Matt Zaffino CPA, CA

Husband, father, Canadian. Kids deserve yards. If density caused home affordability, NYC apartments would be $200/month.

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

Housing Crisis Math: An Economically Disenfranchised Generation https://t.co/vSrBYQQRbm

[Walk Toronto @Walk_TO]

Bad news for pedestrians who don't own a car, courtesy of the Doug Ford government. https://t.co/WwecWMHjpp

[Vivid.🇮🇱 @VividProwess]

Palestinian students at UNRWA schools:

“Stabbing Jews brings dignity to the Palestinians. We have to stab the Jews. They teach us that Jews are terrorists. I am ready to stab a jew and drive a car over them. I am ready to join ISIS.”

Does this seem like a normal society to you?

[More Births @MoreBirths]

https://t.co/8StSmtDnOe

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

@Hali I don't understand how you got 79 and I got 82.

Maybe it's Wilt... 60s wilt is a cheat code... 40 ppg and 25 boards

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

💐 Flowers for @EricDLombardi

I met Eric Lombardi tonight at an OLP event. I have a couple of strong disagreements with Eric, but I really hope he continues to be a prominent voice in the @ontario_liberal leadership race, and I hope he does well.

He brings a wonderful spirit to the race:
- He's transparent about his priors
- He's not static - his views continue to evolve as he's taken in information over the last couple of years
- He isn't afraid to slay sacred cows or say what he thinks on potentially polarizing topics; this gives everyone cover to say what they think so we can consider all factors and find good solutions together
- He frequently has nuanced positions - which speaks to someone who has considered multiple sides of an issue and is trying to find a reasonable balance of the trade offs
- He, like many of his generation, is angry about the housing crisis... but unlike many, he has tried to channel his anger into productive means... this constructive channeling of his frustration is to be lauded
- He is grounded in time... he acknowledges the past, is conscious of the present, and has an eye toward the future

All parties and races need more voices like Eric!

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

@PenPlays_ Crazy how:
1) they did such a great job
2) despite doing such a great job, they still haven't done the interior of SF justice... which just speaks to how incredible it is

[Owen Davis @odavis_]

legalized sports betting and divorce: probably what you expected

[Adam Zivo @AdamZivo]

After a 14-year-old autistic Jewish girl went missing in Toronto, vandals tore down her missing posters, fuelling concerns about anti-Semitism. Yet, when the CBC reported on this, it somehow never used the word “Jewish” even once 🤔

#cdnpoli #ontpoli #topoli

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

Hi Ron,

The "middle isn't missing"... 4-plexes, 6-plexes, townhouses... they're all severely compromised for families
- They're not big enough for families (often only 1,000 sqft); if you don't support 3 kid families as normal, you can't get to a replacement level total fertility rate (2.1), which means you're signing up for economic and societal collapse
- They either shrink the yard drastically, or kill it entirely (this means kids don't get access to outdoor play... parks aren't substitutes... it also kills the family BBQ too)
- It means you're sharing walls with neighbours... ignoring the noise issue, if your neighbour doesn't maintain their house, it can quickly become your problem too
- It also creates parking issues... take a SFH conversion into a 6 plex... before, the SFH had, 1-2 cars... in a 6 plex, even if every family only now has 1, you now need to find space for 6 cars (and in many communities there is already a shortage of street parking)
- These converted houses often also end up with larger footprints pushed right up to lot boundaries... this means you eliminate your soft ground, which increases flood risk

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

Courtyard urbanism doesn't work.

Both open and closed courtyards can't sustain a replacement level TFR. Further, other issues are extensive:

Open courtyards get built over -> see Barcelona's L'Eixample region... set up as an urbanist utopia, within a couple of generations, all of the greenspace became effectively got built on.

Closed courtyards create commons -> commons create problems.
- If someone doesn't pick up after their dog in a common courtyard, who enforces? In a city, the city itself can ticket, and clean up.
- If the courtyard is designated as the area for childhood play, what is the solution for "bully management"? It only takes one bully for kids to become reticent about playing in said courtyard.
- What are parents supposed to do if a registered offender moves onto the courtyard? The previously "safe courtyard" is no longer so safe.

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

@biancoresearch Key word: rich.

If only the rich are having kids, then the "solution" isn't a solution.

To get to 2.1 TFR, given that many women won't have kids, 3 kid-families must be common.

3-kid families are never common in child-hostile contexts.

The suburbs are much more kid-friendly.

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

@gxonio @UrbanCourtyard Yes. So this entire thread about modelling Europe to restore our fertility rates is poorly conceived.

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

@UrbanCourtyard @gxonio And every major European city has a terrible fertility rate.

