It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, November 28, 2021
The Associated Press
Sunday, November 28, 2021
A man holds a banner during a protest for clean air in Belgrade, Serbia on Nov. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
BELGRADE, SERBIA -- Several thousand people rallied in Belgrade on Sunday in another environmental protest, a day after demonstrators blocked bridges and roads in different parts of Serbia and scuffled with riot police who formed cordons to try to stop them.
The rally on Sunday was called in protest at alarming levels of air pollution in Serbia produced by coal-fueled power plants, lack of proper air-filtering protection in mines and factories, old cars and bad fuel for home heating.
The protesters, carrying banners reading "The Air Is Dangerous" and "You Are Suffocating Us," marched through downtown Belgrade, blowing whistles and chanting anti-government slogans.
"We don't have to measure the pollution, we can see it and feel it," said Bojan Simisic, from the Eko Straza, or the Eco Guard, the environmental group that is behind the protest. "It is killing our children, I don't want my children to be forced to flee the country because of the pollution."
Serbia is one of the most polluted states in Europe, but public protests have gained attention only recently, with activists accusing the populist authorities of allowing foreign investors mostly from China to further hurt the Balkan nation's environment.
On Saturday, thousands of protesters blocked a key traffic artery in Belgrade and in other towns, angered over two laws they say would pave the way for such projects.
The hour-long blockade on Saturday led to skirmishes and organizers said a number of protesters were detained. In the western town of Sabac, a video emerged on social networks of unidentified thugs beating protesters with batons.
Western Serbia has been at the centre of the ecological movement because of a bid by Rio Tinto excavation company to open a lithium mine in the area. The company has said it would meet the highest ecological standards, but activists and experts insist the mine would destroy farmland, animal life and rivers.
Serbia's autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic and his populist government have dismissed the environmental protests as political. They have promised to tackle Serbia's huge ecological problems that have piled up after decades of neglect, but stressed that they have no intention of stopping coal mining any time soon.
Vucic's government is formally seeking European Union entry, but he has instead forged close ties with Russia and China. A number of major Chinese investments, such as the purchase of a large copper and gold mine and the country's only steel mill, have considerably increased CO2 emissions in the country, environmentalists say.
Tom Yun
Sunday, November 28, 2021
A fossil of a giant bison is seen in a museum. The giant bison is one of several grassland grazers that went extinct during the late Quaternary era.
TORONTO -- Thousands of years ago, iconic ancient herbivores, such as the woolly mammoth, giant bison and ancient horses roamed the earth and played an important role for the world's grassland ecosystems. Now, a new study has found that the extinction of these animals may have contributed to an increase in grassland wildfires worldwide.
The study, led by researchers from Yale University and the Utah Natural History Museum, looked at the effects of the late Quaternary extinction, which occurred 50,000 to 6,000 years ago. They published their findings in the journal Science on Thursday.
“These extinctions led to a cascade of consequences,” said corresponding author Allison Karp in a news release. “Studying these effects helps us understand how herbivores shape global ecology today.”
In South America, 83 per cent of the large herbivore species went extinct, the most out of all the continents. North America saw 68 per cent of its species go extinct, while the losses in Australia and Africa were 44 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively.
The researchers set out to see if the extinction of these grazing species could have led to more fires in grassy areas. They believed that a buildup of grass in these ecosystems due to a lack of animals eating the grass could have fuelled an increase in grass fires.
They examined charcoal data from lake sediments taken from 410 sites around the world, which offer evidence of historic fire data. They then compared this data to the percentage of large herbivores that went extinct.
The researchers found that continents that saw more grazers go extinct, such as South America, had larger increases in fire activity. Conversely, Australia and Africa, which saw lower rates of extinction, saw little change in grassland fire activity.
However, the extinction of species that feed on bushes and trees, such as mastodons and giant slots, had little effect on fires in wooded areas.
The authors say their research underscores the important role that grazing livestock and herbivore species play when it comes to mitigating wildfires, as extreme weather events continue to intensify due to climate change.
“This work really highlights how important grazers may be for shaping fire activity,” senior author Carla Staver said in a news release. “We need to pay close attention to these interactions if we want to accurately predict the future of fires.”
Media experts agree action is needed, but urge caution on how streaming is regulated
Netflix-Price Increase FILE - This Aug. 13, 2020 file photo shows a logo for Netflix on a remote control in Portland, Ore
.(AP Photo/Jenny Kane,
Published Saturday, November 27, 2021 6:26AM EST
OTTAWA -- The Liberals have promised to quickly reintroduce legislation aimed at reforming the Broadcasting Act, which has media experts cautioning the government against bringing newer media platforms under an old regulatory framework.
