Business
The Mortgage Maelstrom: Navigating the Impending Financial Tempest in Canada
From The Opposition with Dan Knight substack
As renewal rates surge and interest rates soar, Canadian households stand on the precipice of a fiscal fallout that could redefine the nation’s economic landscape
As we wade through the current economic climate, it’s becoming increasingly clear that a storm is brewing on the Canadian horizon, one that could sweep away the financial stability of countless households. The heart of this looming tempest? The mortgage market—specifically, the shock awaiting about 60% of mortgage holders in the next three years as their terms come up for renewal.
RBC has crunched the numbers and the forecast is grim. More than $186 billion in mortgages is set to renew in 2024 alone, and if today’s interest rates hold, homeowners could see their payments leap by a staggering 32%. And that’s just the beginning. The following year, $315 billion worth of mortgages are on the renewal chopping block, many of which are variable-rate mortgages, potentially pushing the payment shock to 33%.
What’s the root cause? It’s the interest rates—sitting at a 5% benchmark, the highest we’ve seen since the turn of the millennium. If there’s no significant decrease, we’re looking at a tidal wave of credit losses come 2025. And let’s not forget the elephant in the room: those with variable-rate mortgages could face a payment shock as high as 84% by 2026 if the rates stay put.
Here’s the scoop, folks. Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem laid out a cold hard truth: fiscal and monetary policy are at loggerheads. While the central bank is straining every sinew to wrestle down inflation with rate hikes, the federal and provincial governments are lighting the fuse with their spending, fueling the very inflation the Bank of Canada is trying to stamp out.
In the red corner, we’ve got the Bank of Canada, gloves on, ready to slug inflation down to its target by 2025. In the blue corner, Trudeau’s government, doling out dollars like there’s no tomorrow. What does this mean for John and Jane Doe on Main Street? As their mortgage renewals roll in, they’re staring down the barrel of a 32% to a mind-boggling 84% payment shock.
Folks, let’s cut to the chase. This economic quagmire we’re sinking into? It’s got Trudeau’s fingerprints all over it. The fabric of Canadian society is getting shredded not by accident, but by a government playing fast and loose with fiscal policy. The Bank of Canada is scrambling to counteract with rate hikes, but Trudeau’s Liberals seem hell-bent on doling out dollars like candy on Halloween, inflaming inflation and leaving families to foot the bill.
As for Trudeau, he’s steering the ship with a blindfold on, and the polls? They’re reading like an obituary for the Liberals’ prospects. Come the next federal election, if these mortgage hikes hit as hard as predicted, Trudeau’s so-called economic strategy could be the very thing that buries his political future. We’re not just talking about a swing in the voting booths; we’re talking about a full-scale revolt from a populace that’s had enough of being ignored in the face of an economic abyss.
As Canadians navigate the turbulent waters of an economy where the dream of homeownership slips through their fingers and the basic necessity of putting food on the table becomes a herculean task, the political pageantry of promised dental plans rings hollow. When the ballots are drawn, the echo of dissatisfaction will thunder across the voting booths. Yes, my dear readers, as the national mood simmers with the desire for change, there’s a palpable sense that a political reckoning looms on the horizon — a red wedding in the electoral sense, where the old guard may be unseated in a dramatic upheaval.
Subscribe to The Opposition with Dan Knight.
For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
Dan Knight
Business
‘Context Of Chemsex’: Biden-Harris Admin Dumps Millions Into Developing Drug-Fueled Gay Sex App
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Owen Klinsky
The Biden-Harris administration is spending millions funding a project to advise homosexual men on how to more safely engage in drug-fueled intercourse.
The University of Connecticut (UCONN) in July announced a five-year, $3.4 million grant from the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) for Assistant Professor Roman Shrestha to develop his app JomCare — “a smartphone-based just-in-time adaptive intervention aimed at improving access to HIV- and substance use-related harm reduction services for Malaysian GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex,” university news website UCONN Today reported. “Chemsex,” according to Northern Irish LGBTQ+ nonprofit the Rainbow Project, is the involvement of drug use in one’s sex life, and typically involves Methamphetamine (crystal meth), Mephedrone (meth), and GHB and GBL (G).
Examples of the app’s use-cases include providing a user who has reported injecting drugs with prompts about ordering an at-home HIV test kit and employing safe drug injection practices, UCONN Today reported. The app is also slated to provide same-day delivery of HIV prevention drug PrEP, HIV self-testing kits and even a mood tracker.
“In Malaysia, our research has indicated that harm reduction needs of GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex are not being adequately met,” Shrestha told UCONN Today. “Utilizing smartphone apps and other mHealth tools presents a promising and cost-effective approach to expand access to these services.”
Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia and is punishable by imprisonment, according to digital LGBTQ+ rights publication Equaldex. Drug use, including of cannabis, is illegal in Malaysia, and drug trafficking can be a capital offense.
The Old Border Czar VS The New Border Czar pic.twitter.com/9Ie8JRsroR
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 12, 2024
The NIH disbursed $773,845 to Shrestha in July to conduct a 90-day trial testing the efficacy of JomCare among 482 chemsex-involved Malaysian gays. It also provided Shrestha with $191,417 in 2022 to “facilitate access to gender-affirming health care” for transgender women in the country.
