Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good. If you want to help the environment, focus on the low-hanging fruit like making it easier and cheaper for people to live lower-impact, urban lifestyles. Meet people where they’re at with policies today and persuade them to go further tomorrow.
As is often the case with policies made exclusively by and for drivers, the unintended consequences of the plastic bag ban are largely borne by everyone else. Ironically, it is also making the lowest carbon lifestyles less appealing in the name of the environment.
Unfortunately for Canadians, our largest and most dynamic city is no longer a place where most people can afford to take a chance. After all, you need to make rent if you’re going to live in the city, let alone build a business.
Canada is proud to welcome people in with open arms. But our capacity to absorb people is increasingly constrained by our housing markets. If we want to keep being the kind of country we think we are, housing abundance is necessary.
While the CBC isn’t a substitute for having a local newspaper, it at least helps fill in gaps in regional, national, and international news. They may not have the budget to cover local issues in every town, but at the very least they provide some level of news coverage where none might otherwise exist.
Protests are a legitimate part of democratic life. However, there are limits to what anyone will or should accept. The idea that people have the right to cosplay as revolutionaries and occupy a city indefinitely is utter nonsense.
If we want our crown corporations to be run well, then we should ensure that we are paying enough to attract a deep pool of qualified candidates. Overall, it’s worth it in the long run.
It’s natural to see events through an ideological lens. But sometimes there isn’t a big lesson to be learned. The Via Rail holiday delays are one such case.
Raising taxable income for workers would help. But so would paying less in rent or to own their own home in a dense, walkable neighbourhood that doesn’t require a punishing commute to work.
Whether Alberta is really an option depends on the person. Alberta offers a relatively low cost of living without punishing commutes and has as much variety as you can expect from a province with two mid-sized cities.
