Happy New Year! I’m sure there’s a lot to discuss, as it’s the 1st Free For All if 2012.

This is directed to sledders/quaders/looky loos. When you are out and about please have respect for other peoples property. Had some folks last weekend come on our property because they thought no one was home???? I dont drive on their front yards when they are not home and I would expect the same, we may not live in town but just because it is a cabin does not mean it is abandoned. Private Property signs are there for a reason folks. When we ask you to respect our place don’t be nasty it is our right..I am also a sledder and a quader and was taught what private property signs mean.
Thanks

The first link in my post will take you to the Total Household Credit numbers in Canada as of the end of November 2011 (as per the Bank of Canada’s web site).

In spite of the record household debt in this country it looks to me like the lending to (and the borrowing by) Canada’s household sector is not slowing down one little bit.

If you want to see some real interesting numbers check out the Residential Mortgage Credit lending done by Canada’s chartered banks over the last year.

If anyone is interested Canada’s total business credit numbers as of the end of November 2011 can be accessed by clicking on the “business credit” link at the very top on the page.

http://credit.bank-banque-canada.ca/householdcredit

Follow Australia by privatizing CMHC

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/12/29/follow-australia-by-privatizing-cmhc/

Don’t take it personally pglady. I live in the city and have similar issues. I live close to Moores Meadow and there are several people from the area who walk their dogs there. A few of them keep them leased until they get there most do not,but either way the majority ,not all but the majority allow their dogs leashed or not to run all over other peoples yards using them as a personal toilet . Other times kids are riding their bikes across peoples yards ,and the paper carriers and some postal carriers cutting across lawns etc etc. There is no respect for private property any more. I will say our mail carrier does not cut across our lawn. He is good. Perhaps he did read the sign I have up. Besides the lack of respect for other peoples private property , there also comes the issue of spreading unwanted seeds and spores from one lawn to another in the spring and summer months. Common sense and courtesy are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

HarleyGuy72
“Common sense and courtesy are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.”

You are right on the money. And not just private property but everywhere.

“Follow Australia by privatizing CMHC”

I disagree. If you look at the mandate for CMHC, you’ll see that they undertake tasks other than simply insuring mortgages. They also do things that private organizations would not want to do because there is no money to be made from them. Just because you can’t make money from an activity does not mean it isn’t valuable to the Canadian people, that’s why we have government services . . .

Anyway, even when it comes to the mortgage insurance aspect, there is no need to privatize CMHC to reduce risk exposure. All that has to be done is to rework the requirements for what mortgages they will insure.

When I bought my first house the maximum loan period that they would insure was 25 years. It is now 30 years. At times in recent memory it was 35 and 40 years. These are policy decisions and are no doubt based on what the governments of the day decide to do.

I seem to recall the term going from 25 up to 40 years when the Harper Conservatives were in power. I also seem to recall it was done to allow more Canadians to enter the housing market. I suspect the fact that all of those highly responsible US lenders were handing out 40 and 50 year mortgages also played a role, at least in influencing the governments policy decision on the matter. After all, we all know that the US system is without flaw so surely we should copy them. Well we all know where that ended up . . .

The moral of the story? Have very clear risk tolerances, be confident in our own policy decisions and develop CMHC guidelines that ensure that our risk tolerances are reflected.

The current government has obviously gone down the path of retracting what they previously decided to do (which they should IMHO), but now it’s all about financial responsibility, preserving the integrity of our financial system, blah, blah, blah. They would be much more honest if they just said “we screwed up and should have never had CMHC insuring 40 year mortgages”.

The point is that this is NOT a government vs. privatization issue. This is a government policy issue in that their own historic policy decisions NO DOUBT allowed people to purchase homes that they could not afford. Don’t blame the vehicle that delivers government policy, blame the government that develops it.

Well I never thought it would happen or should I say never hoped it would happen,another of life’s necessities will cost you.First,It is hard to imagine that some people feel the need to purchase water.Of course if you want an attractive garden you have to buy dirt and now if you need AIR from a service station some are now charging for it. That means that there is nothing free in the world.

HarleyGuy72 and acrider54 I cannot agree with you more,courtesy,respect and morals are things of the past and I believe are so called leaders are leading the way.

Littlebuds:”First,It is hard to imagine that some people feel the need to purchase water.”

Here is the nitty-gritty on why I buy water: Our tap water is polluted with the poisonous industrial effluent sodium fluoride. I do not wish to be subjected to involuntary medication.

The city won’t shut off the fluoride!

So, I have no choice but to buy reverse-osmosis cleaned water in 5 gallon containers.

