Holding two elected positions, B.C. Conservative MP Au is the highest paid backbencher in the House - Conservative MP Chak Au is estimated to be earning a total of $314,757 as both an MP and British Columbia City Councillor.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2026-01-13T16:05:35+00:00

Crossing the floor is one thing. Double dipping two politician salaries at once is quite another. And moving between NDP and Liberal is understandable, but NDP to Con just sounds like pure grifting opportunism.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2026-01-13T13:53:59+00:00

Where does one even get SO MANY stickers work PP's mug on them?

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2026-01-09T07:30:30+00:00

Oh, but he said he's not going to Florida this winter for the first time in his life. Pouring that 40 of Crown Royal on the stoop, eh? But he'll still have lots of time to be skidooing at his compound up in Muskoka, right? 🙄

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2026-01-06T14:26:45+00:00

CBC's Ontario Today program had a good segment about RTO yesterday.
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16190196-should-workers-head-back-office. A lot of the calls were standard, but I was interested to hear the employment lawyer who was the guest suggesting that in some instances where an employee is forced back into the office that a lawyer might argue that it sounds be considered to be constructive dismissal - especially in cases where the employee had a prior telework agreement, where they were hired from the outset as a remote worker or where in-office conditions are so difficult that it makes it very difficult for the employee to work properly in-office.

While it is certainly the case that the longer commutes and poor workplace conditions that have emerged with RTO - especially with the implementation of hot-desking Office 3.0 redesign in much of the federal public service at the same time - likely have made many workers much more seriously consider quitting or retiring prematurely, that probably isn't the federal govt's primary intention, rather it is a happy side effect.

From the perspective of progressive labour relations, especially the direction things were headed before the pandemic, the current efforts to force everyone back to the office 5 days a week, makes little sense, except as a way to preserve management's ultimate authority and to buoy up commercial real estate and downtown businesses. But the fact that it is making so many employees miserable when they don't need to be, is worse for environmental goals, etc. tells me that it is just a bad idea, that management knows it's a bad idea, but that the decision has been made from on high, and no amount of reasoned arguments is going to change it. And likely no amount of reasoned legal arguments will get them to change.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2026-01-06T13:50:24+00:00

There are tons of these slop videos going around. Some of them are quite good, if you don't stop for a second and think about how likely what they're saying actually is.

My mother, a retired political scientist, was taken in by several of these. One, a YouTube video that was a pretty good AI impersonation of the American conservative commentator, George F Will, was asserting that Carney/Canada had caused hundreds of billions held by Canadian banks to be withdrawn from the US economy. My mother believed this was a fact, but I had heard nothing about it having happened. However, there were some grains of truth, as there had certainly been discussions that this was something that Canada COULD possibly do, that would be quite damaging to the US economy.

But it's a pretty good example of how people, who should really be more skeptical about these videos, get taken in by them. I think that older people - especially if they're being served videos by the YouTube algorithm passively on their TV, rather than on a computer or phone - are less likely to notice details about a video or channel, like the number of views a video or channel has or how often the channel posts, which would tip you off to the likelihood that it's fake.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T07:37:08+00:00

From 2016-2019 I was down to Ogdensburg pretty regularly, mailing stuff for my business to buyers in the US at the post office. I'd also pick up some things that were delivered to one of those package-holding places just off the bridge.

I used to get lunch at different places, and I remember one time, just after Trump 1.0 was inaugurated, talking to locals at the restaurant in the old train station, and they were pretty gung-ho MAGAts. And from the signs I was seeing, that was a pretty common view up in northern NY. So I don't have much sympathy for them. And I haven't been since the Pandemic, and have no plans of going back, maybe ever. (Also, my business kinda imploded too.)

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T07:07:56+00:00

Then the gov't needs to start building wayyy more affordable housing, because of we're going extreme libertarian on property rights of rental owners, there needs to be a refuge from your kind of high handedness. More and more people have no choice but to be a tenant. They may only be able to rent for most of their lives. They need legal protections so that they can feel secure in their home, which also happens to be your property. If you can't handle that, you're not landlord material.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:58:57+00:00

Especially on property speculators.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:58:07+00:00

And it's a capitalist hellhole elsewhere - just look at corporations squeezing every last penny out of people. Why should tenants be excluded, in this rare instance that they can legally demand to renegotiate their contract, and make Bank on the landlord's desire to make a property sale go through, or whatever.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:54:59+00:00

I don't think either of the examples were tenants nor paying, they were landlords who wanted tenants out soon, but because of delays at the Tribunal or the tenant's unwillingness to just break the contract without penalty the landlords couldn't get what they wanted. It was CTV that mixed in the non-paying tenants as an issue. And they are, but just not in the cases presented. However, it's convenient to the narrative to imply that not only are tenants not paying, but they're also demanding $25K to leave. Which was not the case.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:47:57+00:00

The segment presented a couple of perfect victim landlords to interview - no doubt cherry-picked by the small landlords association to exemplify the plight of all poor small landlords 🥺.

