worse housing conditions if that’s all they can afford.

You just called more affordable housing ‘worse’. And you think I have flawed logic? Ok then.

You also seem to think we’re leaches. Pretty obviously bigoted, which explains why you dont believe in logic or empirical data. But you do you my friend. Good luck with that attitude.

No I said the advantage is free market demand pricing for rentals and housing, not the failed rent control system of ON and BC. Thats not pro landlord nor pro tenant, it follows the market. I have raised rent when demand was high and I have lowered rent and offered incentives when demand was low. Its superior to rent control because when LL’s in ON and BC get a meager 1 or 2% they never want to give that up because they are already falling behind market pricing within a few years. It works. And its better. Which is why people are moving here in droves. You are entitled to your opinion but the data CLEARLY supports my point of view. People dont move for WORSE housing conditions.

Empirical means statistically verifiable verifiable by observation not just an theory. I dont what part of that is hard for you to understand. The stats dont lie.

Heres another: Average house price in AB: 495,000. Average house price in ON: 852,000. Not hard to see why people are moving.

There isn’t really a petro boom this time either. Oil and gas is doing fine but its not going crazy and booming like it was 20 years ago. We actually have fairly high unemployment of 7% considering the mass influx, but thats not stopping people from coming here. They’re coming because ON and BC are completely unaffordable now and AB has some great advantages not the least of which is no provincial sales tax.

The “affordable housing crisis” in AB is no different than the “affordable housing crisis” across Canada. And the fact is that housing outside our two major centers is quite a bit BETTER than most provinces. My friend just bought a house for 199k last year in a mid size town here and I just got very lucky and bought one two days ago as a rental in a small rural town for 65k. You cant get much more affordable than a 2 bedroom house with a massive lot for 65k ANYWHERE in Canada.

And our landlord tenant laws are quite fair. Yes there are some distinct advantages for landlords compared to ON but we also have plenty of cases of LL’s being taken to the RTDRS and getting judgments against them too. All in all its a pretty balanced system. If it wasn’t people would be flooding OUT of AB to other provinces. They’re not. People moving here with a net interprovincial increase for the last few years means empirically that renters see this is a better place to live.

Check out the net interprovincial migration stats: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710002201 We import nearly as many new people as Ontario does except we’re a province of 5 million and they are 16 million, so proportionally our immigration is the highest in Canada, three times higher than Ontario. People dont move for WORSE housing conditions.

You’re talking about rent manipulation by a corporate landlord. Those of us ‘mom and pop’ landlords have no desire to get people in a place and then jack the rate only to have to replace them again the next year. Stability, even if rent is slightly below market rent, is FAR more desirable and much more beneficial financially. Tenants moving out incurs our biggest expenses and costs, so no one wants to make that happen and one month of a unit sitting empty waiting for a new tenant easily wipes out any increase in rent so we generally avoid that as much as possible.

There’s a happy medium where both tenant and landlord are happy and I find that to be when rents are 50 to 80 under fair market rent. If tenants know they’re getting a decent deal and that moving is likely to not only cost them moving costs PLUS higher rent, they’ll stay around, which works for both of us. Through in some advantages like allowing pets with no additional fees and they’ll stay a LONG time.

It doesnt get abused because you can post a 24 hr notice but there’s a very good chance it will get ignored which means you still have to go to RTDRS to get an actual court order for eviction which isn’t likely to happen in less than two weeks at best. But its still far faster than ON’s LTB by a mile.

It obviously and empirically is. We dont have a housing crisis in Alberta. Our landlord tenant board actually works. And we dont have renoviction issues that need legislation to fix. Rents are MUCH more reasonable than Ontario. And we have had a massive influx of new residents from ON and BC, the two provinces with strong rent control, because our system is far better for both tenants and landlords.

Another legislation trying to fix a very broken rental ecosystem in Ontario. Problem #1 is rent control. If ON adopted AB’s model they wouldn’t have these issues -

What does AB do differently? We DONT have rent control, the rent is controlled by supply and demand as it should be. The only restriction is that a LL cant raise the rent more than once in a 365 day period, but there is no limit on how much it can be raised unless its obviously punitive. Eg 100 a month raise is acceptable, 1000 a month is obviously punitive and likely to be disallowed by our Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service, a quasi judicial body that unlike ON’s LTB is NOT broken and is NOT inundated with so many cases that its failing under its own weight. Here, a LL can evict a tenant who refuses to pay in less than a month. None of this 6 month wait baloney and then two postponements as the tenant games the system and continues to destroy the property. In AB if there is proof of wilful vandalism the eviction period is 24 hours. We dont put up with that bs.

