Victoria leads the way with housing starts
The article on housing starts in Greater Victoria during the first nine months of 2022 leaves out some important information. While overall housing starts are fairly flat compared with the same period in 2021, there have been some big shifts in where in the region those starts are occurring.
In 2021, housing starts in Victoria reached a 40-year high of 1,204. That record has already been eclipsed in the first nine months of this year, with 1,450 starts in Victoria.
So far in 2022, Victoria has accounted for nearly as many housing starts as the rest of the region combined, and nearly twice as many as second-place Langford’s 768 starts.
Over the past 12 years, Victoria and Langford have each led regional housing starts in six of those years. Despite that, coverage of this issue in the Times 91原创 has tended to focus heavily on Langford.
Last year, when Langford led Victoria in housing starts, the Times 91原创 articles always mentioned that, while this year, with Victoria in the lead, there is no mention. The story was even accompanied by a photo of Langford.
The reality is that Victoria has also been playing a key role in providing new housing for the region.
Rob Maxwell
Victoria
Reduce taxes to find the sweet spot
Re: “Poilievre might be listening to the the wrong economist,” commentary, Oct. 26.
I read the commentary by a professor of economics emeritus at the University of Victoria with interest, but the good professor lost all credibility with me when it was quoted, “A lightweight economist named Arthur Laffer has argued that by cutting tax rates the national income will be stimulated to grow so much that tax revenues will go up even as rates are reduced,” and “tax cuts can pay for themselves.”
The professor clearly has no concept what Laffer suggested during the Reagan years. Laffer presented a bell-shaped curve. Put simply, if government income tax rates start from zero, their revenues will increase as they increase income tax rates.
Laffer points out that there is a point when government taxes get too high and government revenues will start to decline because the public leaves the system for a variety of reasons, even moving their capital offshore.
Laffer and Poilievre are quite correct. If we have pushed taxes too high, which I believe we have, government revenues will actually increase by backing them off by a bit to hit the sweet spot.
John L. Krysa
Oak Bay
Trudeau could follow Poilievre’s example
Re: “Poilievre might be listening to the wrong economist,” commentary, Oct. 26.
At least Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre was influenced by a Nobel Prize winning economist and thinks about economics, something our current prime minister proudly claims not to do. (Although I suspect he imbibed some ideas sitting on Uncle Castro’s knee as a child, and has notably shared his admiration for the Chinese way.)
Perhaps with a little more thought and attention given to economic policy both monetarist and Keynesian, Canada might not be in as big an inflationary mess as we are in.
Les Barclay
Nanaimo
Increasing interest rates is bound to fail
With their sixth interest rate hike this year, the Bank of Canada is hoping to bring down inflation. But this is not “wage-price” inflation so old strategies won’t work.
91原创s are paying more for food and fuel because of supply chain issues. And now, cost of living pressure is significantly worse because of increased mortgage debt.
Corporations do have added costs to deal with, but they’re using these costs as cover to raise prices even more. Until the Bank of Canada (and the Government of Canada) recognize the current situation as “profit-price” inflation, rate hikes will continue to be a failed strategy.
Will there be a different strategy or will it be hoping that the seventh rate hike will actually work?
Kip Wood
Nanaimo
Fixing the broken medical system
Another newspaper and another letter (or two or three) in the Comment section about the B.C. medical system. Everybody has their pet theory on what the problem is and how to solve it. If the issue was less tragic, reading the letters would almost be funny.
They remind me of a bunch of teenagers staring into the engine compartment of a car broken down at the side of the road. Somebody thinks it might be electrical, somebody thinks it might be the fuel.
Like the health-care system, it is complicated, and there is little agreement on what needs to be done.
Question: Who is in charge of the medical system in B.C.?
Answer: The minister of health, Adrian Dix.
Who needs to be fired? Adrian Dix. It really is that simple.
Next election, if you don’t have a doctor or know somebody else who doesn’t, or are waiting for a procedure or know somebody else waiting, the answer is equally simple. Fire the provincial government.
And don’t let them tell you it’s the feds. Or the nurses. Or the doctors. Or the specialists. Or the fee structure. Or the professional colleges. Or the demographics. Or COVID. Or the inefficient nature of public medicine.
These are all distractions. Focus their attention and keep firing the minister of health and the provincial government until they fix the problem.
Stephen Hill
Saanich
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