This is why I’m so tired of people here acting like Trump is our biggest problem. This admin got in merely because it was critical of him when the PC’s could not, and with a majority, they’ve been able to push some extremely harmful policies. They’ve been waiting decades for conditions to be this favourable.

Hasn’t been passed yet, but yeah it made it through the House of Commons despite opposition.

https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/c-22

Listen, I’m not gonna give this much more attention because I really don’t think you’re the kind of person who’s super open to criticism of this system.

So, yes, the federal government does have a massive influence on what is guaranteed to citizens, and definitely funnels money into specific subsidy programs that meets shelter insecurity with support for private capital. It does not need to be the sole regulator for shelter for us to consider how the material interests of its members conflicts with our own. Even if it was irrelevant, this same information should spur you on to question whether your understanding of this system is appropriately taking into account the disparity in material interests between you and regulators.

If you humoured that curiosity for just a minute, you’d have seen that, yes, they also have a list of provincial reps, on the same site, within a click of what I sent you: https://www.readthemaple.com/provincial-landlords/

What you’re doing is contriving some defense of liberalism that somehow naturalizes its institutions and it’s dysfunction, which is a markedly circular argument that I find uncommon in vulnerable people who are forced to navigate this system. Don’t act like you’re interested in anything having to do with improving renters’ conditions if you won’t even put in the work to investigate the system you’re talking about.

Have fun reading these, I won’t read whatever you send next.

I’m honestly pretty ignorant of Australian politics of the last five years (the dumpster fire smoke makes kt kind of hard to see out of here), but that does sound a bit more favourable. Our con party has secured their vote, but hasn’t won an election federally in over a decade now due to our voting system (the only thing I’m thankful for from it).

But, our neoliberal party has dominated federal politics in that time, and has only gotten more aggressive in its policies; especially now that they have a majority and don’t have to negotiate with the socdems anymore. The current PM I mentioned in my comment has run an admin that is slashing environmental and agricultural regulations, massively expanded public investment in private extractive enterprise, and has responded to growing shelter insecurity by expanding subsidies for property owners.

So, we’ll see, but I can’t imagine Canada is going to get much of a reprieve while the state desperately appeals to the EU as part of its plan to diversify away from US capital. Most Canadian voters are more concerned about what Trump says about Canada than they are about what policies are actually passed here; local politics has gotten a bump in attention, so maybe there’s that.

Hope it works out for you guys too.

🫩

it’s a link to the Maple’s list of property-owning MP’s, y’know, the people who legislate property and rental laws. In the context of my comment, it indicated that this isn’t because vaguely “the government” is an issue, but that landlords are in the government, and since this is a system oriented around property as a commodity and thus the precarity of shelter, that means that they are highly incentivized to increase the value of rental properties commercial or residential.

You’ll also notice that I’ve mentioned the ableism specifically, as it emblemizes the cruelty of a system where shelter insecurity is required for people to be “motivated” to work, and people who cannot work are never guaranteed sufficient welfare support. These are not disconnected things.

Read through these fully, as people disagreeing with you do not always do so for the reasons and in the ways that you assume they will.

Then actually read my comment.

I’m getting the impression that you didn’t even read my comment or follow the link.

Anti-property could certainly involve socialized housing, but does not necessarily involve that. Property is a fundamental element in our social and political systems, and serves as a basis for every form of discrimination that exists within those systems. Anti-property could be limiting that effect – via rental regulation, shelter security subsidies, more robust social welfare programs to mitigate the harm and likelyhood of shelter insecurity (like disability) – or abolishing the concept altogether through yes, public ownership of shelter, but also through mutual aid and kinship organizing. The reason why I wasn’t specific is because I don’t necessarily subscribe to a specific set of politics to respond to the issue as much as I recognize the need for Canadians to address property as a fundamental threat to human life, instead of a glitch in the system.

Yes, I know, I gave one explanation as to why it would be bad in its current form on purpose.

This person didn’t know how to criticize someone they disagree with besides saying they’re conservative, the rest of the thread should make it obvious that I’m not. They made a comment about US immigration into Canada fully expecting it to be some sort of gotcha, but when I said that I’m fine with immigration and more fine with immigrants than conservatives born here, they didn’t know how else to respond.

No idea why these comments were removed or why they were banned, so they must have done something in another thread.

Oh yeah wow, I wonder if there’s a reason why socialized housing in Canada would be unpleasant.

