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Opinion

Red Deer’s 2% house depreciation hurts the most, the ones we need the most.

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3 minute read

We welcome your opinions.. Here’s one from Red Deer resident Garfield Marks.

Red Deer has a severe supply management issue when it comes to housing. In 4 years our population grew by 195 residents while we added 1299 new homes. House values decreased last year by 2%. Making it undesirable to young families to put down permanent roots in Red Deer.

Why it may be better to just rent in the short term.

The prices of real estate has declined in the last year by 2 %.

So what, you may ask.

Let us look at last year’s first home buyer.

Buys a $300,000 house. Puts 5% down ($15,000) and takes out a mortgage. Pays legal and moving fees for about $1,000 which would be a bargain. $16,000 out of pocket to start.

5% down means a $285,000 mortgage which means mortgage insurance which if added to the principal means a real mortgage of $296,400 to start.

Taxes for the year on property will be about $2,600.

If the mortgage was at 2.94% that would mean a monthly payment of about $1,394 or $16,728 for the year.

Let us say the needs no maintenance but one could expect maintenance of at least $1,000 but in this example we will negate maintenance.

House insurance would be about a $1,000.

During the year the home buyer spent $16,000 buying the house, $16,728 on mortgage payments and $2,600 on property taxes, $1,000 on insurance for a total of $36,328.

Today the house sells for 2% less or $294,000, then minus $12,411 real estate fees and GST, down to $281,589, then minus $1,000 legal fees to $280,589, then minus mortgage payout of about$290,000 to a net loss of about $10,000 in proceeds to the owner.

So that $300,000 home cost the owner $46,000 to live in the home for 1 year. He could have rented it for $20,000 so in this case it would make more sense to rent.

So to many people losing 2% value in their home is a big deal.

Perhaps we could slow down the building of new homes to let the market catch up, because now it leaves the most vulnerable home buyer at risk, and those are the first time buyers, the young families and the residents most needed to create a growing community.

So far from encouraging the young upwardly mobile to move to Red Deer, we are scaring them away.

Perhaps our supply and demand equation is heavily weighted to the supply side, yet we keep investing in new subdivisions while devaluing our own homes.

Who wins? Developers, city hall tax collectors, builders but not the tax payers. The city definitely makes the case for big property managers and renting. Too bad.

 

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Immigration

Mass immigration can cause enormous shifts in local culture, national identity, and community cohesion

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Macdonald-Laurier Institute

By Geoff Russ for Inside Policy

It matters where immigrants come from, why they choose Canada, and how many are arriving from any single country. When it comes to countries of origin, immigration streams into Canada have become wildly unbalanced over the last decade.

Few topics have animated Canadians more than immigration in the past year.

There is broad consensus among the public that the annual intake of newcomers must fall, and polling shows bothĀ native-bornĀ and immigrant citizensĀ agree on this. In Ottawa, the Conservative opposition has called forĀ lower numbers, and the Liberal governmentĀ ostensiblyĀ concurs.

While much of the discussion surrounding immigration has focused on economic factors like affordability and the shrinking housing supply, less attention has been paid to the cultural and political changes ofĀ welcoming moreĀ than 5 million people into the country since 2014.

Specifically, attention must be paid to the possible outcomes of importing hundreds of thousands of people from regions embroiled by war or prone to conflict. This is a necessity as digital technology proliferates and guarantees the world will be interconnected, but not united.

Mass immigration brings in far more than just people. It can cause enormous shifts in local culture, national identity, political allegiances, and community cohesion.

It matters where immigrants come from, why they choose Canada, and how many are arriving from any single country. When it comes to countries of origin, immigration streams into Canada have become wildly unbalanced over the last decade.

In 2023,Ā almost 140,000Ā people immigrated to Canada from India, while the second-largest intake came from China, with 31,770Ā  people.

This new trend is at odds with Canada’s historical immigration policies, which were more evenly weighted by country. In 2010, the top three national pools of immigration were the Philippines atĀ 38,300 newcomers, India with 33,500, and China with 31,800.

Other countries that Canada has receivedĀ increasing numbersĀ of migrants from includes Syria, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

Past federal governments took consideration for details like economic needs and capacity for integration. Canadian immigration policy in 2025 should take into account modern communications and conflicts within certain regions as well.