“I think everyone agrees that it's an older piece of legislation that doesn't fully reflect the environment that we live in,” said Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor and the Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law.
The Liberal government introduced a bill, known as C-10, in November 2020 that would bring global online streaming companies, such as Netflix and YouTube, under the Broadcasting Act. It came under intense criticism over whether it would regulate user-generated content. The bill died in the Senate when Parliament was dissolved for the September election.
While its risks to the free speech of Canadians got the most attention, if the promised new legislation resembles Bill C-10, then several of its features would have a significant effect on Canada's cultural industries.
On-demand streaming services - for streaming music, television and movies - would be obligated to provide funding to Canadian content as well as actively promote it, including work by marginalized and under-represented groups, through what are called discoverability requirements.
This could include a requirement for a streaming service to highlight Canadian content through its recommendation tools, such as personalized music playlists or curated film selections.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) supervises traditional broadcasters and enforces federal policies. This new legislation would empower the CRTC to do the same for online media services but is vague when it comes to how the regulatory body would perform that function. Critics have called this an unrealistic overreach, questioning how the CRTC could monitor all content published on the internet.
Gerry Wall, president of consulting firm Wall Communications, produced a study on the economic effects of music streaming for the federal government in 2018, and has recently completed a second study which is forthcoming.
Wall and Geist both said that setting discoverability requirements on streaming services is not easily done for several reasons.
Geist said the notion of discoverability in Canada emerged at a time when traditional broadcasters would prioritize content from the United States over Canadian content because it was more profitable. Today, on-demand streaming services operate under a different business model and are incentivized to cater their catalogue to the subscriber's preferences.
Using Netflix as an example, Geist said, “If people are interested in Canadian content รข€¦ it's clearly in Netflix's interest to provide them with that Canadian content to keep them as subscribers.”
He added that Canadian content is not hard to find in that anyone can type “Canada” in the streaming platform's search bar and will find a suite of Canadian materials.
Geist and Wall both said that bringing discoverability to streaming services triggers a thorny debate on how Canadian content is defined today. “That's a fundamental problem, I think, that needs to be addressed,” said Wall.
The Broadcasting Act sets out criteria to define what makes a cultural work Canadian. For music, what's known as the MAPL system determines whether a musical work is Canadian if it fulfils enough conditions, like whether a song is performed by a Canadian, or if the piece was recorded in Canada.
Geist referred to this as a “tick-box exercise” that may not be equipped to fully capture the complexity of a television production that involved mostly Canadians but fails to meet the criteria because a funder was not Canadian.
“I think any sort of honest assessment about what certified Canadian content means is that it's just as likely to come up with a cop show where Toronto is designed to look like New York, as it is to come up with something that people would view as genuinely Canadian,” said Geist.
The way listeners access music through on-demand streaming is unlike the one-to-many distribution method of radio, where there was a single linear schedule of programming, said Wall. On a streaming service, the catalogue of music is accessed by users on-demand and simultaneously.
“You could break up the 24-hour day and say, 'This much of your time has to be spent providing Canadian content on that.' But how would that work in the streaming world?” he said.
Music streaming services can push music to a user through personalized and curated playlists, a process that is largely driven by a platform's proprietary algorithms. Making Canadian artists more discoverable by granting the CRTC access to a streaming service's algorithms is a “very poorly conceived notion,” said Wall.
Andrew Forsyth is a consultant to MRC Data, formerly Nielsen Canada, a marketing data and audience insights firm. He said the government must figure out how it can properly regulate this newer media environment - a difficult task.
Wall and Geist both agree that while the Broadcasting Act needs updating, the tension is in how that is accomplished.
Wall said he does not think it's a good idea to try folding in new services and technologies into a framework designed for older means of communication that are fundamentally different.
That sentiment was echoed by Peter Menzies, senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and past CRTC vice-chair.
“The idea behind the broadcasting industry is the government is licensing people to use a Crown asset,” he said. “That's something the Crown owns; it can set the rules for its use. The Crown doesn't own the internet, but it's pretending that it does.”
In the world of radio, the CRTC was able to compel stations to help subsidize Canadian content by collecting prescribed amounts and transferring it to funding and granting bodies like Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Records (FACTOR) and the Canadian Music Fund.
