Tag: expressing opinions

Are We Panicking About Housing?

November 27, 2023

Current headline news bombards us with titles like: “housing shortage”, “unaffordable housing”, and “people die on the streets for lack of housing”. These housing-related issues have materialized since 2015; we did not have these topics at that time.

However, all of these headlines spawn questions. For example, what is affordable housing? One metric the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC, the Canadian mortgage insurance company) uses is that no more than forty percent of after-tax family income should be used for housing. But does this metric apply today?

The median family income in Ottawa is just over $100,000 today, and the average house price is slightly over $600,000. The minimum downpayment is five percent for the first half million dollars, ten percent for the next half million, which translates into $35,000 for the average house in Ottawa. So, with this downpayment one needs a mortgage of $565,000 that would cost today circa $4.000 per month. The annual cost, $48,000, would therefore be over forty percent of the annual income of the average Ottawa family income. Which means housing is, in fact, unaffordable, unless one has a larger downpayment to reduce the monthly mortgage payment.

One way to look at housing issues is to identify factors creating demand for, and supply of, housing. Either decreasing demand, increasing the supply of housing, or doing both, would alleviate the current housing problem.

The major factors on the demand side are immigration and the entry of foreign students. Canada let in 430,000 immigrants and 550,000 foreign students in 2022. All of the housing demand can be attributed to these two classes of newcomers to Canada: there are 424 housing units per 1000 people in Canada, so the close to one million newcomers alone needed 400,000 units in 2022 when Canada builds only 250,000 units per annum (Census and CMHC statistics).

While the last two classes of newcomers are beneficial to Canada, they create a huge stress on the housing markets. They are beneficial in that Canadian fertility rates are below replacement rate, hence the rationale for increased immigration. Similarly, Canada is short of skilled construction workers, and therefore welcomes immigrants with such skills. And foreign students pay two or three times the university fees Canadian students pay and therefore contribute to the universities’ bottom line. But we must balance our priorities and perhaps providing housing is more important today than other objectives.

Most of the supply issues can be attributed to the shortage of skilled workers and the lack of land for development. Land is especially a major issue in some of our large cities. Vancouver is surrounded by water and mountains. Toronto’s expansion is limited on one side by water.

Densification has become the key word today to accommodate the increasing population. Densification requires rezoning by municipalities, that takes years. And vacant land development, where available, also takes years for approval.

Are there any solutions? On the demand side, the federal government could reduce the flow of immigration and the intake of foreign students to alleviate demand and pressure on housing. And municipalities could accelerate the approval process to increase the supply of housing.

The two levels of government, working in tandem, could alleviate the housing problem. However, both initiatives would also create negative consequences; Canada needs skilled people and universities favor foreign students. And an acceleration of municipal approvals may weaken environmental reviews and public engagement – both important review elements in the development process and expected by Canadians.  

The bottom line is that increased coordination between the different levels of government would go a long way to streamline the process of welcoming immigrants and foreign students entering Canada by making sure that housing is available.

The danger I see is that a panicky response today encouraging a hugely accelerated house construction program could result in an oversupply of housing in the next few years during which the federal government may change its priorities and reduce targets for immigration and the entry of foreign students.

To My Blook, Where the Writing Hobby Took Me

June 11, 2023

You may ask what is a blook? Well, the word is a combination of the words blog and book. And a blook is a book consisting of blogs. It is a new word, first coined in 2003 by Jeff Jarvis, a well-known journalist from New York. Since then, several blooks have been published and the “Blooker” prize was established in 2006, fashioned from the “Booker” prize. Julia and Julie, by Julie Powell, was awarded the first Blooker prize in 2006; it is a cookbook based on blogs preparing the recipes of Julia Childs (a film by the same name was made in 2009).

I was intrigued by the concept of a blook and was inspired to compile my own do one since I have been blogging for a few years. The pandemic was the trigger for the start of my blogging. When avoiding people, and staying home had become not only desirable but periodically mandatory, when my gym and community center where I played bridge closed, what was I to do at home? I was retired with plenty of time on my hands. Expressing personal opinions and describing my activities in writing seemed like a good idea to keep me busy.

But my blogging begs another question: “What experience did I have in writing”? This is a relevant question since I had never worked as a professional writer; my writing was limited to technical and policy papers. After I retired, I did publish two books, a memoir, and a travel book.

I can anticipate your next question: “What made me write these books”? And the trigger to start writing my memoir was a friend who challenged me to write it because she said that my children do not know who I am. And she was right: I was a Hungarian refugee/immigrant to Canada in 1956, married a Welsh girl, spoke English at home, and never discussed much of my history with the family.

