Stewart Prest

Realtors warn that if housing market collapses everyone could one day afford house TORONTO - After a nearly 30% decline in value, realtors across Toronto are concerned that if the market continues to falter someday in the near future everyone could afford a house.

Realtors warn that if housing market collapses everyone could one day afford house

Сделаем Америку снова великой!

Dozens of kids and adults in Gaza have starved to death in July as hunger surges Health workers and aid groups fear hunger that has been building in Gaza for months under Israel's blockade is now reaching a tipping point into accelerating death.

The world must act. apnews.com/article/gaza...

We - society - have lots of work to do. Here's a start. Dr Kim Stanton's systemic review of the treatment of intimate partner violence and sexual violence in the BC legal system - Executive summary. Many allies are needed. www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/l...

Legal implications aside, this case will have enormous social implications. The whole hockey world is watching, and the verdict will influence how a generation of young hockey fans think about consent.

If you think justice was served today but wouldn't leave your daughters alone with those men, then take a long fucking look in the mirror.

For weeks now, us experts have been saying that this is fundamentally the crux of this trial : Does the legal system understand coercion? Today's conclusion is a loud and resounding no.

Gazans Are Dying of Starvation

The situation in Gaza is untenable. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/w...

Let me put this another way:

Top reasons why Cdn-US tourism is down as seen by Canadians:

1. Forced annexation threats
2. Fear of arbitrary ICE arrest
3. General dismay @ new US
4. Tariffs, levied despite USCMA deal

Top reasons as seen by US media/govt:
1. Tariffs generally
2. 51 State 'jokes'

Calling these outcomes 'deals' or 'agreements' is in the interest of both university administrators (who do not want to appear passive) and the White House (which does not want to appear authoritarian).

They are extortions—displays of power & dominance designed to coerce all universities watching.

🚨NEW: Further stories of the horrors inflicted on people the Trump admin imprisoned in El Salvador without trial are emerging.

Three men describes how they were punished by guards — stripped naked, beaten for six days straight as men and women watching laughed and mocked them.

The bribe Columbia agrees to pay the extortionist authoritarian includes this reactionary language.

When you see the government demanding that young people be trained and monitored in "longstanding traditions," your fascism alarms should ring loudly.

president.columbia.edu/sites/defaul...

Ftr, did make it 3rd peak too. Gorgeous day. Amazing hike.

One more, from 2nd peak.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Filling an important square on my BC bingo card today: hiking the Chief!

Ken Sim’s Love of Bitcoin Makes Critics Nervous | The Tyee ‘The mayor is talking about economics and doesn't seem to understand what he's talking about,’ says a UBC professor.

I took a look at some of the YouTube interviews Vancouver’s mayor has been doing on Bitcoin, and what he says is pretty wild.

When I asked an economist about these theories he said, “This is not economics, this is — I don’t know what to call it.”
#vanpoli
thetyee.ca/News/2025/07...

Simply put, times have changed since that first citizens' assembly during 2005. It's time to reopen the discussion in my view. Democracy, like the societies that employ it, is a living thing. It requires regular reform to meet the needs of citizens.

Fin! (For now.)

So, for these reasons, I think it's worth taking another look at electoral reform. To do so, the province ought to look back to what worked well during the first, effective discussion of the issue—namely, a deliberative citizen led process focused on a citizens' assembly.

The end result, left unchecked, could be a kind of nested illegitimacy. Rather than discussing ideas openly, we see contests of power with parties, and a superficial debate during elections.

All the while, legitimacy of both party and system declines in the eyes of those on the outside.

We have become accustomed to controversy within both factions—from Appardurai's insurgent BC NDP leadership campaign, to BC United quitting, to ongoing controversy around Rustad's leadership. With supposed allies are mistrustful of one another, trust erodes further.

2. The other major effect is one that is perhaps less obvious, but in some ways more troubling. The deep party polarization creates a kind of Highlander "there can be only one" party of the left and the right. The result too often is controversy verging on dysfunction within parties, eroding trust.

Each election boils down to a competition in a subset of battleground ridings, concentrated in the band around the lower mainland where the city meets the country. For many in the province, elections are a spectator sport—something in which the results are decided elsewhere.

The NDP today has virtually no representation from the province's interior at the cabinet table. A decade ago, the situation was largely reversed under the BC Liberals.

The winner take all nature of FPTP has two effects of note given polarization in BC:

1. It reinforces the degree to which the province appears to be a kind of rural-urban two solitudes. It makes it impossible for either major party to govern with a truly geographically representative cabinet.

3. On the subject of electoral reform, it's difficult given the province's extensive history with flawed unsuccessful referenda. And yet, there are compelling reasons to take another look at the issue given how our first-past-the-post system is reinforcing rural-urban, left right polarization in BC.

Again, it is likely impossible to stem the flow of misinformation in our democracies, but there are non-partisan ways to provide support for good local reporting, which gives citizens tools to make informed judgements of their own. The province absolutely can play a role here.

2. On the subject of misinformation, the province can play an active role in supporting local journalism in the province. We have great large operators, but too many communities have little or no local reporting to rely on. This erodes civic literacy, and trust in institutions operating in the dark.