“It all depended on a licensing system,” said Wall. “Well, are you going to license Spotify? How are you going to do that?”
If the goal is to ensure streaming companies contribute to these subsidies, Menzies said this can be done by other means “without pretending that the internet is broadcasting.”
Both Menzies and Forsyth said that creating a level playing field between on-demand streaming services and traditional broadcasters can be better achieved by imposing a tax on streaming services.
“You don't have to regulate the internet. Carve out the companies that you want to get money from,” said Menzies.
Forsyth said the entire Canadian music industry exists because the Broadcasting Act allowed for it to flourish. “I think the problem is that the beast has been built,” he said, referring to the act and all the business generated by it. Revising the act will in turn affect the country's system of funding, support and exposure for Canadian entities, he said.
“As a starting point, the user-generated content piece has to be out,” said Geist, because it fundamentally involves regulating the speech of Canadians.
He added that the legislation in its previous form was too vague and left too many details for the CRTC to decide.
Wall said he thinks the Heritage committee's list of witnesses should be opened so that digital-first creators can have their voices included in the discussion. “I don't think they ever had any input into this act, and they're the future,” he said.
Menzies said, “The hope is that they breathe deeply, take a long look at things and figure out what is it you really want to get out of things and what's the best way to get there? Because Bill C-10 sure wasn't it.”
The environmental footprint of milk containers varies substantially.
If you are a typical Canadian milk consumer, you probably drink more than 60 litres of milk a year. It adds up to about two billion milk containers purchased in Canada annually.
How that milk is packaged depends on where you are, and new research shows that one type of milk container is best for the environment.
Milk comes in an unusually wide array of packaging. In Canada, the most common milk containers are rigid high-density polyethylene jugs, plastic-laminated paper cartons and “pillow pouches,” which are better known as milk bags. Reusable glass bottles are rare, and that’s good, since they have the highest global warming potential of all beverage containers.
My colleagues and I, chemists and physicists who work in materials research and energy storage, were interested in consumer issues related to sustainability. We recently assessed the environmental impacts of milk jugs, cartons and bags in Toronto and Halifax, and found that milk bags were the most environmentally friendly option.
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According to a 2010 report by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, most milk containers sold in North America are jugs (68 per cent), followed by cartons (24 per cent) and bags (seven per cent). Conversely, bags dominate in countries in Mediterranean African (72 per cent) and the former Soviet Union (54 per cent).
The American chemical company DuPont introduced milk bags made of thin polyethylene plastic in Canada in 1967. The innovation took off in the 1970s, when Canada converted to the metric system, because their volume could be modified more easily than cartons or jugs.
Container impact
Our study was a life-cycle assessment of a wide variety of milk containers — the types and sizes that consumers in Toronto and Halifax were likely to encounter. We evaluated the energy inputs, greenhouse gas emissions and water consumed to produce, transport and dispose of the containers.
We found the greatest energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions came from production of plastic polymers and paper, much more than from transportation and material processing or disposal. These polymers are found in milk jugs, screw caps, the laminate of cartons, milk bags and their tags, and the paper is part of the carton.
In both locations, per litre of milk, milk bags require less energy and water, and produce less greenhouse gases, than jugs or cartons. This is mainly because milk bags weigh only 20 to 30 per cent as much as the jugs or cartons for the same volume.
The differences are substantial. Litre for litre, compared with jugs or cartons, milk bags consume only about 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the energy, use about two per cent (compared to cartons) to 40 per cent (compared to jugs) as much water, and produce only 20 per cent to 40 per cent of the greenhouse gases.
Even when milk bags are disposed in a landfill or incinerated — and jugs or cartons are fully recycled — bags have the lowest environmental impact.
Limitations and comparisons
Our investigation neglected several small matters, including the materials and processes associated with labelling such as inks and printing. We also excluded the jug that’s needed to hold the milk bag when it’s being used. Another study showed the impact of that supporting jug is small and, in my experience, these jugs can last several years. A major matter our study ignored is the impact of the various milk containers on the ocean and marine life.
Read more: Recycling isn't enough — the world's plastic pollution crisis is only getting worse
The results of our study were validated by comparison with earlier investigations in the United Kingdom and several other countries. Our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions calculations were consistent with theirs.
Container production, processing and transport uses a lot of water, but a considerable amount of water is recouped by recycling. The net water consumption is the small difference between these large numbers and is therefore not very certain. However, we did find that cartons use an extreme volume of water: nearly 20 litres of water are needed to produce the paper carton for each litre of milk.
