“If I don’t personally understand it, and it might change the way I do/view things, must be a conspiracy”

Wilful ignorance

Second best is a local grocer.

Yeah I shop at my local Asian supermarket. Family run, and so much cheaper than the nearby Loblaws or even the farther No Frills.

Interesting article let’s read through…

In fact, according to odds on FanDuel, the Tories are favoured to win the next election at -143 while Trudeau’s Liberals sit at +110.

Ahhhh, Toronto Sun back at it again with the hard hitting journalism. Disgusting and disingenuous crap, glad The Star avoided the Postmedia merger

I don’t want to make general statements, but Canadaland did a podcast on the horrible injustices within the Thunder Bay Police force.

One example of some pretty messed up stuff.

I think we are on the same page, my comment was meant to agree with you.

All of the most common essentials (groceries, pharmacy, etc.) along with some shops/restaurants have enough patronage to justify high density / be within walking distance of most people in an urban environment. While things that are farther away (both less common essentials and non-essential) should be accessible through transit.

I can agree with that overall.

But in this specific case (the link in OP), the discussion is centred around employee/employer relations. In that context it’s employee compensation that seems more relevant to the discussion.

Employers have control over how much they pay people, so if they are complaining about “lazy people”, it feels fair to point out lowered compensation and benefits year over year if you factor in inflation.

Lemmy truly is like to old internet sometimes, obvious troll.

Early Canada saw, by and large, equal contribution across the entire population… you need me as much as I need you.

This is SO true, everyone TOTALLY contributed equally to industry and got fair compensation for their efforts: British colonists, native Canadians, Black slaves, and the Chinese immigrants who worked on our railroads. It was just so efficient for the rich to also massacre entire populations of people, force people to work, and pay either nothing or next to nothing. I totally agree with you here, you are such a scholar with a clear understanding of Canadian history 🙇. I also hear that after a hard days work the rich colonists and workers (the ones who didn’t happen to die that day when building infrastructure) would all go out for a cold beer and have a jolly old time!

…

The HEAVIEST of sarcasm, jesus fucking christ. I won’t even continue with the rest of the post, but let’s just say I might slightly disagree with you 😉

Yeah there is no possible way that everywhere a person needs to go can be within reasonable walking distance.

Wealth gap gets bigger and bigger, workers feel less and less secure in their jobs and lives, and companies try to blame the people who are making them rich.

Even worse, they inspire infighting between the working and “middle” class. A person making $100K a year is a lot closer to someone making $45K a year than the executives making many millions a year.

Yeah, the total direct monetary cost of maintaining low-density car-dependant cities is extremely high: road construction & maintenance, plumbing and electrical, parking lots taking valuable space that could be used for housing or workplaces, insurance for personal and commercial vehicles, maintenance and upkeep, gas, and probably many more I’ve missed.

And on top of all of that, the externalized monetary costs are also high: medical costs from all the deaths or injuries due to collisions (the stats are honestly depressing), medical costs due to less physical activity across the population, environmental damage, time wasted due to traffic, slower delivery times for long-haul trucks, and probably many more I’ve missed.

And on top of all of THAT the intangible costs are also high: isolation from the people and communities directly around you, less customers for small businesses that rely on foot traffic and have no parking space, increasing polarization between urban/suburban/rural populations, and probably many more I’ve missed.

Side note for the people that still really need cars in their lives (workers in rural areas, people living in suburbs, etc.), pushing for better transit and city planning will directly benefit you. If less people have cars: gas prices will be lower (supply and demand), road construction and upkeep will be cheaper, traffic will be better for you directly, and more. I always fear that pro-transit, pro-urban planning folks (me included) come off as dismissive. There are definitely people who will still need cars in their lives. The goal is to catch the many millions of people who could probably replace their car usage if transit systems and cities were built better.

People will always do what is easiest/best for them, we need to keep pushing towards systems that make sense.

Yeah, the article really doesn’t give context so everything is pure speculation on my end.

I hope this is positive for both the family and the guy who was found.

Fair point, Dougie needs to fucking go.

And for the record OF COURSE I care about other issues. Maybe my original comment was too extreme. There is no way I am going to vote for any rage-baiting, fear mongering, regressive asshole. If someone presented an amazing, ground-breaking housing plan but was also a neo-nazi I wouldn’t vote for them LMAO.

