5992 replies to this topic

[Tony]

Not so long ago the average size of a newly constructed single family home in Canada was !,000 square ft.

[Barrister]

And not so long ago people like my dad would expand those 1000 sq feet homes as the kids came along, often building additions on weekends with friend s and family. 

[Mike K.]

Edmonton builds among the highest rates per capita of SFDs. Hardly anyone builds more in Canada.

When I lived there circa 2003, I lived on Weaver Drive in a newly built, massive single family home, the home of family friends. It was on the edge of the city at the time in SW Edmonton. Today, that community is connected by a freeway, and there is 2km worth of new SFD neighbourhoods to its west. Just further up, the suburbs have expanded by 4km west since I lived there. And that’s just one little pocket of Edmonton. Even St. Albert is now fully built out to the Edmonton border.

4km of new suburb in that little pocket of Edmonton is more land than Esquimalt plus Vic West from longest tip to tip. Victorians think Langford is suburbia on steroids but you cannot even begin to compare what Langford has done over the last 35 years, to what Edmonton can do in one neighbourhood over 10.

[Matt R.]

Lots of flat land to build on. We only spent a few days in November, but the lrt right to the mall was really something to see up close, heavy civil engineering. We didn’t go downtown, but did tool around the burbs a bit and I got the same vibe as I got on the east coast - build baby build. Felt like things were booming.

[Mike K.]

Bank of Canada rate dropped to 3% this AM from 3.25%.

[Citified.ca]

If you're in the market for a home, you may want to sharpen your pencil and plan a move sooner than later, considering how the market behaved in December and in January.

 

Could this spring lead to substantial demand, now that interest rates have come well down from their peak, and the potential for further cuts is still on the horizon?

 

Victoria’s 2025 housing market is off with a bang as sales jump 24%, prices 2nd only to 2022’s record highs

https://victoria.cit...s-record-highs/

 

[Victoria Watcher]

The threat of a tariff war is already driving up housing costs

 

Industry experts say if threats continue, builders will stop projects until costs become more certain

https://www.cbc.ca/n...costs-1.7466822

[Mike K.]

We should not be retaliating with tariffs. We cannot afford to retaliate.

[Victoria Watcher]

I think we have to. Retaliating protects our own industry.

But I’ve yet to understand how this plays out for auto parts. Seems crippling.

[Mike K.]

We’re not big enough to cripple US manufacturers, in most cases.

Maybe the right way to respond is to ban exports of certain strategic goods to the US.

[Barrister]

High tariffs on orange juice will help our orange growers wont it?

[lanforod]

Unless we can get orange juice from elsewhere, the only thing it will do is drive our orange juice prices up.

[Victoria Watcher]

Clearly we sell some kind of widgets that somebody in the US wants.

And that same widget is desired by at least some Canadians.

[Mike K.]

The BC Conservatives are calling for measures to prohibit US entities from funding environmental movements in Canada to obstruct resource extraction.

 

As we found out several years ago, a lot of the protest activity in Canada is made possible via international, but mostly US, funding. The funding is not necessarily motivated by environmental causes as it is thwarting Canadian competition.

 

You'd think Ottawa would have raised that issue during negotiations with the Trump Admin, but I suspect the federal government did not see much of a problem with those protests, at the time. It's certainly awkward with a Greenpeace activist serving as environment minister.

[Victoria Watcher]

Rustad also wants to tax the US coal leaving BC.

Why don’t we just join in on an initiative to increase all North American trade strength?

[Mike K.]

Because we have three currencies, probably. To work collectively we'd need to adopt the USD in Canada and Mexico.

[Victoria Watcher]

Presumably there would be winners and losers in that scenario. But stability, which would be good.

Maybe our biggest failure has been to not elevate the Mexican economy and society in the 30 plus years of free trade. All three of us could probably be a powerhouse, but mostly we’ve just exploited Mexico.

[Victoria Watcher]

Rustad also wants to tax the US coal leaving BC.

https://www.timescol...pments-10278383

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 February 2025 - 08:48 AM.

[Mike K.]

Taxing US coal seems like an easy win for Canada. It doesn't really impact our economy, broadly speaking.

 

The natural extension would be to tax cruise ships that need to stop in Canada before returning to a US port. I know this can come back to bite us, but the Americans have their regulations in place for a reason. Could you imagine what would happen to US shipping if the Jones Act and the PVSA were repealed? International operators would flood the most lucrative domestic shipping lines. I'm not sure the US wants that.

[Victoria Watcher]

They could just exempt the Alaska cruises. That’s all international operators anyway.

Said more clearly, the regulations have not prevented international operators from dominating this space. So the rules have not worked here. Why keep them in place.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 February 2025 - 09:00 AM.