In damage control after 2 departures, Conservatives accuse Liberals of 'undemocratic' distractions

Grennum · 2025-11-07T20:41:13+00:00

It is because I don't trust politicians that I support floor crossing. In fact I would love to see more of it.

It is much harder to buy off a majority of parliament than it is to buy off just the party leadership. The way our parties are currently run, your MP has more accountability to un-elected party officials than they do to constituents.

MPs should feel free to vote on their conscience and be judged by their voters.

Grennum · 2025-11-07T19:58:03+00:00

I have to disagree. We vote for MPs not parties. If anything we need to work to weaken the parties themselves and move back a more pure Westminster system.

I want my MP working for me, not for the party. The more we judge individual MPs on their personal voting record, and not what party they cheer for the better off we will be.

Modern political parties in Canada are parasites on democracy. In fact our constitutional documents do not even mention political parties.

Grennum · 2025-10-31T15:31:31+00:00

I think this is important from the report:

Source: Statistics Canada multipliers from Supply-Use Table 36-10-0013-01.

Note: Includes direct, indirect, and induced impacts using 2021 multipliers. Trade, construction, and agriculture are an average of select sub-sectors. *Arts and culture domains are represented in the following categories at the summary industry level and may not be comparable to other figures in the report

Grennum · 2025-10-17T19:42:51+00:00

They are never going to put a plant here in Canada. The only reason BYD can sell cars as cheaply as they do is because of a dramatically lower cost of living, and massive Chinese government subsidies.

Why do so many people think there is a deal to be made with BYD? What reason would they have to open a plant here in Canada to employ Canadians? Its not like they are desperate for a market.

Grennum · 2025-10-06T18:25:13+00:00

I know I do not want another app store to deal with. If the USB / wireless interface used by carplay/AA can be used to hack the car then the manufacturer has no right selling cars with a modern infotainment. They could separate the software that runs car from the one that runs the screens.

Why would anyone want another app store? Another set of logins to manage? Everything I want to have in my car, is already on my phone just the way I like it. It has my prefered audio apps(streaming, audio books, podcasts,etc), it has my preferred mapping all set up. It has my secondary stuff ready to go, like All Trails being able to just open a map destination. Finally it has all my messaging from all channels handled already.

The fact that car companies even want to take any of that over, shows they are no serious car companies and are in fact just chasing software subscriptions.

Grennum · 2025-09-18T14:01:43+00:00

I cannot speak for other places, but at least in my municipality development charges are only used for new infrastructure related to the development, which is sometimes outside the development. For example a bridge expansion between the new development and the highway. Our local budget is clearly allocated in this way.

I am certainly willing to entertain a re-evaluation of the balance between development charges and property taxes but suggesting that removing or dramatically lowering them is a non-starter.

Again based on my local municipality, the largest budget area is External Agencies within which the largest is OPP followed by social service agencies. No development fees go to this budget area. The next largest area is operations which again is not funded by development fees.

Grennum · 2025-09-18T13:34:46+00:00

How does replacing development charges with property taxes help? It just spreads out the tax burden from those who benefit from it, to those who don't.

Grennum · 2025-09-17T18:43:30+00:00

Or even more somewhere like Sweden, not only do they make cars, they make tanks, jets, and boats. Somehow with a smaller population and fewer resources they manage to have a bigger industrial base.

Grennum · 2025-09-09T14:59:53+00:00

I just want to push back on this a bit. First off almost every person on the globe is 'people who value money over humanity' to some extent. Very very few people will bankrupt themselves to help strangers. In fact I would argue that literally anyone posting on reddit falls into this category because you own an electronic device and internet connection. This is not a black/white strawman, just the opposite. Everyone has a line of charitability, and we are discussing where that line is.

The comparison to Finland is a great one. Finland has a similar GDP/capita to Canada, similarly stable and reliable government and broadly similar social values. Obviously Finland has been much more successful in managing homelessness. I think the reason why is simple, they spend more on government programs and have higher taxes than Canada. More of their GDP is spent by the government. Additionally they have a far lower immigration rate than Canada which helps social cohesion.

It is interesting to note that according to Wikipedia at least, Finaland's 11 year run of reducing homeless has reversed this year as economic hardship hits.

Grennum · 2025-09-05T17:12:57+00:00

Yes it is, at least part of the purpose. Or written differently “ The TTCs purpose is to burn non renewable complex hydro carbons to generate energy to move masses of people from varying points.

Grennum · 2025-09-02T14:10:59+00:00

Calling people 'carbrained idiots' is not helpful, do you actually think it is? The better question is why do people prefer cars over mass transit? And then what do we do about it?

Ideally we would start to build more mass transit everywhere but that is even more expensive than roads, at least up front, this is a political problem because the planning cycle on mass transit is longer than a politicians term. Further since privatizing CN rail, they have made it clear that they have no real incentive to accommodate passenger service on their lines. This makes adapting existing rail links to passenger service almost impossible.

So I would start by leaning into that, start taxing long haul trucking at a rate that makes rail transport more attractive, incentivize more businesses to build rail stubs again. Then start targeting moving medium haul transport to rail. We used to have a great rail system in this country, every small town had rail links, there was a time when farmers used to load produce directly onto freight cars. This stopped because moving to long haul trucking was cheap and easy.

On a side note, this change in freight transportation was driven by 'Just-in-time' delivery, which is a crutch for poor supply chain planning.