“Gender-affirming care” is a euphemism used to describe a wide range of procedures, including sometimes irreversible hormone treatments that can lead to infertility as well as irreversible surgeries like mastectomies, phalloplasties and vaginoplasties.
Shrestha has a track record of researching mobile health (mHealth) initiatives for foreign homosexuals, co-authoring a 2024 study entitled, “Preferences for mHealth Intervention to Address Mental Health Challenges Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in Nepal.”
The proliferation of LGBT rights has been a “foreign policy priority” under the Biden-Harris administration, a State Department spokesperson previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation, with President Joe Biden instructing federal government department heads to “to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons.”
“Around the globe, including here at home, brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) activists are fighting for equal protection under the law, freedom from violence, and recognition of their fundamental human rights,” a 2021 White House memorandum states. “The United States belongs at the forefront of this struggle — speaking out and standing strong for our most dearly held values.”
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 12 that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would collaborate to establish a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with Musk claiming the agency would feature a leaderboard for the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.” Some DOGE cuts could come from LGBTQ+ programs, such as a grant from the United States Agency for International Development to perform sex changes in Guatemala and State Department funding for the showing of a play in North Macedonia entitled, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”
“The woke mind virus consists of creating very, very divisive identity politics…[that] amplifies racism; amplifies, frankly, sexism; and all of the -isms while claiming to do the opposite,” Musk said at an event in Italy in December 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It actually divides people and makes them hate each other and hate themselves.”
Shrestha and the NIH did not respond to requests for comment. When reached for comment, a UCONN spokeswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation that, “specific questions about the grant and the decision to award it to our faculty member should be directed to the NIH, since that’s the funding agency.”
From the Fraser Institute
By Alex Whalen and Tegan Hill
Back in the summer at a meeting in Halifax, several provincial premiers discussed a lawsuit meant to force the federal government to make changes to Canada’s equalization program. The suit—filed by Newfoundland and Labrador and backed by British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta—effectively argues that the current formula isn’t fair. But while the question of “fairness” can be subjective, its clear the equalization program is broken.
In theory, the program equalizes the ability of provinces to deliver reasonably comparable services at a reasonably comparable level of taxation. Any province’s ability to pay is based on its “fiscal capacity”—that is, its ability to raise revenue.
This year, equalization payments will total a projected $25.3 billion with all provinces except B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan to receive some money. Whether due to higher incomes, higher employment or other factors, these three provinces have a greater ability to collect government revenue so they will not receive equalization.
However, contrary to the intent of the program, as recently as 2021, equalization program costs increased despite a decline in the fiscal capacity of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. In other words, the fiscal capacity gap among provinces was shrinking, yet recipient provinces still received a larger equalization payment.
Why? Because a “fixed-growth rule,” introduced by the Harper government in 2009, ensures that payments grow roughly in line with the economy—even if the gap between richer and poorer provinces shrinks. The result? Total equalization payments (before adjusting for inflation) increased by 19 per cent between 2015/16 and 2020/21 despite the gap in fiscal capacities between provinces shrinking during this time.
Moreover, the structure of the equalization program is also causing problems, even for recipient provinces, because it generates strong disincentives to natural resource development and the resulting economic growth because the program “claws back” equalization dollars when provinces raise revenue from natural resource development. Despite some changes to reduce this problem, one study estimated that a recipient province wishing to increase its natural resource revenues by a modest 10 per cent could face up to a 97 per cent claw back in equalization payments.
Put simply, provinces that generally do not receive equalization such as Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan have been punished for developing their resources, whereas recipient provinces such as Quebec and in the Maritimes have been rewarded for not developing theirs.
Finally, the current program design also encourages recipient provinces to maintain high personal and business income tax rates. While higher tax rates can reduce the incentive to work, invest and be productive, they also raise the national standard average tax rate, which is used in the equalization allocation formula. Therefore, provinces are incentivized to maintain high and economically damaging tax rates to maximize equalization payments.
Unless premiers push for reforms that will improve economic incentives and contain program costs, all provinces—recipient and non-recipient—will suffer the consequences.
Authors:
COP 29 leaders demand over a $1 trillion a year in climate reparations from ‘wealthy’ nations. They don’t deserve a nickel.
Ottawa’s avalanche of spending hasn’t helped First Nations
Five Government Programs That Musk’s Government Efficiency Agency Could Put On The Chopping Block
It’s time to supersize charitable tax credits, not political ones
Trudeau government to roll out another digital border crossing app by 2026
MAiD In Alberta: Province surveying Albertans about assisted suicide policies
Alberta activates contingency mail delivery plan
-
conflict1 day agoUS and UK authorize missile strikes into Russia, but are we really in danger of World War III?
-
armed forces1 day agoJudge dismisses Canadian military personnel’s lawsuit against COVID shot mandate
-
Alberta2 days agoProvince considering new Red Deer River reservoir east of Red Deer
-
Alberta11 hours agoPremier Smith says Auto Insurance reforms may still result in a publicly owned system
-
International1 day agoElon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy Outline Sweeping Plan to Cut Federal Regulations And Staffing
-
John Stossel2 days agoGreen Energy Needs Minerals, Yet America Blocks New Mines
-
Business19 hours agoCBC’s business model is trapped in a very dark place
-
Addictions2 days agoBC Addictions Expert Questions Ties Between Safer Supply Advocates and For-Profit Companies