Yeah, Vancouver, the city where your kids have zero chance of being able to afford to live where they were born and raised.
Thanks, Ottawa, you assholes and, by "assholes" I mean every prime minister going right back to Brian Mulroney and up to and including Justin Trudeau with all his fancy new immigration offices across China.
As if we needed another reason to despise Ottawa.
11 comments:
This puts me in mind of a related subject. Try this one on:
From the Hongcouver blog, South China Morning Post, 14 Mar 17
https://www.biv.com/article/2017/3/curious-case-canadian-eight-citizenships/
"The billionaire bolthole club: intrigued by the concept of 'economic citizenship' ...
"After generations of turmoil, the bolthole mentality runs deep among China’s rich – by one estimate, 47% of rich mainlanders plan to immigrate within five years. ...
"... the case of Xiao Jianhua, the Chinese-Canadian-Antiguan[-et al] billionaire ...
"... whisked away from the luxury Four Seasons apartments in Hong Kong and over the border [to mainland China] ...
"... reportedly linked to investigations into bribery and market manipulation ...
"... Xiao’s family was now reportedly trying to apply pressure for his release via Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department, and former prime minister Brian Mulroney ..."
And from https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/brian-mulroney-liberal-government-seek-release-of-billionaire-in-china/article34210940/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
"A memo obtained by The Globe and Mail, sent from the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright to an intermediary representing Mr. Xiao's family, indicates that Mr. Mulroney is acting to win Mr. Xiao's release and has succeeded in pushing the file high on the Global Affairs' list of priorities."
"Economic citizenship"? It's good to see that some parties have set their lists of priorities correctly.
Well, we can't have a common or garden variety billionaire stuck behind Chinese bars now can we, guilty or not, in sort of his own country too - the Hong Kong/China relationship makes little sense to me. Mulroney with a stack of fresh mushroom paper bags from Sobeys in his back pocket will do the necessary, obsequiously and unctuously worming his way into Globule Affairs to deal with the situation. Why, he's a freelance billionaire rescuer! A man on a cash mission.
But let there be a Canadian journalist stuck in a mideast jail, and Globule Affairs cites this, that and the other, the Privacy Act, minister on extended vacation, monitoring the situation and Canadians must follow the laws of the country they're in etc, blah blah blah, for the reason its embassy reps cannot do anything beyond sending in melted Coffee Crisp bars, a rumpled G&M from two weeks previous and two handwritten cards saying "Best of Luck!". And if you're a Canadian kidnapped by Phillipine wackos, well Sonny Boy stands up and says "Canada will never pay ransoms!" Bang.
But to save a foreign billionaire? All hands on deck. Now.
For votes, though, Stevie The Wonderboy Harper chartered ocean liners to rescue Lebanese Canadians who couldn't be bothered to live here. So transparent. Whadda guy. Kinda set the bar for future disappointments.
BM
Money, the route of all evil!
One thing money CAN'T buy is poverty.
As much as I yearn for a little (enough to get by on) I wouldn't want to have to join the club to be entitled.
It's not just Ottowa.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/10/protest-paradise-papers-micah-white
Money laundering and tax evasion is rampant and encouraged.
The rich , famous and privileged have made the payment of taxes a dirty word even as they gorge themselves on government subsidies.
Those in the USA that fought the injustice of Vietnam grew up to be the biggest hypocrites of modern times as they deny anyone younger the chance of betterment.
But such is the USA and with their political and corporate ( media) power they have exported greed and hatred around the world where the Anglos in particular have grasped the mold in the form of Brexit, border walls, the denial of support to the disadvantaged.
Look only to the news on the release of the latest iphone to the predicament of those in Yemen or the Rohingya.
https://www.muslimglobalrelief.org/rohingya-crisis/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7qGEht211wIVUZV-Ch0nlAw7EAAYBCAAEgL4fPD_BwE
Sorry for the rant.
Lets go out and protest our cable TV bills or the subsidised housing down the street!!
TB
I always assumed New York City or San Francisco to be head-to-head for first place in this competition.
Vancouver B.C.? Even more so than Toronto or Montreal?
How do some of the "secondary" cities fare in this regard? Like Halifax? Or Winnipeg (I know that's a huge city as well, but does it have the same status as a Toronto or a Vancouver?)? Or Saint John? Or Regina?
Tal, housing is pricier in NYC or San Francisco but wages are also considerably higher than Vancouver's which is why Vancouver stands as "least affordable."
The first home I bought in Vancouver went for $170,000. It was a modest bungalow on a fairly nice lot in a well kept and friendly neighbourhood. Today those houses are gone and the lots sell for upwards of $2.2 million. And yet that area is, on the basis of taxable income, the poorest in the entire city. The newcomers buying those properties have no income. Many of those homes sit empty. The occupied homes tend to have school-age children and elderly relatives in them - people who don't contribute to the tax base but take advantage of what the community provides such as health care, education and such. It's also a great way to hide masses of sketchy money from the Boys in Beijing. And our federal government, which has jurisdiction over immigration, allows this dark farce to continue.
Govt needs infinite GDP growth to keep our debt-addled financial Ponzi system from collapsing.
They do what they can to keep the real estate bubble from popping.
Money laundering, speculation, low interest rates, whatever it takes.
Way to go Canada!
... housing is pricier in NYC or San Francisco but wages are also considerably higher than Vancouver's which is why Vancouver stands as "least affordable."
This is the big problem. As he finished law school, a buddy of mine was looking to move to Vancouver to be close to his wife's family. He discovered that the going rate for articling students was 25 - 30% lower in Vancouver than in Toronto. This made no sense to him since housing costs were a couple of points higher in Vancouver. He figured that articling pay might be low in Vancouver, but associate pay would be comparable. Wrong again, on average associate pay in Vancouver was lower. At that point, the couple headed to Toronto and stayed there.
Cap
There's a "hollowing out" underway in Vancouver, Cap. There's not a single gas station in the downtown area any longer. When the former owners sold out to retire the land was snapped up for apartment/condos. It was far too costly for a gas station to be viable.
My GP sent me to a specialist - in Nanaimo. I thought it would take months to get an appt. Two weeks. The doctor was a young surgeon who had studied at UBC and trained at VGH. I asked her why she passed up all the opportunity in Vancouver. She said it was the cost of housing. She would have to work like a slave for decades to get the sort of house she wanted in Vancouver. Instead she got a great waterfront house in Nanaimo and at a price that still left her the freedom to enjoy life.
Vancouver is ruined. Conde Naste has rated it the most traffic congested city in North America. Those of us who knew the place in the 70s grasp how it has changed, overgrown. The pro-developer municipal and provincial authorities have allowed endless high-density redevelopment.That would be bad enough in any city but Vancouver is a confined space with the sea on one side, the mountains to the north and Coal Harbour and French Creek creating natural choke points and bridge narrows. These topographical features magnify the density problems.
In the 70s, rush hour ran from 5 to 6. Now it begins at 3 and continues until about 7:30. Imagine what it would be like if all those unoccupied condos and houses weren't empty.
Developers say Vancouver needs 1 million more people.
Traffic congestion is not bad enough, it needs to be worse.
Vancouver needs more condo tower eye-sores.
More farmland needs to be paved over.
Hugh, I know a lady who has a penthouse condo that shares the 29th and 30th floors with one other unit in a tower overlooking Granville Island. Within a year she'll be losing her million(s) dollar views to a monstrosity going up across the street that will be 20 stories higher.
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