and options might have helped her in the past.

    As said in the main article as well as the one I read, in order to qualify for a living donation you need to qualify for a full donation, because if something goes wrong you’ll need a full liver ASAP and get bumped to the top of the list.


  • Medical notes suggest she started drinking in her late teens and had tried – unsuccessfully – to quit. After periods of sobriety, she returned to alcohol, which could increase the risk of continued use after the transplant.

    Allen says Huska registered for an addiction program early on in her hospital stay to stop drinking after she’s discharged. Hospital records also say she suffers from anxiety.

    From the first article CTV made about this, linked in in the first sentence they posted. Seems like we need to actually fund mental health care in this country or something, because she’s obviously been struggling for a while. You can see how the board would weigh previous failed attempts to quit against her.