An insight gained from our international comparison is that the energy consumed by milk bags in the U.K. was almost four times our result, because the milk bags used in the U.K. are transported from Canada. This finding highlights the importance of location in a life-cycle assessment. However, our results were essentially the same for Toronto and Halifax, indicating that the lowest impact for milk bags would pertain to any location in southern Canada.
That is, milk bags would have the least impact of any milk container for Canadian consumers, if everyone could buy milk bags. Milk bags are not presently available in Western Canada. The use of milk bags in Western Canada could save up to 5,000 tonnes of plastic annually.
Spoiled milk?
With this new information, will consumers swing over to milk bags? Bagged milk is sold only in four-litre allotments in Canada, which may be too much for some consumers, leading to unconsumed or spoiled milk. This would wipe out any environmental benefits.
Stand-alone one-litre milk pouches are now available in Germany. While these are heavier than our bags, they would still be better than jugs or cartons.
The environmental impact of milk waste is even greater than its packaging. In the U.S., milk accounts for about 13 per cent of food waste, and consumer milk waste produces about 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions annually.
Read more: Why Canada's single-use plastic ban could help the environment and wildlife
Canada aims to ban single-use plastic by 2030, but it’s unclear if milk containers would be included in the ban. Our analysis suggests plastic components remain the best option for low-waste milk containment.
If an average Canadian household switched from jugs or cartons to bags, the weekly energy savings would be equivalent to one load of laundry in a clothes dryer. For those who are concerned with the environment, it’s a start.
Professor emerita, Department of chemistry, Dalhousie University
Disclosure statement
Mary Anne White received funding (2010-2016) from NSERC's CREATE program, for DREAMS (Dalhousie Research in Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability) from which the milk container analysis project sprang, as part of a graduate course for which she was coordinator, "Sustainable Materials Issues".
Cecilia Jamasmie | November 26, 2021
Burbridge Lake base camp for Janice Lake exploration. (Image courtesy of Forum Energy Metals.)
Rio Tinto Exploration Canada (RTEC) is set to become the majority owner of Forum Energy Metals’ (TSX-V: FMC) 100% owned Janice Lake copper-silver project in Saskatchewan, Canada, the Vancouver-based company said on Friday.
After spending C$14 million ($11m) in exploration at the asset, which exceeds the C$10 million ($7.9m) required to earn a 51% stake in the project, the mining giant has decided not to spend any further on surveying the property, Forum said.
Rio Tinto is now due to pay Forum Energy C$100,000 in cash on or before May, 2022 to complete its 51% earn-in obligation, the Canadian miner said.
“Rio Tinto’s drilling and regional exploration has added tremendous value to the Janice Lake project, most notably at the Janice and Jansem targets where drilling has significantly expanded high grade copper mineralization,” Forum Energy CEO Rick Mazur said in the statement.
He added the company will focus on its uranium portfolio during the first quarter of 2022, which includes plans to begin drilling at Forum’s 100% owned Wollaston uranium property nearby the Orano and Cameco uranium mills, in the eastern Athabasca Basin.
Rio, which optioned the project in May 2019, had the choice to earn an 80% interest in Janice Lake by spending C$30 million in addition to making separate option payments to Forum Energy Metals and Transition Metals Corp.
The miner has drilled 39 holes on the property to date, totalling 10,033 metres on four targets: Jansem, Janice, Kaz and Rafuse.
Located in north-central Saskatchewan within the Wollaston Domain, the Janice Lake project extends for 38,250 hectares.
Copper prices and other industrial metals slid on Friday as a new and possibly vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant found in South Africa shook market sentiment.
Company 'willing to keep meeting' after offer rejected
By Dave Bedard
Editor, Daily News
Published: November 25, 2021
File photo outside Cargill’s beef slaughter and packing plant at High River, Alta. on May 6, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Todd Korol)
Updated — Whether in a strike or a lockout, workers at one of Canada’s biggest beef slaughter plants took another step toward the picket line this week by voting to reject the company’s latest contract offer.
A vote conducted Tuesday and Wednesday by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 went to the nays “by a 98 per cent margin,” the union said in a release late Wednesday.
The workers’ bargaining committee had already recommended last Friday that members vote to reject the company’s proposal.
A Cargill spokesman confirmed late Thursday the company has now issued a lockout notice, corresponding with the union’s previously stated strike date of Dec. 6.
