Also, Harper took a shot on Facebook today at Chinese real estate investors who are buying up Vancouver. Guess what Mr. I Love The Middle Class? Chinese billionaires are the only ones who can afford a house in Vancouver!
I have no idea why Harper is spending so much time trying to get us to fear The Other. We’re Canadians, dude. We don’t roll like that.
Little Stephen Harper might not.
I think he mentioned Vancouver real estate issues as a way of confirming that he hasn’t completely forgotten about us since closing the Coast Guard base in Kits. Just a reminder that we’re in his thoughts in case that might scare up a vote or two.
Your comment is perplexing. I have no love for Harper, but the man does have a point. The reason only Chinese billionaires can afford a house in Vancouver is because they’re bidding against other Chinese billionaires, while first-time buyers like ordinary young Canadians can only watch with a kind of stunned amazement as they get totally locked out of the housing market, because there are only so many houses available, and they’re all going to former residents of Hong Kong or Beijing or Fujian Province. This same thing is happening, to a slightly lesser extent, in Toronto, especially driving up prices in all the best neighborhoods. And many are buying multiple houses, with the others being bought up as rental property investments, at least in the GTA.
But a lot of these Chinese billionaires are now Canadians. My issue is the income inequality and its effects, rather than the national origin of the homeowners. And it’s not an unmixed blessing: having zillions of dollars move from China to Canada doesn’t hurt the overall economy.
nm
Both issues are valid. The Chinese billionaires are Canadians only as a consequence of immigration policy, otherwise they’d be wreaking real estate havoc and other effects of income inequality in their own homelands. It’s not any specific “national origin” that matters – what matters is just the sheer numbers, and it matters all the more when the hordes in question have an extraordinary propensity for consuming scarce housing resources by virtue of their wealth.
As for whether it hurts the overall economy or not, I don’t think it’s clear how that plays out. It is certainly wreaking havoc with real estate in at least two major cities with a ripple effect throughout vast surrounding areas, not only putting home ownership out of reach of first-time buyers and many ordinary people, but potentially creating an unsustainable real estate bubble due to the growing disparity between house prices and income.
And to the extent that a lot of these folks are also buying investment rental properties, it’s like a double-whammy effect on new buyers – they can no longer afford to buy a house and become invested in the capital growth of real estate, but the gentleman from Hong Kong is pleased to take their money and rent them one, while he enjoys the investment growth. So I’m not sure about “doesn’t hurt the overall economy” – this is not the traditional immigration of the early 20th century where people came to work hard and better themselves and thus contributed to national productivity, this is more like the parasitical Wall Street concept of sitting back and watching your money multiply itself while you yourself do nothing.
It is the movement of money from China to Canada, specifically, that I said doesn’t hurt the economy, not the entire situation. I agree with your assessment; if it’s an absentee landlord collecting rent here and moving it overseas, for instance, that’s precisely the opposite situation and a net loss to the local / national economy.
Now that I’ve bought a house in the area, of course, I’m hoping it doesn’t crash, at least for a while, so my self-interest is at war with my common sense.
I would actually tend to agree with you on the issue of Canada’s international reputation. It can be hard to define what it actually is and how to determine what is hurting or helping it.
But Harper’s response was so far out in left field it gave me a WTF? moment. Did he not have any better answer than this? It seems like something that would have been part of his briefing, as it didn’t appear to be the sort of fact that would have come to mind spontaneously, but it was pretty weak as a response. It might make an adequate immediate soundbite but would be very vulnerable to repeated opponent mockery later.
(Maybe there is a widely respected analysis of international reputations put out by this Reputation Institute organization, but if so, neither Google nor Wikipedia are aware of it.)
For a person who claims the facts matter, you sure do get critical facts amazingly wrong.
No, they don’t get all their money from “corporations,” they get out of it from ordinary people. And the federal government has increased health transfers every year. I don’t know where you even got this $36 million from but in the context of Canadian health spending that’s a rounding error.
I don’t see how anyone can defend Harper on health care without engaging in the old political gambit of arguing that a lower rate of increase isn’t a “cut”, even if the increase is essential to maintain the same level of service.
The Canadian health care model embraced by every government since the 60s is anathema to Harper and all the American-cowboy values he stands for, and he’s been doing everything possible to undermine it without actually appearing to do so, just like his many other stealth initiatives. No, no, Harper isn’t trying to kill Canadian health care – he’s just putting a pillow on its head and sitting on it – and if something “unfortunate” were to happen to it, well, that’s not his fault now, is it?
They voted on that in BC and it was turned down, big time.
Ah, government math. I love it.
Not a single sentence in that article describes an actual reduction in health care spending. Not one. Read it carefully if you don’t believe me. It describes as “cuts” two things:
You may have a solid argument federal funding should increase more, or pharmacare should be a thing, but those are not cuts. It’s not a matter of opinion.
If you don’t believe me, look it up. The Canada Health Transfer has gone up every fiscal year since Harper became prime minister, without a single exception. In the 2015-2016 fiscal year, total per capita transfers to the provinces, accounting for inflation, will be higher than they were the year before, when they were higher than the year before, which were higher than the year before, so on and so forth. It’s math.
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The Canadian health care model embraced by every government since the 60s is anathema to Harper and all the American-cowboy values he stands for,
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Harper has been prime minister for almost a decade and we still have the Canada Health Act and universal medical insurance. If he is PM for 25 years more we will still have medicare. Honestly, this “Hidden agenda” schtick is so immensely stupid when the Harper government has so many real things they can be criticized for. Harper would no more get rid of Medicare than he would chop off his own arms. Actually cancelling it would eliminate the Conservative party from Canadian politics forever.
The Chretien government actually cut transfers. Why, then, do you claim every government until Harper’s “embraced” the Medicare concept? If in fact the Harper government’s killing it by increasing funding by not as much as they used to, how can you argue the Chretien government didn’t as well? What’s the difference?
And the hits just keep coming.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/08/20/4c7a1f96cd23a93afbd4b905c4175703.jpg
Wow, Andrew Coyne’s faux-naïveté in today’s Post is just so damning.[
](Breaking News, Headlines and Stories | National Post)It seems that Harper has encased himself in a bubble of party loyalists (and little/no media), will this tactic protect him throughout the campaign?
Here’s an interesting video. The reporter questions Harper, asking him:[ol]
[li]Why should Canadians believe that he didn’t know about Wright paying ‘hush money’ to Duffy when everyone around him knew. [/li][li]Is Ray Novak still apart of your campaign? If so, why?[/li][/ol]For the first question, Harper dodges it by saying that he refuses to answer questions “before the court” and restates his position that he knew nothing. During the second response, Harper simply restated that he refuses to answer, and that the guilty parties have already been dealt with.
However what was most interesting to me was how the surrounding crowd (remember only party faithful are allowed at Harper’s events) cheered at his refusals to answer questions. It seems that “the bubble” that the Conservatives have built around Harper is holding strong.
Only if people don’t see through it. Sadly, there will be loyalists to the end. Even when presented with photographic evidence, there were some who refused to believe Donny Brasco could be a rat either. People believe what they want to believe, and I believe along with many others that if you poke the bear long enough, sooner or later he’s going to react. And there’s still another eight or nine weeks to go.
And how much do you respect a party of drones, where no one is allowed to think for themselves? That shows too. It would be interesting to hear from guys like John Baird at this point.
The politburo has concerns that some public service workers may hold their own views contrary to what the party has stated.