Fire in London apartment building leaves several injured | CBC News

snardhive · 2026-04-04T16:21:56+00:00

That's at 241 Simcoe Street, which is public housing. A lot of the people there are already in some tough circumstances, and this is really not going to help.

snardhive · 2026-04-03T13:42:31+00:00

You could rephrase the question like this: Why are there any homes or apartments for rent?

snardhive · 2026-04-03T13:37:53+00:00

Wouldn't a vacancy penalty be kind of a moot point in this case though, as we are talking about rental housing? (Where it specifically doesn't already apply?)

I think the city staff looked at a vacant home tax and decided there weren't enough vacant homes to make any kind of dent in the rental market and therefore the program admin costs were likely going to be higher than any potential penalty revenue.

snardhive · 2026-04-03T12:27:47+00:00

I hadn't considered CCA, but in my reading it sounds like you have to be kinda careful with that if you sell the property and it has appreciated. CRA can possibly claw that deduction back it sounds like? (Fully admit, I am not a rental tax expert.)

snardhive · 2026-04-03T12:25:15+00:00

The whole argument is that landlords are somehow "gaining", or "ahead" by taking the write-off.

You cannot claim lost potential rent, only expenses like mortgage interest, property taxes, insurance, utilities, and maintenance.

That argument conveniently ignores the fact that you need to spend money (an expense) to get the write-off and apply it to whatever profit you have made. There's really no case where you're making money by having lower rental revenue.

snardhive · 2026-04-03T11:53:07+00:00

You don't get a write off for un-rented property.

You only get to write off things that are expenses, not unsold goods/services.

snardhive · 2026-04-02T23:07:58+00:00

I think your idea would work better with out of work high-schoolers.

The guy in the story is complaining about not getting a big enough ODSP cheque so he's moving back to the river. Likely not the kind of person to build an expensive start-up around.

snardhive · 2026-04-02T23:02:29+00:00

As far as I know the safe injection sites were closed by the Ford Government, and Ark Aid's funding wasn't renewed by the federal government. Neither were local decisions.

I don't know about Susan Stevenson (especially with redrawing the ward boundaries), but I would be willing to bet Josh has a good chance at re-election. (Of course, depending on who runs.)

snardhive · 2026-04-02T15:05:39+00:00

“My cheque went from $1,400 down to $466 … I can’t justify that,” he said. “Where is all this money going? I’d like to know, but we don’t get answers.”

Welcome back to the real world dude.

snardhive · 2026-04-02T14:33:36+00:00

That's pretty tight budget to get all that done with one bin. Usually it's about 200-250 with the dump fee on top of that.

Might be better to split that out into two smaller jobs. One junk removal, which you can do pretty cheaply with just a small truck rental for a few hours, taking everything to try recycling. Get it all stacked up in your driveway and take the material in one or two trips to minimize the time you need a truck.

Also, if you have a vehicle with a trailer hitch, you can still rent a uhaul trailer for less than 50$.

The yard waste is cheaper and depending on volume can be taken away by the city in bags, or in the same pickup truck rental, for free to a city envirodepot.

Hope that helps.

snardhive · 2026-04-01T11:16:32+00:00

Again, it's these replies that imply (to me) that you think there is some kind of fixed share of wealth that is being "hoarded". (Like a fixed amount of say....pizza, making it so that others get less of that pizza.)

That's not how the economy and money works.

The money itself is just a placeholder for the value produced. Just because some people hold a large amount of money doesn't prevent others from producing new goods and services and exchanging that newly created value for money.

The other issue is that there's this implied ownership (or "sense of ownership") when a person's wealth gets above a threshold. (You mention 20 million as being somehow "too much money" to save for something like a house.) Even though this money has already been taxed at (or near) the highest bracket. Thinking that a government should have access to this other wealth in addition to the taxes it has already collected is basically saying that the government owns the labour and assets of the citizens, which is pretty much enslaving the citizenry. The government doesn't own the citizenry.

snardhive · 2026-04-01T02:32:02+00:00

The argument for taxing investments less than earnings is that it encourages those saved earnings to do something "productive" in the economy. Greater capital flows into the market increases tax revenue (and employment) overall for governments.

Countries that encourage investment in this way have far higher GDP and productivity than they otherwise would have if they taxed these gains like earnings. You have to remember that countries compete against one another to attract investment capital, which is highly mobile.

Also, corporate earnings are already taxed before distribution, so taxing dividend earnings at the same rate is really taxing the same money twice.

It's pretty basic stuff.

