Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[Upper Canada Tory]

The way federal-provincial devolution works in immigration in Canada is like this;

In the provincial nominee program, applicants apply via the Express Entry program but for a province's respective provincial nominee program. Provinces can nominate candidates from the Express Entry program (prospective permanent residents are selected from draws with cutoff scores), but the federal government decides which CRS score is needed to get PR and whether anyone gets a visa for PR in the first place. So provinces have some sway but the federal government has the final say.

In LMIA, businesses register to be licensed by the provincial government to recruit temporary foreign workers - but they also need to apply with the federal government to get a visa to hire a TFW to bring them to Canada. The federal government determines whether or not the temporary worker is needed in the first place. So in other words, provinces have sway, but the feds always have the final approval.

In the international students program, universities, which are provincial jurisdiction, decide which applicants/prospective international students are accepted to study at colleges/universities. Then prospective international students need to show a letter of acceptance to the feds to get a study permit. Not to mention, the feds get to decide whether or not students can work off campus and for how long.

So provinces have some sway, which is why they can take advantage of it, but the feds always have the final say. The provinces are currently taking advantage of federal government policies.

[Upper Canada Tory]

At the risk of turning this to a "Canada immigration policy" thread (although honestly I agree that this is the biggest issue with the Trudeau government, much more so than the carbon tax, but apparently opposing the carbon tax sells better for Poilievre) - PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon gives a speech in English articulating perfectly what so many of us have been criticizing about Liberal immigration policy.

https://twitter.com/ContrarianTribe/status/1773702167980888453
Something very weird about a left-wing Quebec separatist who hopes to govern a province that actually has some control over immigration, making very obvious points about federal immigration policy, that even the federal Conservative leader is too scared to touch. It makes perfect sense and no sense at all.

What he's saying is not that different from what Poilievre is saying. Poilievre has also criticized the federal government for the growth in temporary and permanent immigration, is proposing to tie immigration levels to housing supply growth and wants to fix the imbalance between supply and demand.

The only difference is that the Quebec separatist is citing the Century Initiative as the federal government's motivation for the immigration failure, however I'm not sure that is really what's motivating them or if the feds are really even committed to the 'Century Initiative' nonsense, and in general, it's impossible to read politicians' minds and very hard to figure out their intentions.

[Upper Canada Tory]

At the risk of turning this to a "Canada immigration policy" thread (although honestly I agree that this is the biggest issue with the Trudeau government, much more so than the carbon tax, but apparently opposing the carbon tax sells better for Poilievre) - PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon gives a speech in English articulating perfectly what so many of us have been criticizing about Liberal immigration policy.

https://twitter.com/ContrarianTribe/status/1773702167980888453
Something very weird about a left-wing Quebec separatist who hopes to govern a province that actually has some control over immigration, making very obvious points about federal immigration policy, that even the federal Conservative leader is too scared to touch. It makes perfect sense and no sense at all.

What he's saying is not that different from what Poilievre is saying. Poilievre has also criticized the federal government for the growth in temporary and permanent immigration, is proposing to tie immigration levels to housing supply growth and wants to fix the imbalance between supply and demand.

The only difference is that the Quebec separatist is citing the Century Initiative as the federal government's motivation for the immigration failure, however I'm not sure that is really what's motivating them, and in general, it's very hard to read politicians' minds and figure out their intentions.

I know, I just don't understand why Poilievre doesn't make this a bigger part of the pitch. Maybe I'm just in a bubble but I feel like this kind of soft immigration-skeptical politics would go over very well right now. I can understand why Conservatives are timid about touching immigration since the Niqab/barbaric practices episode from 2015, but immigration in 2024 is very easy to talk about in purely pocketbook terms without going full on nativist.

On the Century Initiative thing, you're right, I don't think it's the feds' main motivation. But it's still very emblematic of the Liberals' approach to immigration which has basically made increasing the population at all costs the primary driving motivator, at the expense of virtually everything else, which is basically what the Century Initiative people advocate. There's literally zero reason for why Canada NEEDS to increase its population beyond maintaining a healthy working-age population, for which we do not need to reach even close to 100M.

Besides, if the Century Initiative is about reaching 100M by 2100, it's basically a conservative policy. Our population grew 1M in the last 9 months. At that rate, we're at 100M by 2068!

The effect of immigration on housing and the shortage of infrastructure should be part of the pitch but it shouldn't be all of it.

IMO, Poilievre and other conservative politicians should stop limiting their immigration-related arguments to the housing shortage and also bring up the economic impacts of immigration to Canada, namely, talking about the successes of the old-school Harper era (and pre-Harper all the way to Pearson) immigration system and contrasting it to Trudeau's failed policy. The housing shortage is one part of the problem with the immigration crisis, a big one, but it's not the only problem. Even if we had enough housing for all these people the current immigration policy would still be a failure.

Poilievre should point out that in the past, Canada's immigration system selected high-skilled workers that quickly integrated economically and culturally and that the growth in temporary and permanent residents due to reduced standards in the last few years has contributed to our low productivity/wages and has resulted in a dependence on cheap labour. Not to mention all the scams and fraud associated with the current system.

The exclusive focus on the housing crisis essentially legitimizes Trudeau's immigration policy to some degree - it makes the implicit argument that, if we did have enough housing, what he's done to our immigration system would be ok. (Which it obviously wouldn't be)

[Upper Canada Tory]

At the risk of turning this to a "Canada immigration policy" thread (although honestly I agree that this is the biggest issue with the Trudeau government, much more so than the carbon tax, but apparently opposing the carbon tax sells better for Poilievre) - PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon gives a speech in English articulating perfectly what so many of us have been criticizing about Liberal immigration policy.

https://twitter.com/ContrarianTribe/status/1773702167980888453
Something very weird about a left-wing Quebec separatist who hopes to govern a province that actually has some control over immigration, making very obvious points about federal immigration policy, that even the federal Conservative leader is too scared to touch. It makes perfect sense and no sense at all.

What he's saying is not that different from what Poilievre is saying. Poilievre has also criticized the federal government for the growth in temporary and permanent immigration, is proposing to tie immigration levels to housing supply growth and wants to fix the imbalance between supply and demand.

