Atlantic Canadian Politics Thread

[L'homard]

Originally Posted by JHikka

These sorts of number-measuring contests are great clickbait for CBC, though.

They essentially said as much on the air yesterday. I literally LOLed.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by adamuptownsj

Thanks for the numbers, but there's certainly a lot of fluctuation within the city, so provided the people moving are Canadian citizens of majority age (which could complicate things), Portland-Simonds must shrink, and the easiest way for it to shrink is to give territory to East.

I'd kind of consider it general discussion- until the 90s central Saint John anchored two districts and is certainly on track to have an even smaller and denser district now. It's got to lose like 1,000 people. How many people even live east of City Line anyway?

I don't consider it on topic for Uptown SJ, so i'll continue this here.

We don't have enough data on the population growth as yet to make any discernible predictions outside of merely guessing. It's fair to say that with Northern NB either declining or stagnating, and with Southern and Central NB now growing at pretty good rates, that a Northern riding will have to shift to Moncton. It's possible that it ends up as a Shediac riding but I haven't crunched any numbers yet. It's also possible that many urban ridings have to tighten and shrink to accommodate for growing pops but it depends on their growth and quotas. Because SJ is growing at provincial rate I doubt very many changes are made aside from cosmetic changes - a few metres here, maybe a few blocks here or there.

[adamuptownsj]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I don't consider it on topic for Uptown SJ, so i'll continue this here.

We don't have enough data on the population growth as yet to make any discernible predictions outside of merely guessing. It's fair to say that with Northern NB either declining or stagnating, and with Southern and Central NB now growing at pretty good rates, that a Northern riding will have to shift to Moncton. It's possible that it ends up as a Shediac riding but I haven't crunched any numbers yet. It's also possible that many urban ridings have to tighten and shrink to accommodate for growing pops but it depends on their growth and quotas. Because SJ is growing at provincial rate I doubt very many changes are made aside from cosmetic changes - a few metres here, maybe a few blocks here or there.

There's a lot of domino effects in the Moncton area. I think it's likely the Shediac area gets changed a lot.

-Dieppe must get even smaller, which triggers several other changes.
-Shediac Bay-Dieppe loses the Shediac portions and becomes more of an eastern Dieppe-inland seat. Maybe add Memramcook.
-Tack Beaubassin East onto (Memramcook)-Tantramar to make it more French and replace Memramcook, and rename it to include Sackville.
-Draw an 'urban Shediac' seat (imagine typing those words twenty years ago) effectively continuing Shediac-Beaubassin-Cap-Pelé with the coastal bits of Shediac Bay-Dieppe

You're pretty much right on Saint John. Looking more closely at the numbers indicates much of the area in P-S below Route 1 needs to be traded to East, presumably the McAllister area trailer park and Silver Falls Park at minimum.

[JHikka]

I guess the funny thing is that we can talk about growth in Shediac and Dieppe but Sackville actually outgrew both between 2016 and 2021, at least in terms of %. Sackville's the fastest growing place in New Brunswick between censuses.

I guess this point makes Memramcook-Tantramar more tenable as a riding moving forward. I'm not sure how feasible it is to add Cap-Pele onto the riding, though, given its lack of cohesion with the rest of the riding. It should probably stay with Beaubassin and Shediac in any riding changes. There's no 'making ridings more French' or less so because linguistic minorities are protected in how the ridings are drawn. This includes for when French is a minority and when English is a minority.

Carve off some of Shediac Bay-Dieppe, add some additional parts from Dieppe, potentially some parts of Memramcook. I wonder if there's enough for a Beaubassin-Cap-Pele-Shediac Bay riding, leaving Shediac as an urban riding on its own. Perhaps Cocagne is moved from Kent South into a new riding with Shediac Bay/Beaubassin-Est. There are options but we might get something funky. I'll have to crunch numbers in the coming weeks.

[adamuptownsj]

The 'more French' was more of a 'if Memramcook is out, adding Beaubassin preserves the balance in the riding' comment. There's similar tough conversations to be had in all but the northernmost and southernmost River Valley ridings.

Maybe continue to bifurcate Shediac, but into two east-west seats along the coast.

[Taeolas]

Two bits of New Brunswick news.

First, the new Mayor of Fredericton breaks a tie on a vote to increase Councillor wages.

From the sounds of it, I don't really hold the wage increase against them. Any time politicians have to increase their wages there will be some degree of backlash.

