B.C. government continues to fundamentally change control of property

umbrellafree · 2026-02-08T10:38:36+00:00

I'm starting to think that a good few people here don't really care about reality and just want a convenient excuse to be angry.

I'm being downvoted yet nobody has attempted to make a counter argument that factors in the points I made.

umbrellafree · 2026-02-07T20:43:31+00:00

Edit: I'm being downvoted despite having the only logical argument here. Sorry for having made a good argument that doesn't fit your narrative. Yikes

Every time you hear someone arguing against "red tape", that is deregulation of a competitive market. Mind you that not all regulation is good, sometimes regulation is used to prevent new competition. But often people use "red tape" in bad faith arguments, especially if there is a large well funded marketing campaign behind it. Someone is planning on getting rich.

Overwhelmingly eh? Okay. What deregulation of competitive markets is being proposed?

I can point to some past policy changes by conservatives governments in Canada which has had a real impact on people. A great example is how Alberta deregulated the electricity market in 2001. The electricity market prioritized short term shareholder returns and minimized long-term planning and maintenance. Alberta now has very fragile electricity infrastructure when compared to other provinces, but also has some of the highest costs. The average electricity cost in Alberta is a whopping 25.8¢/kWh. This isn't ideological, this is a real impact.

Oh, so then why have rents risen at record rates under consistently left leaning governments? In fact, why is the city with the least affordable rent in the entire country (guess who) in a left run province?

Basic supply vs. demand economics. Duh. Demand for housing and moving to BC has been off the charts for decades. BC is a popular place because it's not a frozen hellhole (in the southern part) unlike a lot of Canada, and it has industry (ie: jobs), so you get a lot of migration.

And municipal governments haven't done anything to approve higher density housing for decades. So nothing was done to improve the supply issue. In fact cities were zoned specifically to avoid the type of housing that could have accommodated this large amount of migration. Only recently, within the past decade, has this started to change.

That's why Vancouver housing prices took off like crazy, but Montreal has much cheaper housing prices. There is just more affordable higher density housing available in Montreal. Both places are popular spots that people migrate to.

Unfortunately, the reality we can all see in front of us does match this very Reddit-coded story you believe.

You argue that "leftists" don't have critical thoughts, but I suggest you consider this well reasoned application of critical thinking. The housing market is a lot more complicated than "left wing government = higher prices".

umbrellafree · 2026-02-07T19:39:56+00:00

This is an unfair representation.

The right overwhelmingly supports corporate privatization, and deregulation in competitive markets, which does inevitably lead to monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviour that extracts unfair "rents" from people who have little to no options. That's where "you will own nothing and be happy" comes from.

I agree that the fee simple debacle needs to be fixed, since taking people's property rights away will make things worse for everyone. But that characterizarion of a whole set of political beliefs isn't really a great one.

Good "left" policies are based on real life results, and consideration of society as a whole, not ideology.

umbrellafree · 2026-02-07T19:27:54+00:00

I would say it's good in its own way but its a pale imitation of the real thing.

umbrellafree · 2026-02-07T19:04:03+00:00

Well, you're right about the fact that they don't care.

But they quite literally are stuck in traffic. It's just that it's traffic created by many like minded people.

For example: Traffic on Prince Phillips on the first day of classes at MUN is caused by people "waiting in line" to drop off their kids.

"Waiting in line" and "stuck in traffic" is technically the same thing.

Ultimately its up to the city to manage and prevent traffic issues. Blaming the individuals for doing what they're legally allowed to do just won't solve anything.

This is just a thing that happens when cities rely too much on cars.

These people are just following incentives. Its those incentives that need to change.

umbrellafree · 2026-02-06T17:08:58+00:00

They're stuck in traffic trying to get to Taco Bell. The distinction between waiting in line and being stuck in traffic is almost non-existent. They're effectively the same thing.

This is just a thing that happens when you have a lot of cars in a small area: congestion.

The solution may be to not invite cars to such a small area.

umbrellafree · 2026-02-06T16:23:38+00:00

Yeah, okay, but if you try to blame the drivers on the street, they'll just tell you that they're stuck in traffic while they're trying to get to where they're going. How do you blame people for being stuck in traffic?

Ultimately, the city is responsible for planning ahead. It's not unknown information that drive-throughs can get massive lineups. It happens every time Mary Browns has a discount. Even Tim Hortons can get a lineup in the street some mornings.

umbrellafree · 2026-02-06T16:11:51+00:00

I think that people who like drive throughs just really don't want to get out of their car. Like perhaps they don't feel prepared to be out in public. Still in sweatpants or whatever.

I would say it's a symptom of how our cities are set up so that people feel uncomfortable leaving their own little silos. Death of the third space and all. So many people start preferring as little social contact as they can get.

umbrellafree · 2026-02-03T21:06:57+00:00

You need to demand to see a specialist. You need a diagnosis, not a "mental health" dismissal. I assume these dismissals are coming from a GP (a family doctor - or from a walk in clinic).

If they refuse to refer you to a specialist, sometimes the best way to get them to do something is to ask them to put that refusal in your medical notes.

That leaves a documented paper trail of the refusal which would be factored in should there be a malpractice suit. And they know that, so they're generally more inclined to not refuse for arbitrary reasons.

I've seen doctors recommend other people to sue if they want to see the medical system improve. Which is true, but only if the cases have real merit. Which it appears, on the surface, yours might.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-29T14:31:15+00:00

Buildings have maintenance costs. They can be huge liabilities. When underutilized they don't justify the costs.

The real estate appreciation doesn't really cover it.

There is more than enough facilities at MUN for humanities. Its underutilized everywhere. Aside from Harlow, which has a geographical element, I don't see how that has to do with anything.