The only difference is that the Quebec separatist is citing the Century Initiative as the federal government's motivation for the immigration failure, however I'm not sure that is really what's motivating them, and in general, it's very hard to read politicians' minds and figure out their intentions.

I know, I just don't understand why Poilievre doesn't make this a bigger part of the pitch. Maybe I'm just in a bubble but I feel like this kind of soft immigration-skeptical politics would go over very well right now. I can understand why Conservatives are timid about touching immigration since the Niqab/barbaric practices episode from 2015, but immigration in 2024 is very easy to talk about in purely pocketbook terms without going full on nativist.

On the Century Initiative thing, you're right, I don't think it's the feds' main motivation. But it's still very emblematic of the Liberals' approach to immigration which has basically made increasing the population at all costs the primary driving motivator, at the expense of virtually everything else, which is basically what the Century Initiative people advocate. There's literally zero reason for why Canada NEEDS to increase its population beyond maintaining a healthy working-age population, for which we do not need to reach even close to 100M.

Besides, if the Century Initiative is about reaching 100M by 2100, it's basically a conservative policy. Our population grew 1M in the last 9 months. At that rate, we're at 100M by 2068!

Poilievre obviously constantly mentions it indirectly. Maybe he's as surprised as I was that Canada's population was still increasing so quickly.

Tbh maybe the key to making Canadians demand change to our immigration policy is showing them our population growth numbers. I'm sure many are still unaware that our population is growing so quickly 

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://globalnews.ca/news/10397176/trudeau-temporary-immigration-canada/
Seems like Trudeau actually is backtracking. There actually could be a scenario where this entire international surge was more incompetence rather than malice.

“To give an example, in 2017, two per cent of Canada’s population was made up of temporary immigrants. Now we’re at 7.5 per cent of our population comprised of temporary immigrants. That’s something we need to get back under control.”

I can't believe the federal government is that incompetent.
Maybe they listened to businesses having difficulties to find employees due to manpower shortage rather than problems associated with such an influx of people.

Companies need to foreign workers, as they cannot rely on the feckless boomers.

Companies survived somehow for decades before the massive expansion of the temporary foreign worker's program. Importing massive amounts of people to solve labour shortages doesn't really help because the extra demand for goods and services creates more labour shortages.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Premier Doug Ford says he wants only Ontario students at universities, colleges

First Trudeau flip-flops on temporary resident numbers, now this. Are Canadian politicians now just going to become serial flip-floppers because they just realized their immigration/international student policies are extremely unpopular?

[Upper Canada Tory]

Premier Doug Ford says he wants only Ontario students at universities, colleges

First Trudeau flip-flops on temporary resident numbers, now this. Are Canadian politicians now just going to become serial flip-floppers because they just realized their immigration/international student policies are extremely unpopular?

Why the hostility to other provinces, through?

I am not sure if he intended to exclude other provinces or if he is just trying to say he wants to stop being dependent on international students. I have no issue with students from other provinces studying in Ontario.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Premier Doug Ford says he wants only Ontario students at universities, colleges

First Trudeau flip-flops on temporary resident numbers, now this. Are Canadian politicians now just going to become serial flip-floppers because they just realized their immigration/international student policies are extremely unpopular?

You see flip-floppers, I see people admitting they were wrong, better late than never. Who cares if they're doing the right thing now for the wrong reason?

You may be right, but it really boils down to trust. Are the changes that Trudeau and Ford going to make going to be real and long-lasting, or are they just doing it for performative reasons, to improve their poll numbers and keep themselves in power? Given they've been untrustworthy on the immigration file up until now, it is a concern.

I will say though, Trudeau's and Ford's apparent U-turns on immigration suggests that Canadian democracy is still functioning properly, at least to some extent. It means that people are able to hold their government accountable with their concerns - the politicians know that if they don't change course they have zero chance of getting re-elected. Very few governments in the world are willing to backtrack on an issue like immigration, so maybe it is a good sign.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://globalnews.ca/news/10397176/trudeau-temporary-immigration-canada/
Seems like Trudeau actually is backtracking. There actually could be a scenario where this entire international surge was more incompetence rather than malice.

“To give an example, in 2017, two per cent of Canada’s population was made up of temporary immigrants. Now we’re at 7.5 per cent of our population comprised of temporary immigrants. That’s something we need to get back under control.”

I can't believe the federal government is that incompetent.
Maybe they listened to businesses having difficulties to find employees due to manpower shortage rather than problems associated with such an influx of people.

If Britain left the EU over Immigration I wonder if Quebec will leave Canada over it too.

Will the BQ use the issue ?

The BQ may use it but it's very difficult for a province to actually secede. The constitutional amendment formula for a province to leave is unanimous consent from 7 provincial legislatures with the majority of the country's population as well as the House and Senate. Support for Quebec separatism right now is in the 35% range inside Quebec, so I don't think they'd be able to get unanimous consent in their own province for Quebec independence, let alone other provinces.

https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/ccs-term/amending-formula/?print=print-search#:~:text=There%20must%20be%20at%20least,for%20the%20amendment%20to%20succeed.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Premier Doug Ford says he wants only Ontario students at universities, colleges

First Trudeau flip-flops on temporary resident numbers, now this. Are Canadian politicians now just going to become serial flip-floppers because they just realized their immigration/international student policies are extremely unpopular?

This is silly.

Yes, there is a problem with phony 'diploma mills' but it's also the case that genuine foreign students help keep tuitions lower for domestic students and Canada has some of the best recognized universities in the world that bring in enormous export dollars (a foreigner spending money in Canada is included in export dollars.)

If this is popular, it's another case of Canadians not understanding the consequences of their choices especially in terms of how this will impact tuitions for domestic students.

You are right and I don't support fully ending the international students program but it is just a demonstration of how willing Ford is to U-turn on an issue where he knows his stance is unpopular.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Here is a good video about Canada's productivity problem.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xrR7PQOSnzo

[Upper Canada Tory]

Why is there such a large discrepancy between government estimates of how many additional homes Canada needs to reach affordability by 2030? CMHC says we need 3.5 million homes on top of what is already being built, but the PBO says 1.3 million are needed. There is a 6 month difference between when the estimates were made so I'm not sure the supply picture has changed that much since then.