That said, it seems to me that a smart council (and government in general) would bake in a more automatic system for managing councillor (and MP and MPP and similar) wage increases, maybe combined with a rule that they can only set larger wage increases to only take effect after the next election.


And in other news, NB is lookig at almost a half billion dollar surplus. This is almost a 750M turnaround from the projected 244.9M deficit projected from last year's budget.

Basically the COVID rebound has come in faster than expected, leading to a surge in spending (and gas prices) which has increased revenue beyond expectations.

How this surplus will be spent is still being sorted out, but decreasing taxes on rental properties seems to be one of their priorities according to the article.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

How this surplus will be spent is still being sorted out, but decreasing taxes on rental properties seems to be one of their priorities according to the article.

There's a lot of accumulated debt that could be paid off and the wages of some underpaid provincial workers could be increased (paramedics, personal care workers), but, yes, dealing with the double tax seems like a no-brainer. This would help to diminish anticipated rent hikes due to increasing assessments.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

There's a lot of accumulated debt that could be paid off and the wages of some underpaid provincial workers could be increased (paramedics, personal care workers), but, yes, dealing with the double tax seems like a no-brainer.

Paying off the debt makes some sense within reason, but as long as debt-to-GDP isn't climbing then it's probably fine.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

This would help to diminish anticipated rent hikes due to increasing assessments.

There's not much evidence that this would actually be the case, though. Very similar to the assumption of trickle-down economics. Remember who and what media outlets are asking for double tax to be removed.

[Taeolas]

Using a good chunk of this surplus to pay down debt would probably be the best investment of it. From the article, both the government and experts are saying this is probably a 1 time boon fueled by COVID rebound basically, and not to get used to these types of surpluses going forward. So using the surplus to cover recurring costs would leave us facing shortages in the years to come.

The article mentions how paying the debt down could potentially free up 16M in interest payments going forward, and possibly more if interest rates start climbing as expected.

That said, with such big numbers in play, there will certainly be a lot of pressure to pay a chunk of it back, both as relief to regular NBers and to help out those in most need of it (especially in light of rising costs across the board)

[BaseballFan]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Paying off the debt makes some sense within reason, but as long as debt-to-GDP isn't climbing then it's probably fine.



There's not much evidence that this would actually be the case, though. Very similar to the assumption of trickle-down economics. Remember who and what media outlets are asking for double tax to be removed.

For most modern (investment grade) buildings, let's say you have a pie....your entire pie is your gross revenue, out of which you pay your costs. Under a typical, conventional financing scenario...and in the world as it existed prior to the Great Assessment Hike of 2022....60% goes to debt payments, 15% to general operating costs, 20% to property taxes, and 5% is free cash flow. Profit, if you will.

Now in 2022....taxes are 40% of your gross revenue. You need 20% more pie to be in the same place financially! You can't pay it out of your available cash flow even if you wanted to. You have two choices....raise rent, or default on your debt.

But, you know, greedy landlords

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by BaseballFan

But, you know, greedy landlords

Not saying all landlords are the same - simply pointing out that removing double tax does not inherently diminish any likelihood that rents will increase. One has to wonder why the province's newspapers often propose removing double taxation whilst not offering any opposition any airtime on the issue.

[BaseballFan]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Not saying all landlords are the same - simply pointing out that removing double tax does not inherently diminish any likelihood that rents will increase. One has to wonder why the province's newspapers often propose removing double taxation whilst not offering any opposition any airtime on the issue.

That's fair. If the landlords hit with huge increases are forced to raise rents to stay afloat, then even those that evaded the increase will likely raise rents right alongside of them. It's really not good for anyone.

Owners just care about earning 4% to 6% on capital cost (regardless of financing structure). Higher rents to offset higher expenses are a zero sum game, and higher rents that increase the bottom line only serve to increase market values...which is great for existing owners, but bids prices up and the next sales all occur in the 4% to 6% range again.

I think all landlords want is stable, predictable NOI growth in line with inflation...then you can increase supply of units with confidence, which is good for everybody.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by BaseballFan

That's fair. If the landlords hit with huge increases are forced to raise rents to stay afloat, then even those that evaded the increase will likely raise rents right alongside of them. It's really not good for anyone.

Owners just care about earning 4% to 6% on capital cost (regardless of financing structure). Higher rents to offset higher expenses are a zero sum game, and higher rents that increase the bottom line only serve to increase market values...which is great for existing owners, but bids prices up and the next sales all occur in the 4% to 6% range again.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by BaseballFan

I think all landlords want is stable, predictable NOI growth in line with inflation...then you can increase supply of units with confidence, which is good for everybody.