What does demand pricing mean? It means when demand is way up, as it has been in the last 3 years in Calgary, a LL can raise the rent to whatever the market will bear. It ALSO means that when demand cools as it has in the last few months, that rents DROP in relation to demand. Overall rents have dropped almost 10% year over year.

This takes away the problem of a LL knowing that their rental is underpriced by hundreds of dollars a month and resorting to shady renoviction tactics to try and raise it. Demand pricing works and it works well.

All rent control does is create temporary solutions for tenants that eventually frustrate landlords and cause issues. Free market supply and demand is a far superior system. And for those on the bottom end of income we still have some subsidized housing and low income housing so they’re not completely priced out although admittedly there will always be more demand for low income housing than the province can supply.

Whether you sell it or not, that doesnt change the fact that you have invested a great deal of money into it, therefore it is an investment. Its status in your life has nothing to do with whether you plan on making a profit on it or not, its merely the definition of investing money.

Its crazy what people can do in a moment of rage. I grew up in a small prairie town that had nearly zero violence and then one day a guy decided to cut down some very old oak trees that were a windbreak for a rural property. The tree owner argued with him but he insisted he had permission to remove them. The owner, a normally very gentle guy, went in the house got his gun and shot the tree cutter to death. He did years in the penitentiary for it. Good church going man who destroyed his own life and caused his family a great deal of grief over 5 minutes of uncontrolled rage.

We definitely are. We dont need the press or the BofC to tell us when we are, we can see the signs - car prices are starting to drop. ‘Toys’ like motorcycles and boats arent selling or are selling for far less than they were last year and there is a flood of them on the market. Fast food places have started to advertise ‘value priced’ meals again in the $5 and $6 range instead of the $15 they’ve been gouging us for since covid. The thrift stores are busier than ever. People are actually buying groceries at the Dollar Store. Food banks are overwhelmed. The recession is here, they just dont want to say the ‘r’ word.

I saw some of the clips (cause I havent sailed the high seas in awhile) but what I saw was in the category of “holy shit, I cant believe they did that” in their mockery of Trump. I mean its one thing to insinuate President Small Hands is, uh, tiny where it matters, but a very realistic looking Dirty Don with his miniature manhood was hilariously over the edge. Incredibly brave considering Mr. Micro loves to sue anyone or everyone who offends his overblown ego, but I think the boys know that in the court of public opinion a suit against a very popular comedy team isn’t going to go well for Donnie.

Between this episode and Powell cutting him off at the knees in a live interview, the Orange Turd hasn’t had a very good week. I dont think even the lovely Ms Leavitt can save his ass this time.

Anything you put thousands of dollars of your own money into is an investment - collector cars, crypto, artwork, gold, your Star Wars collection, and housing. Whether those are a GOOD investment or not is another question, but its definitely an investment.

I agree however the problem becomes ‘what is corporate ownership’? I have some LL friends who own three houses who have formed a corporation but its just a single owner. I have some that own a rental however they manage them through a broker who does all the management and maintenance for a share of the rent and any capital gains. Then there are the guys who form a corporation with a few other guys so they can buy an apartment block but without those three friends pooling their money it would likely be owned by an international company.

I think the delineation is that single family homes should not be owned by corporations that have more than 4 shareholders with a set financial limit. If you want to buy a 16 unit apartment with three friends, go for it. But if you’re Blackrock with billions of dollars and 155 million shares then you have no business buying ANY residential housing.

Ill take the opinion of THESE two much more civilized Ottawa citizens any day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HehBfAnOTtA&list=PLXE2iI4B5qHwoWHzsBGZif7StPkYgW7pi&index=3&ab_channel=DennisHendrickson

Setting fire to people’s homes through their mail slot is all harmless fun.

BS. Never happened. The two idiots who tried to burn down an apartment building were not associated with the convoy as confirmed by Ottawa Police, so what are you talking about?

Well, no matter whether you intend it to be or not, every purchase of real estate is an investment.

You saw a VERY small minority of people who were jerks. You DIDNT see the vast majority who were indeed partying because that’s not what the press emphasized. Case in point: The press made a big deal out of a few people who walked into a local food bank/charity and made asses of themselves demanding meals. Fair enough, that was an asshole thing to do. But NO national media showed what happened afterward - the protesters gathered up two pickup loads of food and brought it over to the food kitchen and unloaded it for them. Biggest donation they’d had in ages.