It shouldn’t be so hard to imagine WHY people are forced to BUY clean water in a town like PG which has the cleanest aquifer water in the province – that is, before it gets intentionally polluted.

It’s the needless addition of hexafluorosilicic acid = fluoride.

Every grocery store and several water purification companies are selling water to an ever growing base of clean water consumers!

Why are more and more people refusing to drink the tap water?

Simple: More and more are becoming more educated about the dangers of long term sodium fluoride consumption.

You know what,and please no harm meant but soon after I posted the comment about water I knew I was going to hear about fluoride. I wanted to make the first post to be taken with more of a humorous direction as opposed to being a complaint.Just had another thought,sunshine is still free,isn’t it Oh and so are smiles :-)

Littlebuds, it may come as some surprise to you, but in the not too distant future if you have a well you’ll have to have a water meter on it, and pay for what you draw from it.

I think we should leave CMHC alone. There really is nothing to be gained by ‘privatising’ it. As regards to the length of mortgages, governments allowed the term to be increased to try to continue to use the new home mortgage as the preferred vehicle for introducing needed new credit into the economy. Without which we would languish in a continual recession, as the economy is constantly, (instead of just periodically) starved of financial liquidity.

Since the end of World War Two consumer borrowing, primarily through new home mortgages, has grown to exceed both government and business borrowing. This is not sustainable in any economy where there is constant, and accelerating, ‘labour displacement’, and we cannot conceive of any alternate way of most people receiving an income other than through their continued ’employment’.

Nothing surprises me anymore, I’m past the age of majority or maybe I’m part of it, Damn can’t remember now darn old timers disease

If “the majority” of people are against the Enbridge and other oil pipelines, why do so many people shop at Walmart? Clearly there is a big demand for oil based products.

I would like to see the people against the Enbridge pipeline picketing outside of Walmart, but I won’t hold my breath.

97% of British Columbia tap water is now free of intentional fluoride addition! Prince George is the last major holdout! What do the 97% know that we do not? Are their teeth any worse than ours?

No! The drinking of fluoridated water does nothing for the teeth (except cause fluorosis) but it subjects bones, thyroids and kidneys to unnecessary risks.

Direct application to the teeth by brushing with fluoridated toothpaste may be effective but it is a personal choice.

Why can’t we choose clean tap water?

It’s not just drinking the water that is a problem. People also cook with this fluoridated water, and it gets into the food you are eating.

Here’s a piece of history for you… hands up… how many of you were given those little pink pills as a child that were fluoride? We were told it was good for us. Yeesh!

I imagine most of you have seen the Liberals attack ad campaign of “Risky Dix”? Trying to copy the Fed. Conservatives successful attack on the Fed. Liberals.

This kind of campaign only works if your own record is relatively squeaky clean, or your constituents have been living in a dark hole north of Atlin.

The Liberals have just handed the NDP the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, and it’s going to blow up in their Liberal faces.

40 year amortization isn’t a problem, but rather mortgage brokers down in the states were giving mortgages of $300k+ to people who were barely making minimum wage, just to collect the fee for securing the mortgage. These mortgages were given by way of huge reductions in mortgage payments for a certain amount of time (akin to the no payment for 6 months policies a lot of big box store have now), say for 6 months. When the 6 month perid was over, all these oversold mortages went bad, thus the balloons started bursting all over the states. Canada and more precisely BC and more precisely even, PG, was caught up in this real estate frenzy we had about 4-5 years ago, but we were smarter in that the lenders didn’t just hand out mortages to anyone. You still had to prove you could pay the mortgage. The 40 year amortization just gave you smaller payments to handle and thus allowed a lot more people, who would have otherwise not qualified, qualify for a mortage.

As for paying for well water in rural areas. Well…a lot of people have been paying for water for many years in the form of water rights payments. If you have a spring or running water on your property you wish to tap for household water or irrigation or hydro, you must pay water rights if you want to secure a certain quantity for you own use. If you do not, someone else can come in to the area and get the water rights and essentially use it up so you have none. Granted, it is you choice to obtain water rights or not, but if you don’t, then the water in the ground under you or the creek running by is not automatically at your disposal if someone else wants it.

“The 40 year amortization just gave you smaller payments to handle and thus allowed a lot more people, who would have otherwise not qualified, qualify for a mortage.”

And it also made a ton of extra interest money for the banks. It’s like paying the minimum balance on your credit card every month. You will eventually pay off the card, but you will pay a ton of interest in the meantime.

BC exports coal, gas and oil. These resources are blamed for making our world boil. We pay carbon tax supposedly to save mother earth. So the fibs collect on the exports and also collect from the taxpayer and the province is still in the hole. Wow always new the fibs would make the NDP look like the amateurs they are.