[Upper Canada Tory]

This is where I think the Liberal government went off track.

There are some people who think that governments are all politics all the time and are complete incompetents otherwise, there are those who think that governments are some kind of evil geniuses with complete control over 'everything' (oddly, many people seem to think both.)

My view is somewhere in the middle. Governments are mostly made up of decent but flawed humans who have imperfect information and an inability to understand the full consequences of their policies anyway, even at the macro level.

There are two types of thinking: the concrete 'micro' level practical thinking, and the abstract 'macro' level 'big picture' thinking.

Beyond this, there is the idea in social science of 'partial equilibrium' and 'general equilibrium.' Partial equilibrium is based on what social science refers to as 'first order effects.' That is, the immediate or 'concrete' consequences of, in this case, government policy. General equilibrium is based on 'second order effects', 'third order effects... Much more complex abstract thinking is required.

Most humans, are good at understanding 'first order' effects but get pretty hopeless taking it further. There is no reason to believe that politicians are any different.

Then, there is this silly notion that governments have perfect information. In reality, governments make 'macro level' decisions based on theories, whether they are from political science, economics, sociology...

When the Liberals were first elected in 2015, they argued, backed up by many economists, that government spending could boost 'supply side' productivity so would result in at least enough revenue to the government to finance the interest costs on this increased deficit.

That was essentially what they argued at that time.

At some point however, this government became enamored with this notion, just as at least some people on the right used to sincerely claim (like Jack Kemp) that 'tax cuts pay for themselves' that 'government spending pays for itself.' This is the argument that the Liberals made when it came to (supposedly) rolling out child care, for instance: the increase in the labor force participation rate would be so great with child care, that it will end up bringing in as much revenue as it costs.

I think you can see the big difference from claiming that increased government spending could boost productivity enough to pay for the interest on the increase in the deficit, to the increased government spending will pay for itself.

Anyway, very unfortunate when governments take their theories to an extreme level and believe it, but I think that's what happened here.

What's going on? Why am I agreeing with all of Benjamin Frank's takes all of a sudden??

In seriousness, I think there's a lot of merit to what you're suggesting. There's a lot of voodoo economics that passes for serious policy in this government.

I think it's naive to assume that governments primarily look at the evidence first and come to conclusions later, when in reality, I think more often than not it's the opposite. Hell, not just government, it goes for people too, we all do it to a certain extent. I think of it like how a lot of anti-vaccine people were (are) so eager to cite studies that support their views, implying that they made their decisions based on a thorough examination of the evidence, when in reality most made that decision for a variety of different reasons and offered post-hoc rationalization through cherrypicked studies that supported their choice. I'm sorry LPC, I know you guys hate anti-vaxxers, but over the past 9 years, you've been the economic antivaxxers. It really goes for so many of the major decisions they've made, especially on public finances. The budget was supposed to balance itself years ago, and maybe it would have, if not for factors outside of the government's control like Covid or Ukraine or whatever else. No, they're not at fault for those external factors, I'll give them that. But it's still your JOB. "Our policy will work if nothing goes wrong" is a hopelessly naive and stupid approach to governance, because guess what, things go wrong. All the time. You're making decisions on behalf of 40 million people, you don't get a pass for doing stupid things that would work in an ideal world that we don't live in.

It's also fundamentally unserious to cherry-pick the economic metrics that work in your favour and act like that's a reflection of economic health. If GDP growth were the only relevant metric, hey, they've done a pretty good job. Except it's not, GDP per capita is actually in a steady decline, and GDP per capita is a much more accurate reflection of how actual Canadians interact with the economy. If job growth were the only metric, then they've done a good job, as Canada has added millions of new jobs. But especially since 2020, those new jobs have been overwhelmingly in the public sector, while our private sector is one of the most unproductive in the developed world. "Job creation" is fundamentally different in the public vs private sector, because public sector job growth has zero to do with broader economic circumstances. Debt-to-GDP ratio seems like a reasonable metric of healthy control of public finances, until your debt skyrockets and GDP tanks due to a global pandemic and subsequent supply shortages, and suddenly that ratio is getting bigger and bigger. Bringing in more immigrants to fill labour shortages seems like a sensible policy, except those labour shortages are in very specific sectors that Canada's internal bureaucracies make prohibitively difficult for many immigrants to enter, so you end up with people competing for low-paying jobs that there's really not a shortage for. It just goes on and on and on. And now, with the Liberals desperately trying to hold onto power by announcing all sorts of programs, they're rationalizing it, in part, by saying that these things will actually have an economic windfall on the long term.

But then we come back to the self-rationalizing thing. I think the Liberals want to increase spending on social services on an ideological basis, just like Republicans with tax cuts. Except that's not a very compelling argument, especially not to their highly-educated base. So you throw around buzzwords like "evidence-based" and "research shows" and cite studies that align with what you wanted to do anyway.

I think this is spot on. However, I think what makes this government uniquely incompetent compared to previous Canadian governments is the current government's stubbornness in terms of looking at evidence. Trudeau's Liberals just put their fingers in their ears and ignore anything that economic evidence tells them.

Previous Canadian governments were at least pragmatic and recognized that in some circumstances, they needed to change course when the evidence told them they had to do so before it's too late, and they were willing to do so.

Just as an example, in 1993, Jean Chretien ran on a left-leaning platform of more government spending. However, in 1996, when it was clear Canada was on the verge of a debt crisis, Jean Chretien made the cuts necessary to return Canada to fiscal solvency. Partly as a result of that tough decision, Canada had two decades of economic prosperity compared to most of the rest of the developed world.

I can provide many other examples, but this is a stark contrast to Trudeau's ideological approach - in 2016 to 2019, during good economic times, Trudeau's preferred course of action was to spend, spend, spend. In 2020, during COVID, his solution was to spend, spend, spend ('interest rates are at record lows, Glen'). Of course, a lot of the COVID spending was justified, but a lot of it was also wasted (eg, ineligible people recieving CERB and ArriveCan app). Then post-COVID, when we had an inflation crisis, a cost of living crisis and stagnating growth, Trudeau's solution was - well, you know. 'You'll forgive me if I don't think about monetary policy.'

