Originally published April 17, 2024
It has now been four and a half years since the 2019 referendum in which a solid majority of Cortes Islanders voted in favour of bylaw 341. This bylaw established a property tax service that would provide basic operational support for the islands two community halls.
Continue reading Before and After: Impacts of the “Hall Tax” on Gorge Hall
Three new signs have recently been greeting boaters arriving in Cortes Bay.
They say:
A recent article in the Capital Daily outlines how the housing crisis is eradicating Victoria’s middle class.
Throughout British Columbia, the average rent and mortgage payments exceed what many people can pay.
“What’s been happening over the last 10 years is that the share of homes bought by first-time buyers has been declining, and their market share has largely been taken over by investors,” said John Pasalis, president of Toronto-based Realosophy Realty, told CBC News.
He added that, contrary to what many believe, the lion’s share of the investors were domestic owners who purchased a second home as an investment.
Continue reading Reflections on the eradication of Canada’s middle classAll too often our ingenuity seems to outwit our wisdom. A case in point is the discovery and production of PFAS chemicals. Its first iteration was created in 1938 by Roy J. Plunkett, the accidental result of some scientific tinkering while searching for a better refrigerant gas. He had inadvertently discovered an artificial compound that was “impervious to heat and chemical degradation and also extremely slippery”, as well as being water and oil repellent (Graham Lawton in New Scientist “Everyday Toxins”, May 11, 2024). We know this substance as the commercial product called Teflon, now produced at more than 200,000 tonnes per year.
Continue reading The Quadra Project: The PFAS Folly
One of the most controversial ideas being considered in the SRD’s Poverty Reduction Plan is advocating for a Universal Basic Income (UBI). (A higher level of government would need to implement this.) There are numerous examples showing that UBI is an effective way to raise people out of poverty. The problem is too much of the financial impact may fall on the diminishing middle class ($50,000-$135,000 per anno in BC) rather than the rich who appear to be increasingly growing richer.
Continue reading Would Universal Basic Income work in the SRD?
