By: Stewart F. Brennan
There is a myth floating around the world today that life is easy in Canada, that Canadians have access to low-cost housing and are experiencing a high standard of living. This of course is what the Canadian government and politicians on all sides of the aisles want people around the world to believe. But this thought and frame of mind is completely false, deceptive and delusional.
The real situation for a growing number of Canadians, including myself, is not being able to afford a roof over our heads. What, with the Canadian government’s agenda of allowing 500,000 immigrants into the country every year with a population that was just 33 million ten years ago, to now somewhere around 42 million, is a reckless destructive plan for a country with a small population. Affordable housing has disappeared because of it.
The stated goal by the Canadian federal government and those who work for the economic controllers of our nation, with agents such as Dominic Barton, is to increase the Canadian population to 100 million before the end of the century!!
Dominic Barton served on the Canadian governments Advisory Council on Economic growth, in addition to co-founding the “Century Initiative” which is actively involved with increasing the population of Canada to 100 million through immigration. They are also focused on an aggressive program of urban development which is responsible for all those unaffordable luxury apartments that are going up in every Canadian city to accommodate the millions of people they are bringing into this country. Why are they doing this?
The condos and luxury apartments they are putting up everywhere are not affordable for many of the people already living here. But especially for a majority of Canadians whose salaries have not gone up to match the outrageous cost for housing or the exponential inflation gripping our nation. Rents have more than doubled while owning a home is so expensive you need a six-figure salary to afford one.
I’m sure most home owners with a mortgage understand what economic pain is as they felt the bite of their mortgage renewals when interest rates went up and then were hit with inflated municipal property taxes because the value of their homes were artificially increased due to inflated market values...and this was brought on by the inflated costs of building materials and the demand for housing from the millions of people they are bringing into the country. For the average Canadian, home ownership is now an unreachable dream and the costs of owning a condo or renting one of those luxury apartments the establishment seems to think we can afford, is downright insulting.
Your local town councils are also a party to this plan by rubber stamping legislation for real-estate developers to buy up community green space to erect these unaffordable monstrosity’s.
This is a very aggressive program that is destructive on every social and economic level including the environment.
Ever since the Trudeau government announced their goal of increasing the population of Canada to 100 million at the World economic forum in 2016, real estate developers, especially those connected to the economic controllers of this country, have been empowered to buy up older rental buildings with an agenda to raise the rents to the level of the new so called luxury buildings they are putting up across the nation. Profit is what they are after. Profit on the backs of disenfranchised Canadian citizens.
To achieve this, they employ a series of dystopian pressure tactics to destroy the quality of life which are economic and psychologically damaging by nature to the long-standing tenants in these buildings. Their goal is to push the older tenants out of their homes in order to turn the apartments over to match the higher rental rates they receive from their luxury apartment projects. In other words, they are aggressively attacking the working class and elderly who cannot afford the higher rents which are now being demanded everywhere.
Getting rid of long-term tenants allows the owners to raise the rents far beyond what the allowable rate permits. The only province in Canada, to my knowledge, that held these destructive parasitic bastards in check was Quebec through a law that only allowed a maximum increase of 3% for an annual lease renewal, while any proposed increase is supposed to be a negotiation between the tenant and the landlord. If an agreement is not reached, there is a government forum or tribunal to hear the case and make a decision. However, that legislation which protected Quebec residents from rent speculators and absentee landlords has been under attack over the past two years and has been changed in the landlords favor by Quebec politicians in bed with the real estate lobbyists.
Also of note is the fraud being committed on tenants of Quebec by property management corporations; the so-called building caretakers for the absentee landlords.
In Quebec, when tenants decide not to renew their lease, the building owners or caretakers are supposed to show potential new tenants what the previous tenants paid before they sign a new lease. Of course, the increased amount should not exceed the 3% specified by Quebec law.
However, this mandatory step is omitted by many of these building management corporations clearly at the behest of their employers, most of whom are large property developers.
After the owners slap a new coat of paint on an apartment to make it ready for a new tenant, they then double the rents to unsuspecting new tenants, most often they are new immigrants who do not know Canadian / Quebec citizens’ rights. Once these landlords get away with doubling the rents, which are now in range of the rental costs in the new developments, there is no way to hold the landlords to account, because if the next tenant comes in and asks what the previous tenant paid, the inflated rent is shown. To give you an example, in the old building where I live, the monthly rent for a 5 1/2 ranges from approximately $920.00 a month (Older tenant) to $1,800.00 a month (New Tenant). For older tenants, the pressure tactics by landlords, to push them out, continues.