And now we have a housing crisis, terrible public services, extremely long wait times for healthcare, cost of living issues, people can't afford to make ends meet, and Trudeau's solution? You guessed it. Spend even more!

Not to mention, bureaucrats told him not to massively raise immigration when our economy and resources would not be able to handle it - and Trudeau, being the childish low-IQ ideologue he is, ignored them. He completely disregarded the evidence to try to implement his dumb utopian ideology!

Trudeau has completely destroyed the pragmatism of previous governments. Not to mention, lots of his government spending and expansion of the public sector has been extremely ineffective because of gatekeepers at various levels of government and the incompetent way in which some government departments are run, but rather than dealing with the core issues, he just threw money at the problem.

Anyway, I'm done ranting. Good night!

[Upper Canada Tory]

I’m sorry, but properly solving the housing crisis requires more than just deregulation. The way I see it, we need huge public investment too, which is an example of where “spend, spend, spend” is necessary. We ought to be spending on expanding training opportunities for skilled trades and construction jobs. We ought to be incentivizing larger, denser projects in cities (if I see another project of three-storey townhomes go up on major roads in Vancouver right next to SkyTrain stations, I’m going to lose it). We ought to be giving tax breaks on building supplies. We ought to be making it possible for every home that can have a laneway to build one.

Maybe it’s nuts, but solving this crisis should be a huge national project, and I still don’t see it. I know change can’t happen overnight, but tax the rich, spend, spend, spend… whatever it takes. This is a major crisis for every single young person who doesn’t want to live in Hicksville but doesn’t also have family wealth. There is zero optimism because we are working harder for so much less.

I believe the Conservatives will help supercharge the private sector in this direction—I do. But with Poillievre in charge, it’s the rich who are going to get richer and we’ll end up with more luxury condos than anything else.

Keep in mind there has already been a great degree of public investment in recent years that hasn't gone anywhere.

I partly agree with you about the first sentence that some degree of public investment is needed, but the kind of investment we need is very different from the investment the Liberals are proposing, which is an attempt to pick winners and losers on the market (the federal government has decided that prefabricated homes are the one-size-fits-all solution for everybody - based on what? Because it makes Trudeau feel good?). Not to mention the Liberals' fixation with giving out low-interest loans to build these things, which will either result in higher inflation and/or higher interest rates over time.

Generally, the market should decide the kind of housing we need, minus some specific categories of housing like social housing that are needed for disadvantaged groups -  those should be funded by the government. However, I agree with you that we should definitely use our tax dollars to create an incentive system to build housing, not one that favours one type of housing over another, but allows housing to be built in general (like waiving the GST on construction, which, to their credit, the Liberals have done). Other things you mentioned, such as building denser projects in cities, can largely be achieved by favourable zoning laws.

The problem with a national housing project with huge amounts of spending is, as laddicus finch said, we are not in a Great Depression where such a thing is warranted - at best, it would result in wasted resources that could have been used in other areas, or at worst, it would cause a giant debt crisis that would slow down the economy by forcing the central bank to raise interest rates.

The argument that 'conservative policies will benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else' doesn't really pan out based on the record of previous conservative governments - Canada's Gini coefficient remained stable and actually fell slightly during the Harper years. Of course, it can be argued Poilievre will govern differently from Harper and no one has tried to properly solve the housing crisis yet, so we don't yet know how the implementation of proposed solutions will affect economic inequality. But I think it is a slightly premature assumption to make.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110013401&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2006&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2015&referencePeriods=20060101%2C20150101

[Upper Canada Tory]

I’m sorry, but properly solving the housing crisis requires more than just deregulation. The way I see it, we need huge public investment too, which is an example of where “spend, spend, spend” is necessary. We ought to be spending on expanding training opportunities for skilled trades and construction jobs. We ought to be incentivizing larger, denser projects in cities (if I see another project of three-storey townhomes go up on major roads in Vancouver right next to SkyTrain stations, I’m going to lose it). We ought to be giving tax breaks on building supplies. We ought to be making it possible for every home that can have a laneway to build one.

Maybe it’s nuts, but solving this crisis should be a huge national project, and I still don’t see it. I know change can’t happen overnight, but tax the rich, spend, spend, spend… whatever it takes. This is a major crisis for every single young person who doesn’t want to live in Hicksville but doesn’t also have family wealth. There is zero optimism because we are working harder for so much less.

I believe the Conservatives will help supercharge the private sector in this direction—I do. But with Poillievre in charge, it’s the rich who are going to get richer and we’ll end up with more luxury condos than anything else.

Keep in mind there has already been a great degree of public investment in recent years that hasn't gone anywhere.

I partly agree with you about the first sentence that some degree of public investment is needed, but the kind of investment we need is very different from the investment the Liberals are proposing, which is an attempt to pick winners and losers on the market (the federal government has decided that prefabricated homes are the one-size-fits-all solution for everybody - based on what? Because it makes Trudeau feel good?). Not to mention the Liberals' fixation with giving out low-interest loans to build these things, which will either result in higher inflation and/or higher interest rates over time.

Generally, the market should decide the kind of housing we need, minus some specific categories of housing like social housing that are needed for disadvantaged groups -  those should be funded by the government. However, I agree with you that we should definitely use our tax dollars to create an incentive system to build housing, not one that favours one type of housing over another, but allows housing to be built in general (like waiving the GST on construction, which, to their credit, the Liberals have done). Other things you mentioned, such as building denser projects in cities, can largely be achieved by favourable zoning laws.

The problem with a national housing project with huge amounts of spending is, as laddicus finch said, we are not in a Great Depression where such a thing is warranted - at best, it would result in wasted resources that could have been used in other areas, or at worst, it would cause a giant debt crisis that would slow down the economy by forcing the central bank to raise interest rates.