Pylot Project:”It’s not just drinking the water that is a problem. People also cook with this fluoridated water, and it gets into the food you are eating.”

One also showers with the fluoridated tap water and exposes the largest organ of the human body to it: The skin!

The stuff is in practically all the canned food which has been prepared with fluoridated water, all the juices…one 8 oz glass of fluoridated water has the same quantity of fluoride as the peasized amount of toothpaste on the toothbrush and we are supposed to call the poison control center if we accidentally swallow that amount!

Multiply this by the 8 glasses of water which we are told to drink daily!

And fluoridated water is NOT supposed to be used for preparing baby formula as it is harmful to the child!

Clean water is one of the basics of life, together with clean air!

How about acting prudently and with precaution, City Hall?

Oh my God I’m going to die. I just had a shower.
Cheers

PrinceGeorge I am impressed with your knowledge about flouride and would like to ask two questions if you do not mind;What can we do to have the use of flouride stopped and why do you think the city is still using fluoride. I am not trying to be an antagonist with these questions, I believe this is a serious matter.

BTW, some people want the fluoridated tap water problem to be treated with humour, but intentionally contaminated water is not a funny issue.

B.C. is almost completely fluoride addition free, 97% of the population are NOT subjected to it anymore!

Williams Lake just had a referendum and voted in favour to discontinue fluoridation by a wide margin! This after voters were given an opportunity to examine the pros and cons with a research paper provided by an impartial agency and paid for by the city.

If anyone knows how to get the attention of city officials here without sounding like a complainer, please let me know!

I know it adds a lot of interest to the final prices, but, mortgages are renegotiated every year or at the end of every fixed term. As a new mortgage holder proves they can pay the mortgage to the bank thier borrowing health increases and they can then negotiate a more favourable rate. But the bottom line is, they were able to begin the process quicker and easier than before the longer amortization period. England has amortization periods so long they are put in thier wills to be handed down to thier beneficiaries to ocntinue paying on. I really wouldn’t want to see that extreme here. The bad part of when they changed the amortization to 40 years was they also had some people able to qualify with 0% down. To me that is a much dangerous factor than the amortization period. Keep it at 40, but make sure people have to come up with minimum 5% down on any home purchase.

If the alternative to a 40 year mortgage with high interest is renting for life and essentially paying 100% interest then how is it bad? If you can afford a 20 year mortgage buy you decide you want 40 years then fine, cant outlaw stupid, and if 40 years barely gets you into a home then good for you! At least in the end you have something.

“The 40 year amortization just gave you smaller payments to handle and thus allowed a lot more people, who would have otherwise not qualified, qualify for a mortgage”

People who would not have qualified otherwise, exactly! It opened the mortgage market up and it also introduced additional levels of risk into the housing market.

We were going down the exact same path that the US was, except that we were in the infancy stages when they were up to their neck. Luckily for us, things blew up there before we were too far down that road and the government got lucky and could say “holy crap we better backtrack on this” and they did. An added benefit was that the current government also got to take some fake credit in regards to the strength of our financial system.

The reality of the matter is that the strength of our financial system was built on decades of conservative fiscal policies, very low risk tolerances and heavy regulation, behaviours which are far removed from what recent governments of the day seem to support.

TV is overrated. If you look at the runtime of an older 1 hour show you will see that in the 60s it was 55+ minutes, in the 70s and 80s it ranged from 50 to 53 mins. The 90s started to really dig into the shows runtime by cutting it to under 50 mins. Since 2000 it has declined further to under 45 mins and in some extreme cases the runtime is only 40 mins. So we have gone from less than 5 mins worth of commercials to over 15 mins worth of commercials. Yet communication technology has improved and become more widely spread, yet the cost for cable or satellite tv has dramatically increased year after year. Couple that with 1 hour series that used to be in the range of 22-30 episodes a year are now in the range of 12-15 episodes a year and we are getting even less for our dollar since most of what we watch is going to be reruns. And if that isn’t bad enough most of these so-called reality series seems to spend at least a minute after each commercial rehashing what has already been shown that the actually runtime in an hour long show now is probably more like 30 mins tops….
My solution…goodbye Shaw….goodbye Bell ExpressVu…you no longer get my money for nothing……good riddance.
And the bottom line is…the worst than can happen is you go without TV…I can live with that.

If you were one of the borderline people who qualified for a mortgage during that time you would know that the criteria was still a lot more strict here than down south. And I doubt that would have changed since Canadian banks, who are notorious for not taking risks anyway, still had to rely on CMHC approving any mortgage where the borrower had less than 15% down.