The most recent collective bargaining agreement for Cargill’s 2,000-plus employees at High River expired at the end of 2020. Employees on Nov. 4 voted in favour of strike action, after which UFCW served the company with strike notice on Nov. 10 — thus putting workers in position to strike also on Dec. 6, just after midnight.
“Cargill workers have told their employer through another overwhelming vote that they matter and that they deserve something more,” 401 president Thomas Hesse said in the union’s release Wednesday.
“We will be communicating the result to Cargill and asking them to return to the bargaining table to respond to our members.”
Worker wages remain a priority in negotiations, the union said previously, with improvements also sought in benefits, pensions, personal leave, leaves of absence, vacation time and expansion of the use of line speed clocks to “all areas” in the plant.
The union’s list of proposals also include “retroactivity” of pay dating back to when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic.
The company’s proposed deal had called for incremental wage increases which over six years would total $4.50 and $2.50 per hour for production and maintenance workers respectively, along with a guaranteed number of hours per week and retroactive hourly pay of $1 and 50 cents respectively for hours worked since Jan. 3 this year.
‘Challenging time’
“No one ever wants to go on strike,” union secretary treasurer Richelle Stewart said in Wednesday’s release. “But these workers have been through hell. They want a fair deal and what Cargill has offered does not meet that threshold.”
UFCW said it would call for Cargill to “resume negotiations with our union bargaining committee soon, and certainly before December 6, to bring bargaining to a positive conclusion.”
A Cargill spokesperson said Thursday the company is “willing to keep meeting to avoid any labour disruption, which is in no one’s best interest during an already challenging time.”
The High River plant has “one of the best workforces across Canada, and our proposal reflects their tremendous skill and dedication,” the company said.
“Unfortunately, we have yet to reach an agreement. We remain optimistic that we can reach an agreement before the Dec. 6 deadline.”
Meanwhile, the company said, “we continue to focus on fulfilling food manufacturer, retail and food service customer orders while keeping markets moving for farmers and ranchers.”
If need be, Cargill said, “we will shift production to other facilities within our broad supply chain footprint to minimize any disruptions.”
Later Thursday, after the lockout notice was issued, the company said it “remain(s) determined and hopeful that we can reach an agreement” between now and Dec. 6 — and that it has agreed to a meeting with UFCW 401’s bargaining committee next Tuesday (Nov. 30).
Cargill’s beef slaughter operations in North America also include a plant at Guelph, Ont. and six plants across the U.S. Its other Canadian beef facilities include case-ready meat plants at Calgary, Guelph and Chambly, Que. and beef patty plants at Spruce Grove, Alta. and Brampton, Ont.
However, as was made clear last year due to COVID-19 outbreaks among employees — and in 2013 during a major flood in the area — work stoppages at High River can weigh on throughput of beef cattle across Western Canada.
The High River plant, about 40 km south of Calgary, has capacity to slaughter about 4,500 cattle per day and is estimated at about 36 per cent of Canada’s domestic beef processing capacity.
COVID-19 outbreaks at the plant in the spring of 2020 ultimately infected nearly half the workforce at the time, leading to the deaths of two workers and the father of one worker. The plant was shut down as a result for two weeks that spring. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
The Canadian PressStaff
Friday, November 26, 2021
MONTREAL -- The CPE union affiliated with the CSN has voted 92.1 per cent in favour of a mandate for an unlimited general strike.
The Fรฉdรฉration de la santรฉ et des services sociaux (FSSS-CSN) said Friday morning that its strike mandate will start Dec. 1 if negotiations with the government do not improve by then.
Representative Stรฉphanie Vachon points out the result of the vote sends a clear message.
"The government can try to beat the unions over the head all it wants, but ultimately, it is the members who decide," she said. "By voting so overwhelmingly in favour of a strike, and thus accepting to lose days, even weeks of wages, these already underpaid workers have just told the government that they are ready to fight to the end to get a fair deal for all employees."
Wednesday, workers with the CSQ-affiliated Fรฉdรฉration des intervenantes en petite enfance (FIPEQ) also voted, with more than 91 per cent, in favour of an unlimited strike mandate.
The QFL-affiliated Syndicat quรฉbรฉcois des employรฉs de service (SQEES) has begun voting on its own strike mandate and will continue until next Tuesday.
