Micro Lofts Just a Micro Solution

Property developer Reliance Properties unveiled plans to build so-called "micro lofts" in Vancouver that average a paltry 270 square feet. Many claim that these smaller units, which will likely rent for around $750, can be a solution for Vancouverites of more modest means, especially students and single service-sector workers. These people, and frankly many more, are finding themselves priced out of the Vancouver market, which is now being dubbed the most unaffordable in the world. The entire region, and not just the downtown core either, has seen years and years of rising prices. This growth, in my opinion, is unsustainable. House and condo prices have exploded across the region; home prices have more than doubled in some areas. These micro lofts aren't much of a solution for the sky-high real estate market in Metro Vancouver. Instead, fiscal policies should be adopted by government to curb this growth before people must abandon the dream of home ownership and settle for renting or at best, cramped apartment living like pictured above, where the toilet is literally in your shower and your bed has to fold up inside the wall. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty opined last month that the federal government may take steps to cool the housing market, including shortening the allowable duration of mortgages (currently 35 years) or increasing the required 5% down payment. I urge the finance minister and the federal government to strongly consider doing both. The government needs to act to stamp down the runaway inflation in the housing market. Yes, require larger down payments. Yes, reduce the amortization period. I suggest also that it's time interest rates begin to creep back up from their current historic lows. The low cost of mortgages is a key driving force in the real estate market right now with people scrambling to buy-in while interest rates are as low as they are. Begin to ratchet those rates up and hopefully we can see home prices descend back to earth. If left unattended, as it has been for the last decade, real estate will continue to grow itself a nice shiny bubble that will burst just as Canada has finished climbing out of the great recession of '08-'09 and I'd rather endure the pain of deflating it now than wait for the 'pop'.

BC Teachers Start Annual FSA Bellyaching

It's that time of year again when BC grade 4 and 7 students write the standardized Foundation Skills Assessment tests, a reading, writing and numeracy evaluation. It is therefore also the time of year when the BC Teachers Federation and their legion of educators get out their self-serving soapboxes and start the annual season of FSA complaints. Each year BC Teachers come out in force to advocate against students taking this particular test. This year, teachers are not only advocating through the media their ideological position, they are also using students are conduits for handouts and letters aimed at getting parents to try and have their child opted-out. The BCTF argues that the FSA wastes classroom time, forces teachers to "teach to the test", and takes attention away from more effective learning tools like field trips, such as the annual trek of school aged kids to Playland amusement park that masquerades as a physics lesson, or a trip to an IMAX theater to watch a movie about warm water coral reefs, both of which are clearly educational goldmines! However, the BCTF's constant griping is wearing thin. The FSA is just one test of many that students must take throughout their lives. It tests kids for reading comprehension, writing skills and numeracy abilities, all things that teachers should be passionate about. Teachers should want to know how their school is doing in these areas and should welcome any such data. The FSA takes a total of 4 hours to complete, which is spread over multiple testing days. 4 hours out of 10 months of instructional time is hardly the waste of time the BCTF claims. As for educators having to "teach to the test," wherein they allegedly must forgo meaningful teaching and curriculum to help students prepare for the test, I would expect no less! The FSA asks questions such as this:

To make 2 dozen cookies, they need 350 g of chocolate chips.

What mass of chocolate chips is needed to make 15 dozen cookies?

. 1.875 kg
. 2.45 kg
. 2.625 kg
. 5.25 kg

I would expect 12 year olds to be able to answer this question. I expect teachers to have been teaching math skills such as this. If teaching this kind of math is the type of "teaching to the test" that the BCTF wants to get rid of, what kind of teaching do they want? More colouring? More field trips? More of the limp curriculum that has our kids lagging behind many other countries in basic skills? More of the kind of teaching that has resulted in 21% of kids, that's 1 in 5, not being able to answer this type of question, or write a proper paragraph, or understand the content of a short piece of reading, as the FSA results have shown? Dig a little deeper and you begin to see what all this bellyaching is about. The BCTF is a left wing entity with strong ties to the NDP. This ideology leads them to scoff at anything that resembles meritocracy, whether its standardized testing or capitalism. They ideologically oppose allowing some kids to succeed and others to fail. They'd much rather let everyone slide through with whatever hand-holding and educational pablum it requires. The BCTF announces proudly in a YouTube video that the opposition to the FSA is all about "social justice," yet another leftist plank they share with the NDP platform. Isn't it about time the BCTF and its teachers started caring a little less about politics and a little more about teaching?

A Spark Away From Disaster

On Christmas Day 2009, an Airbus 330 carrying 279 passengers exploded over the city of Detroit during its descent. Flaming debris showered down across city blocks and neighbourhoods many more people on the ground were killed as the wreckage fell. This is the scenario terrorists had in mind when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to ignite explosives he had snuck onto the plane. Many people do not seem to understand the gravity of this attack. And that's what it was, an attempted terrorist attack. It was not a botched plan, or an uncovered plot, or a threat. This was an attack that would have, but for the chance failure of Abdulmutallub to ignite, killed hundreds, terrorized millions, bankrupt the aviation industry and likely plunged the US deeper into recession. For some reason, because this was a failed attack, many people are brushing it off and are moving on to complaining about the full body scanners and the country of origin profiling that is being implemented in its wake. Those people need to wake up and realize that this was an attempt organized by Islamic terrorists that was a spark away from fruition. I'm glad to see Canada taking the lead in installing the full body scanners that would have thwarted this kind of attack. Privacy concerns are legitimate, but largely overemphasized. The images are not as detailed as many imagine and aren't downloaded to some pervert's USB for fun time back at home. In fact, the person screening the images can't even see you--they're kept behind the scenes in a separate room. Also implemented is a list of countries from which travellers heading to the US will be doubly screened. Coming to New York from Libya, for example, will garner extra scrutiny. This kind of profiling should have been enacted years ago and it should be expanded to include all past trips as well. Check everyone's passport and if they've visited a "terror-prone" area-- recently been on a jaunt to the Swat region of Pakistan?--flag them for extra security. Almost all recent terrorists have been connected to these terror-prone states: the London bombers travelled to Pakistan prior to their attacks, the 9/11 hijackers visited and trained in Afghanistan, the mastermind of the Madrid bombings trained in Afghanistan and the Christmas Day bomber visited terrorist cells in Yemen. It's time the countries that foster this kind of extremism are flagged and those people travelling to, from and through them get the most rigorous security screening available.