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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • Jensen said the ministry is also investigating a claim that Ma paid volunteers “20% of the total claim and pocketed the remaining amount.” However, the ministry would not provide further details about the allegation.

    I mean this part sounds sketchy to me. Are you allowed to pay volunteers?

    I feel like asking her to account for the cost is not ridiculous. She deserves to be paid for the work she says went into it, including training and organizing, but is that $600,000 worth?

    That being said them reaching for this bulletin they provided seems like a stretch. Like the article says, if they had specifically asked for the bulletin to be waived during COVID, I’m sure the govt would have waived it, so that part feels like a big reach.



  • This shouldn’t be a surprise, but I’m glad we have the data to prove it.

    Home prices have skyrocketed recently. Home owners whos earner is boomer-aged obviously bought long ago, and the housing prices have beaten investments in that time period (Assuming houses bough 30-40yrs ago). Anyone who rented and invested the difference is obviously not going to compete.

    Additionally, given the insanity of the rental market, anyone under 35 who has enough income to afford the monthly payments on a house has purchased in the last few years, so those who are still renting are likely those at the bottom, unable to purchase a house, and their income is likely the lowest, exacerbating this issue.

    I have yet to see anyone who can give me a good reason we don’t have laws preventing:

    • Corporate ownership of land zoned residential
    • Increasing property tax rates for each additional residential property (ie any property not classified as primary residence). It still leaves loopholes (my wife lives at house A full time, I live at house B full time), but seems like an easier way to try and shore up the speculators.

    Overall, the survey found the median net worth of Canadian households was $519,700, up 57 per cent from 2019 when it was last conducted.

    How big can a bubble get if its being artificially inflated and supported by government and businesses?-




  • Doesn’t even have to be solely trains, but a few lanes of busses would help with shorter/End of Line trips as well.

    Though this is worth noting that ventilation concerns with tunnels are always a nightmare (one of the reasons there aren’t tons of tunnels). Its now turning into an issue where roads cross our 400 series highways, and one of the reasons they’re often bridges. As the highway reaches ~4lanes each way, they need to install ventilation of some kind, which has caused problems and forced design adjustments. Look at Barrie where they have a few roads running under the 400. Now that they’re trying to widen to 8 lanes, all those crossings are extending into “tunnel” category and have additional requirements. They’ve been forced to split the highway with an open air section in the middle over those roads in order to ensure proper airflow. This means more land acquisition and higher pricing to build.





  • Lol I quoted something from not just this article, but a second article they link to from the one above, but sure.

    They blocked her, at least in part, because she was an active alcoholic who had not shown any signs of changing her behaviour outside of time inside the hospital. Something that would have weighed on their decision included medical information such as previous attempts to stop drinking. Mental health care, including healthcare for addictions, is lacking in Canada. You can’t force someone to go into rehab, but offering better care and options might have helped her in the past.

    As said in the main article as well as the one I read, in order to qualify for a living donation you need to qualify for a full donation, because if something goes wrong you’ll need a full liver ASAP and get bumped to the top of the list.


  • Medical notes suggest she started drinking in her late teens and had tried – unsuccessfully – to quit. After periods of sobriety, she returned to alcohol, which could increase the risk of continued use after the transplant.

    Allen says Huska registered for an addiction program early on in her hospital stay to stop drinking after she’s discharged. Hospital records also say she suffers from anxiety.

    From the first article CTV made about this, linked in in the first sentence they posted. Seems like we need to actually fund mental health care in this country or something, because she’s obviously been struggling for a while. You can see how the board would weigh previous failed attempts to quit against her.




  • But doctors say that people with severe liver disease from alcohol use may need more than just a partial living liver donation to thrive.

    “The sicker someone is, the more they benefit from getting an entire liver from a deceased donor, as opposed to part of the liver from a living donor,” said Dr. Saumya Jayakumar, a liver specialist in Edmonton and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta.

    “On the off chance their (living) liver doesn’t work, they urgently get listed for a deceased donor,” said Jayakumar. "We need to make sure that everyone who is a candidate for a living donor is also a candidate for a donor graft as well, " she added.

    Guy you were responding to wasn’t entirely accurate with what the article says, but general idea is there. If the partial liver fails, then they immediately get added to the full liver list, which is why they need to meet the full liver list requirements. Based on how end-stage she was, it sounds like its less likely the partial would be successful.



  • As a teenager, Poilievre had a job at Telus doing corporate collections by calling businesses.[16] He also later worked briefly as a journalist for Alberta Report, a conservative weekly magazine.[17]

    Neither of these are hourly jobs.

    In 2003, Poilievre founded a company called 3D Contact Inc. with business partner Jonathan Denis,[29] who became an Alberta Cabinet minister years later. Their company focused on providing political communications, polling and research services.[30] After founding the company, Poilievre ran for MP as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, which had recently been formed from a merger the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives.

    This wouldn’t be an hourly job either. The links to the source for him starting this company don’t list Poilievre as a director, or any other sign that he actually started this company, or what his role at it was. I’ve tried searching but can’t find anything else that verifies this.




  • Why we keep trying to build more highways to alleviate congestion is beyond me.

    Its an idea that has been consistently and thoroughly debunked since the 80s. No one who studies traffic has ever suggested highway upsizing to decrease congestion as anything more than a very temporary stop gap. Single or dual occupancy vehicles cannot continue to be the primary way we commute to work in a dense area like Toronto. It simply will not work, full stop. We can fight against the idea, but we’re wasting our time and money.

    We need high density solutions. TTC line 1 was built in the 50s. Line 2 in the 60s, which comprise 64km of the current 70km in use. Line 3 was added in the 80s, but has been decommissioned due to maintenance costs and poor performance, but even that was only 6km. Why have we barely expanded the system since the city consisted of 30% of the current population?

    We used to have more rail lines running throughout the province, mostly privately owned. They have since been discontinued with the advent of trucking. Why have we not reintroduced rail service? Canada as a whole is low population density, but the Niagara-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor has more than enough people to justify a regular rail line.

    The Bradford Bypass and Highway 413 are an estimated 8-10$ billion, on the low end. Combine with his current proposed cuts to transit funding of ~$150 million, and it paints a clear picture of his priorities.