PREMIER BELIEVES NEGOTIATED AGREEMENT POSSIBLE
While Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel raised the possibility of special legislation on Thursday, saying it was "very definitely part of the tools available," Premier Franรงois Legault did not want to go down that road for the time being, even suggesting that he was ready to intervene personally.
"I can't believe, when I look at the issues on the table, that we are not able to agree," he said. "It's common sense. I'm going to see how Sonia (LeBel) can get involved, how I can get involved, but it seems to me that common sense says: it's pretty well settled on the educator side.
"What I want is a negotiated settlement."
Legault cited the fact that "we are very close to the union's demands for child care workers. That's not where the problem lies, it's more on the side of the support staff, those who do the cleaning, those who do the food, etc."
However, he also made it clear that he has no intention of aligning government offers to support staff with those made to educators, as the unions are demanding.
"We have a duty as a government to maintain fairness," said Legault. "Someone who cleans in a school must be paid relatively the same as someone who cleans in a daycare. The support staff must have salaries that are comparable to other support staff in other networks. It seems to me that this is common sense."
On Thursday, Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel expressed her exasperation at the possibility of a strike.
"It's time to be reasonable," she told the workers at the childcare centers. "We have lost sight of the reality of parents."
Her colleague, Mathieu Lacombe, added: "The unions must listen to reason."
LeBel also said she still believed that an agreement was possible with the unions.
-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Nov. 26, 2021.
Treasury Board president Sonia LeBel said back-to-work legislation "is certainly part of the tools that are available" when it comes to breaking the deadlock.
La Presse Canadienne
Lia Lรฉvesque
Publishing date:Nov 25, 2021
The Legault government hardened its tone toward Quebec’s unionized daycare employees on Thursday as workers represented by the CSN prepared to vote on an unlimited strike mandate after those represented by the CSQ had already done so .
Members of the CSQ voted over 91 per cent in favour of an indefinite strike mandate on Wednesday, while those affiliated with the CSN were set to vote all day on Thursday.
Results of the CSN’s vote won’t be known until Friday morning, but a previous strike mandate of 10 days was adopted at 97 per cent.
The union affiliated to the FTQ, for its part, has also begun to vote on a strike mandate. That vote will continue until Tuesday.
Even if no strike date has been mentioned thus far, Treasury Board president Sonia LeBel made her exasperation clear on Thursday, saying “it is time to be reasonable” and acknowledging that back-to-work legislation “is certainly part of the tools that are available” when it comes to breaking the deadlock. LeBel added, however, that she still believed a negotiated settlement is possible.
Family Minister Mathieu Lacombe made a similar statement, asking that the unions “listen to reason.”
Asked about the possibility of back-to-work legislation, Lacombe did not rule it out, saying it was “certainly one of the tools available,” but he said he still believes in a negotiated settlement.
Meanwhile, negotiators for workers represented by the CSQ were back at the bargaining table on Thursday, while CSN representatives reported “little progress” in their contract talks.
Jordan Gowling
OTTAWA -- Former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz says government spending and stimulus are not to blame for increased inflation.
"I think that's not right," he said during an interview on CTV's Question Period airing Sunday. "In fact, what the stimulus did was to keep the economy from going into a deep hole in which we would have experienced persistent deflation."
Inflation has reached 4.7 per cent, according to the latest numbers released by Statistics Canada in October. The Bank of Canada expects it to peak at the end of this year and start to decline in the latter half of 2022.
"We have to accept the fact that policy [stimulus] response was in the right time, well intended and it did avert all the worst calls that people were making at that time," he said.
In response to affordability concerns, the federal government has repeatedly referenced their national childcare program, as a means to combat higher costs of living. Nine provincial and territorial governments have signed childcare deals with the federal government, while Ontario and New Brunswick have yet to sign on.
Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould said in a separate interview that the inflation problem is not a uniquely Canadian issue and can be attributed to global supply chain problems.
Conservative Finance Critic Pierre Poilievre says the federal government's fiscal spending is to blame for inflation.
The average inflation rate for member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is currently at 4.3 per cent but Poilievre says the problem is only a global issue as a result of other central banks around the world taking a similar approach to Canada on fiscal stimulus.
"I think those are the countries that did the best job of countering the downside risk that everybody was facing," said Poloz. "Read a book or two about the Great Depression in the 1930s and realize what was averted when we went through this."
Poloz says that while governments can try to address affordability concerns in the short-term, any government policy normally takes a year or two to have any effect on inflation.