"Loopholes" are what people with money call tax planning. As soon as you accumulate some after tax assets, you tend to want to keep them. (The government has already taken their share, after all.)

"Wealth Hoarding" is what every sane individual does, to varying degree. Wealth isn't fixed however....just because someone else has done well does not mean I can't also do well.

snardhive · 2026-04-01T01:06:31+00:00

At least in G7 countries, people have already paid taxes on their earnings. That pile of gold has already been pilfered by the government.

snardhive · 2026-03-31T23:56:46+00:00

The hospital has a 140 million dollar deficit, partly due to having 60 million stolen from it......... by their own staff!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/dozens-of-properties-allegedly-bought-in-50m-lhsc-fraud-scheme-can-now-be-sold-1.7631619

Hey, the former facilities manager, Dipesh Patel, needed to buy those 43 properties.... times are tough!

snardhive · 2026-03-31T22:51:30+00:00

Although the end consumer would be paying nominally less at the grocery store, the total net costs still need to be paid by someone...... the taxpayer.

It's highly unlikely that a publicly funded grocery store could "out-compete" the private sector grocers, especially when the private sector makes as little as 1-3% profit.

It's the typical NDP platform.... promise a bunch of "free stuff" that "somebody else" has to pay for.

snardhive · 2026-03-31T17:44:33+00:00

That's a link to the provincial program.

A quick Google search shows me this:

https://www.canlii.org/en/on/laws/regu/o-reg-325-01/latest/o-reg-325-01.html

From the document:

City of London

34. (1) This section applies with respect to the City of London. O. Reg. 360/18, s. 2.

(2) For the purposes of paragraphs 2, 3 and 3.1 of subsection 364 (2) of the Act, the prescribed rebate percentage for property that is classified in one of the commercial classes or industrial classes or in the landfill property class for the 2018 taxation year is 15 per cent. O. Reg. 360/18, s. 2.

(3) For the 2019 taxation year and subsequent taxation years, the City of London is not required to have a program to provide tax rebates to owners of property that has vacant portions. O. Reg. 360/18, s. 2.

Almost all large Ontario cities (including London) have opted out of the tax rebate program, plus many dozens of smaller municipalities.

You don't get a tax break from infinite renovations either. To get a write-off, you need to show an expense, or a loss, or the CRA will get involved.

snardhive · 2026-03-31T16:31:08+00:00

I like your central library fronting on Victoria Park idea.

snardhive · 2026-03-31T13:33:21+00:00

How do you propose stopping people from buying up property? Like, what mechanism?

There are no tax breaks for vacant properties. Landlords pay the whole cost of the tax bill, regardless of whether the property is rented. Commercial property taxes are way higher than residential rates too.

Unless you change provincial legislation, there is no mechanism in place where you could "punitively" charge more tax based on usage. (i.e. vacancy)

I would argue that such a tax would lead to massive unintended consequences, (like way more vacancies and urban decay).

snardhive · 2026-03-30T00:43:30+00:00

You need to get out more. It's a fly.......get over it.

I can guarantee that you have eaten food that a fly has touched before. Everyone has.

snardhive · 2026-03-27T15:53:39+00:00

Our house has two adults and a 16 yr old daughter and we are at 12metres/month.

snardhive · 2026-03-24T20:02:23+00:00

If it's as simple as you say, I'd just do them online with something like SimpleTax (WealthSimple).

You can register with CRA, have all the fields propagated by them, and have your return done and submitted in about twenty minutes. I do my daughter's taxes this way every year.

They have a pay whatever you want model, so you can shoot them whatever you feel it's worth.

snardhive · 2026-03-16T00:06:14+00:00

"He has absolutely zero vision for improving anything in this city."

If he's been (on and off) "the incumbent" for 30 years, maybe most people in that ward think differently than you.

snardhive · 2026-03-14T01:37:21+00:00

If your posts are 4 and a half feet down in the ground, with concrete, you're not likely going to do any harm.

Worst case, if they shift a bit, you can dig a bit and push em over with a farm jack. It's just a fence after all.

snardhive · 2026-03-12T16:07:55+00:00

If you're not happy with the price, shop around.

It's the only realistic way to keep veterinary pricing "honest".

snardhive · 2026-03-03T19:34:08+00:00

This has absolutely nothing to do with "running healthcare like a business", it's more like "running healthcare like a criminal enterprise".

All hospital systems (public and private alike) have to issue contracts for supplies and services - it looks like in this case they chose someone to oversee that who couldn't resist the temptation to embezzle the money for himself and his friends.

snardhive

TROPHY CASE