All of our children attended university, married, and settled in the US, limiting opportunities to discuss my early background. When my friend challenged me to write my memoir, I had to agree that she was right, and I got motivated and even excited, to write my memoir, primarily for my children and grandchildren.

To prepare myself for writing my first book, the memoir, I enrolled in the online university Coursera. I took several of their writing courses. The Coursera Zoom classes include lectures led by Wesleyan University professors and writing assignments reviewed by fellow students. I found it interesting reviewing others’ work, some people I found to be excellent writers, while others were novices. I thought I was somewhere between the two camps.

And I enjoyed receiving comments on my work, I learned much from these comments: one reviewer rebuked me for sloppy writing when I said I was at Kennedy Airport in New York City in 1957. The reviewer criticized me for my poor memory or for not having done the research. The correct name at that time was “Idlewild” airport. It is important to check your facts, especially when you write about events sixty years ago. Overall, I found the courses very helpful in practicing my writing skills.

To further my writing knowledge, I also signed up for writing blogs such as The Write Practice and took free Zoom lectures on how to do a memoir by Marion Roach Smith. In addition to reading “How to do memoir” books, I also read many memoirs. My favorite was “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah, written with humor, and sensitivity about growing up in South Africa having a white father and a black mother. 

After a year’s work, I published my memoirs on Kindle Publishing and sent copies to all family members, awaiting their response. Some thought it was interesting and commented, “I never knew this” while one granddaughter found parts of it boring. At any rate, the family got to know me a little bit better.

Buoyed by having a book published, I was motivated to embark on another one, this time on our travels in Southeast Asia. As before, I read travel books such as the annual Best American Travel Writing series and took some Zoom courses as well on how to write about travel. My favorite travel authors were Paul Theroux and Bill Bryson.

I learned a few key lessons from the courses I have taken and the experience I have accumulated writing my two books: write about subjects that you know, express your personal opinions and feelings, and “show and not tell”.

The first one seems obvious, but it is interesting how easily one can get involved in matters unfamiliar to you, only to start looking up the internet for information. Although that avenue is useful and available to everyone, it is mostly informational. I found people are much more interested in your personal experiences and opinions. For example, a hotel in Barbados might tout its beauty on the oceanfront while someone who has been there may point out that the furniture is old and decrepit.

Before I started studying the fine art of writing my writing had reflected my positive, non-critical attitude.  But I soon realized that, in the writing of others, my interest was drawn more to their personal reflections and observations rather than my descriptive, non-critical approach.

And “show and not tell’ advises you not to use general statements like “it was a beautiful sky’ which is a “tell”, but rather “show” it in terms of its color, shading, cloud formation, and your reaction to it and let the reader interpret your description.

Having improved my writing skills and enjoying writing, I wondered, “What is next?” Another book was not of interest to me, and the pandemic had shut us down from travel and socializing. But I was still interested in writing, and I had the time to carry on with writing short pieces on select subjects where I express my thoughts and opinions.  

And so, I started writing; I wrote blogs about the pandemic, about the Ukrainian war, and about Canadian and Ottawa issues and controversies. The number of blogs I have written has grown and I thought that I should try to weave them together into a book format, the idea behind a blook. Look for my Kindle blook by the end of the year!

Where to Ukrainian Refugees?

April 30, 2023

Ukraine is preparing for a major attempt to recover some of the territory lost to the Russians. It is over a year ago that Russia initiated an unprovoked war on Ukraine, calling it a “special operation”, a euphemism by any stretch of the imagination for what it is, a war. This “special operation” displaced over fifteen million people in Ukraine, and over eight million people left the country.

Under the Canada Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program, Canada offered to take in an unlimited number of Ukrainians seeking shelter from the war. To date, close to a million applications have been received under this program, of which two-thirds have been approved, and 150,000 have already arrived in Canada.

This new immigration program  (CUAET) was developed for, and with, Ukrainians, and it provides temporary residence status for three years for successful applicants, with $3,000 for each adult and $1,500 for each child. After three years, those Ukrainians who want to stay in Canada can apply for permanent residence.

A major benefit of CUAET is that the newcomers can work immediately in Canada. A major disadvantage of the program is that people arriving under the CUAET do not receive many of the social adjustment programs that refugees receive, such as housing assistance.

The Ukrainians prefer this new program to the refugee program because it allows them to work immediately while the latter takes much longer to gain resident status that permits work. And many Ukrainians want to go home, hoping for an end to the war in less than three years. Many left families at home, including husbands, who could not leave because of their obligation to serve in the military.