The argument that 'conservative policies will benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else' doesn't really pan out based on the record of previous conservative governments - Canada's Gini coefficient remained stable and actually fell slightly during the Harper years. Of course, it can be argued Poilievre will govern differently from Harper and no one has tried to properly solve the housing crisis yet, so we don't yet know how the implementation of proposed solutions will affect economic inequality. But I think it is a slightly premature assumption to make.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110013401&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2006&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2015&referencePeriods=20060101%2C20150101

The market should decide the kind of housing we need? No way—you lost me. The invisible hand has been at work for the last 15 years and it’s what has turned housing into an investment rather than a basic human need. “The market” is perfectly happy with squeezing as much rent out of people as it can so one class stays down and the other buys more houses to rent out and strengthen the squeeze even more. You talk about “specific disadvantaged groups,” but at this rate we’ve got almost an entire generation that is a specific disadvantaged group. You can make $100,000 a year and still never be able to afford a home! I know there are people who are much worse off, but any notion of the Canadian dream is dead. That’s what the “market” has done, and surely you aren’t going to argue that that’s a good thing for our country. We must restore that dream.

What we have now is capitalists weaponizing pain. It appears like people in the market are expressing preferences by “choosing” one type of housing over another, but that’s not what’s happening. People are stuck between a rock and a hard place flocking only to whatever is cheap. It’s a race to the bottom because everything is so expensive. We don’t need tax breaks going to people upgrading their mansions or building $2-million condo units. I want my government targeting what’s best for young people and young families, because right now their power in the market is not strong enough to shift much of anything. By all means, let’s have the government pick the winners and losers if it means we start to make a dent in the problems we’re facing.

You say we are not in a depression so such a massive project is not warranted. What we are in is a silent depression where the up-and-coming generation barely has any wealth. We are witnessing a slow-motion transition back to serfdom here where people can have a job and survive but never get ahead. They work to serve only the expansion of their corporate owners and landlords. Of course that won’t register as a depression, but it’s still not good. Fighting this development by giving people better places to live is not an example of resources wasted; it’s a socialist program that would lift people up. You scare-monger about a debt crisis, but there is most definitely enough wealth in this nation to re-level the playing field. You talk as if government spending is always going to lead to higher inflation, but let’s be clear that it can also raise productivity and increase supply depending on how that spending is targeted. So again, I’m really not on board with a lot of what you’re saying.

The bottom line is this: More and more Canadians are feeling like the tilted playing field in housing is actually an intended feature of the system, not a bug. Because we’ve lived under Trudeau’s government for so long now, people blame him for this system and turn naturally to the Conservatives for answers. That’s fair, of course, but I think it’s quite clear that capitalism-run-amok is mostly to blame here. More of that is not what’s going to help.

The public investment you are referring to is already happening - federal investment in housing has skyrocketed from $2 billion in 2015 to $11 billion in 2023. Housing starts in that time went from 195K to 240K annually. So we are paying 5 times more, for a negligible increase in housing annually, which makes no difference given our population growth now is significantly higher than 8 years ago, and we need to increase it even more? For what?

Part of the issue is that government spending has a delayed effect, since housing that was invested in last year has not necessarily been built yet, but this has been a gradual increase over many years and demand is still expected to outpace supply in the near future, despite the $10+billion spent in recent years.

How is the current situation the fault of the market if we have exponentially increased public investment in housing? The reality is that if you put more money into the economy, but don't allow things to be built due to restrictive regulation, plus increase demand with high levels of immigration, things don't become affordable.

I'm not even against some degree of government spending in housing, like I said, but the spending has to have a purpose. The current massive increase in spending and low-interest loans do not have a purpose - they have not significantly increased the housing supply, they have not raised productivity even in the housing/construction sectors, they have not even helped deal with homelessness, which has increased in recent years. The current levels of spending are just so that Justin Trudeau can pat himself on the back and feel good. In fact, arguably, the situation was better when we were spending only $2 billion a year on housing - housing back then was far more affordable than now!

Now, if we did allow consumers decide through the market which kind of housing they want, changed our zoning regulation to be more favourable for things other than detached single family homes, and used government spending for targeted things like incentives for housing construction and social housing for those who need it, we would be getting a lot more output for a much lower cost.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://twitter.com/theJagmeetSingh/status/1780329390666055745
Lol. Lmao, even.

How likely is it that Jagmeet breaks the confidence and supply agreement and an election is triggered?

Many of us have been hoping for this for a while now, but given that Trudeau is more than halfway through his four-year term and broke the pharmacare part of the C&S deal (which the NDP claims is important to them), I'd say Jagmeet Singh withdrawing support is extremely unlikely. He's in it until October 2025, regardless of what happens.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Another example of a provincial government in Canada backtracking on a policy they previously defended religiously.

B.C. Premier says changes could come to decriminalization project amid backlash

How badly do you have to screw up a country to then backtrack massively on literally all your policies just to stay in power?

[Upper Canada Tory]

Another example of a provincial government in Canada backtracking on a policy they previously defended religiously.

B.C. Premier says changes could come to decriminalization project amid backlash

How badly do you have to screw up a country to then backtrack massively on literally all your policies just to stay in power?

BREAKING: Policy that sounds ridiculous turns out to be ridiculous. More news at 6.

Btw, "decriminalization" is such a weird thing to focus on. Here in Ontario, you tell me simple possession is still a criminal act. I'm not talking about the Criminal Code of Canada, I'm talking about whether that so-called crime actually gets enforced. All of the harm reduction policies that BC has been pursuing has been tried in virtually every major city in Canada, and I'm tired of people telling me that decriminalization is a thing we NEED to do in drug policy when in actuality, the government already massively subsidizes the use of hard drugs, which they don't do for ACTUAL crimes. I'm not saying we need to start locking up homeless addicts, that's not the right approach either, so I guess in principle I have no problem with decriminalization. I actually think some of the harm reduction policies are good, like providing clean needles so we don't have to deal with an AIDS epidemic on top of an opioid epidemic. But presenting "decriminalization" to the people and actually implementing policies that result in people being allowed to shoot up in children's playgrounds is a genuinely evil approach to drug use that is fundamentally dishonest to the people of Canada. Yes, I know that particular case was a decision of the almighty courts and not Eby or Trudeau, but they certainly opened the door to the courts even considering drug use in children's playgrounds as a genuine Charter rights issue by trying to destigmatize something that clearly should be stigmatized. Not to mention the other things that have happened, like flooding the streets with even MORE opioids (but you know, the "safe" stuff), which has made its way into the black market and will inevitably create MORE addicts, not less. And here again, Trudeau has given up the Liberal Party's traditional commitment to pragmatism and dove head-first into whatever nonsense the activist class is jerking themselves off over. Eby has allowed his province to become a human experiment in this nonsense, and ordinary people suffer as a result.

