New Real Estate Rules Welcomed by BC Northern Real Estate Board
Prince George, B.C. The BC Northern Real Estate Board (BCNRED) is taking a positive approach to the news the Provincial Government is putting an end to self regulation in the real estate sector.
We are continuously working on our professionalism” says William Lacy, President of the BCNREB “So anything that comes down the pipe that enhances professionalism and enhances the services we can provide to our clients and the public, we’re all for it.”
The Province announced it will adopt all of the recommendations from an independent advisory committee which reviewed the real estate sector. Those recommendations include hefty fines for realtors who break the rules, and establishment of a Superintendent of Real Estate to oversee the sector. “We would like somebody to be designated to look after real estate” says Lacy, “It’s always good when you have a watchful eye” but adds there is a desire that the person put in that position has some understanding of the sector and the difficulties faced by agents on a day to day basis.
The recommendations also call for an end to the practice of a realtor acting on behalf of the seller, and the buyer. Right now, that dual role is allowed as long as the buyer and seller sign off on a disclosure document which says they are aware, and accept that practice. Abolishing that practice could be difficult for realtors in smaller communities says Lacy ” We are concerned that may not work well for our smaller communities where there is a limited number of agents.” Lacy says there are still lots of conversations that need to take place “We will have to sit down with the powers that be and work out the details to ensure that we can still provide that service for our communities in the North.”
The BC Real Estate Association says it too looks forward to working with the Superintendent of Real Estate “The vast majority of the 20,000 realtors in BC do the right thing and we welcome a dedicated Superintendent of Real Estate to improve consumer protection in real estate transactions,” says BCREA President Deanna Horn. “Our livelihoods depend on our reputations and I know that almost every realtor in the province will be happy to see stronger penalties and enforcement for rule-breakers.”
Comments
This is one of the BCLiberal governments failures. The Liberals gave their funders an open field on the promise (wink, wink) that the real estate board would do the right thing. Unfortunately most realtors are honest and did the best for their clients. In every group there are bad apples and that is why rules are needed.
Since becoming party leader and premier in 2011, the Liberals have raked in oodles of cash from big business.
Mining giant Teck Resources has been the Liberals’ most generous corporate backer during Clark’s tenure, donating nearly $600,000. Oil-and-gas producer Encana ($496,891) and gold-mining company Goldcorp ($460,000) round out the Liberals’ big three big-business supporters under Clark.
Among individuals, real-estate developer and thoroughbred race-horse owner Peter Redekop has bet big on Clark’s leadership, giving $330,000 to the Liberals since she took over. Real-estate developer Richard Ilich ($308,000) and casino owner John S. Major ($185,000) are second and third.
I checked your numbers and you’re right. It’s odd that people don’t seem to think it is important to know that our politicians are in the pocket of big business. At least that’s what I assume from the negative thumb rating so far.
One that you missed, that I find particularly interesting is the New Car Dealers Association of BC, which has contributed over $1 million to the BC Liberals campaign coffers since 2005. It’s also interesting to note that this organization is the “administrator” of the electric vehicle subsidy, which the BC Liberals just had to limit it vehicles with a value of $77k and under because rich people were buying exotic vehicles and getting the generous rebates. The Tyee did a bit of an expose on this practice and this program costs the taxpayer about $750/tonne of emissions avoided, which is either the stupidest government program ever or a willful means of taking taxpayer money and directing it to car dealers and their benefactors. $1million in ten years from the New Car Dealers Association of BC a $10billion industry in BC.
I’m sure it’s all quite innocent.
Politicians are always going to be in somebody’s pocket. And that’s been true of any Party that’s ever been elected. People who donate to various Parties want those Parties to do something for them. Not necessarily specifically, as individual persons or corporate entities, per se, but certainly as a group.
So Teck would be hoping that laws or other regulations pertaining to mining wouldn’t be written in ways that adversely affect them. Unions would want labour laws that would favour them as employee organisations. Environmentalists laws that they see as furthering their cause. And so on.
If there is actual individual ‘graft’, if something is done for some specific member of any sectoral group that’s not available to any other members of that group, just because they happened to contribute to clearly get some individualised advantage from an elected politician, and did, then there are laws already in place against that to prosecute them under.
