– News Bulletin letter to the editor
– Times Colonist letter to the editor
When the investment tycoon Warren Buffet suggested “when the tide goes out you will see who is naked.” The reverse rings true for housing. Supply shortages, arguably the major cause of the current housing crises, boosts the price of both the new and existing supply.
New home construction sets the price reference point. Existing homes values. no matter what their age, rise with tide. The hidden add-ons, including development cost charges, amenity contributions, registration fees, rezoning charges, GST, transfer fees new construction requirements etc. created over the last 40 years, all add value to the existing housing stock.
Add the supply crunch and current home owners disproportionally profit through both capital gain and the substantial tax revenue generated from new construction.
If a current home owner purchases a newly-constructed home, he/she has substantial financial support from their previous purchase. On the other hand, people new to the market, young families, independent young singles and immigrants not only pay the full price for their new home but also directly subsidize ownership for existing home owners.
Is there perhaps is a relationship between our falling birth rates and the housing crisis?
Jack de Jong, Lantzville
23/02/09
“Fake”, the word’s origin is lost to history, most likely French a derivative from “faux” . Fortunately, it has many colourful synonyms: swindled, counterfeit, phoney baloney, scammed, fabricated, two faced, tricked, lying; the list goes on. Combine the words with “news” and you get the gist. The Bible has a more legal poetic definition; one commandment orders us not to bear “false witness”. Obviously, the problem is not new to social media.
The weight of council titles and positions
If a weather forecaster says it is going to snow tomorrow, it is just a forecast, not verifiable until tomorrow. If he makes a number of forecasts and they are all wrong he is just an incompetent forecaster not a liar. If for some reason or other he states it snowed yesterday and it didn’t most people would agree he is lying and distributing “fake News". The deception takes on a meaning of it own, after all he is a weather forecaster. His title reenforces and gives credibility to the lie and many people will believe it snowed yesterday. If you think Lantzville is immune, a 2022 Nanaimo Bulletin editorial revealed Lantzville was sold to Nanaimo, an innocent hoax, many people were taken in. “The sale is still pending.”
Community and council participation
Community letters or social media postings addressed to council that follow the general ethical guidelines (addressed to council not editorials or one liners) can never be classified as fake News. In a formal sense they participate, provide input or ask for news. A councillor is not required to participate on social media but if he or she think it should be constructive and informative, especially when the inputs are non judgmental. The final decision is still in their domain.
Suggesting Fake News may be convenient, but turns the whole process on its head. If the content was in fact accurate or the query legitimate the councillor now owns the narrative because it is a reasonable assumption, he knows the whole truth but is not telling. The point is a fine one, but important in the context of transparency, community participation and access to information, The final decision is still in his/her domain. Fake News used by a councillor in this context is more motivated reasoning and a putdown than fact. The legitimate inputs, request for information or comments being tagged “Phony Baloney.” by a councillor is childish. We can do better than that
Jack de Jong, Lantzville,
22/12/15
Re: Crash Happy Bunch. Part of the problem is caused by the fact there are three different left turn types of signals, and until they are all standardized to a single one (a red light for left hand turns) this is going to continue. What is sad is the city has spent millions on intersection upgrades and didn’t spend the few extra dollars to install this system, therefore with no red light people continue to turn left through oncoming traffic. Simple obvious solution and apparently engineers and politicians are not able to process this.
Rod Hancock, Nanaimo.
22/12/15
That's as good an explanation of Crypto currency as I've seen. Crypto never made any sense to me. If currencies backed by nations can collapse, how would a "currency" created by unknown entities have any credible support or value? Just because the coins are coloured gold means nothing. It seems too much like the Dutch
tulip craze . . . valuable only as long as the next fool believed too...until no one did.
Gary Korpan, Nanaimo
Immigration is all about importing Liberal voters
It has been said for years that the Trudeau government has no interest in getting more immigrants into Canada other than harvest their electoral votes at election time.
We haven’t got enough resources to look after our own people, never mind bringing in another 140,000 immigrants annually. Just heard on the news that the new numbers are 500,000 new immigrants in 2025. Due to our low birth rates in Canada, we need immigrants, however we also need to be able accommodate them.
Sufficient affordable housing is not available for the current population. Oil, which was our financial backbone and salvation in the past, is being cut off and taxed as much or more than possible, leaving us with humongous deficits. The Liberals are riding the World Economic Forum’s disastrous ride to a one-world governing system.
The housing crisis created by the Liberals and Bank of Canada is going to carry a very heavy financial burden on the Canadian taxpayers because they are already talking about a new twist in financing which will subsidize the people whose mortgages mature. No doubt the banks will want higher rates on renewals.
So much of this dog and pony show is merely to garner more votes for the Liberals.
Eldon Unger, White Rock, B.C.
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