[Matt Zaffino CPA, CA @MZAF25]

@globeandmail Thanks to the Globe for finally catching up!

I wrote about this 2 years ago...

https://t.co/4aLzspmnIT

[Eric Lombardi (EricForOLP.ca) 🇨🇦🚀 @EricDLombardi]

Canadian leaders are too afraid to engage seriously with the frustration many normal people feel about immigration after the last few years.

But I share many of their concerns.

We have made honest conversation too difficult. And in Ontario especially, we have been naive about the effects of sudden population growth on housing, wages, infrastructure, public services, and yes, social and cultural cohesion.

Immigration has historically been one of Ontario’s greatest strengths. It helped build our industries, our cities, and our prosperity.

But many Ontarians feel gaslit if they express frustration about current circumstances.

Young people watched rents explode. Entry-level work became more competitive and lower paid. Colleges transformed into immigration pathways. Infrastructure and healthcare struggled to keep up. It has changed our politics, too.

People are not imagining this. Ontario experienced a genuine immigration shock. This at least is somewhat acknowledged.

And while Ottawa deserves plenty of blame, Ontario cannot pretend this simply happened to us.

Doug Ford’s government helped create the conditions for this crisis by blowing up the higher education funding model.

They froze tuition, underfunded colleges and universities, then allowed institutions to make up the difference by massively expanding international student enrollment.

That turned parts of our higher education system into an immigration-processing business.

Now Ontario now needs a reset.

And because immigration policy is ultimately federal, Ontario will need to work closely with (and pressure) Ottawa to pursue a system that is sustainable, orderly, and capable of maintaining public trust.

Permanent immigration should return to a more normal and sustainable baseline, and no longer be subject to insiders claiming “labour shortages”.

Over the next 5-10 years, Canada should gradually unwind the enormous temporary resident population from roughly 5 million people nationally to well under 1 million. Some, of course, should be offered a path to stay, but many cannot and we need to honestly acknowledge that.

That likely means a prolonged period of near-flat population growth.

Going forward, temporary worker, asylum, and student streams need to shrink substantially. More than they have. Visa rules need to actually mean something. Asylum claims cannot quietly become a parallel permanent residency system.

At the same time, we should reward people who follow the rules. If someone came legally, worked or studied honestly, avoided welfare, and left when required, they should receive a meaningful advantage if they later apply to immigrate permanently.

And finally, we need to remember what immigration policy is for.

It is not primarily a humanitarian program. It is a civilization-building and economy-building program.

Ontario and Canada should prioritize immigrants with the skills, education, economic potential, and cultural compatibility to help build a prosperous, cohesive, high-trust society.

[Warren Kinsella @kinsellawarren]

Objectively, this is fucking insane: employees of the United Nations killed and kidnapped Jews. Objectively, I remain amazed that even needs to be said. "Four more UNRWA staff -- including teachers -- found to have kidnapped Israelis on Oct. 7" https://t.co/3i69giOz9l

[Sean Feucht @seanfeucht]

"They seized my baby and sliced him in two with a knife.

My second child woke up ... They split his head with a machete."

THIS IS THE REALITY FOR NIGERIAN CHRISTIANS.

When will the world wake up?!

[MERICA MEMED @Mericamemed]

Top male podcasts have a certain level of productivity (even if you don't agree with the message) ... All I see from top female podcasts is male/relationship bashing and gossip.

[Daily Mail @DailyMail]

Women living under Hamas rule in Gaza describe to the Mail how they are sexually abused by the terror group's fighters and forced to have sex in return for food aid https://t.co/Kz6ILmABHn

[Melissa the Hopeful🏠Homemaker @BiblicalBeauty]

Historian Tom Holland explaining the revolutionary impact Christianity made on gender and sexuality which is so often taken for granted now in the West:

"Because of Christianity, I mean, I think every society has had an idea of binaries, that in sex there are two roles that people have to play to have sex, and for us, it's based on gender. It's based on the idea of there being men and women and that's again an inheritance ultimately from Genesis, God creating men and women separate. But for the Romans, that wasn't the case. For the Romans, the binary was between the male Roman citizen and everybody else, and the male Roman citizen could do what he liked to everybody else...

So you know you're a Roman slave owner, you can do what you like to your slaves sexually, any it doesn't matter what the gender of the slave is. It doesn't matter what the age is. You can just treat them as you want, and of course Christianity radically, radically changes that. And you know, if you are a scullery maid in a Roman household (a bit like a Yazidi girl in an Isis household), there's nothing to stop you being raped every day. Nothing to stop you. No legal power, I mean, no sense of moral disapproval at all, and so you can imagine the radical effect of getting a letter from Paul being told, 'you are the like the church.' It's utterly transformative."