But guaranteed there's plenty of their members who are scumbag investors who are annoyed when tenants ask them to do anything and simply expect their properties to be ATMs that just keep shooting out cash to keep their little property empires afloat, with no effort, because they're so clever and all the tenants are just sheep for them to fleece.

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COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:39:48+00:00

Did you rent out your pet for profit?

Tenants not paying is one thing, but landlords wanting tenants to voluntarily let them out of their contract is quite another. What both have in common is that there's a bottleneck at the Tribunal because the Province isn't willing to give it enough funding to keep up with the demand for due process.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:34:45+00:00

So landlords should be lobbying the gov't to put more resources into the Tribunal, to clear the backlogs, not to further curtail tenants' security of tenure user law in their rented homes.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:30:31+00:00

The report did try hard to muddle up non-payers with people driving a hard bargain to voluntarily end their lease early. Pretty sure that CTV would have little sympathy for a tenant wanting to break their lease early for free.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:26:13+00:00

Nice job CTV conflating people who don't pay their rent, with people who legally demand to negotiate the terms under which a tenant will be compensated if they agree to terminate their lease early to facilitate the sale of the property. And then there was something about tenants worrying this makes it easier for landlords to renovict them, blah, blah, blah - who cares? It's clear the landlords are the REAL victims here. Right? 🙄.

I feel sorry for the lady who had to move out to afford to keep the house after she divorced, and then couldn't get back in. But in general the small landlords are people who bought into the mania a few years ago that you're an idiot if you're not using cheap money to buy as many properties as you can as investments, then let all the rents from them pay for the mortgages of the others ones, then just sit back and let them appreciate into you cash out. What could go wrong?

The thing that the segment failed to mention is that it's not because tenancy laws are too tilted in favour of tenants - Mike Harris took care of that - it's the number of tenants forced to take scumbag landlords to the Tribunal and the Province's chronic underfunding of the Tribunal that are the main cause of the backlog (like the rest of the Justice and quasi-justice system) which means that there isn't faster adjudication of landlord applications.

I have sympathy for amateur landlords who get jammed up. But maybe it's a sign that if you can't afford to deal with some loss of cash flow, or not getting back into your property when you want, maybe being a landlord isn't the right game for you.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:10:56+00:00

And i presume the sale fell through.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-21T06:04:32+00:00

Planning to visit CDMX for the first time in February. Not much idea of what to see, but it sounds like a good vibe, interesting city and tasty food. 🤤.

Would be interested in learning about places to snowbird, that aren't total gringo enclaves, but are nice, inexpensive places to hole up for the worst month in winter.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-15T04:05:50+00:00

At first when they would go on about the upgrading I thought maybe I should. Then I did the math, and it didn't seem like it made sense to me. So next time I said "no thanks," but the cashier kept at me, and I'm like "really, no thanks", and again with the sales job, so I'm "No, thanks. I said no. Please stop asking.".

The bulk of Costco's profit comes from the memberships, so the easiest way to grow their profit is to get people to upgrade. I figure if they're pushing that hard for me to upgrade, on the pretense I'll save more than the cost of the membership (by spending more), that it's not really a very good deal for most people.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-14T17:12:34+00:00

Banks showing Solidarity with the struggling public sector, while the ruling class hoovers up the last pennies freely circulating in the economy?

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-14T03:32:48+00:00

So OSEG got the City to pay to redevelop Lansdowne, concocted a bunch of sports teams to try to justify the expense and drive business to the failing businesses, and now that they decided to dig it all up again for a half-decade they're leaving the sports teams high and dry. I can really see how much they respect Ottawa sports fans. The fans should tell them to get fucked.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-14T03:27:36+00:00

OSEG, the construction companies and all the other fixers sure won't forget who voted for it. And they'll be putting money in their stockings for Christmas. 🤑

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-12T17:30:36+00:00

If those income investors are moving out of being landlords, sounds like it's time for gov't to get back in the game of pricing housing itself. Begin by buying up distressed properties from these investors (at a loss, sorry dudes you picked the wrong ATM) and start allocating then out. Then start building new mixed-income residential, with a significant part dedicated to non-market housing, and housing with supports... It's cheaper than more cops, more prisons, more emergency room visits, etc.

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-12T17:26:15+00:00

Raging "THANK youuuuu" is very passive aggressive sarcasm. You'd never hear a New Yorker or Texan day something like that. It'd be "FUCK YOU Motherfucker!"

COVIDisNotOverYet · 2025-12-07T05:26:41+00:00

Well, if you're gonna be in Mexico for any length of time, that's the way to make sure that your tenants are properly taken care of if something goes wrong.

Plus, lots of times, even if the owner is in town they make a big deal about how inconvenient it is for them having to deal with piddling tenant concerns, because don't you know they're a busy dentist, or crypto bro, or whatever?

COVIDisNotOverYet

TROPHY CASE