Author: Blazingcatfur

“It’s a real problem:” Housing starts across Canada fall seven per cent in 2023

The GTA saw a slight increase in housing starts, driven largely by condos, but only because of a lag in the impact of interest rates locally, according to the latest figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

“We’re just not seeing the supply built that we need,” said economist Mike Moffatt, blaming higher interest rates and a weak economy. “And it’s a real problem.”

Actual annual housing starts were down seven per cent across the country in 2023 compared to 2022, to 223,513, but were up five per cent in the GTA to 47,428.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Homelessness & Affordability Crisis", "Mass Immigration - Follow the money", Canada's Corporate Welfare Class, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Italian province orders all dogs to be DNA tested in poo crackdown

Dog owners in Bolzano must submit their pets for DNA tests as the authorities in the northern Italian province crack down on the scourge of dog poo in the streets.

The swab test results will be inserted into a database, which police can then refer to in their search for the culprits and their owners. The evidence will be used to fine owners between €292 and €1,048 (£250 and £900).

The law required the estimated 45,000 dogs in the province, located in the mountainous Trentino-Alto Adige region, to undergo a DNA test at a veterinary clinic by the end of December 2023 before the initiative is introduced this month. But only 5,000 have complied, according to reports in the Italian press.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inWTF?

Cost of Canadian Coast Guard patrol ships jumps by $500 million in less than a year, MPs told

The cost of a project to build two patrol ships for the Canadian Coast Guard has jumped by $500 million in less than a year, this newspaper has confirmed.

The project budget for the two Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships is now $2.1 billion, up from a previous estimate of $1.6 billion.

Craig Macartney, communications advisor for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, noted in an email that construction of the first of two new coast guard Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships, or AOPS, started in August at Irving shipbuilding in Halifax, N.S.

How is that possible?

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, WTF?

Pierre Poilievre is putting a new face on the Conservative party. Here are some of the people who want to help

OTTAWA — A prominent conservative commentator wants to run as a Conservative MP in the next federal election, adding to the names being bandied about for who might govern alongside Pierre Poilievre if he wins.

The party currently holds 117 seats, and would need to win at least 172 to form a majority government. Who could fill out those spots is a question coming up more and more often in political conversations as polls suggest the Conservatives are on the road to power.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inConservative Party

WTF?

H/T Sweetpea

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inWTF?

Alberta’s Power Grid Alert Highlights Renewables’ Unreliability, Climate Policies’ Danger

Frigid cold of historic proportions in western Canada has amplified the limitations of renewable energy in Alberta’s power grid and the potential for federal environmental policies to make matters much worse and possibly life-threatening.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had on Jan. 10 described the challenges her province faces stemming from Ottawa’s “dangerous ideological policies.” Her words proved to be prescient, as just three days later, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) told Albertans “to immediately reduce their electricity use to minimize the potential for rotating outages across the province.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Net-Zero Tyranny"

Electric Vehicles: ‘Dead Robots’ in the Chicago Cold

… Darryl Johnson, an Uber driver, said he waited hours just to get to a charger, only to wait even longer while it charged. But the frustrations continued even after he left after he found his battery draining faster than normal.

“It’s horrible it takes two hours the wait an hour it takes two hours to charge, then the charge leaves really quickly, so now you’re back at the charger twice a day,” Johnson said.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inWTF?

High Court Will Decide Whether Homeless Have a ‘Right’ To Camp in Squalor

Tired of stepping over needles and human waste, and navigating around half-conscious addicts and homeless encampments? You’re not alone. Most decent, hardworking people want clean sidewalks for getting to work and walking their children to school.

Yet cities are legally barred from cleaning up homeless encampments. Advocates went to court and won rulings, guaranteeing homeless people almost unfettered freedom to set up tents and live in the rough, your health and safety be damned.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Homelessness & Affordability Crisis"

We’d Like the 2020 Election Back: DOJ Admits It Lied About Hunter Biden’s Laptop

Four years after the FBI and DOJ got a copy of the Hunter Biden laptop, filled with evidence of impeachable offenses and Biden family international self-dealing, the “Justice” Department only now admits that it’s real. The DOJ has had the laptop’s contents since December 2019, just over four years ago, when this evidence was delivered to the FBI. The revelation came in a “Justice” Department filing on Tuesday.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Biden Family Sleaze"

Young Audiences Question Climate Alarmism, Prompting Calls to Censor Content

A recent study has revealed significant skepticism among young audiences regarding climate alarmism, a development that poses a challenge to advocates of urgent climate action but is likely to be welcomed by those who see stoking fear about the supposed ills of global warming as exaggerated.

The study was released on Jan. 16 by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a left-leaning organization that was sued by Elon Musk for allegedly engaging in a “scare campaign” to drive away advertisers.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Environmentalists"

Extremism experts think Joe Rogan is more dangerous than Hamas

Lecturers on a civil-service counter-terror course in London were more concerned about provocative podcasters than murderous Islamists.

A former civil servant has written about her experience of a civil-service counter-terrorism course at King’s College London. It makes for disturbing reading.

Writing in Fathom earlier this month, Anna Stanley recalls an academic expert on extremism telling attendees that author and journalist Douglas Murray and comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan were examples of ‘far right’ extremists. The lecturer then told attendees that society needed to find ‘ways to suppress’ such figures. He complained that just de-platforming them ‘would cause issues’, because ‘they have millions of followers’.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Criminalizing Dissent", "Experts", "extremists", "far right"

Why American cities are squalid

The Thursday before Christmas, I woke up in downtown Sofia, leisurely drank a coffee, and jumped on a metro that took me directly to the airport. In less than an hour, I was at the gate for my flight to New York’s JFK. My plan was to get the last bus upstate that evening, so I could be in my own bed a little after midnight. But it would only work if the flight landed on time — and if passport control took under an hour and a half.

The first happened, but the second didn’t even come close. To describe Terminal One that Thursday night as a shitshow is unfair to shitshows, which are at least darkly entertaining. This was bureaucratic hell: lines of exhausted travellers snaking out into dreary linoleum hallways festooned with disconcertingly cheery posters welcoming us to NYC. It took close to an hour to even reach the main hall, and then we endured another hour of slow shuffling up to the 10 or so border security agents.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Urban Dystopia"

Jordan Peterson: Bureaucrats will rue the day they tried to shut me up

In November 2022, the administrative board that regulates the conduct of psychologists (and much more than that, it turns out) decided that my political views were a disgrace to my profession, that of clinical psychologist. I was therefore sentenced by that board, the Ontario College of Psychologists, to a bout of mandatory re-education, of indeterminate duration, at my expense, with my learning not evaluated by any standard method but subject to the opinion of those charged with, profiting by and exploiting my forced studentship. I took those decision-makers forthwith to court, and lost. The decision of the Ontario College of Psychologists was upheld. I then appealed, to a higher court. On January 16, 2024, that appeal was rejected. There were no reasons provided.

H/T DS

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Peak Woke"