There are many rentals in Canadian Cities to choose from. This has made the process of hunting an apartment more confusing and stressful. This write-up is going to put together the essential tips that will make the process easier and straightforward for you. This will also make sure that tenants
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – PressProgress crunches the numbers on tax loopholes and finds that more and more revenue is being lost to the most glaring loopholes every year. And Andrew Jackson hopes for a sorely-needed response from the federal government to rein in tax avoidance by the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Peter Gowan and Ryan Cooper write about the need for much more affordable social housing across the income spectrum. Rhys Kesselman responds to a few of the more laughable attacks on British Columbia’s more progressive property tax. And Stephen Punwasi discusses the Financial
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Cathy Crowe writes that there’s no excuse for putting off action to provide housing to people who need it – not only because of the inhumanity of waiting, but because there’s plenty of evidence as to what works: Over the years big
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Patrick Gossage discusses the desperate need for Canadian governments at all levels to take meaningful action to eliminate poverty: The reality is that low-income Canadians are invisible and lack political clout. In Toronto, they are concentrated in downtown areas close to the gleaming
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Aditya Chakrabortty describes the Grenfell Tower fire as nothing less than social murder of the UK’s poor: Austerity is at the heart of the Grenfell story. Think of the firefighters, who have seen stations closed and colleagues laid off by May, when
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Krugman criticizes the use of non-compete agreements to trap workers at low wage levels with no opportunity to pursue comparable employment – as well as the Republicans’ insistence on pushing employer-based health care which further limits workers’ options: At this point, in
Continue readingThe Political Road Map: A Shivering Premier in a Hot Housing Market
I am watching Premier Kathleen Wynne and Charles Sousa introduce their Fair Housing Plan and I must say I am both impressed and skeptical. Wynne has mentioned a few times already how she is shivering, while approaching the microphone to answer questions in both English and kindergarten French. Premier Wynne
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Josh Bivens explains why increased fairness would likely lead to improved overall growth for the U.S.’ economy: (O)ne key driver of slow productivity growth in recent years can be fixed: the remaining shortfall between aggregate demand and the economy’s productive potential. Running the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
– Paul Wells argues that climate change and First Nations reconciliation – two of the issues which the Libs have tried to turn into signature priorities – look set to turn into areas of weakness as Justin Trudeau continues his party’s tradition of dithering. And Martin Lukacs writes that Trudeau’s handling of continuing injustice facing First Nations has involved an awful lot of flash but virtually no action:
The extractivist worldview—bent on treating everything as a commodity—that lay behind Stephen Harper’s resource agenda just as powerfully shapes Trudeau’s. In fact, the Liberals’ attempt to wrap themselves in the UN Declaration without embracing its central right may constitute a new, more subtle form of extraction: the extraction from Indigenous territory of consent itself.
Liberal moves to extract and manufacture consent and support for outdated policies are evident elsewhere: restoring funding to the Assembly of First Nations, a government-dependent organization that has since plumped frequently for them; appointing an Indigenous Justice Minister, even though Indigenous critics argue she has sided with the government agenda throughout her political career; and agreeing to call an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, but with a mandate far short of what impacted families wanted. As the weight of reality presses against Trudeau’s rhetoric, the ability to generate consent is crumbling.
Reconciliation is a powerful hope, an uplifting prospect, a deeply desired new relationship that Trudeau has compellingly invoked. But if reconciliation does not include the restitution of land, the recognition of real self-government, the reigning in of abusive police, the remediation of rivers and forests, it will remain a vacant notion, a cynical ploy to preserve a status quo in need not of tinkering but transformation. It will be Canada’s latest in beads and trinkets, a cheap simulation of justice.
– Guy Caron discusses the CRA’s role in Canada’s two-tier tax system. Stephen Punwasi comments on the connection between Canada’s willingness to facilitate tax avoidance, and the real estate bubbles driving housing prices far beyond what working-class Canadians can afford. And Marc Lee then highlights the connection between soaring urban real estate prices and increased inequality.
– David Ball notes that many municipalities are retaking control over their own services after learning that the promises of efficiency through privatization are entirely illusory.
– Richard Orange points out Sweden’s intriguing idea of reducing taxes on repair services to discourage people from throwing out consumer goods. But I’d wonder whether that step alone would make a dent if it isn’t paired with a concerted effort at training potential repair workers for a job which the corporate sector would prefer to eliminate.
– Finally, Paul Mason makes the case for economics to be based on real-world observations of human behaviour, rather than insular mathematical models whose assumptions about market efficiency bear no relationship to reality. And Branko Milanovic discusses the need to measure and reduce inequality as part of a global development strategy.
Continue readingMind Bending Politics: China’s Economic Espionage Against Canada Refuses To Be Dealt With By Government
(China’s Artificially Created Housing Bubble In Canada Set To Burst Warnings Suggest) It’s been no surprise that Canada has long been in a housing bubble. Foreign investors from China have been buying up property in Canadian cities for years, and reselling them to Canadians for way more than the property is worth. China seems to […]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Christopher Jencks discusses why the U.S.’ poor are only getting poorer (in part due to the misapprehension that social programs aren’t available) in reviewing Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer’s $2.00 a Day: Livin…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Miles Corak argues for a “second-chance” society to make up for the damaging effects of inequality – though I’d argue that while he has the principle exactly right, it’s worth defining it as “no person left b…
Continue readingLeft Over: Who Defines “Affordable?”
Vancouver mayor offers $250M of city land for social housing Gregor Robertson is asking the federal government give $500M in return for affordable housing projects CBC News Posted: Feb 02, 2016 8:11 AM PT Last Updated: Feb 02, 2016 9:29 … Continue reading →
Continue readingLeft Over: No Seniors Need Apply……
WHAT’S YOUR STORY? Senior struggles to find affordable housing in Vancouver It’s a story too common among seniors, says executive director of the Seniors Services Society By The Early Edition, CBC News Posted: Oct 15, 2015 2:48 PM PT Last Updated: Oct 16, 2015 6:49 AM PT I could see this
Continue readingLeft Over: No Seniors Need Apply……
WHAT’S YOUR STORY? Senior struggles to find affordable housing in Vancouver It’s a story too common among seniors, says executive director of the Seniors Services Society By The Early Edition, CBC News Posted: Oct 15, 2015 2:48 PM PT Last Updated: Oct 16, 2015 6:49 AM PT I could see this
Continue readingLeft Over: Any Cardboard to Spare?
Affordable housing in Vancouver within reach: Michael Geller Michael Geller says innovative design and financing ideas are key to creating more affordable Vancouver homes By Margaret Gallagher, CBC News Posted: Feb 02, 2015 7:29 AM PT Last Updated: Feb 02, 2015 7:29 AM PT Yes, let’s crowd those poor
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Revisiting Chinatown Revitalization: Oct 8 at 8pm at Centre A
October 8 Program will start at 8pm Centre A, 229 East Georgia Street. FREE Event. RSVP here. Chinatown—the community, its buildings, its urban plan—is one of the most significant cultural […]
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Beedie Living debilitating Chinese community and voice
I went to an open house of the new proposal by Beedie Living at Keefer and Columbia in Chinatown. I have heard several complaints with the architecture, built form and […]
Continue readingMelissa Fong: VANCOUVER “FOREIGN BUYERS”- DRIVING SPECULATION & UNAFFORDABILITY? PART 2
Read Part 1 here I just wanted to update you with this thread of articles that are very illuminating- Please add your thoughts to this conversation- Some of the conversation […]
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