You’re joking right, socredible? You don’t remember the per-vote subsidy whereby if you garner a certain amount of support in the previous election you get a per-vote subsidy? This has been deemed the most democratic means of campaign financing because it eliminate the influence that you seem to think is just fine. The Conservatives(neoliberals) didn’t like that though and eliminated it along with the contribution maximums for individuals, corporations and organized groups. It’s corrupt and suspends democracy when in practice, or maybe you don’t care about things like democracy?
Why should any taxpayer money be used to subsidise political Parties, Joe Blow? I certainly DON’T want my taxes used that way, and I might add that no one ever even asked me if they should be. How ‘democratic’ was that? So good for the Conservatives when they ended that. One more thing they did right. Now if someone would just do what no politician ever will do ~ put “None of the Above” below the candidates names on every election ballot, and count that as a vote. That would do more to restoring MPs and MLAs to what they’re supposed to be ~ our representatives, whose job it is to find out what we really want, and see that we obtain it ~ than anything else.
You could have just replied that yes, you were just kidding and saved yourself some time. You don’t want to subsidize political parties with campaign money who have adequately demonstrated that they have a certain amount of popular support from the voting public which has been deemed the most democratic system of supporting a representative democracy? Instead you prefer the clearly corrupt system where people with the most money get to be at the ear of political leaders and use that influence to have policy designed to benefit them and their pocketbooks at the expense of the public? Good thinking, Butch.
You just don’t get it, Joe. Using taxpayer dollars to fund political parties is just about the most anti-democratic method imaginable. Not only that, but it ensconces the very corruption you’re railing against as a permanent part of the political system. It’s as phoney as believing some form of ‘proportional representation’ is going to give us better government. It won’t.
ALL the current mainstream parties subscribe to exactly the SAME overall philosophy, and the policy that will spring from it is essentially the SAME, too. The ONLY real difference amongst them is the method used to implement it. That philosophy, and policy, is essentially socialistic in nature. Even so-called Conservatives believe that “the poor are poor because the rich are rich.” They just aren’t sure what to do about it, even though they never question it, as they rightly should.
When we elect the BC Liberals, for instance, we’re NOT getting something materially different in policy than what we’d get if we elected the NDP. It’s simply the difference between having socialism in low gear, or having it in high gear. The end result will be exactly the same. Socialism, by the way, can be described as “monopoly State capitalism with control by Finance”. Because that’s exactly what it is.
Well maybe they should stop the Chinese that don’t live here from buying land. This is half the issue. Why are we sending our leaders over to China? We don’t need China, or the States! Build that wall Trump. Who’s going to protect us. Well if they can hold nuclear bombs why can’t we. Or just throw open the border and let the world do what it wants to us then. We have to decide what we want. Meanwhile homeless population grows, so whatever!
We send our leaders over to China, or down to the States, or wherever else they go outside the country, largely to promote the sale of more that’s here, or grown or made here, to try to get foreigners to buy it.
We ‘need’ their money.
Of course they don’t buy our stuff with THEIR money, not directly (in most cases).
They buy it with OUR money, after their money has ‘bought’ our money.
Which, in most instances they don’t buy from anyone here, but from the Bank of Canada. (Which very obligingly creates it for them. Debt free. It could do the same thing for us. But it won’t.)
Then this debt free new money enters our economy. Which it HAS TO DO to enable already existing money created as debt to be able to be more fully repaid.
If this DIDN’T happen, then the only current alternative would be an even faster growth in more debt created new money to try to fully pay off existing debt created old money. Something which is even less sustainable long term than what our leaders are doing junketing around the world trying to get some country to buy more from us than it sells to us.
We are not sending our politicians to China . No where on the ballot does it say so . The only thing WE do is vote them in . Then they do as they please . You’ve fallen for the Chinese Strawman argument . Its cheap credit and CMHC backing up the banks on our dime that is driving the costs up . Donald doesn’t deal in facts . He’s one of the worlds biggest liars and bafoon . The fact is that more Mexicans are leaving the states than are moving there . Nuclear bombs , really ? You must be insane .
Ataloss, I agree with most of what you have to say; however, the following advice offered on Urban Dictionary may apply here.
“FEEDING THE TROLLS – When you reply to a troll or group of trolls on the internet, usually angrily and while showing signs of being offended.
When you do this, you give the trolls the attention that they crave. You’re responding in the way that the troll wants you to respond. You get upset over something that someone posted on the internet.
There are many trolls on this site. Please don’t feed the trolls.”
I am much more amused by trolls than upset . I’m with Einstein on the subject of stupidity . He also could not decide whether the vastness of space or the depth of mans stupidity was greater .
