I guess I didn’t emphasize the end of my post enough, I completely agree.

The difference in lifestyle of someone with a net worth of $1000 or $1m could just be that one of them owns their own house and the other rents. Someone with $1b has absolutely nothing in common with either of the other two, they could probably spend 90% of their life savings and not have a noticeable change in their lifestyle. The guy with a million is still going to think about a couple thousand dollar purchase, and the guy with a thousand doesn’t really have a choice.

Millionaires seem pretty reasonable, its not surprising for someone who’s presumably had a decades long career to own a house and a bit of savings. If we’re being generous the difference between a billionaire and a millionaire is the same as the difference between a millionaire and someone living in the street, in reality the difference is about a billion dollars.

Wouldn’t it already be a privacy concern if you’re currently recording people? How would this be any different than footage of someone driving into the side of your bus?

Reading the list it looks like they just looked up Call of Duty and Battlefield and copied everything into alphabetical order. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next round includes some fictional guns.

As much as that would be satisfying to the postal workers, I don’t think it would really solve a whole lot.

I am completely against back to work legislation but I do assume that’s where we’re headed, I think the best case scenario there is that it’s paired with the entire top level leadership being fired for letting it get to this point. General public gets their service back, cupw gets a deal sooner, and it makes the union membership at large confident that back to work legislation comes with consequences for the employer.

Are you using a satellite phone or something unusual? If you’re on a “big 3” network there are definitely better plans than that.

Whatever they’re doing (or not doing?) now seems to be working. We may be paying more than other countries but I can say my phone bill is lower than it’s ever been since the beginning of the smartphone age and I’m getting way more for those dollars too.

Edit: that being said, I do hear of people paying close to $100 for a phone plan. I don’t know how they just go along with that or what value they think they’re getting but it’s definitely not necessary to spend that much these days.

I’d hope this would make an impact in their reelection chances, but I don’t think they were doing great with the union crowd to begin with and the Conservatives won’t be very good on these issues either.

I’d argue pineapple (especially grilled) is actually really good in a burrito, if not “authentic”. The issue here is that it’s on the burrito, and the burrito looks terrible to begin with.

If these “richies” were actually investing their money in making the country better, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

I’d be ok with it but we’d have to go all in.

Yeah, by definition they’ll go along with it. Probably come up with some convoluted reasoning as to how it was the plan all along.

Right, but I guess my point is how would statscan know if a house has 1, 2, 3, or 4 units if they all share the same official address? Tax data? Driver’s licence/service cards? And as for the census, how is it accurate if only one of the households in a multi unit house gets one?

Either way it’s irrelevant to this discussion, because the article you linked didn’t use statscan data:

Most data was curated from a select number of sources: Japan Statistical Yearbook, European Housing 2002, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canadian Home Builders Association, Infometrics, US Census.

We have rent control in BC (I think, unless I misunderstand), but I’d be willing to ease the restrictions a bit in exchange for vacancy control. I’ve only been in my current place for 4 years, but if I had to move (renoviction or personal use) I’d be looking at almost a 150% increase for something comparable. I know I’m not alone in that. I could handle a 10% increase per year if it meant I had the flexibility to move if I needed an upgrade or my landlord was simply being an ass.

If I spent 100% of my paycheques for the next 2 months on things that are temporarily tax free, the amount of money I’d save would be… less than my rent increase for the next year.

Edit: I forgot I have to still pay rent for those 2 months, so more like 8 months increased rent, or factoring in all the essential bills more like 6. When all’s said and done the realistic GST savings might allow me to buy a large pizza and a dip at the end of February.

I’d be curious to find out if these stats take into account the prevalence of secondary (or even tertiary) suites, especially the unofficial ones. Officially the place I live in is a single family home, originally designed for a family of 4. My family of 3 lives in about 700sqft and there’s another family of 4 living in about 1000sqft upstairs. Do the stats count us as 1 household? I’ve never been sent a census form to fill out, I don’t have a legally distinct address or seperate utilities. I know many people in similar living arrangements, how are we counted in the statistics?

This just reminded me I had an account from years ago. Deleted.

I don’t see how this would make money laundering for organized crime any easier than it is today, the tax would just be shifted to the landlord side (likely at a higher rate since they’re probably in a higher tax bracket) and off the tenant.

Right now the tenant earns money, pays income tax on that money, pays rent, and the landlord pays taxes on that money (if they’re honest and report it all) but can claim their mortgage interest as a tax deduction.

I think the tenant should be able to claim some portion of their rent as a tax deduction. It would require an official record of rent paid, which would keep the landlord honest. I’d say the mortgage interest on a rental property probably shouldn’t be tax deductible either, but even still this would have the biggest impact on those large private landlords that are often what you’d call slumlords.

Edit: I’m obviously not an expert on taxation or housing policy so if I’m wildly out of touch I’ll accept that, I just think it’s kind of bullshit that the government subsidizes the mortgages we pay for our landlords with the money we paid the government when we worked for it.

I think we need a rental tax credit. Whether it’s partial or fully tax exempt, doesn’t really matter. If every renter was reporting their rent payments on their taxes it would be impossible for landlords to dodge their own taxes, thereby shifting the tax burden where it belongs.

Isn’t that the whole point of a “Team Canada approach”? All the provinces have their own needs and abilities, but we need some sort of coordination to make sure we’re all aiming for the same goal. And while housing may not directly be their responsibility the feds should be there for the assist with whatever the provinces need but can’t do themselves.