dwazou

• British Columbians overwhelmingly favour the provincial foreign buyer tax and the federal two-year ban on foreign real estate purchases, a new poll shows. But developers, experiencing a bitter downturn, are pushing the government to ditch policies that curb foreign investment. They say they desperately need investors to return to the market.

• According to a recent paper, in the 1980s, the government opened its doors to wealthy migrants with the Business Immigration Program that allowed about 200,000 people, mostly from East Asia, into Canada, until it was shelved in 2012. Instead of spurring entrepreneurial activity, the wealthy migrants invested heavily in property. Meanwhile, they continued to earn most of their income offshore, paying an average annual income tax in Canada of only $1,400

• After much reluctance, the B.C. Liberal government finally responded with a 15 per cent foreign buyer tax in 2016. It was too little, too late for the party, and the next year the NDP took over the government and increased the tax to 20 per cent. They also introduced other demand-side measures, including the speculation and vacancy tax, which requires citizens to declare if they are paying Canadian income tax and if the home is a principal residence.

• There are signs that in the current market downturn, the development community would like to reopen those doors to outside money. Condo marketer Bob Rennie said racism is driving the pushback against foreign investor buying.

• Bob Rennie recently spoke on a real estate industry panel hosted by Postmedia and said he’d been talking to Mark Carney about opening rental housing development to foreign investment. Rennie also said he was opposed to the foreign buyers’ tax from the start, and believed it was a racist policy.

De grands patrons de l’industrie du transport dénoncent les entreprises qui font faire leurs livraisons par des chauffeurs au rabais de l’Ontario pour une fraction du prix grâce à un stratagème bien huilé.

«Pourquoi il y a autant de remorques plaquées Ontario au Québec?» se demande Pascal Gaudet, vice-président de Transwest, à Lachine.

«On paye le camion le même prix, le carburant le même prix, les assurances le même prix. Il y a une place où ils peuvent économiser: c’est en utilisant le stratagème», ajoute-t-il.

M Gaudet dénonce ces « faux travailleurs autonomes » qui se servent de ce statut d’emploi pour payer moins d’impôts. Il affirme que ce tour de passe-passe leur permet de casser les prix du transport de 20% à 50%.

Ces derniers mois, l’élastique s’est étiré au point où des transporteurs bien établis chez nous ont commencé à licencier leurs employés. Certains prévoient même fermer.

L’irritation est telle que le député libéral Monsef Deraji, porte-parole libéral en transports, vient de déposer une motion et une pétition à l’Assemblée nationale.

Alors que le phénomène toucherait de 8000 à 10 000 chauffeurs selon l’ACQ, on craint plus que jamais les «graves conséquences sur la sécurité routière».

De nombreux chauffeurs au rabais qui sillonnent nos routes viennent de Brampton où les camionneurs sont souvent des immigrants indiens qui ont des conditions de travail difficiles pouvant virer au cauchemar.

«Un emploi de chauffeur peut mener à la résidence permanente, alors beaucoup d’immigrants veulent se servir de cela et se font facilement exploiter» résume Navi Aujla, directrice générale de Labour Community Services of Peel.

L’organisme est inondé de chauffeurs en détresse rongés par des conditions de travail épouvantables. Ils sont parfois au volant 20 heures de suite.

Près d’un Tim Hortons, Talvinder Singh, un chauffeur de 26 ans, qui a l’habitude d’aller à Montréal et à Québec, nous aborde avec un «bonjour» en français.

«On voit juste les camionneurs qui ont des accidents, mais pas les entreprises qui les poussent derrière», lâche celui qui milite sur les réseaux sociaux.

«Les chauffeurs sont sous-payés ou carrément pas payés», soutient l’homme qui réclame toujours 14 000$ de salaire à son ex-employeur.

Comme Talvinder, Aman Preet Kaur, 26 ans, raconte avoir perdu 5000$ avec son ex-patron. C'est une somme immense pour celle qui est arrivée ici il y a quelques années à peine.

«Ils se foutent de la vie des chauffeurs. Ils mettent de la pression. Les camionneurs conduisent en colère. Ce n’est pas sécuritaire», peste la jeune femme.

Homeowners in the Rosemont neighborhood of Montreal successfully killed an affordable housing project that was supposed to add 50 condos on an empty lot. This is happening despite the housing crisis that the city is facing.

The proposal looked like this.

But the local homeowners opposed it.

They feared losing a sunny view and precious parking spots for their cars.

"Our entire neighborhood is only 3-storey buildings or smaller" says Hugo Didier, the leader of the local anti-housing movement. "We do not want tall buildings here. It is just too inconvenient" he said.

Local city council members in Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie initially supported the project. « We are facing a major housing crisis, we need to do more » said mayor Francois Limoges. What they didn't expect was the opposition.

158 individuals signed a petition against the new project, demanding a neighborhood referendum. At least 200 people showed up at a public hearing. Under pressure, the council shut down the entire project.

Real estate developer Félix Péladeau-Langevin was behind the proposal. He planned to build 50 new condos. « The location is good. It's close to public transit and to a bike lane. I didn't plan to add any parking spot » he told us.

Péladeau said he was disappointed by the opposition from local homeowners. "They went door to door. They convinced everyone to put their name and signature against the proposal, demanding a referendum"

Protest leader Hugo Didier says he reached out to the developer and offered a compromise. Just build a small building.

« I look at the cost of the land and the cost of construction. If they don't want a multi-storey building, it's just not worth it » Péladeau said.

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2025-04-10/rosemont/50-logements-bloques-malgre-les-nouveaux-pouvoirs.php

The Social Security Administration is cutting staff from its communications office, and will rely on social media posts instead of press releases to update the media and the public.

Social Security Commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis told employees in a call Thursday that regional offices will no longer issue press releases or letters. Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public.

Bar organizations are warning Ottawa that a new penalty regime to be applied to legal professionals — featuring penalties of up to $1.5 million for immigration and refugee lawyers determined by federal officials to have participated in clients’ misrepresentations — will be constitutionally challenged if lawyers are not exempted from the proposed regulations, which are expected to come into force later this year.

The proposed regulations prohibit a legal professional, who represents or advises someone for payment, from misrepresenting or withholding information, advising them to misrepresent or withhold information, or communicating misleading information.

The new administrative penalties regime would apply to the country’s approximately 12,000 immigration consultants and to all immigration lawyers.

The Canadian Bar Association, the law societies of Ontario, B.C. and Newfoundland and Labrador, the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA), and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL) wrote to Immigration Canada objecting to applying the proposed penalty regime to legal professionals.

The Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association says “the proposed regulations would be unconstitutional and illegal in their application to lawyers.”.

The baseline penalties for the two types of violations are significant: $15,000 for misrepresentation and $5,000 for representation or advice without authorization.

Consequences for those found to have violated the regulations would include Immigration Canada publishing on its website their names and business information, as well as the nature of the violation(s) and the penalties imposed

https://www.law360.ca/ca/articles/2322169/constitutional-clash-brewing-as-ottawa-targets-immigration-bar-with-up-to-1-5-million-in-admin-penalties

Dans tous les domaines, il faut encourager les gens qui font de la qualité.

A vial of insulin costs far more in the U.S. than it does in Canada.

Drug prices are set by Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board which sets price caps by comparing drug prices across a group of 11 countries. The US used to be included in the formula, but was removed from the group in 2022 — because US drug prices are an insane global outlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patented_Medicine_Prices_Review_Board

A group of Pharma companies including Pfizer and Merck have asked the Trump administration to put pressure on Canada. They are accusing the country of unfair trade practices.

The american voters have really outdone themselves this time