It's insane how the definition of 'decriminalization' went from simply not arresting people for simple possession to the government handing out free drugs within a couple of years.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Another example of a provincial government in Canada backtracking on a policy they previously defended religiously.

B.C. Premier says changes could come to decriminalization project amid backlash

How badly do you have to screw up a country to then backtrack massively on literally all your policies just to stay in power?

BREAKING: Policy that sounds ridiculous turns out to be ridiculous. More news at 6.

Btw, "decriminalization" is such a weird thing to focus on. Here in Ontario, you tell me simple possession is still a criminal act. I'm not talking about the Criminal Code of Canada, I'm talking about whether that so-called crime actually gets enforced. All of the harm reduction policies that BC has been pursuing has been tried in virtually every major city in Canada, and I'm tired of people telling me that decriminalization is a thing we NEED to do in drug policy when in actuality, the government already massively subsidizes the use of hard drugs, which they don't do for ACTUAL crimes. I'm not saying we need to start locking up homeless addicts, that's not the right approach either, so I guess in principle I have no problem with decriminalization. I actually think some of the harm reduction policies are good, like providing clean needles so we don't have to deal with an AIDS epidemic on top of an opioid epidemic. But presenting "decriminalization" to the people and actually implementing policies that result in people being allowed to shoot up in children's playgrounds is a genuinely evil approach to drug use that is fundamentally dishonest to the people of Canada. Yes, I know that particular case was a decision of the almighty courts and not Eby or Trudeau, but they certainly opened the door to the courts even considering drug use in children's playgrounds as a genuine Charter rights issue by trying to destigmatize something that clearly should be stigmatized. Not to mention the other things that have happened, like flooding the streets with even MORE opioids (but you know, the "safe" stuff), which has made its way into the black market and will inevitably create MORE addicts, not less. And here again, Trudeau has given up the Liberal Party's traditional commitment to pragmatism and dove head-first into whatever nonsense the activist class is jerking themselves off over. Eby has allowed his province to become a human experiment in this nonsense, and ordinary people suffer as a result.

It's insane how the definition of 'decriminalization' went from simply not arresting people for simple possession to the government handing out free drugs within a couple of years.

The left in 2014: "Come on, it's not like we're gonna start handing out opioids or something crazy like that!"

The left in 2024: *hands out opioids*

Universal health care? More like universal opioids!

[Upper Canada Tory]

Another example of a provincial government in Canada backtracking on a policy they previously defended religiously.

B.C. Premier says changes could come to decriminalization project amid backlash

How badly do you have to screw up a country to then backtrack massively on literally all your policies just to stay in power?

BREAKING: Policy that sounds ridiculous turns out to be ridiculous. More news at 6.

Btw, "decriminalization" is such a weird thing to focus on. Here in Ontario, you tell me simple possession is still a criminal act. I'm not talking about the Criminal Code of Canada, I'm talking about whether that so-called crime actually gets enforced. All of the harm reduction policies that BC has been pursuing has been tried in virtually every major city in Canada, and I'm tired of people telling me that decriminalization is a thing we NEED to do in drug policy when in actuality, the government already massively subsidizes the use of hard drugs, which they don't do for ACTUAL crimes. I'm not saying we need to start locking up homeless addicts, that's not the right approach either, so I guess in principle I have no problem with decriminalization. I actually think some of the harm reduction policies are good, like providing clean needles so we don't have to deal with an AIDS epidemic on top of an opioid epidemic. But presenting "decriminalization" to the people and actually implementing policies that result in people being allowed to shoot up in children's playgrounds is a genuinely evil approach to drug use that is fundamentally dishonest to the people of Canada. Yes, I know that particular case was a decision of the almighty courts and not Eby or Trudeau, but they certainly opened the door to the courts even considering drug use in children's playgrounds as a genuine Charter rights issue by trying to destigmatize something that clearly should be stigmatized. Not to mention the other things that have happened, like flooding the streets with even MORE opioids (but you know, the "safe" stuff), which has made its way into the black market and will inevitably create MORE addicts, not less. And here again, Trudeau has given up the Liberal Party's traditional commitment to pragmatism and dove head-first into whatever nonsense the activist class is jerking themselves off over. Eby has allowed his province to become a human experiment in this nonsense, and ordinary people suffer as a result.

It's insane how the definition of 'decriminalization' went from simply not arresting people for simple possession to the government handing out free drugs within a couple of years.

Though in actual facts neither of those things is *actually* decriminalisation.

The first is merely more relaxed illegality, the second legalisation (and maybe then some)

How do you define decriminalization? In North America it has basically been sold as relaxed illegality - you can get a citation and fine for it as a civil offence but not a criminal one. (The reality is somewhat different, however)

[Upper Canada Tory]

Another example of a provincial government in Canada backtracking on a policy they previously defended religiously.

B.C. Premier says changes could come to decriminalization project amid backlash

How badly do you have to screw up a country to then backtrack massively on literally all your policies just to stay in power?

BREAKING: Policy that sounds ridiculous turns out to be ridiculous. More news at 6.