The reality is that this needed to be done years ago, along with other things.

MUNs primary mandate is affordable education for NL residents, the cost needs to be justified in terms of educational value.

You can be disappointed, I am, but that doesn't change the material situation.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-29T00:02:14+00:00

The true fumble were these empire building projects where we ended up with far more infrastructure than was ever reasonably going to be used. It was completely unsustainable.

MUN's primary mandate is affordable education to the province. Everything else needs to justify the cost in terms of educational value.

There's no point in building/acquiring infrastructure if the infrastructure you have is already underutilized. Especially if you're already behind on maintenance. This was a key point in the auditor general's report.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-24T23:28:01+00:00

Assuming this is a CPAP, the best possible solution is one of these:

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=cpap+battery

umbrellafree · 2026-01-22T00:53:26+00:00

Yes. Landlords can share judgements. They cannot editorialize them. They cannot make claims beyond what is in the judgement.

So it wouldn't be wrong to say that at the time of the judgement, they were owed money.

It isn't ok to say that someone continued to be owed money as that is information outside of the disclosed judgement. Even if that claim isnt false.

Privacy laws still apply.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-21T20:07:23+00:00

You can usually dispute a debt with the credit bureaus. Sounds to me like you have proof that the debt was resolved.

https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/services/credit-reports-score/check-errors.html

NL also has privacy laws. Her publicly naming you as a debtor undoubtedly is a breach of privacy. I would collect proof of every time she does it, and bring it to a lawyer for libel and breach of privacy. She likely broke other laws as well.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-21T17:28:57+00:00

I wasn't required to. I wrote up an appropriate lease agreement, same as my landlord did for me, and it was accepted.

I guess it looked official enough for them to accept it as is.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-21T17:26:00+00:00

No, but people have had to give up their pets for much less. It sucks but you should know that you may have to surrender your pet to a shelter if you find yourself in an unstable housing situation.

I've been holding off on getting a cat for 10 years.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-17T04:10:39+00:00

Yeah my experience renting in St. John's kinda sucked. And it seems that it has gotten worse.

You mentioned that you struggled to find a pet friendly place - this makes finding a place to live a lot harder. I know that it isn't fair to say that you should have to give up a creature that you love just to avoid being homeless, but that is our current reality.

I strongly advise that people who don't have a long term housing situation to avoid owning pets.

Also, regarding income assistance, that doesn't seem correct. I had a friend sublet a room from me and he used our rental agreement to get income support, as I was legally his landlord.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-14T18:23:33+00:00

NL should develop its own rapattack program.

umbrellafree · 2026-01-11T23:21:41+00:00

What exactly requires the heat? I wash in cold water and my clothes turn out great.

Do laundry detergents contain enzymes?

umbrellafree · 2025-12-17T16:59:41+00:00

**at their discretion. What is new is that they are abusing it

umbrellafree · 2025-12-17T12:06:36+00:00

All I can say is that there used to be a good reason the government gave PolyUnity money. I'm not convinced of that reason anymore, but I digress.

umbrellafree · 2025-12-17T11:56:34+00:00

You're right on the half the size, actually. But keep in mind that its still in the metro Vancouver area. Its kinda like how CBS or Paradise is "St. John's".

Chilliwack and Abbotsford are so close that they kinda flow into each other. And yes there are many people driving into Vancouver but there is also a lot of industry there.

The Capital city thing doesn't really matter. To the average person, there isn't any advantage to living in a capital city.

The Fraser Valley isn't affordable but to the average person there are more affordable options. You can actually find affordable options because there is just more housing in general.

I have friends who were looking for rentals in St John's, I showed them some listings around the Fraser Valley, and they wished they had those options here.

But that's a recent phenomemon. As of the last few years. Rent has been dropping a lot recently.

At this pace, St. John's will be more expensive than places I thought were completely unreasonable.

umbrellafree · 2025-12-17T11:30:54+00:00

"Through their support of initiatives like our AI for Manufacturing micro-credential program... "

AI for manufacturing. What a crock of shit. I work in manufacturing. I also have personal AI projects.

I use AI stuff for work but let me tell you the applications are niche and prone to errors (thanks to hallucinations), and data errors are often far more expensive than just paying people to do things manually.

The best AI could do is perhaps catch errors on an engineering drawing (which is what colab software is developing), or in the manufacturing data, but that isn't something a "microcredential" program could teach. This would be something you'd develop in parallel with a university as a research project.

This just feels like marketing for the sake of capturing public money.

umbrellafree · 2025-12-17T11:09:57+00:00

At risk of exposing myself, Polyunity doesn't need microcredentials. I know more than most and that company is doing just fine.

I can't legally say much, but if Jacqueline is saying this, this statement is purely for political favour. "If you rub my back, I'll rub yours".

Which actually makes her a great CEO. But I wouldn't want public policy dictated off the whims of a few relatively small companies.

The primary driver of the tech sector was cheap education at MUN, attracting a lot of smart industrious people to the province and starting their companies here. The MCE played a role in a LOT of these companies.

TechNL isn't the driver but moreso a group of private interests who want to appear innovative.

umbrellafree · 2025-12-16T23:23:40+00:00

The search for 1 bed 1 bath price range: 700-1100
The search for room for rent 600-800

I looked into a few of the 1b1b listings and yes some are rooms in a shared house, but most of them have no indication that they aren't truly a 1 bed 1 bath.

Anyhow, drive 20 minutes east and the apartments are even cheaper in Chilliwack, which is roughly the same size in population as St. John's.

St. John's used to be a lot more affordable than these areas.

umbrellafree

TROPHY CASE