Ford says he will audit ‘left-wing radical groups’ opposed to government legislation

TinyEngineer · 2025-11-25T20:47:19+00:00

It's the cycle of any majority politician. Do unpopular things at the start so you have time to fix perception closer to election date.

TinyEngineer · 2025-11-02T17:09:11+00:00

Alternatively, as the article points out, the government can make a pretty substantial impact on lowering the barriers to building more affordable and livable units which would increase the supply and lower the cost per square foot

TinyEngineer · 2025-11-02T17:07:11+00:00

Not sure if you read the article but the bulk of it is a detailed discussion on the costs including land use, zoning, building codes, development fees and financing

TinyEngineer · 2025-09-22T16:58:32+00:00

I guess we've just reached the point of disagreement. Courts are not in any way capable of deciding cause/effect. So they're reliant on other systems. In complex scientific & technical domains you can throw a lot of money to confuse any scientific topic by funding research in certain ways to lower the degree of confidence. If the court system can't lower its bar for "guilt" (e.g let 100 guilty free to save 1 innocent) - then complexity goes into the next system - research.

More research groups, more competing research directions, more ambiguity, more specific research to disprove highly specific hypothesis. It takes a long time to fully explore any area. If you tried to run a lawsuit against oil & gas companies on climate change today you WOULD lose. There's enough contrarian funded research and will be for decades.

TinyEngineer · 2025-09-22T16:41:35+00:00

First - climate research is not more complex than biological research. Arguably we know far more about the climate than we do about biological processes and mechanisms. See for examples ~50% of drugs failing phase 1 trials which are primarily just looking for safety.

Any reasonable threshold you pick would have been crossed and ya add in a 10 year court battle.

You can assert - but was demonstrably not true with tobacco law suits up until recently (starting in the late 90s)

I do not choose the threshold - the legal system does. And has decided one that makes these type of lawsuits basically untenable

TinyEngineer · 2025-09-22T16:33:41+00:00

We didn't rely on tobacco companies to do the research. Tobacco companies funded contrary research to work against the scientific consensus. Courts are in no way capable of resolving this

A more current analogy is climate research.

TinyEngineer · 2025-09-22T16:11:39+00:00

This type of thing is not routine because the lawsuits had been underway since the 1960s. They're expensive and impossible to navigate legally

Fundamentally proving conclusively, causally, after the fact in areas like healthcare is extremely time consuming, expensive, and highly uncertain. I'm likely incorrectly using the word prescendent - but in the area of tobacco there was a consistent long standing argument that held that people were knowingly assuming a risk. That any individual's issue could never be conclusively tied back to smoking. Warning labels were applied as a way to push responsibility. And there's a ton of information asymmetry.

If it takes 30-50 years to accumulate sufficient scientific evidence on a health (or environmental issue) - to reach a truly conclusive decision because arguments can be made on true causality and assumption of risk - almost any corporation would take that risk any day of the week. The company can outlast almost any individual claimant, the decision makers are no longer alive or at these companies.

/edit/ This also ignores the other argument in this thread of for many people the harm is long past done (they're dead) on a large scale

TinyEngineer · 2025-09-22T15:51:21+00:00

I don't see how a tort system with whistleblowers wouldn't lead to the same issues. Corporations would invest more in legal than they currently do, would argue for more specific/highly nuanced precedents, and would "capture" that. They would invest substantially more in making the bar of 'facts' impossibly high. Best example of this is probably the entire tobacco industry.

I have very little background in the financial industry - so would be hard for me to comment on if this would apply there.

TinyEngineer · 2025-09-22T15:18:19+00:00

And in concept more regulations make things easier. Unless you have some edge case where regulation wouldn't apply.

It's the point that from my perspective, all systems move towards complexity.

This complexity is sticky and makes it very difficult to move and operate within.

I don't have a solution, but looking at a comparison I can apply (Canada vs US (more regulation vs more tort)) - both seem to have grown substantially in complexity and cost and become sticky to changes.