Btw, "decriminalization" is such a weird thing to focus on. Here in Ontario, you tell me simple possession is still a criminal act. I'm not talking about the Criminal Code of Canada, I'm talking about whether that so-called crime actually gets enforced. All of the harm reduction policies that BC has been pursuing has been tried in virtually every major city in Canada, and I'm tired of people telling me that decriminalization is a thing we NEED to do in drug policy when in actuality, the government already massively subsidizes the use of hard drugs, which they don't do for ACTUAL crimes. I'm not saying we need to start locking up homeless addicts, that's not the right approach either, so I guess in principle I have no problem with decriminalization. I actually think some of the harm reduction policies are good, like providing clean needles so we don't have to deal with an AIDS epidemic on top of an opioid epidemic. But presenting "decriminalization" to the people and actually implementing policies that result in people being allowed to shoot up in children's playgrounds is a genuinely evil approach to drug use that is fundamentally dishonest to the people of Canada. Yes, I know that particular case was a decision of the almighty courts and not Eby or Trudeau, but they certainly opened the door to the courts even considering drug use in children's playgrounds as a genuine Charter rights issue by trying to destigmatize something that clearly should be stigmatized. Not to mention the other things that have happened, like flooding the streets with even MORE opioids (but you know, the "safe" stuff), which has made its way into the black market and will inevitably create MORE addicts, not less. And here again, Trudeau has given up the Liberal Party's traditional commitment to pragmatism and dove head-first into whatever nonsense the activist class is jerking themselves off over. Eby has allowed his province to become a human experiment in this nonsense, and ordinary people suffer as a result.

It's insane how the definition of 'decriminalization' went from simply not arresting people for simple possession to the government handing out free drugs within a couple of years.

Though in actual facts neither of those things is *actually* decriminalisation.

The first is merely more relaxed illegality, the second legalisation (and maybe then some)

Yeah, that's exactly the point. "Decriminalization" is a very small and honestly trivial part of what's happening with drug policy in Canada. That's what Eby and Trudeau have put on the shop window, but most of the problems people have with modern drug policy isn't with decriminalization, it's destigmatization and so-called harm reduction

And prohibition has been a success for the last previous 90 or so years? Prohibition was, is and always will be a failure. There is no magical solution but the best policy by far that doesn't corrode society or lead to the deaths of thousands of people a year and that is consistent with freedom is to legalize and regulate illicit drugs.

The 'war on drugs' is authoritarian and murderous.

Yes, you're right, there are only two conceivable approaches to dealing with drug use. Either you're going full-on Reagan-era DEA and busting down crackhouses, or you have an unchecked proliferation of legal drug use beyond what even the likes of Portugal and Netherlands have allowed. There couldn't possibly be anything in between.

All of the problems people associate with illicit drugs, correctly or not, exist where drugs haven't been decriminalized: homeless camps, street crime, rising deaths from unsafe drugs, it's just that the media doesn't report on it anywhere near as much. In Canada, this 'decriminalization leads to these harms in Vancouver/British Columbia' is one of the worst cases of media pushing a (false) narrative that I've seen in a long time.

I don't know what you mean by 'unchecked proliferation,' if you think that there will be a large increase in the use of heroin or cocaine if it's legalized and regulated, you're a fearmonger afraid of your fellow citizens.

But, if you have something that might actually work and not some pie in the sky nonsense in between drugs being illegal and drugs being legal (and I never just said 'legal' I said 'legal and regulated.') I'd love to hear the plan. That's kind of what decriminalization is supposed to be.

Certainly this notion of mandatory forced treatment but not jail for drug addicts is pie in the sky nonsense. In addition to it being a massive new very expensive social program (or large increase) there are neither the qualified workers available nor the facilities. Beyond that, involuntary treatment of drug addicts has been demonstrated to mostly not work.

I certainly see a lot of evidence though that the owners of existing drug treatment centers are a major player behind this false narrative of the supposed harms caused by decriminalization (as opposed to the reality that the harms are mostly caused by drugs being illegal.)

Why is there no money for treatment but plenty of money for handing out so-called 'safe supply'?

I think you're right that involuntary treatment is ill-advised and a violation of civil liberties, but the money being used on so-called safe injection sites could instead be used funding treatment for those who seek it voluntarily. Sure, not every addict will seek treatment or is ready for it, which is fine, but why does the government need to hand out drugs to people? The stated purpose of the supervised injection sites was to reduce overdoses - 'decriminalization' has been in place for a year and that hasn't happened. Overdoses have increased.

One other important point - while treatment is costly, so is substance abuse. It costs the taxpayer $46 billion annually in terms of things like healthcare costs and lost productivity. A part or this cost includes abuse of alcohol and tobacco, but even if you exclude those I imagine that a large part of that cost would be illicit drugs. Yes funding treatment for people would cost money but it would save money in other ways.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Ontario to ban use of cellphones in school classrooms starting in September

The Ontario government does something good? I didn't think it was possible.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Regarding immigration, I'm having doubts the extent to which the Trudeau government is actually trying to reduce immigration numbers, as they have claimed.

According to the federal government, student visas for this year have been capped to 350,000 and they want to reduce the temporary resident population from 6.2% to 5% - the temporary resident population is expected to fall by 600,000 by 2027.

Some of these measures are already in effect - student visas for this year are capped, and starting May 1st, the percentage of temporary foreign workers in several industries is expected to fall. However, if you look at Canada's population clock, Canada's current population (as of May 6, 2024) is 41,159,406. According to StatsCan, our population on January 1, 2024 was 40,769,890. If you subtract the January 1st figure from the May 6th figure, you get 389,516. If you subtract natural population growth, which is about 2% of our growth, you get a population increase of about 380,000 during the last 4 months. This means that our population growth for this year, with only the current measures in place should be about 1,140,000.

1.1 million people? With some restrictions on student visas and TFWs already in effect? That was the same the population growth in 2022 and 2023 without any restrictions! I know these are not all the measures and more will be coming up in the fall, but do the current restrictions have no effect at all? With that level of population growth, how is the federal government expecting to bring it down to 5 percent of the total population in 3 years? Moreover, if you look at how our daily population growth since midnight (so in the last nearly 24 hours, as I'm posting this at 11 PM), we have had a population increase of 3,776. 3,776 people in one day? At that rate the total population growth for this year will be over 1.3 million people! Obviously, one day could be an outlier, so I'll take it with a grain of salt...but still, that's not a good sign!