If you didn’t have ‘cheap credit’ and ‘the CMHC backing up the banks’, how then, under the current financial set-up, would you introduce NEEDED new credit into the economy?
‘Needed’, because without it, already EXISTING credit could NOT be anywhere near as fully repaid as it presently is, (which is still inadequate in its totality).
The new home mortgage, since the end of World War Two, is the vehicle by which most of this new credit is created. Unless there is a replacement to this method, (and actually, even if there is, so long as this credit enters the economy only as repayable debt in some form), the economy would go into a recession.
A contraction in credit always leads to fewer housing starts and a recession; while an increase in housing starts as a result of easier credit always leads the economy out of recession. There are better ways of doing the same thing, ones which would mitigate these extremely wasteful ‘boom/bust’ cycles, but we’re not ready to look at them yet. And especially those who are Green party supporters.
That’s amusing socredable because the Green Party of Germany is partially responsible for the biggest economic boom the world will likely see in the next hundred years . We haven’t seen one like it in over a hundred years .
Just wait til Italy and a few other countries wake up and have their own versions of Brexit. Will we see the biggest boom become the biggest bust that ever was in dear old Deutschland? You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. That’s never worked all down through history, and never will.
socredible X 10
Build that wall Trump! Build it as high as you can oof!
If anyone thinks the world cares about us you are delusional. They will keep buying land and put the middle finger up to Canada for as long as we put up with them coming here and disrespecting us. We don’t need trade. We don’t need nobody. We can protect ourselves if we want to. But there is to many left leaning liberals to actually take a stand and say get out of this country!
We do, unfortunately perhaps, ‘need’ trade. If we want to have the standard of living we currently enjoy, which I’m quite sure most of us do.
But we need it to actually be what it’s supposed to be.
TRADE.
An international exchange of actual goods or services for other alternate actual goods and services that are more needed and desired than the ones we’re parting with.
In that situation, international trade makes perfect sense, and should be encouraged in any way possible in regards to reducing impediments to it.
That isn’t what we’re getting however. What we get now is a hopelessly futile attempt to make a failing financial system seem as if it’s working. When it clearly isn’t.
A lot of Americans I have spoken to just think Canada is a very insignificant country and isn’t worth the time of day. They have made it clear to me that they don’t need us. They protect us. We are a weak nation. Our leaders are to liberal.
They really don’t need us. If they wanted to utilise their own country’s resources instead of importing what they get from us, they could easily be self-sufficient in many, many, things.
Like softwood lumber. They’d have to manage their National Forests differently than they currently do, and forego some current notions about the actual value of retaining ‘wilderness’ and such like, but they certainly could do all that if they decided to.
And in terms of population we really are pretty insignificant. The State of California alone has more people in it than we do in all of Canada. If it were an independent country, California would edge us out of the G7.
They do protect us. Without the deterrence of America, we’d have been up the creek without a paddle if Britain had fallen in World War Two, and Hitler had decided to come calling. And before and after we wouldn’t spend enough on our military to defend our Dominion. And we have internationalist sucky leaders who think what we do have militarily should be under the control of the UN, and used only as ‘peacekeepers’. As if that’s going o help us if some other country decided to take from us by military force what we don’t bend over backwards to essentially ‘give’ them in what we call ‘trade’.
Yeah and call me insane for saying maybe we should have nuclear bombs to to protect ourselves. I always felt that the US just wants to secretly invade us! That’s my take.
Why have cow, and endure the full expense of keeping her, when you can get always get the milk at a 30% discount, AND the ‘promises to pay’ you’re offering CAN NEVER BE COLLECTED ON?
I saw Trudeau cry at that pride church today in Toronto. I thought don’t cry. Supposed to be our leader. Weak knee trust fund baby. What’s wrong with ya. Bottom line is Canada better wake up. The world doesn’t give a hoot about us really. We gotta protect us! I don’t care what party you support. You must see that people don’t care. Walk all over us and laugh at us. It’s not right. I had a rough life here. I don’t want to feel embarrassed by our leaders. I am just kidding when I say all ya got to do is legalize the weed and it’s all good. The world is laughing at us. I don’t like that much at all. It’s a sham!
Changeit…go to bed fool.
dow7501 Calling me a fool and telling me to go to bed just shows how ignorant you are. The border is waiting for ya bub! Get to it!
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