Maybe I could phone it in.

I do own some sweatshirts, but they don’t have hoods. 🤷

No, I’m a jogger so I wouldn’t need it!

But there’s other issues, too. Mainly capacity. CRD/CRHC staff are flat out with all the buildings we’re currently working on.

We have 1,000 homes in stream and potentially another 2,000 - 3,000 after we use that $85m with matched funds from senior govts.

CRHC is the unsung hero of afford. housing

The alternative option would be for the CRD to simply raise taxes on all member LGs. That’s what a requisition is, so it wouldn’t even have to come out of a municipality’s budget / tax lift.

Historically, the CRD has kept its requisitions relatively low to manage the conservative suburban LGs.

I definitely think LGs could be doing more for affordable housing, but mainly that’s via zoning, approvals, and having a Housing Reserve Fund, where they kick in $$ to help projects get over the line.

It’s simply too costly for LGs to do much more, and that’s where the Province & Feds come in IMO.

Caledonia, for instance, which we’re about to open, was $75m. It’s insanely expensive to build any housing these days.

We are sitting on a borrowing authority of $85m. We could either use that $ to build one building, or leverage big $ from senior governments. We’re doing the latter.

This is a good and interesting question.

The CRHC budget is complicated, so some funding does come through tax requisition. But the big $$ for buildings comes from B.C. Housing, CMHC, and various low-interest loans.

The $$ needed to build housing is prob beyond ability of LGs to finance.

My thoughts exactly, and I have said so to Lucy, Sean, and Pete. They should rally behind one candidate for the betterment of the city.

Agreed. The Dems are so out of ideas. I would have borrowed from Canada and created a ‘shadow’ cabinet and press office and give daily updates on what they’d be doing differently.

One area for improvement is 3-beds. The new Family Housing Bylaw will take time to show results.

Availability and costs are improving for residents. Vacancy rates are at 2.5 - 3.0% & average rents have dropped 6.4%.

Victoria is doing its part to add non-market housing, supply, & family housing.

Science has measles pretty well figured out. It’s super unhelpful to undermine that science in the absences of some other compelling body of knowledge on disease, which we don’t have.

Ditto for the Sec of Transpo saying pilots should “go with their guts.” Rejecting professionalism is very harmful.

It’s less about science and more a belief that the arts (e.g. history, philosophy, anthropology) offer perspectives and evidence that is as truthful and valuable as that of science.

Science is never perfect. But it often provides the best information we have, and should be valued.

It’s funny because in many ways I’ve spent my career being skeptical of scientism — a worldview that believes science is infallible. I’ve come at that from the POV of the humanities.

There is a longstanding animosity between the arts and the social sciences about how people view the two fields.

Thanks. I’ll raise this with the Chief the next time she comes to council.

It’s my understanding that traffic ticket revenue under the MVA goes to the Province, which is different than how parking ticket revenues are handled (they belong to the local government).

Happy to be corrected, but that’s what I’ve gathered.

I’m not blocking you, Tom Payne. I can handle divergent viewpoints, and in fact value them.