Re: TV.

There is an easy solution. I just PVR the shows I want to watch and fast forward by the commercials. I don’t watch TV ‘live’ anymore.

Re: Mortgages.

The 40 year mortgages also contributed heavily to the housing bubble. People were flooding into the housing market with their 40 year mortgages which drove demand up, which caused house prices to skyrocket.

40 year mortgages …..

Maybe we should adopt the European model, allow people to lease 99 year land from the government and build on it. That would work wonderfully here since what we are building these days will have a tough time lasting 99 years compared to the European contruction.

Just wanted to say thanks to them there Dog Section Mounties for providing some entertainment this week. Of course not to be outdone by the General Duty, HP and other members who keep us safe and keep the fools among is in line.
It was always great fun to see a custody come in to a courtroom all bandaged up from saying NO to the dog, showed they were dumber than dumb.
Keep on truck’in, I for one appreciate not having to answer the door to that dreaded knock telling me that a loved one was gone.

Slim2229: Thumbs up on that! They work hard to try to keep our roads safe too. I am amazed at how often I’m seeing people pulled over and cars on behind tow trucks. Its really too bad that more people don’t take driving more seriously.

Have a sensible and safe weekend everyone.

Mortgages are not all they are cracked up to be. A mortgage should be illegal and is the most front end loaded debt anyone can take out. There are alternatives to the mortgage that are much more consumer friendly ,but of course the mortgage and lending institutions will not tell you about it as they will make only a fraction of the profit off of the consumer as they would with a mortgage. A home can easily be purchased and paid of in full in half the time or less if the consumer is smart, does their research and meets certain criteria which is a little harder to meet than a mortgage but not impossible. The alternatives also allow for additional money you would be putting into a mortgage to be used for investments or other uses.To all who are looking into a mortgage or buying a home for the first time, ask your mortgage broker or lending institution about an interest only line of credit or a heloc.You will be surprised at the reaction and pleased with the results .

A lot of the mortgages in the States that were foreclosed on were taken out by people who hoped the rise in real estate prices would allow them to build equity in the house at a faster rate than they had to pay for it.

There really is no problem with a 40 year mortgage if the house itself will last that long. The problem that the USA faced with the subprime mortgages was that home ownership rates had already increased to around 70% of families overall, and they were starting to run out of people who could still qualify for regular mortgages. This is accentuated by ongoing ‘labour displacement’ as technology, and now outsourcing, continues to erode overall incomes.

A quick question about property assessments and tax rates. Why do we have only until the end of January to appeal a property assessment when the tax rates aren’t available until later in the year?

What other reasons do people have for appealing their assessments besides wanting lower taxes?

PrinceGeorge I am sure you have tried this but if you have not I would like to make a suggestion,Present a letter or email to each of the council members as well as the mayor,this letter should containIMO,reasons and facts why other communities have stopped the use as well as the harm fluoride can cause. The best way to present this is to leave out any personel opinions or incidences related to fluoride. This letter has to be carefully worded so that no prejudice or ill feelings are expressed.Of course you will have to present your name and maybe include the names of a few people that will support this cause.Save the petition for later.
More bees with honey IMPO

How about 999 year lease, works for CN.

All week I have been glancing at the flag on the roof of the PGRH. Or should I say 2/3 of a flag. High class rag it has become. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with feelings towards federal funding, but at least the Stupidstore has a brand new flag. Patriotism aside, I still thing it is a shame about the flag on top of the hospital.

Prince George is skewing the facts. Most people who drink bottled water do it for various reasons, such as taste, however I suggest very few know or care anything about flouride. Golf courses etc; sell bottled water because it makes money for them.

Bottled water is in **plastic** bottles, and is a blight on the nation. I suspect drinking water from a plastic container is not all that healthy.

I suspect that 99% of the canned goods that we receive in Prince George are produced in Ontario, or Quebec. Do these Provinces have flouridated water, or do they add the flouride to the canning process. Are you suggesting that people stop eating canned goods???

For all the years that Prince George has had flouridated water, I have not heard of one instance where someone was adversely affected. Give us some specifics, as to who got sick, how they got sick, how they were treated, and show conclusivley that flouridated water was the cause.

As a matter of interest, I dig a trail from by front steps across my lawn to my neibors driveway, to facilitate the Mailman and save him a few steps. They really appreciate it. Grass is nothing more than a huge pain in the ass, and always grows back.

People who walk their dogs are **star gazers**. They are always gazing at the stars, or at the sky when their dog is taking a dump. Then they carry on and pretend they didnt notice that the dog dumped.

