Urban containment regulations on the urban fringe must be relaxed
For 18 years, I have been monitoring international housing affordability as author or co-author of the Demographia Housing Affordability series. The latest edition rates 92 major markets in eight nations using the “median multiple”: the median house price in a place divided by the median pre-tax household income. In the early 1990s, median multiples in…
Living in B.C. is unaffordable for many people and carbon taxes make it worse
Drivers in Vancouver are paying record-smashing prices at the gas pump and taxes are an extra kick in the head. Prices have hit more than $2 per litre for regular gasoline in Metro Vancouver. That’s the highest gasoline price in North America, along with the highest gasoline taxes. Before chuckling at the pipeline-blocking-moon-units getting their…
And taxes are a big part of the problem
The price at the gas pumps has hit a record-breaking $1.82 per litre in Vancouver. That’s the most expensive gasoline in North America. While some readers in Winnipeg and Calgary might chuckle at the karma coming back to bite a city whose mayor personally blocked the building of pipelines, it’s important to remember that bad…
There’s no telling what these extremists will do. We need to crack down on this danger now
There’s no doubt summer 2021 was a scorcher around the world. The United Kingdom’s Met Office revealed that temperatures exceeded 30C in September for only the seventh time in history. In Vancouver, 2021 was the second hottest summer ever recorded, with daily average temperatures at Vancouver International Airport reaching 18.9C in June, July and August.…
Housing regulations often limit people to Tesla-level homes or nothing
I’m an economist, so I’m not flattered by those who say you could teach a parrot to be an economist. The bird would need to know only two words, the joke goes: supply and demand. When the supply of any good or service increases, its price goes down. If the supply decreases or is less…
Across from our campsite sat a gangly young man named Scott, who had been homeless for 10 years and was trying to find some normalcy
Lisa Montforton is part of a group of Canadians who call themselves ConnecTour. Starting on May 28 in Kelowna, B.C. (B.C. travel restrictions derailed a planned start in Victoria), they hope to make an 8,000-km journey across the country, discovering how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped our lives and our sense of community. Watch for…
People who don’t have yards or nearby open spaces should come before bicyclists
Vancouver city council is considering a motion this week to turn sections of Granville Street and Commercial Drive into European-style pedestrian-friendly malls by reducing or eliminating automobile access. This is described as putting people over cars. Reducing car traffic leads to cleaner air and quieter neighbourhoods – good things. Some local businesses will benefit. But…
The state wants non-U.S. cruise ships to be allowed to go straight from continental U.S. ports to Alaska, cutting out B.C. entirely
You may think British Columbia has a cruise ship industry because of our great location, marvellous climate and amazing attractions, natural or otherwise. You would be wrong. We have a cruise industry here because of actions by the United States 100 years ago to put America first. The U.S. wanted to ensure that it had…
Vancouver is considering a tax on vehicles entering the downtown. It may well reduce pollution, but at what cost?
One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Another definition might be to do something different and not expect any changes. We all have a tendency to do this. For example, we get married and wonder why we no longer have the same services we had in our…
Move away from false statements and over-generalizations and recognize everyone as individuals
Racism exists in Vancouver. How much, how bad and how widespread it is we can debate. That there are other places where the situation is much worse we can agree. But we still have room to improve here. In case there’s any doubt, Fairchild TV has produced two videos (here and here) documenting expressions of…
Just because you ride a bike, that doesn’t put you on the side of the angels or make you better than the rest of us
In Vancouver, my hometown, city council is using the COVID-19 pandemic to fulfil a long-held fantasy: the elimination of cars and the end of vehicle traffic throughout the city. While the rest of us are coping with one of the worst economic crisis in Canadian history and bungling along with reduced public transit and dwindling…
For weeks, the government told us that we’re prepared for COVID-19. Its early actions demonstrated something entirely different
Provide a timely response. Ensure transparency. Tell the truth. These are just some of the basic tenets of crisis communications, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his crisis response team would do well to take them to heart because, so far during the COVID-19 crisis, their statements and actions have missed the mark in every…
We could see as many as five Canadians teams in the playoffs – but more likely we’ll see two or three at this pace
For fans of Canada’s seven embattled National Hockey League teams, the man from Zamboni is a suitable talisman of their frustration. As most everyone now knows, a 42-year-old Zamboni driver – a kidney-transplant Zamboni driver – stepped in for the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night in Toronto to defeat the listless Leafs 6-3. When both…
Part 1: Defining the attributes of your successful retirement community
Who says you have to go on living in the same location when you retire? The choice is yours. City or country retirement is ultimately a personal decision. But it draws significantly on your prior life, and the skills and personal attributes you can bring to the retirement community you choose. How you retire is…
Is the affordability crisis – and the lack of government intervention – a metaphor for something much worse?
I want to describe Vancouver’s awful housing market as a metaphor for something else. I’ll reveal the ‘something else’ later in the column. For now, let’s just stick with Vancouver, the city I grew up in. When I was a little boy, our Dunbar neighbourhood had a broad cross-section of residents. Our family’s cleaning lady…