I am just so tired of all the political theatre around housing. It just seems like a no-brainer that should cross party lines. The only people who don’t care are the people who are rich, or who are in the pockets of rich development/property management companies. Even the older generations who own a single home care, they probably have children who they know won’t ever be able to afford a home or pay a fair price to rent something.

Honestly, and this is purely anecdotal, but I think a “public intoxication” law is way too broad and abused by law enforcement to unjustly wrangle up people they feel are “undesirable”.

Walk down any street in Toronto that has nightlife and there are many very obviously drunk people that do not get penalized. Whereas vulnerable, often homeless, people get swept up for similar behaviour.

I feel like “public intoxication” laws should be removed, and laws surrounding actual conduct (verbal/physical assault etc.) should remain. Having such a subjective law leaves way too much room for prejudice.

Yeah, and rental prices have skyrocketed too.

During the next federal election this will be my “single issue” that will determine who I vote for.

At this point I can ignore our insane grocery/telecom prices, even though that is still a huge issue. The housing crises has far worse ripple effects down the chain: potential buyers can’t buy so they rent nicer places, potential renters can’t rent the nice places so they are overpaying for the rentals they can afford, and people who can’t afford any of the rental prices are scraping by with roommates or on the streets.

And these development companies have the nerve to go to court over government investigations over their shady practices.

Shameless.

You are most definitely correct 🙃

Higher property taxes for multi-home or corporate owners, higher corporate taxes, break up the oligopolies, etc.

I feel like a broken telephone. But if we say it enough maybe it will actually happen.

Yeah same in my apartment. Bins are filled with incorrect items, and clearly dirty. I bring all my organized and clean recycling but know deep down its just going to a landfill or be burned.

On top of that, the bin categories are weird and it’s really confusing. IE there is a bin that says “Bottles and Cans”, and another that says “Paper and Cardboard”. What about other plastics?

People will do whatever is easiest, even if they are decent people. We need better policies and systems to force incentivize people to follow the rules.

Edit: typos

Yeah honestly can they open up more “Beer Store”-style recycling drop offs? That way they could not process the useless/dirty stuff and keep the good stuff?

Maybe give out like 1 cent per X grams of plastic to incentivize people?

That or we can go full Taiwan and basically force people/companies to do things properly.

From my limited understanding and Wikipedia-ing I can tell a tale:

Back in the olden times (before the 1980s), some lawyers were soooo special, good, and smart, that the big boss (government) would give them ⭐ Gold Stars ⭐ (King’s Counsel designation) so that they could tell everyone far and wide that they were special, good, and smart. So good that the 👑 King or Queen 👑 would trust them.

Mr. Dougie in 2023 thought “Oh, that’s fun! Let me do that again and give out gold stars to some great lawyers!”. To figure out who the best, smartest lawyers were, it would be good to talk to some other smart lawyers, maybe some big boss judges, or the lowly / peasant community.

But instead of doing that, Mr. Dougie and his buddies released a list of lawyers who were going to get gold stars on a website. Some of the lawyers in the list were good friends with Mr. Dougie or people Mr. Dougie knew.

Reporters who care about what the big boss (government) does were confused and asked Mr. Dougie, “Hey, we noticed that you gave out some gold stars - and some of those people are your friends! Do they really deserve these gold stars? How did you figure out who was going to get these super special stars? 🤔 Also, why are you giving out gold stars to laywers anyway? No one else gets gold stars 😡”.

Mr. Dougie replied, "Ooooops 🤪. Next time we give out gold stars I’ll definitely explain to everyone how we give out these stars. But trust me this list is 100% amazing and these people are the smartest, best lawyers in all of Ontarioland. That’s a Dougie Guarantee ™️ "

…

And that is the end of another chapter in “Mr. Dougie and the Quest to Trample our Democracy”

Sorry if that was patronizing LMAO was just bored and have too much time on my hands. If anyone knows more about this and any broader implications I would love to know tbh.

I can’t imagine being someone whose goal in life is to profit off of the housing market to such a large extent.

To be able to see the level of homelessness we have in our biggest cities, and still continue to scrape up everything you could. It should be a recognized mental condition.

Honestly, some people have so much money and so few interests.

Can we just start with a sensible policy of “if you own two properties anything beyond that will be taxed like crazy. And for-profit corporate landlords are banned or highly regulated”

Maybe these people could pivot their investment to productive ventures.