This isn’t what I was suggesting either way, at least not directly, but I think it’s very funny to live in Canada and talk about landlords being motivated to fix things even though they’re hoarding shelter, and say that’s better because the same system that has purposefully insufficient disability support programs also doesn’t seem to want public housing to be comfortable; it’s almost like they’d do it on purpose.

Somebody better talk to that “government,” and get them to shake their heads straight, amirite? https://www.readthemaple.com/mp-landlords/

Pretty much, yeah. Legalized weed kinda nicks the easy-access inebriation that alcohol was kind of reliant on as a market, and then there’s just more and more data that illustrates just how harmful alchohol is even with low consumption. Plus, booze is just really expensive here. If you’re in Ontario, it is like 40-50 bucks for a 40z spirit, or about 4-5 bucks per tall boy. Comparatively, I can grow a few weed plants in my backyard for less than 150 bucks in the plants and supplies, and provide for the whole village if I wanted to.

Others answered you with some uncritical, kneejerk explanations.

Yes, private property is a root cause since like, this is a capitalist system, but the idea of it being exceptionally “foreign,” or more exclusionary than comparable markets is ignoring why it is like this in Canada specifically. There’s a lot of long term contributors like suburban sprawl city planning without the same population explosions like in the US, conflicting interests and power dynamics between provincial and municipal govts that inhibits some practical regulatory responses, and a gradually disparate quality and cost of living as neoliberal politics eroded social welfare programs (healthcare, postsecondary education grants/ institutional funding, unemployment and disability support).

However, the big one that people credit for the specific boom of the past twenty years is actually how the current PM, Mark Carney, responded to the '08 financial crisis during his tenure as the Governor of the Bank of Canada. While Canada fared much better than other G7 states, it did so by reducing prime and encouraging spending, which meant that real-estate was a more reliable asset than usual under those circumstances; certainly more than businesses or labour. Since people were already severely underpaid in a system with less public supports and exponentially increasing infrastructure costs, this market bubbled with the Canadian economy balanced ontop of it (y’know, more than before).

Mix all that with Canada’s low and concentrated population, fewer career opportunities outside of those population centers, and neoliberalized framework, you have a system that relied on an unsustainably expensive real-estate market where regulators’ material interests (either individually or systemically since property value effects property tax and therefore city budgets) made it pretty much impossible for any bottom-up change to be implemented before a massive shift in material security for middle class workers.

So uh, guess when prime went up again and when more people started actually talking about how fucked the housing is here, and guess why it all came to a head around 2020.

Then why the hell aren’t more of you anti-property?

edit: Somebody responded with something funnier than I expected, and I’m leaving this here because I can actually see it being something some of you read and agree with without ever thinking twice. There’s a lot of good reasons why public housing isn’t a very pleasant way to live, but this is definitely my favourite to talk about when people start saying landlords are motivated to do anything for them: https://www.readthemaple.com/mp-landlords/

me when the eldritch being that I commune with reveals that empathy, anti-fascism, decolonialism, and tolerance of immigration are all con shit, actually:

Well, now you’re just self reporting all over this thread. “Oh yeah bud? Well would you be so tolerant of immigrants of they were from what I think is a homogenously depraved culture?” You should move here, you’d fit right in with the snowbirds, eh?

The only people I don’t want to live around are those who support harmful social orders, and I don’t believe that anyone is incapable of unlearning their support for those harmful social orders. I’ve known many Americans who come here either for safety or for opportunity, and they’re no worse than the snowbirds who are born with this privilege and sneer at the prospect of anyone else even trying for it.

fuck off.

Cool, look for the rad metamorphic boulder with the sandy bands. Me and the other mole-people will show you what’s for.

I guess I see more from under this rock than you do in Australia. Don’t run then condemn those who can’t, it’s shitty.

Oh, so if it’s “everywhere,” that doesn’t indicate a fundamental sickness in Canadian culture if the people here didn’t view genocide rhetoric as a deal-breaker, they’re just doing what everyone else is doing. It’s worth noting that the admin that did win (and is wildly popular compared to previous admins) has also been eroding indigenous sovereignty rights, openly supported the invasion of Iran, and lifted environmental and agricultural industrial restrictions.

What exactly is your issue with Americans, then?

“Boomer,” colloquially, but the bigoted conversation my other comment mentions included two couples under 60. This is a privilege issue, not age.

If that were the case, the fascism wouldn’t be as successful here as it is. Or did you forget that the people here were a month away from electing PP until Trump swung the election for anyone critical of him specifically?