Thinking about the Russian invasion, which started during the Covid pandemic, I wondered how the virus affected Ukrainians. Only thirty-five percent of Ukrainians were vaccinated against Covid in 2022 (compared to the eighty percent vaccination rate in Canada). War is tough during a pandemic; people escape to refugee camps where the crowding provides the perfect environment for the spread of the airborne virus.

The numbers bear out the damage Covid wrought on Ukraine; five million people got infected and 100,000 people died out of their population of thirty-two million (compared to Canada where also five million people got infected, and fifty-one thousand people died out of a population of forty-eight million people).  

The adversities faced by Ukrainians forced many to leave their country, and it reminded me of my experience escaping from Hungary during the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

Hungary was under Russian occupation from 1944 when the Russians defeated Germany. The spontaneous uprising of 1956 provided a window to escape the prison-like existence in Hungary. Many people left their families behind but those who left had no intention of returning home, in contrast to the recent Ukrainian exodus.  

We came to Canada as refugees, which was a new program developed for the Hungarians by then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Over 35,000 Hungarians arrived in Canada following the uprising in 1956.

I remember what we had to do to adjust to Canadian life: learn  English, acquire usable skills, go back to school, and secure a job to make a living. It took a few years to start a modest life in an apartment and a few more years to buy our first car. Father had to redo his university coursework in medicine and certification for a medical license, including residency with twenty-four-hour shifts at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. My older brother and I attended university and worked part-time as well as full-time during the summers to cover university costs. Mother worked at a store. Immigrants go through multi-year adjustments to settle in a country new to them.   The first few years were not easy, but my parents were determined they would not return to Hungary.

Many of the recently arrived Ukrainians have a different goal; they hope to return home after the war. A worthwhile wish but is it reasonable? Negotiations between the two warring parties have not been initiated and are unlikely to be successful since both sides have firm and non-negotiable positions. Militarily, the two sides are at a standstill, Ukraine assisted by NATO and Russia assisted by North Korea, and other countries with weaponry. A resolution seems elusive. It may take years. 

And in time, immigrants embrace the new country they settle in and get to like it. I remember a handful of Hungarian refugees who decided to go home after a few years.  They could not acquire a workable knowledge of the English language mostly because of sticking with family members and speaking Hungarian all the time. They could not get used to Canadian culture, especially gender equality in Canada. They also missed their family back home. And they were all older. But the great majority of the Hungarian refugees stayed and prospered in Canada.

I do not believe you ever go home and feel at home in the old country you left. You have changed and your old country has changed and going home is a disappointing experience. And this will be especially true of Ukraine with the devastation of its cities by the Russian bombing. Reconstruction will take years.

I think most Ukrainians who have come to Canada over the past year will stay and prosper here.

My Thoughts on the PSAC Strike

April 21, 2023

Driving by the Post Office I observed hundreds of civil servants clutching coffee mugs and walking back and forth for their four-hour strike duty a day for which they get $75 from the union. It was cold and they were bundled up.

About 150,000 civil servants, a third of all federal employees, are on strike, and the already long waiting times for passports will get longer.

I remembered the time working for the federal government when I went to work at five in the morning to avoid crossing picket lines and avoid potentially rough altercations with striking union members.

As always, the major item of contention is salaries. The two sides are not far apart and although the union’s demand is not way out of line, in my opinion, the sudden frugality of the government surprised me. In the past few years, this government has spent money like it was coming out of a firehose.

In all union negotiations,  the discussion focuses on how salaries should track or not, inflation, and cost-of-living increases. The examples brought forward by both sides include public and private unions. The trouble I have with these discussions is the lack of debate on job security and the benefits packages that the various organizations provide. I worked in both public and private organizations and there are no questions in my mind that job security is pretty well 100 percent in the public sector (anecdotal evidence shows it can take up to two years to fire someone in the government for incompetence) while much, much less in private groups.

When I worked in the federal public service, my job security was never in question with an attractive benefits plan, including a pension. In the private sector, I lost my job when an international company bought the company. And the contribution to my pension by the private company was much less than what the federal government provided. On the positive side, though, the shares in the private company were offered as bonuses at year-end, which could fluctuate in price reflecting the fortunes of the company, a significant risk factor.

So my question is: should federal employees be compensated less than private company employees performing comparable duties because of the benefits of a secure job with full benefits?

My friend who ran an architectural office downtown told me years ago that he always had an awfully tough time hiring a secretary, at what he thought was a competitive salary, because the federal government paid so much more for similarly employed people.

And my other question is: should federal employees who choose the work-at-home model be compensated less than those who go to work every day because of the financial and other benefits of working at home?

