Once again, if you think everyone moving and abandoning all of these towns is "reachable", viable, practical or in any way shape or form a good idea, there's clearly no getting through to you.
Some people will choose to stay regardless of how expensive the groceries are. Buy out the ones who agree to leave, let the rest buy groceries at market prices. Any person who chooses to move into the community after this will have no buy-out option.
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Wow, that's lunacy. Buying out let's say 4000 homes that would instantly be worthless at +$250,000 ($1b) each is the equivalent of subsidizing each of those households groceries at $500/m for 41 years. Try again.
Typical of the Huffington to print this kind of nonsense; in this case, the Huffers are riding the coat tails of Olivier De Schutter the UN 'food envoy' who thinks we need to tax soda pop.
There's been a food subsidy programme in the north and far north for 50 years. It includes many northern communities in several provinces and not just the Arctic territories.
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Of course the food and everything else here in the south isn't subsidized by massive public investment in highways, ferries and railways. Nope, not one bit.
Seems like User Pay only applies to someone other than oneself.
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Wow, that's lunacy. Buying out let's say 4000 homes that would instantly be worthless at +$250,000 ($1b) each is the equivalent of subsidizing each of those households groceries at $500/m for 41 years. Try again.
Not that I'm advocating MF's solution (I haven't made up my mind about what makes sense to me--this is a hugely complex issue that I have only surface knowledge of) but your numbers are questionable.
First, 250,000 per home seems an unlikely value. There are livable homes in Northern Ontario that are near viable cities and towns for less than 100K. Living where there is no road access has to bring house prices down. Living in substandard housing brings values down. Living where there is no viable economy brings values down.
But let's be generous and assume 100K.
Buying out 4,000 homes costs $400M. That's 16.7 years worth of food, assuming no rises due to inflation. However, subsidizing food becomes an ongoing cost, whereas a buyout is a one-time only cost... so over time, subsidizing food become more expensive.
To me, it seems unlikely that we can find and (key words) successfully implement a way to make all of these communities self-sustaining in just 16 years.
Infrastructure projects? Just planning them and assessing the environmental impact takes years, if not decades. Then they have to be implemented, which takes further decades.
I don't have the answers because it's a complicate problem. But while cheaper is not always better, it is probably cheaper to move people out of the community than to subsidize food--unless there is some other plan in place to increase self-sustainability.
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Wow, that's lunacy. Buying out let's say 4000 homes that would instantly be worthless at +$250,000 ($1b) each is the equivalent of subsidizing each of those households groceries at $500/m for 41 years. Try again.
How many do you think would accept the buy-out? On what do you base the price of $250,000? Show me some listings that bear this out.
Even assuming you are correct, your subsidy program costs $984,000,000. You need to build administration costs into this (usually 10 per cent or more--and that's being conservative.) Build in some cost of living at a modest 2% inflation rate, and over 41 years, the investment works heavily in favour of a buy-out.
Tray again.
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How many do you think would accept the buy-out? On what do you base the price of $250,000? Show me some listings that bear this out.
How would you assume that they could live in any mid to larger city or any resource boomtown in Canada (where presumably there may be jobs) with anything less than $250K? You can just about buy a 1 bedroom condo in Victoria for that. House for a family? Fahgetaboudit. You can pay $1500+ per month to rent in the oilpatch, if you can find anything.
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Of course the food and everything else here in the south isn't subsidized by massive public investment in highways, ferries and railways. Nope, not one bit.
Seems like User Pay only applies to someone other than oneself.
Not the issue, besides, the south also has manufacturing, farming, other types of commerce plus population volumes to justify infrastructure for goods which move in multi-directional patterns. Supplying a tiny remote community on Baffin Island is a unidirectional movement. A carrier will charge both ways, even though the return trip is empty. Fuel costs are driving prices to unprecedented levels as operating costs are driven higher and higher.
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Not that I'm advocating MF's solution (I haven't made up my mind about what makes sense to me--this is a hugely complex issue that I have only surface knowledge of) but your numbers are questionable.
First, 250,000 per home seems an unlikely value. There are livable homes in Northern Ontario that are near viable cities and towns for less than 100K. Living where there is no road access has to bring house prices down. Living in substandard housing brings values down. Living where there is no viable economy brings values down.
But let's be generous and assume 100K.
Buying out 4,000 homes costs $400M. That's 16.7 years worth of food, assuming no rises due to inflation. However, subsidizing food becomes an ongoing cost, whereas a buyout is a one-time only cost... so over time, subsidizing food become more expensive.
To me, it seems unlikely that we can find and (key words) successfully implement a way to make all of these communities self-sustaining in just 16 years.
Infrastructure projects? Just planning them and assessing the environmental impact takes years, if not decades. Then they have to be implemented, which takes further decades.
I don't have the answers because it's a complicate problem. But while cheaper is not always better, it is probably cheaper to move people out of the community than to subsidize food--unless there is some other plan in place to increase self-sustainability.
Sorry Sonal, I respect you but your estimate is brutally misleading. 1) if you are going by current real estate value, you are looking at closer to $200-250K in any populated area provided you can even find a home. Estimating by southern standards is an often made and dangerous mistake. There's a desperate housing crisis going on in populated areas of the north. The population expands like it tends to do anywhere, but there are no homes for young people to grow up and move in to, and the homes that were built are often not to code in permafrost regions so they fall apart quickly. I'm not even going to go off in that direction... 2) You're making the same mistake as MacFury and arbitrarily assigning a value to something that will be WORTHLESS in a ghost town "hey, you know the only equity you have? That $200K worth that you could lend against so your kids can pay for an apprenticeship? We're going to give you $100K for it. That's all you get because no one wants to live there. Take it or leave it." You're proposing to uproot entire communities and pay them 1/2 price for their homes? Take away the jobs they DO have, that they are good at and cast them to the wind?
I can't honestly believe I'm hearing this... Do you people even remember forced centralization polices? You take away peoples equity, honest, livelihoods, culture, hunting grounds and you can't help but make them wards of the state.
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