Based on the glut of new builds and new developments of multi-unit and larger-scale apartment builds i'm not convinced that double tax is inherently slowing demand at the moment. Developers are building under the pretense that this tax exists and will continue to exist.

[BaseballFan]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Exactly.


Based on the glut of new builds and new developments of multi-unit and larger-scale apartment builds i'm not convinced that double tax is inherently slowing demand at the moment. Developers are building under the pretense that this tax exists and will continue to exist.

I have to nit-pick this part....I fully agree owners were going full steam ahead, despite the "double tax" (I think the industry opposition to the provincial portion of the tax was always convoluted and a little misguided), the actual $$$ expense was historically palatable regardless of how you want to slice and dice where the funds were headed to (province vs municipality). So a $4,000 expense per unit, per year fit the pro-forma models at a given level of rent. Keep in mind this was more like $2,000 only ten years ago. But now that it's suddenly in the magnitude of $7,500 or $8,000 per unit per year, the model is broken.

Apartment owners would have been better served to lobby that the total rate and resulting expenses were too high, rather than complain about the provincial rate and which other provinces may or may not charge a levy. Anyhow, the problem now is really that the existing rates, provincial and municipal, are suddenly being applied to WAY higher assessments, resulting in dramatically higher tax bills. "Eliminating the double tax" is just a convenient way to slash the cost back to 2021 levels.

[BaseballFan]

To add something:

Prior to the 2022 assessment roll, I fully agree than cutting the provincial portion of the levy would do NOTHING for tenants, because as you point out, the cost was already built into existing rent levels. (Nobody was losing money or earning a lower return on investment....tenants were just historically paying more rent than in jurisdictions with lower levels of taxation). In fact, cutting the levy in isolation, without any increase in assessments, would just increase NOI and further bid up the price of buying a building....thus entrenching the rents forever.

The massive increase in assessments should have been implemented in conjunction with a reduction in rates, keeping the actual $$$ expense stable. But the left hand clearly doesn't know what the right is doing.

[JHikka]

I'll fully admit that i'm not on the ground and aware of all new tweaks or wrinkles in the taxing policy. It sounds like you've got a better grasp of this than I do.

[adamuptownsj]

The assessment and insurance increases are why I raised rent for the first time since I finished renos in fall 2018, and my 4-unit is owner occupied so I'm not even paying the double tax. I can't imagine how much these assessment increases would cost smaller landlords who pay the tax.

[JHikka]

After many months of work ridingbuilder.ca is finally up, so i've been playing around with NB provincial boundaries after the next redistribution. It's really tough to try and fit in a new riding in Moncton given the divisions. I think this is the closest i've gotten:



And in the context of SENB as a whole:



I'm happy with the Shediac riding. I think Sackville-Dorchester-Cap-Pele is as good as it's going to get. Memramcook is fine. Dieppe is fine. I'm not totally happy with the Lewisville-Irishtown (pink) riding, nor the McLaughlin (Teal) riding. Albert is fine. Including Salisbury into a suburban Northern Moncton riding is tough but I guess is beginning to make more sense as things progress. Sussex riding i'm happy with. Cocagne and Saint-Antoine as a riding on its own was a bit surprising, but I guess speaks to the sprawl growth occurring in that area.

I began building this with a blank slate in Moncton, though. It becomes difficult trying to piece things together as a wider picture. Tried bringing this down to Saint John and the whole thing fell apart.

Would be interested to see what others can conjure up. Generally I try to slightly undercount the urban ridings and overcount the rural ridings (-500 or +500) to take into account growth.

This is a bit cleaner but the same idea:

[MonctonRad]

Those look like decent attempts at redistribution. I see however that you lumped in a bit of Dieppe north of Champlain Street with Moncton East. They wouldn't like that much. Dieppers are pretty tribal, and sensitive regarding linguistic representation (I know that Moncton East is pretty francophone too).

[ivegotaname]

My guess with who will be premier for New Brunswick next might surprise you as it does me. Everybody lost respect to higgs when he raised the minimum wage by 5 cents but liberals don't have there shit together or a leader with credibility and an election will be called this year I can see it happening. So the two biggest players in NB are not going to win..I do think we will have an NDP leader next and the guy Thomason would have won last election if he was con lib