In many cases new property owners of the older established rental buildings, are not doing the upkeep in repairs or maintenance of the buildings, bringing the quality of life down to the “Slumlords” level, and there is an exponential rise in uncared for buildings. The suspicion here is that some of these old building owners will let the buildings fall into such a sorry state of disrepair that they will be condemned, destroyed or accidently burn to the ground with massive new luxury buildings erected in their place so that they can make more money.
In my view, these real estate developers are predators with parasitic intentions and must be stopped in every town council room across the country!
The aggressive mass immigration policy and the reckless economic path that the Canadian government has undertaken, is destroying this country and ruining the lives of millions of Canadians. The immigration door to this country must be closed immediately before the majority of Canadian citizens find themselves impoverished and homeless. We are rapidly coming to a crisis point.
Many Canadians who’ve worked all their lives contributing into the system, are now receiving those minuscule old age pensions from the government, and are not able to make ends meet. Many are suffering just to keep a roof over their heads and have returned to work so that they can afford to feed themselves. There is no retirement for many Canadians anymore.
I’ve seen pensioners going through the trash bins for food or collecting empty cans and bottles so they can pick up the five to ten cents they get for each one at recycling stations, just so they can buy a little food.
Adult children are still living at home with their parents for the same reason that the elderly have gone back to work; they can’t afford the costs of renting an apartment or the inflation that is strangling our purchasing power.
But hey, Canadian federal politicians want to stay in office long enough to collect those big fat six-digit figure pensions they keep increasing for themselves instead of voting in favor of ejecting the minority Liberal Canadian government in a vote of non-confidence. The very same sitting government that brought this mass immigration and economic disaster down on our heads!
The Canadian government wants to continue their insane program of mass immigration…this is not sustainable even as they declare a 20% drop in their annual immigration policy.
Going from 500,000 to 400,00 is not a drastic cut to immigration! There will still be way too many people coming into this country and causing us all immediate and long-term pain. The planning of this destructive agenda was never made available to Canadians but we are seeing the increasing destruction to our way of life happen right before our eyes. They’ve clearly not taken Canada’s future into account as the massive immigration into the country affects the costs of housing, and the subsequent inflation on building material costs that then drive up the prices of owning or renting a home. It becomes a vicious cycle as inflated housing prices then increase property taxation through inflated property evaluations...and where are the millions of jobs to support this destructive agenda?
Poverty and third world status are now a reality to many Canadians who are suffering the gross incompetence of our so-called leaders and the, “for profit only” real estate developers. How many homeless people will it take for these assholes in power to get it?! The doors to this country should not be wide open, especially in harsh economic times. It only deepens the economic depression that’s taken hold of this country and endangers everyone.
We are not talking about a few immigrants coming into Canada because most of us are, or have ancestors who’ve immigrated to this country. We are all immigrants to this country. So, we are not talking about immigration being the problem, we are talking about a policy of mass immigration being the problem which is destroying the fabric of our nation! Enough already! Close off immigration now before many of us end up on the Canadian winter streets!
Put an end to this mass immigration insanity now! Put an end to this destructive real estate development madness now! Let’s make living affordable again!
I will close this rant with a poem that I wrote recently to express my feelings and experience. It's called, “Living Space?”
Living Space?
The buildings have been sold again
to a wealthy rich estate
who’ll profit from the land they’re on,
we await our buildings fate.
Our homes have passed from hand to hand
so many times, I’ve lost count,
this time we’ll dig our feet in
as tension starts to mount.
People here are in despair,
with huge concerns, we’re troubled.
Owner’s games force tenants out
rents are all then doubled.
Renters stuck with no escape
pressured to leave their place
with unaffordable housing
that’s taken every space.
The only place that’s left to live
is where we are right now
inside this wounded building
the developers want to plow.
They will not answer for repairs
they’re crooked greedy and bent
their phones don’t answer anyone
and all they want is rent.
I went to see town council
to see what they could do
but they were pitching condo’s
with developers through and through.
They’re leaving us no choices
revolutions in the air
for we have nothing left to lose
and we’re running out of prayer.
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The Activist Poet
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About Stewart Brennan:
Stewart Brennan is a Geo-political and economic analyst, activist, poet and author. He’s worked in the Aviation, Packaging, Transportation and Logistics Industries and is the author of three books of political activism and poetry called, “The Activist Poet”. (See Here, Here and Here) He's also the author of several blogs including World United News, World United Music, and World United Awakening while writing creatively on the All Poetry website. Stewart just released his first novel of fiction in July 2024; a supernatural science fiction thriller called, "The Shard of Asclepius". The book is available world wide. For more information visit his Official Website.
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