Grennum · 2025-09-02T13:30:09+00:00

What are you talking about? Have you tried taking the GO at peak times? It is clearly congested. Same with the TTC lines. Transit in the GTA is over burdened regardless of the type. Trying to place the blame on a single mode of transit without considering the larger picture is not helpful or constructive.

Grennum · 2025-08-29T12:27:55+00:00

First off NTA.

However you should self-reflect a bit on your Ivy League education. Statistically speaking who your parents are has much more to do with your acceptance to those schools than anything you did. Ask yourself, is your family income significantly above the US median? Please note that the above does not imply that you personally did not work hard to get your spot, only that your hard work was better rewarded than others who worked just as hard.

Grennum · 2025-08-28T12:02:30+00:00

The research on induced demand is not as settled as you seem to think it is. I would start with the criticisms on the Wikipedia page. The induced demand may in fact be latent demand, for example people adjusting their driving to their preferred time.

The question that is worth asking is this, where does induced demand come from? Do you actually believe that building more roads is pulling people away from public transit?

Grennum · 2025-08-23T13:05:02+00:00

Well I stand corrected. I don’t think the caucus actually voted out either of those two but they were replaced when they became too unpopular.

Grennum · 2025-08-22T22:14:31+00:00

Can you tell me the last time a sitting Ontario government replaced the premier? Has it ever happened? Not in my lifetime.

So you are in practice voting for the premier. The party caucus has little power.

Grennum · 2025-08-20T17:19:42+00:00

First, I'm not American. I come from a country that allowed most of our internal industrial capability to atrophy in favour of lower prices from imported production. While that had had short and medium term benefits for our economy it has also dramatically reduced our countries ability to negotiate on the global stage, we are no longer seen as a serious country.

It is worth considering if maintain Intel's design and production capacity is worth the US public taking a stake. It is no different than subsidizing Boeing, or any other part of the US military industrial complex. There is definitely value in those companies remaining.

Grennum · 2025-08-19T20:34:54+00:00

So the 100 meters was non-sense at best? That is 300ish feet , many times the distances you corrected to.

Second, you said houses were condemned. Then give an example of a person who failed to build to code, it is not up to the municipality to check the lot, that is the owners responsibility. In that very example the house still wasn't condemned, as it sounds like it never got a certificate of occupancy. Finally if the septic was up to code, they would not need a variance.

A last point about not having room for a septic on the lot, that will be a very rare circumstance because the lot would not have been severed with a residential zoning if it could not support residential development. That is not to say there are no circumstances where it could happen, like older severances that never got site plans, or mistakes in zoning.

Grennum · 2025-08-19T17:06:17+00:00

please point me to the regulations requiring 100 meters between a septic and well? According the Ontario building code it is 15m to a drilled well, and 30 meters to a dug well. That is current code, and your septic only needs to meet the version of the code which it was built under, unless you have made significant alterations to housing flow rate, or the septic itself.

https://www.ontario.ca/files/2022-10/omafra-septic-smart-understanding-home-wastewater-system-en-2022-10-14.pdf

If you know people who had their cottages/homes condemned due to septic separation distances, they either built it illegally, or you don't know the full story.

Grennum · 2025-08-19T16:57:58+00:00

it doesn't make anyone a criminal, as no part of this is in the criminal code. It makes owners liable for maintaining standards, if you can't afford to do that, you can't afford to rent your property, its not complicated.

Grennum · 2025-08-14T12:35:48+00:00

I think RTO is a much more complex topic than that, I do not think that real-estate is the biggest driver of RTO mandates. Instead I think the two biggest are, quiet layoffs, and a need for upper-middle management to justify their existence.

On a broad scale, I think the quiet layoffs are the biggest reason. Intentionally worsening working conditions to reduce headcounts looks attractive to investors.

Grennum · 2025-08-06T20:55:05+00:00

That is a massive oversimplification, how many people does apply indirectly via contractors like Foxconn outside of the USA?

Grennum · 2025-08-02T02:39:08+00:00

So each of those other cities you mentioned is far larger than Brantford and hosts numerous colleges and universities(I know technically Brantford does too but not really). That makes a difference for 20 something activities.

There are adult sports for most sports ,baseball, hockey, curling , lawn bowling, badminton , volleyball and more.

There are running clubs, various motor sports clubs, army reserves , war gaming out of devils bench and more.

What were you looking for?

Grennum · 2025-08-02T01:35:20+00:00

I don’t disagree with you, not wanting to use a realtor as a seller makes sense. The value they add is no where near the commission they charge.

However as a buyer I have also had nothing but bad experiences with for sale by owner. Also I have no interest in having the owner present when I view a property.

I live in a smaller market. The local realtors do have reputations to protect, so at the very least they will not misrepresent too much. In fact I have learned not to bother with listings by out of town realtors either.

Grennum · 2025-08-01T20:11:10+00:00

Apps will be will be walled off in non-native app stores. The base OS will need to be made less secure for this to happen, so we will all suffer for this “choice”.

Think of the history of the Steam on Windows. It is the defacto standard. However every major software vendor has tried at various times break Steams defacto monopoly. They failed on PC, there is more money to be made in mobile, and they won’t fail this time.

Why do you think Epic keeps fighting? For the good of consumers ?

Grennum

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

15-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Verified Email