healthetank

Unless I'm mistaken, hydronic systems like those USUALLY require a pump to circulate the water.

I'm glad there IS data to do this comparison. Nothing I've seen from proposed cuts has made me believe that they are in the best interest of mail delivery, and its good to see that Canada Post is doing so well relative to other countries.

I'm confused - are you arguing for lower property values as a driving method to reduce COL, or for trying to redistribute housing prices?

50 per 100,000 people.

I don't think we should be using the States as our goal/bar as to what is normal or acceptable for violence. What are the rates in Europe? What about Japan or Korea?

Arguing that were not better than the US or Russia (the two biggest neighbours and both much more aggressively imperialistic than Canada), is extremely disingenuous.

I think Canada has the potential to do better and I'm not about to give it up or roll over for another country to come in, particularly one like the US who has shown an incredible swing towards facism and aggression to LGBTQ and POC. Me defending this country, if they were to invade, would have direct benefits to those of my family who are LGBTQ and those of my friend group who are immigrants. Arguing that because Canada has a problem with wannabe monopolistic companies and a bleed over of American individualism its basically as bad as any other is a stance I disagree with.

The most likely deployment for these forces would be natural disasters and support - something I'm interested in doing anyway. If this does come out its something I'd explore and see if its a good fit.

Its been a nightmare working with CAs recently (last 3yrs), but that's largely due to budget cuts and staffing losses.

Fund them properly and set strict guidelines for plan review turnarounds, and you'll see improvements.

But alas its the classic "defund then claim its not working" be that he pulls everywhere.

I mean at the least it looks like we're taking some steps to avoid the clusterfuck that the USMCA resigning is likely to be by getting ahead of it.

Its not hard to double exports to other countries when your main trading partner (US) stops taking your stuff. Talking out of my ass, but it seems like doubling exports to other countries wouldn't be that hard when we wind up having a surplus because US trade dries up. Seems like it'd push prices of our goods lower and hurt Canadians, which is what he seems to be implying to me.

Lol they definitely did not take better care of infrastructure. They were freaking cowboys and a ton of municipalities got burnt on it. I work on lots of capital jobs that involve fixing problems that have been around since then.

So now they have much more stringent standards, which in turn means projects are more expensive. Add onto that the growing complexity - installing a water main down a street in 1980 when you have overhead hydro lines and no other utilities to work around is much easier than installation in a crowded right-of-way with buried gas, hydro, storm sewer, sanitary sewer, and existing water main that needs to continue to service residents.

As for how they were originally funded, idk. Don't think they ever really asked residents what they wanted back then. Now there's much more accountability, which is good but has drawbacks and costs.

In Canadian municipalities specifically, or in general, like for climate reasons?

I mean climate, but not specifically global warming, just the fact were a planet with finite resources.

Unfortunately some municipalities have used development fees incorporated into their normal budget, whether directly or indirectly, rather than solely using them to account for the increased costs in maintenance, which is what they should be for. Often times I've worked on capital projects (repair ones) where the funding has come directly from development.

For example, one municipality I work closely with has the salaries for all their development staff and the salaries for their capital design staff paid by development fees, plus some allocations for expansion of other services to account for more citizens.

Edit for clarity: Municipalities can also skirt this use by doing things like the following: a long stretch of road from a highway is in poor condition and needs to be repaired in the next 2 years. But a development is going in on the road, and they can force the developer to pay for the reconstruction of the road, despite the fact that it is in poor xondition and needs to be redone anyway. Ditto for sewer, or water main replacement.

Note - I work in Ontario, and this is my experience as an engineering consultant working with dozens of municipalities.

We're finally at the end of infrastructure lifespan point for a good chunk of the province. That means Water/Wastewater plants, as well as the hundreds of kilometers of pipes required to transmit those liquids are at the end of their life for the first time since being installed (50-70 years).

The cost to replace those is enormous, and IMO, should be covered primarily by property tax and/or useage fees. However those fees have not actually set aside the money required in many places, which means that municipalities have been propping up their old infrastructure costs by charging large development fees. Doug Ford, as much as I hate him, slashed development fees allowed, which forced property tax rates to rise. This more accurately reflects the ACTUAL cost of owning a home with services by the municipality. Given that I believe growth stagnation is required, this is the direction we need to head. We can't keep running this ponzi scheme of funding old infrastructure with new infrastructure fees. Its unfair to new buyers and subsidizing older homeowners.

We also likely need to take a look at the actual fees and costs associated with maintaining our infrastructure. Stormwater ponds, seen typically in subdivisions, are HORRIBLY under-serviced, with a recent investigation in our area revealing 75% of them had never been cleaned out since being put into service ~30-50 years ago. They typically have a service life of 10-20 years, and have been leaking pollutants into our creeks and waterways since. The primary reason - you guessed it, budget. At 1+Mil/cleanout, they're expensive.

We've skated by up till now by externalizing these costs and letting the damages build up for tomorrow's solutions. We can't keep putting off those costs.

When people are in a hurry, they find other ways and that’s when things get more dangerous.

Can you try explaining this? I've reread it and can't make sense of it. Are you saying that speed cameras INCREASE how much people hurry? I disagree. School safety zones are not big areas - if they're having a notable impact on your length of drive, that's weird. Forcing people to go 20km/hr slower through those zones via speed cameras shouldn't add more than a couple of seconds onto a drive. Even if the zone was a km long, that's a 30s difference going at 60 vs 40. You're more likely to be caught at a streetlight longer than that.

So rich people don’t care at all about going fast in those areas - it’s just a fee to go fast to them.

Data isn't showing that. Data, when released, shows top speeds of ~10km/hr over the limit once cameras have been in place. Demerits can't be assigned until 15km/hr over.

Right, but if were keeping our economy going solely on the basis of (generally) cheap imported labour, that's going to come back to bite us in the ass unless the govt comes up with a plan to actually alleviate the labour shortage.

IMO, they haven't, so there's a serious problem.

I don't doubt the TFW has a place, particularly as a stop gap, but there should be additional requirements for those positions, such as requiring an apprenticeship/entry level position to match their requirements, or some other long term planning.