21st century technology continues to advance and innovate at dizzying speeds, giving rise to immersive social platforms and instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Signal. This has brought the world closer together, but rather than promoting peace and understanding, it has amplified foreign conflicts and brought them to our own backyards.

Tens of thousands of migrants from the Levant have arrived since 2015, a region where anti-Zionism isĀ deeply ingrainedĀ in the cultures, as well as full-blown antisemitism.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War in 2023, the entire West has borne witness to antisemitic violence in Europe and North America, often perpetrated by ideologically motivated migrants.

Earlier this year, a Syrian migrant in Germany went on aĀ stabbing spreeĀ with the intent of murdering Jews, while last September, Canadian policeĀ foiled the plotĀ of a Pakistani man in Ontario who had planned to commit a mass killing of Jews in New York City.

Canada’s political culture has been profoundly affected by these same waves, with demographic changes forcing the federal government to alter its longstanding foreign policy positions. For example, the newly-minted Minister of Industry MĆ©lanie Joly allegedly remarked last year that her shifting stance on the Israel-Hamas war was due to the ā€œdemographicsā€ of her Montreal riding.

Montreal itself has become aĀ hotbedĀ of anti-Israeli and anti-semitic violence. Riots, property damage, and theĀ stormingĀ of the McGill University campus have been carried out by radicals inspired by Hamas and their allies.

In 1968, the great Canadian thinker Marshall McLuhan co-authoredĀ War and Peace in the Global Village, which warned of the consequences of modern technologies erasing the boundaries of the world. McLuhan explicitly cautioned that technology would make the world smaller, and lead to conflict in his theorized global village.

Today, that village is one where Jewish students areĀ routinely harassedĀ on college campuses in Vancouver and Toronto, while synagogues areĀ burnt to the groundĀ in Melbourne. It does not matter whether the victims are Israeli or not. They are seen by their assailants as legitimate targets as part of an enemy tribe.

On May 21, two staffers at the Israeli embassy in Washington DC wereĀ shot dead by a man shouting pro-Palestinian slogans.

These sorts of imported feuds go beyond the Middle East. Global tensions in regions like the Indian subcontinent present another threat of foreign-inspired and funded violence, as well as undue political shifts.

India and Pakistan are locked in a long running standoff over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Last month, several tourists wereĀ murdered in KashmirĀ by militants that India accused Pakistan of backing, leading to several low-levelĀ exchangesĀ between the Indian and Pakistani militaries before aĀ ceasefire was brokered. Tensions are far from dissipated, and the possibility of a full-scale confrontation between India and Pakistan remains high.

Considering those two rivals have massive diasporas in the West, a potential war on the subcontinent could radically change domestic politics in countries in Canada, Australia, and Britain.

In 2022, violent clashesĀ broke outĀ between Hindu and Muslim youths in the British city of Leicester following a cricket match between India and Pakistan. The street battles lasted for weeks, andĀ threatened to restartĀ later that year following an escalation in India and Pakistan’s clash over Kashmir. In London, demonstrators from the Pakistani and Indian communities came close to violence.

If a sporting rivalry can inspire hooliganism, a war will spark something far worse, and the globalization of the Israel-Gaza conflict is a glimpse into what that might look like.

There is historical precedent in Canada for how overseas conflicts affect domestic politics.

During the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of Irish—both Catholic and Protestant—emigrated to Canada before and after Confederation in 1867. They brought their religious feuds with them.

The militantly anti-Catholic Orange Order, run by Protestants, became one of the most powerful political forces in Ontario. They held aĀ virtual monopolyĀ on municipal politics in Toronto, excluded Catholics from jobs in the public service, and took part in brawls with the city’s Irish Catholic community for more than 100 years.

Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of the Fathers of Confederation and an Irish Catholic migrant, was murdered forĀ speaking outĀ against the republican Fenian Brotherhood, which had infiltrated politics both in Canada and the United States.

Integration throughout successive generations mitigates and even practically eliminates the impact of imported conflicts. This was the case with the Irish sectarian divide, though it took over a century to fade away.

