Unpopular opinion - good. It’s a known carcinogen. Add onto that the social issues it can cause and I think it makes some sense to tax it more that other things to bring in those external costs that were being “passed on” to society in the form of healthcare and social services.

I think when you look at the demographics of the area, along with the fact that money laundering is known issue, along with the very well known affinity of the Chinese for property as an investment (see Evergrande et al), and yeah it’s not hard to connect those dots.

The unfortunate part is it’s hard to get stats to back it all up because of a failure of governance for decades at all levels of government.

Are we all pretending they had no impact now? I thought that was pretty well known at this point.

So close to a poop knife!

I tend to agree completely.

I think the theory is there is some level of “deterrent” at play here. Always seemed like a stretch, and this just looks to reinforce that.

I just keep waiting for a nasal vaccine!

Thanks for this. Unlike on Reddit I feel much better posting here knowing I’m not helping some company make more money.

Gives me the old internet vibes I’ve come to crave

That’s a fever dream of a prompt right there.

The internet was supposed to make it harder to weaponize ignorance in theory… wow did that not pan out.

I get that we literally need immigration to support the ponzi scheme of social benefits. But maybe knowing that should have pushed literally anyone to take housing seriously for the last 10+ years?

The writing has been on the wall for over a decade. I’m constantly amazed at how short sighted every level of government was on this. You’d think that at least NOW we would be taking this seriously, but no. Instead we are simply drilling new holes on an already sinking ship.

At least other countries are trying to make things better.

Just so we are all on the same page here… This is an image of one Grinch giving another Grinch a handjob in whoville?

They couldn’t implement a tax to help make it less lucrative? I honestly don’t know, but it does seem like something they could do.

Anyone happen to know what a goldfish tastes like?

This party is so incredibly tone deaf and it’s infuriating.

It’s called living in a society my man.

Here’s a though - want to be a landlord? Only allowed for purpose built rentals. No more buying up condos and SFH to rent them out.

Don’t even start with the “But they are providing a service by adding to rental stock!” or “But there are good landlords!” or even the “What about the people who want to rent?!”. Great, build a triplex or more, otherwise let people who actually want to live in a home with the stability it provides and not pad your fucking retirement.

Once we have a housing surplus we can talk about changing things again.

And I’m over here in Ottawa looking at you guys as the gold standard.

Likely not as much of a stretch as you would think.. It’s just such an immature field of study. But given some people’s level of desperation I’m not surprised.

Of course. Purely based on numbers we need more units. But again, if we build more it’s going to help speculators more than FTHB unless you over build. So you’re just growing the wealth divide.