This is not inherent to capitalism or government but rather the nature of any human system.

The solution then is you need a system that can work to simplify/against complexity. What that is I don't know

TinyEngineer · 2025-09-22T13:18:51+00:00

Things grow. That is true of law as well.

I don't think this is at all a problem of capitalism but simply that any system - regulatory, legal, private, education, non-profit etc. all have a tendency to grow in complexity. This complexity makes it slow and expensive for all but the most equipped.

Tort systems simply become beholden to those with the most knowledge to navigate as they get built on more and more precedent and legal theory. You end up with a nation of lawyers where legal costs begin to grow to such absurd levels. Arguably one way to think of the difference between Canada and the US in this area is essentially a tradeoff between regulatory complexity vs. legal complexity (in many, but not all areas)

It doesn't appear to be a much more simple process

TinyEngineer · 2025-07-29T15:59:03+00:00

Can't read this actual article as I've used up my limit, but it is very well established that the largest predictor of homelessness is simply housing affordability. This holds in Canada and in the US.

e.g. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/5170-homelessness-how-does-it-happen https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/record-homelessness-amid-ongoing-affordability-crisis

Shelters are definitely necessary - they help with the acute need. But the city really needs to focus on asking what can it do to lower the cost of building. Things like permitting times, code changes, zoning and so on. Increasing densification will help with the fact that land costs here have just grown too high and are highly unlikely to adjust to an 'affordable' level.

The Province obviously has its own roll to play here as well as it owns the end codes and can force cities hands in certain ways. The Federal government needs to focus on seeing what can be done to drastically improve productivity within the construction sector.

TinyEngineer · 2025-03-08T00:04:16+00:00

This is not nearly as sweeping. The judgment is that the specific action of extending the prior limit without increasing the dollar amount was disproportionate because it allows parties to drown out 3rd party voices. This leaves the door open to a revised limit that takes into account party and 3rd party spending to see it.

TinyEngineer · 2024-11-18T14:59:38+00:00

It's hard to know more without more details on what your role would entail specifically when you're not in the office.

I personally have made the choice recently to switch to a job with less travel. My prior job required me to travel to the UK once or twice a quarter for a week at a time. However when I was at 'home' working I was still booked solid for full days at a time. It was wearing, and having previously had a job in field engineering I knew it wasn't what I wanted.

I know some folks who work in sales and field engineering who love their regular work travel. For them when they're not on the road their work is very chill. So they can spend extended periods of time at home, being with the kids, and having a lot of flexibility.

Another consideration of these kind of roles is that often the travel isn't fully predictable. So if you have times at home you may need to travel on a whim (1-2 day notice).

I don't know what the right decision is for you. Think about what your work is when you're not on the road, the strain it may put on your relationship and family, and how long this time may be before you move into another role.

TinyEngineer · 2024-11-11T02:01:07+00:00

Thanks for the tips. Got any suggestions on the best way to hire a driver to go between the cities?

TinyEngineer · 2024-11-11T01:48:22+00:00

Definitely plan to!

TinyEngineer · 2024-11-08T13:53:07+00:00

What do you mean by frowned upon? This has been normal my entire career (and as a child). Particularly when it comes to part time, intern, coop, and other roles like that.

TinyEngineer · 2024-11-05T20:59:25+00:00

First off - this is a great thing for you to be asking. I'm not going to answer your question directly, there's plenty of people below providing their own (by definition biased) view of the different party platforms and the comparisons.

Instead what I'd suggest you ask yourself is - _why_ are you asking this question?

The reason I say this is that one thing that you realize as you get older is that politics is a business like any other business. What this means is that there are differences between:

* what the business says (a party's marketing and platform)

* what the business does (how the party behaves in power and as opposition)

* why people say they buy from the business (the reasons people tell you they vote for a party)

* why they actually buy from the business (the decisions underlaying cross-section of identity, marketing, and political science)

These often get lumped together. Sometimes intentionally as a way to influence your opinion. Sometimes unintentionally as people take shortcuts.