Sometime I wonder if the human is walking the dog, or if the dog is walking the human. In any event I notice that humans, much like cats, prefer to have their dogs crap in some one elses yard.

Give Walmart a break. I am not a Walmart fan, however I have checked other stores, around town, and they all sell products made in China. In fact it is almost impossible to find something made in the USA, or Canada.

Have a nice day.

My house assessment went up $95,000. I renovated one bathroom on the main floor. I wired in a stove in the basement and installed a fan in the bathroom in the basement. It is a legal suite.

Somehow, these folks at BC Assessment feel then can just do whatever they want without question. Well, they will have to justify this kind of increase to me.

Nobody from BC Assessment has been to my house to interview me or inspect my home in the past 15 years. The comment on my assessment notice said, “your assessment has increased due to new construction/development” What a crock.

Socredible, I would like to suggest that the Government get out of the Mortgage Insurance Business. Why should the taxpayer be on the hook for bailing out the banks if a borrower defaults? If you want insurance or need insurance to borrow, let the insurance companies provide it.

Never see many of those earth threatening water bottles lying around, maybe something to do about being worth money. Now cigarette butts and dog sh== that is something else. Now the plastic bottles don’t break down, so where is the threat.
Ever see the garbage left behind after a fireworks display down in la la land. Thought they where all about green.

Here is something funny, near Kits beach I could not buy a cold water in a plastic bottle but I could buy some sort of happy juice in a plastic bottle at twice the cost, WTF.

I can’t help but chuckle when I see the vegetables in the market described as “organic”. People actually pay more for organic than regular veggies. I guess they havent noticed the little water sprayers that spew fluoride and chlorine all over their “organic” purchase. Stupidity is a common characteristic that fits nicely with “green”.

Palopu: “For all the years that Prince George has had flouridated water, I have not heard of one instance where someone was adversely affected. Give us some specifics, as to who got sick, how they got sick, how they were treated, and show conclusivley that flouridated water was the cause.”

Bingo. Where are the anti-fluoride people to speak to this? Things got quiet all of a sudden.

Palopu: “Give Walmart a break. I am not a Walmart fan, however I have checked other stores, around town, and they all sell products made in China. In fact it is almost impossible to find something made in the USA, or Canada.”

I agree. I often use Walmart as an example of a place that sells Chinese-made products, but obviously there are many more.

Supertech: “Stupidity is a common characteristic that fits nicely with “green”.

Where does one’s false sense of intelligence and superiority fit?

Putting fluoride in water is mass medication. People don’t have a choice of it’s presence if they draw water from the city system, whether for drinking or any other human usage.

“If you want insurance or need insurance to borrow, let the insurance companies provide it.”

Hmmmm … do the following come to mind?

ICBC
MSP
UIC
OAP
CPP
WCB (now WSBC)

So what is the diff with CMHC guarantee …. after all it, like the others listed above, are not free services.

So why do we not just get rid of the government and let a company run the federal government, others for each province, and for the little baby companies, the regional districts, counties and cities.

I bet you it will cost us considerably less because we know that goode olde company people will work their asses off for nothing to give their CEOs lots of the green stuff and provide the greatest customer service one has ever seen.

Enter City Hall, the Provincial HQ, the Federal HQ and there will be a greeter in uniform and a name tag at every door making sure you do not bring big bags in and do not look suspicious.

Orwell anyone?? …. ;-)

I agree with the fluoride issue… PG could advertise its clean water as a big selling feature and yet we add poison to the water….

I watched the movie ‘Swing Voter’ last night. Excellent movie. If I was the swing voter there would be no fluoride in the water.

Palopu I bought the movie maker popcorn maker the other day from London Drugs… made in Ontario it said… I had to do a double take just to make sure.

I see lots of trucks going through town lately with American license plates and huge fuel tanks in the box.

Thinking about it they obviously don’t fuel up in Canada at all… thus transit basically tax free… no road tax, no carbon tax, nada. Probably save a few hundred bucks in the process.

Better yet I was thinking a guy could probably drive to Edmonton, buy a large tidy tank (HST exempt), fill it up (carbon tax exempt), drive back to PG and drive around for a few months… and at the end of the day saved enough per tidy tank to cover a round trip to Edmonton every couple months to once again save on taxes and the petroleum tax paid in Northern BC via a free trips fuel….

Just thinking….

450 litre tidy tank?

Driving around town in that kind of vehicle, I think one would have to drive back every 3 weeks or so since one would also need to use fuel to drive back and forth.

Sounds expensive to me.

Maybe the cannisters hold unfluoridated water … ;-)