Worth noting is that roughlyĀ 300,000 Ukrainian refugeesĀ currently reside in Canada, having been admitted under a special visa program following the Russian invasion in 2022. It is intended to be temporary, with the expectation of repatriation once a stable peace returns to Ukraine.

Similarly to Irish-Canadians, the vast majority of the established Ukrainian-Canadian community has its roots in pre-modern Canada, and is largelyĀ well-integratedĀ into the country’s social fabric. To date, there has been no major violence or anti-social harms inflicted upon their Russian-Canadian counterparts despite the war, or vice-versa.

Furthermore, the Canadian government has a longstanding close relationship with Kyiv, and there is far more trust and transparency regarding intent and collaboration. This is not the case with governments like China and India, the former of whomĀ actively interferesĀ in our elections, and the latter of which has been accused ofĀ assassinating dissidentsĀ on Canadian soil.

The existence of the iPhone, the internet, and opportunistic foreign governments makes it incredibly dangerous to not change course. That is not to imply that the average migrant is an active foreign agent. But the sheer quantity makes vetting them all a challenge.

Mitigating these threats requires strategic planning when crafting immigration policy.

Other parts of the world like Southeast Asia, Southern Europe, and Latin America are relatively stable and peaceful and are potential sources of newcomers with far lower risk of foreign interference and diasporic violence.

At-play is the stability, unity, and integrity of our political system. Canadian politics must remain fully Canadian in its focus and priorities. That cannot happen if we sleepwalk into becoming a battleground for the rest of the world.

Geoff RussĀ is a writer and policy analyst, and a contributor for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Alberta senator wants to revive lapsed Trudeau internet censorship bill

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Senator Kristopher Wells and other senators are ‘interested’ in reviving the controversial Online Harms Act legislation that was abandoned after the election call.

A recent Trudeau-appointed Canadian senator said that he and other ā€œinterested senatorsā€ want the current Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney to revive a controversial Trudeau-era internet censorship bill that lapsed.

Kristopher Wells, appointed by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last year as a senator from Alberta, made the comments about reviving an internet censorship bill recently in the Senate.

ā€œIn the last Parliament, the government proposed important changes to theĀ Criminal CodeĀ of Canada designed to strengthen penalties for hate crime offences,ā€ he said of Bill C-63 that lapsed earlier this year after the federal election was called.

Bill C-63, or theĀ Online Harms Act, was put forth under the guise of protecting children from exploitation online.

While protecting children is indeed a duty of the state, the bill included several measures that targeted vaguely defined ā€œhate speechā€ infractions involving race, gender, and religion, among other categories. The proposal was thusĀ blastedĀ by many legal experts.

The Online Harms ActĀ would have in essence censored legal internet content that the government thought ā€œlikely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group.ā€ It would be up to the Canadian Human Rights Commission to investigate complaints.

Wells said that ā€œBill C-63 did not come to a vote in the other place and in the dying days of the last Parliament the government signaled it would be prioritizing other aspects of the bill.ā€

ā€œI believe Canada must get tougher on hate and send a clear and unequivocal message that hate and extremism will never be tolerated in this country no matter who it targets,ā€ he said.

Carney, asĀ reported by LifeSiteNews, vowed to continue in Trudeau’s footsteps, promising even more legislation to crack down on lawful internet content.

Wells asked if the current Carney government remains ā€œcommitted to tabling legislation that will amend theĀ Criminal CodeĀ as proposed in the previous Bill C-63 and will it commit to working with interested senators and community stakeholders to make the changes needed to ensure this important legislation is passed?ā€

Seasoned Senator Marc Gold replied that he is not in ā€œa position to speculateā€ on whether a new bill would be brought forward.

Before Bill C-63, a similar law, Bill C-36, lapsed in 2021 due to that year’s general election.

AsĀ noted byĀ LifeSiteNews, Wells has in the past advocated for closing Christian schools that refuse to violate their religious principles by accepting so-called Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs and spearheaded so-called ā€œconversion therapy bans.ā€

Other internet censorship bills that have become law have yet to be fully implemented.

Last month, LifeSiteNewsĀ reported thatĀ former Minister of Environment Steven Guilbeault, known for his radical climate views, will be the person in charge of implementing Bill C-11, a controversial bill passed in 2023 that aims to censor legal internet content in Canada.

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