To be honest, it doesn't have to be HSR at that point. Just reliable normal rail would do that, something we're still lacking for most of the country. Imagine being able to get to any province in a day under $30 (and even cheaper group deals) with zero chances of any delays.

Vacations across Canada, or even just visiting family in another province for a weekend would be easy and regular. Not to mention how much it would bring the nation together. As things stand, the provinces are more separated from each other than the states in the US. We're closer to the EU than the US in terms of unity. Arguably even worse than the EU. Promoting cross provincial movement for even little things would seriously bring us together, not to mention all the economic benefits.

Considering the situation with old-care homes we've been hearing these last five years, not even close. Everything from school to medical care, retirement homes and normal homes is a half-century behind in what's needed. Instead of change we need, we're constantly fed all the damn feel-good measures that amount to things that should've been done decades ago, and no longer fix current issues.

They shouldn't be in third place. They should be fourth or fifth place, behind the Rhinoceros Party, Centrist Party, and the Communist Party, or perhaps even the People's Party.

None of the top parties will decide to work hard to make meaningful and positive change if a fire isn't lit under all of them, and there's no fire greater than an insignificant party suddenly becoming a legitimate threat.

Honestly? By not taking part.

I've just plain given up on attaining the old "life goals" and just going for things within reach. I don't care about family, a career, a home, or any of that sort of stuff.

Doesn't mean I'm unhappy. I enjoy my life pretty decently. But all that stuff that was considered necessary for a good life before? Fuck that shit, I'm out. I'll make do with what I have and be happy through my own means.

I'll admit that such a large shift in mindset isn't something just anybody can do, but it worked for me.

Making for-profit private organizations do not-for-profit work will never work. They'll either find a way to get around it, or just not do it in the first place.

Won't be surprised if we suddenly see a host of new 4842 square feet projects, or maybe joint projects between multiple companies (all probably owned by the same guy) that split ownership so that nobody builds more than 4842 square feet on a single plot of land.

Or alternatively they'll just hand over useless land somewhere else in exchange for building that massive high value condo or something.

The only way to make affordable housing is to either rely on not-for-profit organizations, or the government to do it themselves.

It's because most people don't actually like driving. They just do because they have to, and have become numb to the thought of it.

And being numb to it means that you only pay the bare minimum amount of attention. There's been stories about people accidentally hitting the gas when they meant to hit the brakes (Toyota's got actual records for that), and don't get me started how many times I started crossing the street, only to almost be run over by someone turning right and was only staring at the lights and not where he was going.

Driving safely requires patience, practice, and dedication. All things 95% of drivers don't want to bother with on something they see little more than as a chore.

This isn't the 60's where pleasure driving was a common thing.

I think personal ownership can go higher than just two properties without problems. The issue isn't everybody owning five properties, but a small handful owning thousands.

Following that, limiting corporations' ownership is definitely a top priority. Only owning housing with 30 units or more would probably help a lot. 10 units is just too little I think, as that's just a conjoined townhouse, which can easily be personally owned and operated. 30 is more like a really small low rise.

AirBnB is definitely an issue as well, and is probably the hardest to regulate. Though definitely not the hardest to pass (that's the corporations one). I'm not sure what can be done with it, as there's already laws in place regarding hotels. Maybe force the company to register all BnB locations to a government database in real time? Though with enough housing, I think this will be an insignificant issue. Especially combined with the other changes. BnBing a spare room is quite a different thing compared to an entire unit/house on a permanent basis.

This article goes in circles and repeatedly contradicts itself. Basically saying that it's not a failure of the markets, but one of exploitation.

Except, it is exactly a failure of the markets. It states that the exploitation comes from the ability of landowners to charge whatever they want, but they don't address the fact that they can only charge high prices because of the lack of those who are willing to charge low prices. And nobody should be expected to charge a low price if they can charge a high price and still sell/rent easily.

It's an issue of people treating homes as an investment, and that can only happen because the price of homes skyrocket far faster than inflation and wages. And that happens because of a lack of supply.

Sure, treating homes as an investment is fine for apartments and condos, but if the land itself ends up being worth a million for a single lot, there's no way anybody can afford it without both a high wage and putting themselves into debt for a half century. And if that happen, the entire spectrum of housing goes up in price as there is a lack of competition to lower prices.

The only real way to lower home prices (from houses to apartments and condos) is to significantly increase competition, and that can only happen if supply actually comes close to demand, not falling so far behind that people share a single place, even to the point that they bribe the local authorities to look the other way that they have too many people in a single unit.

Honestly, I believe that we just need to change the definition of the single residential unit so that it only restricts to residential units of a certain size. Allow townhouses and low-rise apartments in the same area. They're about the same height and their appearance doesn't have to deviate much from what's already being done to single units.

A properly made town-house making the most use of a single unit lot can easily house four families. Take a double lot and you can quadruple it by making some concessions on each unit.

People might complain about three or four story buildings suddenly popping up everywhere, but in reality most houses are as tall as three and four story buildings already. They just waste the extra height with a triangular roof. Modern materials make a flat roof work fine even with how much snow we get, and you can multi-purpose the roof as a patio space on top of that. No more yards needed to waste space not being used for anything.

I hate it that I see people actually support these damn rioters. I would've been fine with them (though I don't believe in their cause) if it was simply a protest. Occupying capital hill? Sure, that's okay. A group of natives did that a few years ago and I supported that.

But disrupting the peace, especially when all the MPs went home and was comfortably sleeping half a city away while the locals were desperately covering their ears at four in the morning? That's not protesting, that's borderline domestic terrorism.

It was an occupation, not a protest. Protests target the powerful and in charge. Occupations target the weak and vulnerable. And only one of those groups were anywhere close to the truckers past the usual 9-5.

Wait, that doesn't make sense to me. Are you talking about air heat pumps, or geo heat pumps here? The air ones are literally just ACs in a different shape, and the latter is basically an AC where the outside bit goes underground.

The principals are the same, and they even use the same terminology. I know other countries dont' differentiate in the slightest and just call them all the same thing.

I agree. I think the four nuclear plants we built almost 60 years ago still supply 17% of the entire country's energy, and one of them are being shut down this decade because refurbishing is way too expensive.

8 of the 19 reactors in the country are being shut down because they're too old in the next 3 years. It takes about 10 to make a new reactor/plant.

Late is better than never, but we really should've done this at least a decade ago. Hell, it's weird we didn't do it when we were shutting down all the coal power plants over a decade ago. Now Ontario is facing an energy deficit and the infrastructure can't handle incoming energy because Ontario's been a net exporter for pretty much the entirely of the existence of the east coast power grid.

We're going to have to spend billions one way or another, and now the only choice is to build up new transmission systems that'll only be used for a decade or so until the new plants can be built? This is crazy, though not as crazy as how Germany's shutting down all its nuclear power plants and now relies on France's nuclear plants so supply over 60% of its energy, with coal that spews uranium into the air to cover the rest.