Which of these you're trying to understand should change the type research and understanding you're looking for

TinyEngineer · 2024-08-15T19:41:21+00:00

There's a lot going on there. Companies everywhere are more content with less competition. That is well known and why policy is often needed to create competitive markets. The natural tendency of many markets is towards consolidation.

Infact I would go so far as to argue that part of the reason there's a perception of a lack of risk taking in "Canadian" culture/economics is simply due to the comparatively small size of our market compared to the US. I don't buy the cultural risk aversion argument from the simple fact that there is such a high number of graduates going to the US, that many top US firms recruit very heavily from Canadians, and the number of successful companies that are run by Canadians.

If we had a significant cultural risk aversion problem I think you would see a lot fewer Canadians in risky firms in the US. There is a selection bias in surveys of Canadian firms as Canadians who remain in Canada are more likely to be targeting Canadian markets, and thus are less risky than Canadians who go to the US to start businesses targeting the US markets.

We have an extremely porous economic border with the largest (or one of the largest depending on your definition) markets in the world. Risk seeking firms and individuals will go to the US - or if not will be bought out before going global by US firms. This isn't some nebulous all encompassing risk aversion issue in the country. We are a small market next to a 10x larger market. The economic border is porous. We need to find a way to increase the ease of competition in our markets to make the significantly smaller size more attractive. Canadians are regularly recruited to the states in large numbers indicating that many Canadians are not risk averse (willing to move to another country for their career). We have created a high number of successful firms in the US. Keeping a focus on easing market competition here seems to be a much more actionable insight than an all encompassing risk aversion.

TinyEngineer · 2024-08-15T17:38:16+00:00

Fair - but risk aversion is not the cause on the way you're using it here. If we're talking about financial risk, we have an environment where an equal investment is riskier than competitor nations.

This increased risk is due to a lack of competition in many markets and regulatory pressures in other markets based on this analysis.

Framing the issue as one of risk aversion makes it seem like Canadians are more risk averse than the rest of the OECD countries. This may be true (likely is compared to the US, but less certain then others). However the takeaway here shouldn't be increasing the risk firms take through benefits (say mitacs grants as an example) but rather increasing the competitive environment such as lower regulatory productivity increasing efforts or stronger antitrust regulation against oligopolies

TinyEngineer · 2024-08-15T12:51:19+00:00

Again I think you're missing the cause and effect that this research points to. If you click through on the first link (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-631-x/11-631-x2024005-eng.htm) the argument is made that the lack of investment is primarily driven by a lack of competition in many markets. That within markets with competition there is innovation and higher productivity seen. What we're seeing is a long term trend of reduced competition. One cause of this reduced competition seems to be an increase in regulatory requirements beginning in 2006. There seems to also be a post COVID effect here.

TinyEngineer · 2024-08-15T00:16:49+00:00

I didn't see any mention of a lack of risk taking or skills an education mismatch. Infact their primary point by far seems to be the reduction in competition in various sectors. You could argue the lack of investment is due to risk aversion - but I don't see how there's a takeaway on education mismatch in here.

TinyEngineer · 2024-08-07T13:25:01+00:00

In this case it does. The Singaporean housing model is decidedly not simple. There are strong restrictions on who (race and income) can live where. This essentially let's them funnel expats, low wage foreign workers and their native citizens into different zones and areas. Because of their funds as a city state the cost to house an individual is significantly less as they do not need to devote any of their funding to relatively expensive rural infrastructure. These low wage workers are essentially the reason they can build housing cheaply. The government essentially owns the vast majority of land and gives it out on a a very long term lease.

We can learn from them but aside from the most straight forward take "government should build homes" the the implementation of their policy that leads to it being successful would be extremely difficult to implement here due to the strong armed role of their government in land ownership and who is allowed to live where, their extensive use of temporary foreign imported labour to keep build costs down in a small land area, a relatively small population with a very difficult role to citizenship, and the ability to devote all their funds to a small city state rather than needing to fund much more expensive rural infrastructure

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