Consider the savings on transportation; whether one uses public transit or a private car, the savings are substantial in dollar terms as well as in time. Commuting times range up to a couple of hours a day depending on where one lives. And gas for the car, parking (civil servants have to pay for parking), and depreciation of the car add up to a tidy sum. Neither is the cost of public transit a bargain.

And many people buy coffee and lunch at work. When I worked for the federal government, I tried to get some fresh air and went for a short walk during my lunch hour. I often ended up in a bookstore buying a book which I would not have done while working at home.

I also have to mention that the informality of working at home saves money on clothing, which, although casual these days in the office, still require decent clothing.

But beyond the financial and time savings working at home are the incredible benefits provided by the flexibility of being at home. Think of a young family where the work-at-home spouse can take the children to the school bus stop and pick them up upon return. Or, doing away with a nanny, should both parents work? Or, going on a two-hour bike ride at lunchtime. Unless the employee has to be on the phone during working hours, the work can be done at any time during the day or at night.

The work-at-home model has tremendous benefits but also costs; depending on the personality of the employee, some may miss the camaraderie with fellow workers, and miss learning what is going on in the office. Others are quite happy to work alone. And, of course, there has to be space for an office in the home, which may not be available for all.

The adoption of the work-at-model is a major negotiating item although I have not seen a study on what percentage of federal civil servants would like to do it. But if it is a bargaining chip, I think that those who work at home should get less remuneration compared to those doing the same job at the office. The financial savings have a dollar value and the flexibility of working at home is also a benefit that should be costed out.

My considered view is that the job security and benefits package enjoyed by federal civil servants, combined with the option of working at home, should be fully costed when compared to other union agreements and the inflation rate.

The Good Life in Canada in Peril

April 9, 2023

I walked into the garage and stumbled in the dark towards the garage door handle to release it from the cable so that I could push up the garage door by hand; the power was out. We had an ice storm yesterday and the local hydro was still fixing the lines. It was getting cold in the house when we woke up in the morning without power.

When I pushed the garage door up, I saw our neighbor walking towards me up the driveway with a cup of coffee in his hand. And I heard a loud generator working in his driveway, explaining his coffee. He came to offer coffee or whatever we needed. That was nice of him. I told him we were just going to find an open restaurant to warm up and enjoy our coffee and breakfast.

Over our meal, I wondered what a nice lifestyle our neighbor has living in a five-bedroom house with one child. And he works at home allowing him to take a bicycle ride for a break and do chores around the house during working hours.

Canada offers a charmed life for many people, educated here and with a job. I socialize with them and enjoy their company most of the time. They are relaxed and enjoy the good life, although some are smug.

And their smug attitude in believing they deserve what they have bothers me. They truly believe that they worked and earned their status in life. And their good life makes this generation comfortable, less ambitious, and more complacent. Less achieving. I think that this is sad. This attitude, in my view, has pervaded the way Canadians and government look at issues.

I thought of the immigrants coming into this country and fully understand why they want to come here when they see what some people here have. But the immigrants have challenges. They do not speak the language fluently, if at all; they are not familiar with local culture; they have no local experience. And no local contacts.

And now the country allows half a million immigrants a year into the country for the next few years; bumping up the population when a recession threatens, there is a housing shortage and affordability gap, on top of a healthcare crisis. All these issues affect immigrants.

Although we identify these issues with some recalcitrance,we resolve them slowly, if at all. Often, we ignore them, thinking it doesn’t affect us, so no need to do any planning.

Potholes on the streets? No problem, it is the weather. This view is nonsense. The northern states in the US have similar climates with excellent roads.

Healthcare crisis? No problem, we’ll let in more foreign nurses and doctors, ignoring the fact that they have to be locally licensed, a time-consuming exercise that can take years.

Housing crisis? No problem, we’ll let in more construction and tradespeople, forgetting that they also need local licensing, and we also need land to build on.

No land to build on? No problem, we’ll just make our cities denser. We’ll let three units be built on single-family lots in Ontario, starting this summer, which will destroy some older, attractive neighborhoods.

Food price inflation? No problem, the government provides a subsidy; prints money, and just increases the national debt. Debt is for future generations to resolve.

It may be only me but methinks we do not solve problems but delay them, thereby creating fresh problems.

I think the country has become too complacent and downright lazy. We havelost our edge, our dynamism. We sloganeer about equity, diversity and inclusion, and LGBTQ…., matters, and forget that these ideals are impossible to materialize without creating jobs and opportunities and investing in technology and the future. You cannot have equity, diversity, and inclusion in the abstract, it exists in organizations employing people.

So, let’s get back our work ethic and get off our collective fat butts and build the economy by providing the opportunity for future generations.