But he expects housing inflation to persist and says those rising costs can be something the federal government can address immediately.
"What they can do there is get all the levels of government together and figure out a list of things that they should be doing in order to promote supply of housing, we're clearly short of supply and housing," he said.
A recent news item about New Zealand’s radical new housing law and whether such measures could work in Canada implies that soaring home prices are due to a lack of supply.
In its election platform, the Liberal party proposed to invest $4 billion in a municipal supply accelerator aimed at building more housing. This is the wrong approach.
If policy-makers and the newly re-elected government want to improve housing affordability and the ability of young families to become homeowners, they need to turn their attention to the primary driver of price increases — super-charged demand, abetted by the sacred cow of non-taxation of capital gains on a principal residence.
A chorus of voices, from bank economists to the real estate industry, perpetuate the argument that the primary cause of skyrocketing house prices is lack of supply. This view has been reinforced in media reporting, and was emphasized in recent election platforms.
This “lack of supply” view draws on basic Economics 101 textbooks, where using the example of widgets and a simple supply and demand curve, an increase in supply causes a reduction in price.
But houses are not widgets. They are unique entities, both a basic need and, increasingly, an investment commodity. They are also fixed in location and their values reflect the attributes of the locales that purchasers value and are willing to pay a premium for.
Read more: Federal election 2021: More supply won't solve Canada's housing affordability crisis
Homes outpace households
Nationally between 2006 and 2016, Canada added 1.636 million households and built 1.919 million new homes, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Census data. So, on average, almost 30,000 extra homes were constructed each year compared to the increase in the number of households.
In Vancouver, new construction exceeded household growth by 19 per cent. In Toronto it was one per cent, and Ottawa fell short of household growth by four per cent.
So, in theory, between 2006 and 2016, we should have seen the greatest price growth in Ottawa and less price pressure in Vancouver. But prices increased by 93 per cent and 96 per cent in Vancouver and Toronto respectively, but by only 47 per cent in Ottawa.
Insufficient supply may be a contributing factor, especially in cities where household growth exceeds new home construction, but it’s not the primary or most important cause.
The more significant cause is demand — and not just the quantity of demand, but the quality of demand.
Over the last few decades we have seen a new phenomenon of super-charged demand created by households that have substantial accumulated equity from persistent appreciation in their home values, combined with strong income growth and declining and historically low mortgage rates.
Homeowners trade up
In Canada, we sell approximately 700,000 homes per year via resales plus newly constructed homes. There are 14 million households, so this represents only five per cent of all households.
Many of these buyers are existing owners who are trading up. Only a quarter to one-third of buyers are first-time buyers (most in higher income brackets and with parental help). It’s the larger group — buyers who are trading up — that has the capacity to pay these high prices. Certainly a small percentage of them may also be foreign buyers and some are investors, but most are just regular households.
Many existing owners have incomes well above the median. They also have substantially increased purchasing power from historically low interest rates, and substantial wealth from unearned windfall gain created by years of rising prices.
More significantly, they undermine the concept that added supply will stall or slow the rate of pricing increases. All cities have coveted properties in desired neighbourhoods — often modest, older dwellings on sizeable lots. Because of the prime location, homes for example in inner-city Vancouver might sell for between $2 million to $3 million or in Ottawa perhaps for $800,000.
Developers often buy those lots, demolish the existing home and replace it with two or three contemporary new homes. The pricing will reflect the values that consumers attribute to that area, inevitably exceeding the original home price.
The role of developers
In central Ottawa, for example, existing modest homes are being purchased for $600,000 to $700,000, demolished and replaced with a semi with each side selling for $1.2 to $1.4 million.
The same thing is occurring all across the country, with new homes priced well over — as much as double — what the price would have been for the existing house. That older house would have been moderately affordable to a young family if they hadn’t been outbid by the developer.
Clearly this form of intensification (the rezoning the exclusive single-family neighbourhoods) and expanded supply will do nothing to stall or slow price growth, especially given the demand from buyers with accumulated wealth seeking properties in these locations. More supply, therefore, doesn’t mean lower prices.
So if super-charged home purchasing power is driving up home prices, not insufficient supply, then the necessary policy response must aim to stall or suppress this demand by confiscating part of the windfall gain of accumulated appreciation.
This means taking on the sacred cow taxation of capital gains on homes — younger Canadians will thank them for it, and may even vote for the party that has the guts to do it.