The targets for temporary resident reduction is expected to be finalized by the feds and the provinces in the fall, but until then, our population will seem to continue growing at this rate, so how will the government reduce it to 5% of the population by 2027 when they will have added close to another million people by the end of the year? Will all these people lose their temporary resident status and be deported, or gain permanent residency? (If all these people end up getting PR that would be beyond absurd)

I'm really dumbfounded at what the government is trying to do. The current restrictions don't seem to have reduced population growth to any significant degree so far. I've seen various sources claim that population growth is expected to fall to below 1% in the coming years, but how is this going to happen if the current government is still adding people at record numbers? What will they do with all these 3+million temporary residents? Why isn't population growth falling if they expect to reduce the number of temporary residents in such a short time frame?

Something is very fishy here. Either the Liberals lied about their targets, planned them poorly and incompetently, are planning to give them PR when no one notices, or are planning a mass deportation of at least one million people once the provincial targets are finalized in the fall. But we need more information.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Regarding immigration, I'm having doubts the extent to which the Trudeau government is actually trying to reduce immigration numbers, as they have claimed.

According to the federal government, student visas for this year have been capped to 350,000 and they want to reduce the temporary resident population from 6.2% to 5% - the temporary resident population is expected to fall by 600,000 by 2027.

Some of these measures are already in effect - student visas for this year are capped, and starting May 1st, the percentage of temporary foreign workers in several industries is expected to fall. However, if you look at Canada's population clock, Canada's current population (as of May 6, 2024) is 41,159,406. According to StatsCan, our population on January 1, 2024 was 40,769,890. If you subtract the January 1st figure from the May 6th figure, you get 389,516. If you subtract natural population growth, which is about 2% of our growth, you get a population increase of about 380,000 during the last 4 months. This means that our population growth for this year, with only the current measures in place should be about 1,140,000.

1.1 million people? With some restrictions on student visas and TFWs already in effect? That was the same the population growth in 2022 and 2023 without any restrictions! I know these are not all the measures and more will be coming up in the fall, but do the current restrictions have no effect at all? With that level of population growth, how is the federal government expecting to bring it down to 5 percent of the total population in 3 years? Moreover, if you look at how our daily population growth since midnight (so in the last nearly 24 hours, as I'm posting this at 11 PM), we have had a population increase of 3,776. 3,776 people in one day? At that rate the total population growth for this year will be over 1.3 million people! Obviously, one day could be an outlier, so I'll take it with a grain of salt...but still, that's not a good sign!

The targets for temporary resident reduction is expected to be finalized by the feds and the provinces in the fall, but until then, our population will seem to continue growing at this rate, so how will the government reduce it to 5% of the population by 2027 when they will have added close to another million people by the end of the year? Will all these people lose their temporary resident status and be deported, or gain permanent residency? (If all these people end up getting PR that would be beyond absurd)

I'm really dumbfounded at what the government is trying to do. The current restrictions don't seem to have reduced population growth to any significant degree so far. I've seen various sources claim that population growth is expected to fall to below 1% in the coming years, but how is this going to happen if the current government is still adding people at record numbers? What will they do with all these 3+million temporary residents? Why isn't population growth falling if they expect to reduce the number of temporary residents in such a short time frame?

Something is very fishy here. Either the Liberals lied about their targets, planned them poorly and incompetently, are planning to give them PR when no one notices, or are planning a mass deportation of at least one million people once the provincial targets are finalized in the fall. But we need more information.

The easiest way for temporary population to be reduced relative to permanent population, is to increase the permanent population. I do not foresee a decrease in overall immigration, and just as you said, a chunk of that temporary population is likely to be fast-tracked to permanent residency too as a way to make the numbers look better.

Keep an eye out for a press release from IRCC on Friday. Marc Miller is meeting with all provincial immigration ministers to hash out a plan about immigration levels relative to labour market demand. It'll be curious to see what direction things go, or if the talks bear any fruit at all. Incidentally, Miller has also been called to testify before the HoC committee on immigration regarding LMIA fraud.

What percentage of them will be given permanent residency though?

If you look at past data, historically on 30 to 35 percent of temporary residents qualify for PR (it is a points system for PR so you do need some skills/qualifications and language ability, it's not just a free-for-all). We only have 500,000 spots for permanent residency per year, and not all of these are for people with temporary visas, so how are we going to give all these people PR? We have 2.7 million temporary residents, will the government just keep renewing their visas until they all qualify for PR? That would be insane and unfeasible.

[Upper Canada Tory]

The current immigration situation is very quickly turning into an emergency. Trudeau and his enablers the NDP think they can let in as many people as possible when no one's looking while trying to delay the reduction for as long as they can (which is why he is stalling until the fall to agree to the targets for the provinces).

Regardless of whether you are on the left or the right you should be concerned about this. With their immigration policy, the Liberals and the NDP are very quickly sowing the seeds in Canada for a permanent decline in living standards and long-term social tension and conflict. If they want to prevent this from happening, and boost their support in the polls at least to the extent that they still can, they have to reverse their immigration policy immediately. Not in a few months when they 'finalize the targets with the provinces' or whatever, but immediately. And when I say reverse immigration policy, I mean reduce both permanent and temporary residents to sustainable levels.

If the immigration situation isn't solved like, now, Canada will quickly develop a reactionary, far-right anti-immigration movement that may dominate the country over time, and at some point it will be impossible to reverse that trend. I don't think anyone wants that, because for the most part there has been a consensus that immigration has been a net positive for the country (and it's true, it has), but by completely ruining Canada's immigration system within a short period of time, the Liberals and the NDP are basically handing over the narrative to the hardline anti-immigration crowd.

What's shocking to me is that lefties in Canada don't even seem to care that much what's happening with immigration. Instead they seem to spend all their time dunking on Poilievre while ignoring the reasons why the Liberals and NDP might have such low support in the first place (and are seriously damaging the country).

Canada used to do immigration mostly right until 3 to 5 years ago. Why can't we go back to the old-school points-based system immigration? Does no one on the left notice the difference between how immigration is impacting life in Canada and attitudes toward it compared to how it was 5, 10, 15 or 20 years ago?

I'll be honest, I also have to hold Poilievre accountable here. As others like laddicus finch have mentioned, he does not do a good enough job holding the government to account for the immigration crisis. We're also supposed to take his word for it that 18 months from now when he takes office he will fix the immigration issue?