Geoff

Everyone loves a special assessment.

N: Anchorage, AK 61N
W: Maui, HI 156W
E: Mt. Asahi-dake, Hokkaido, JPN 142E
S: Buenos Aires, ARG 34S (by a tenth over the Cape of Good Hope)

100% (and it’s one of many such loans).

It’s just good to understand the capital requirements and sources, and that the nation has the internal development capacity from many smaller projects, as well as bringing on one of the largest development firms in the country to execute it.

A major note: the Canadian federal government provided over 1B in low interest financing to the Squamish nation to accelerate this project.

Interesting!

It does seem that China is trying to come up with a variable solution on the car side to interact with India and Russia. Challenging questions, it’s really too bad we didn’t standardize around something ~1.5m globally.

I do think geography plays a role, but there are no shortage of women in Vancouver or SF or Seattle, and programmers and engineers are still, ultimately, a small fraction of the population.

I think it’s an interesting question with a much deeper sociological answer than geography.

Q I honestly don’t know: do high speed rail cars ever use non dedicated tracks? How so? Can they like, become standard speed for a bit to bridge into a different part of the network? I just figured it was all a different thing because of the speeds involved.

I think you’re dismissing the very real needs of immigrants to access healthcare, have their children educated, and be housed appropriately, by saying they are an excuse.

You’re off in Ontario and I understand your pain, I think BC is wholeheartedly doing so, building things takes still takes time and this balances the pressure.

We have 30 major health facility capital projects underway, including multiple multibillion dollar hospitals. Many new schools.

I don’t think this is a bad thing. Some of these schools need to go bankrupt to restructure, some need provincial funding because relying on international al students is a house of cards.

Slowing that roll (it’s still way higher than 2019!), adjusting programming and visas to push international students towards careers they will find success in, these are good things. The only “loser” is provincial budgets/colleges, many who were not spending money wisely in these sectors.

Population growth rate was between 2-3% and we had no integrated plan to build healthcare, schools, infrastructure or housing to keep up. The result? We have nearly lost the great consensus in Canada that immigration is good.

Capping international students: these “students” were barely getting an education and then being exploited for cheap labour. Colleges, mostly public, ran cheap to run programs at a profit to cover their bills due to provincial cuts and then started kingdom building

My full take:

Reducing PR was a mistake. It wasn’t the problem and we need good paths to permanent residency in the 1-1.3% population growth range. Should have focused on skill and depth and continued at 450-550k.

With housing construction ramping in provinces that do the right things (BC), and lagging in provinces that don’t (Ontario), the real issue is provincial governments—Ford caused this snafu, not the libs.

The funding issue is provincial, a challenge when healthcare and infrastructure is gobbling up the budget, and mostly a problem for colleges that have too many teachers now and not enough students.

Ultimately we need to be able to build housing at a pace that matches pop growth.

The clampdown had little effect compared to the word of mouth that got back to India: promises made by recruiters, that you could get a business degree and a white collar job in Canada, were a sham.

What we should do: colleges need substantial support to be able to offer robust international programs in the trades, healthcare and agriculture, careers that lead international students to success, and workers we need in Canada (and they can get a visa for this). Also a marketing problem!

I think the clampdown has been sensible—major universities saw almost no decline in available space, there’s a bit of a messaging problem in terms of applications but thats a communications issue.

The Biggest Myth About the YIMBY Movement There’s nothing centrist or conservative about the push to lower housing costs.

Anyways, leaving this here because I don’t know why Bluesky users have decided to fight their own policy win.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

But I don’t think bringing forward an example of adding regulation to thwart the free market is really a critique of the abundance agenda, in fact it kind of supports the thesis.

3/4 of your posting is straight out of the abundance agenda, I’d consider you an early proponent?

There’s legitimate critiques, like why does the pro-housing movement tend to attract programmers and engineers, who tend to be men?

If anything, there is regulatory capture by all you dirty consultants 😆.

Try suggesting that homes shouldn’t be subject to design panel review in a housing crisis to a group of architects.

Certainly something to look at. I'm sure it depends on the projects, with some pumps moving a few gallons a day, and some trying to quell a nearby aquifer.

Re-use is complicated but it sure seems to make sense in populated areas with farms.

A handful of residents around Cambie plan to block young people from living near them by using judicial review, similar to what happened to 7th and Arbutus.

I know there are many moles to whack, but clogging up the courts to delay projects seems like a prudent use of a hammer.

Surely heavy agricultural use is worlds more than underground?

Speaking of, if you haven’t seen it, a really interesting solution to both problems in Vernon, BC, Canada—huge network of treated sewage agricultural irrigation pipes. Built 50 years ago.

It would certainly require more work up front (I’m also a photographer). Lets be real though, it can go beyond just sizing, can affect the drape etc.

It’s not like the food stylists aren’t hamstrung by the requirements set out by the FTC.

This is true, at least in North America. They go as far as bringing the specific equipment used to make the food to studios. It is more carefully assembled and curated, they are picking the best piece of lettuce and carefully slicing the tomatoes, but it’s the real deal these days. FTC mandated.

Maybe it has to be real, worn the way regular people wear it (no pinning, no weird taping).

Perhaps we deal with product renders too, so much garbage in online advertisements.

The real question: Is it misleading?

Long ago we ruled that food advertising had to be the actual food, prepared the way it would actually be prepared.

Maybe it's time to talk about legal standards for advertising products.