Industry Professor, Department of Health Aging and Society, McMaster University
Disclosure statement
Steve Pomeroy is affiliated with the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) at McMaster, which is funded under a SSHRC/CMHC grant.
Bank of Canada says buyers are making the housing market more vulnerable to a correction
BY RADHEYAN SIMONPILLAI
Nov 27, 2021
Homeowners purchasing investment properties are driving up prices in Toronto real estate and making the housing market even more vulnerable to a correction, according to the Bank of Canada.
In a November 23 speech summing up a trend across Canada but especially felt in Toronto and Montreal, Bank of Canada’s deputy governor Paul Beaudry says investors are flocking to buying secondary or multiple homes with expectations for future price increases, which he says can become “self-fulfilling” in the short term but catastrophic later.
The damage from a drastic fall in house prices can “spread far beyond the investors” because so for many households have their wealth tied to low-mortgage rates and the value of their home.
“A key concern here is that financially stretched households have little breathing room to absorb any disruption to their income,” Beaudry says.
Beandry’s speech comes as more and more homeowners are witnessing massive real estate price gains, particularly over the past year, experiencing FOMO and jumping into the investment property game, seizing on every available listing and pre-construction condo opportunity up for grabs. They’re able to scoop up properties by leveraging the equity amassed on their homes from those very same price gains, which leaves first-time homebuyers in the lurch.
According to Teranet’s market insight report, 25 per cent of the people purchasing a home between January 2011 to August 2021 were multi-property owners, competing against roughly the same number of first-time home buyers.
A chart provided by the Bank of Canada shows the year-over-year growth in investors buying homes surged 100 per cent compared to just over 40 per cent among first-time home buyers. The growth between these demographics were roughly in line in the past, so the extremely wide gap in the past year is a jarring indication of the imbalance in the housing market.
According to Teranet, most multi-property owners were gen-Xers (32 per cent) and generational households with multiple buyers (26 per cent). Millennials only made up 22 per cent of that demographic. And the sales data indicates that most people multi-property real estate in owners in Toronto are flocking towards purchasing condos as investment units since they are the more affordable option.
Beaudry reminds that investment buyers expectations for price gains are predicated on the current situation, where supply is short. He says the expectations are “becoming extrapolative, which could create “a disconnect between actual home prices and their more fundamental levels.”
At this point, most buyers seeking investment properties owners are relying on future immigration to drive Toronto real estate prices further up from their current sky-high levels. Meanwhile they’re driving those prices up themselves.
Gold rush
“Buyers beware,” says Odeen Eccleston, broker at WE Realty. We’re discussing recent trends with Toronto real estate agents selling pre-construction condos as investment properties, after a recent sales pitch I encountered.
A realtor I spoke to, who did not want to identified in this story, has been heavily marketing new sales of pre-construction condo units at the edge of eastern edge of Scarborough. Two-bedroom condos were selling for approximately $700,000, which is roughly the current market rate, though not really in that relatively untapped area.
The realtor dismissed any concerns I had about not being able to secure a big enough mortgage that would cover that unit and my current home when it would be ready to close in four years. The realtor also vaguely promised being able to secure an adequate mortgage for me or an easy re-assign, which means I could simply sell the property to a new buyer in a tight window before closing, provided there’s interest.
“Better hurry up, lay down that deposit before the opportunity is gone,” was the vibe of our conversation and the mantra for the Toronto real estate market. “We could sort out the actual finances later.”
“It makes me extremely nervous,” says Eccleston about that attitude among realtors when it comes to handling transactions worth nearly a million dollars. “A lot of times people are overly confident.”
I personally decided to opt-out. Why deal with real estate fees and taxes, while stressing that this condo unit needs to gain value at the rate that condos have been gaining value over the past few years to make that investment worthwhile. I could just purchase stocks in Lowes or Home Depot instead. If real estate is doing well, then surely those businesses must. And that investment takes much less effort and has been growing at a faster rate than real estate.
Of course, some people don’t have the stomach for stocks. Eccleston notes that she doesn’t always have the stomach for these extrapolative real estate investments, warning that counting on major price gains in the condo market is still a risk.
“At the same time, I was saying that five years ago,” says Eccleston. “I was apprehensive then as well. All of those agents pressured their clients to buy something five years ago are winning big time.”
Radheyan Simonpillai
Radheyan's first assignment for NOW was reviewing the Ice Cube heist comedy First Sunday. That was back in January 2008. Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Scarborough, Rad currently lives in Leslieville with his wife and two adorable kids.