You saw someone put a protest sign on the Terry Fox statue to much foaming at the mouth by the press. You DIDNT see the protesters who came back afterwards and not only removed all that but gave the statue a thorough wash and cleaning.

You saw someone standing on the soldiers memorial and making a fool of herself. You DIDNT see that first of all, there was an apology from that person, and secondly, there were veterans within the ranks that rented some temporary fencing and actually put it up around the memorial and stood guard to make sure no one desecrated the site.

You saw 10,000 protesters and what, 1 Nazi flag from someone who wasnt even part of the convoy and who was run off by them and how many Confederate flags? 1 or 2? You think in ANY group of 10,000 people there aren’t going to be one or two wingnuts?

You saw two guys who tried to light a fire in an apartment building. Despite being tagged as connected to the protest, the police confirmed they were not.

You saw people ‘abusing’ store staff? I didnt actually see that. I saw several stores, including the Timmy’s near Parliament who opened their doors and said that they were doing the best business they had done in two years. The hotels near the protest praised the protesters as saving their businesses and had no complaints about them. Yes there was honking, yes it was disruptive, it was a protest, its supposed to be disruptive. And as much as you want them to move on, they stopped the honking but they didnt move because they wanted something to change and the gov was ignoring them.

You saw media coverage that tried to portray the protesters as scary and violent. They were NOT at all. Best shown when MP Michelle Ferrari walked, alone, after dark, through the crowd from Parliament to her apartment several blocks away and met and visited with random people on the way. She was not only safe but had very friendly conversations with everyone she met. But the press was talking about ‘extra security’ for MPs. Baloney.

The press didnt show the protesters cleaning the streets during the day. Not only NO vandalism but the place was cleaner after they left. It didnt show them handing out free food to the homeless downtown and serving up free hot food to anyone who wanted it. It didnt show one dedicated group that walked around Parliament and prayed and sang every day for 7 days. It didnt show the indigenous tribal leaders who set up in a nearby park and were fully supportive of the protest. The media said that the convoy had set up a “wrecking ball” on a boom right outside Parliament - some bozo reporter obviously doesnt know anything about cranes because that was a weighted overhaul ball used to keep the cable taut, not a wrecking ball at all.

The media (and the PM) said the protesters were racists. Then how come there were Pride flags at the protest (https://youtu.be/R4whzZhPdhA?t=687) How come there were south Asian truckers who were at some of the food locations giving out food?

The media tried to portray the protesters as dangerous but the ONLY people who got hurt were the protesters - one senior woman with a walker was run over by a mounted cop, a reporter was shot point blank in the leg with a tear gas canister, another protester was violently tackled and punched by several cops as they arrested him. There was ZERO protester violence. The media also never mentioned that the protesters were pelted with rocks from some apartment buildings. Or that a group of masked men crept into the blockade and punctured at least 6 tires on semis, causing thousands of dollars damage.

Your evaluation is more than likely taken from the mainstream medias portrayal where every little incident was blown up to epic proportions as if it was being done by the majority. It wasnt. The majority WERE PARTYING and singing and dancing and have a great time visiting with other Canadians from across the country. I know that because I watched hours of footage on the livestreams every day, and I had several friends who were there. I also talked to Tamara Lich personally when it was all over.

What the media showed was **HIGHLY **biased coverage meant to turn public opinion against the protesters. The people who where there have a very different opinion. And MANY Ottawans supported the protest - bringing them food, donating money and then when the cops tried to ban fuel, carrying in dozens and dozens of fuel cans, some of which had fuel and some were decoys. https://i.cbc.ca/ais/1.6343231,1717216986787/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D(0%2C0%2C1920%2C1080)%3BResize%3D620

Honestly part of the reason there is a significant number of Canadians who want the CBC defunded is because of their incredibly biased coverage of the protest. Their reporters didnt talk to the protesters, they made their comments from the periphery AFTER the Public Emergencies department gave them their talking points. That came out during the inquiry afterwards - that Bill Blair and his dept. had issued ‘talking points’ to the media BEFORE the trucks even reached Ottawa. And CBC tried desperately to portray the truckers like the people who rioted at Capitol Hill on Jan 6 in the US. They most definitely were NOT.