Acknowledgements Good morning. Can I start by acknowledging Simon and the team at the Chamber. Thanks for the invitation to be here today. Introduction In October last year New Zealanders voted for change. The Coalition government was elected with a clear mandate to...
Housing Affordability
Airbnb, VRBO: Scapegoats for Failing Government Housing Policies
The tourist-oriented city of Kelowna, British Columbia, has self-destructively voted to prohibit any new short-term rentals in residences. Even the provincial government is not as draconian, giving dispensation to resort and tourist destinations. Nationally, the...
What Will Become of Cities?
Brownstone Institute
How to Kill a Country
Much of Seoul is a sea of high-rises. And not just Seoul: Busan and other cities in South Korea have lots of high rises. More than half of all South Korean households live in high rises, and well over 60 percent live in some kind of multifamily housing. South Korea...
Featured News
Weaponizing the Law
The indictment of former U.S. president Donald Trump for crimes invented by his political opponents is the most egregious example yet seen of the weaponizing of the law. The United States is now full of examples. However, in Canada, we also see the law being...
“Looking At” Seizing Control Over Western Canada’s Natural Resources
OTTAWA, REGINA - Last week, two things happened that could have profound impacts on natural resources development in Saskatchewan. One is a hint the federal government might want to take control of natural resources away from the provinces, and the other is the...
2023 International Property Rights Index – News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Strengthening Property Rights Part Of The Answer To Canada’s Housing Crunch
Inadequate safeguards for property rights affecting housing affordability
Supreme Court’s Annapolis Ruling A Win For Property Owners
But the fight for fair compensation over property rights continues
Solving the Global Housing Crisis
The worldwide lack of affordable housing can only be resolved politically. The global housing crisis across the high-income world, particularly in the Anglosphere, represents perhaps the single biggest challenge to the future of the middle class. From the...
Leaders on the Frontier: Cost of Living Under Crisis with Charles Blain and Wendell Cox
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Downside of Calgary Downtown Residential Conversions?
The Calgary Herald reports that some office tenants are being forced out of their buildings in the city of Calgary’s program to convert office buildings to residential uses. We had covered this program recently, noting that “that the City has adopted an aggressive...
Green Kills
A friend of mine is building four high-rise condo and rental towers in Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia, where I live. It is a charming city, founded in the 1840s, its core an almost classic English village around which a modern city was slowly...
“It is absolutely impractical”
Calgary City Council: Reimagining the CBD
In a previous post, I commented on the difficulties faced by the Calgary CBD (downtown), with its huge office vacancies resulting from the mid-decade oil bust, along with the rise of remote and hybrid working accelerated by the pandemic. Calgary (metropolitan area...