Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[CascadianIndy]

For what it's worth, here's where I think the state of the race is right now: https://twitter.com/Cadeyrnn/status/1770856146443583745?t=6xsnPySW7NXbxu_McbRK7A...

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Ridings/MLAs I can see B.C United holding (not taking the new maps into account):
1.Shirley Bond
2.Maybe Prince George-MacKenzie in a three way race
3.Todd Stone
4.Maybe Renee Merrifield in Kelowna but she's not as well known as Bond or Stone and Kelowna is more conservative than Kamloops or Prince George.
5.Elenore Sturko
6.Maybe Trevor Halford
7.Ian Paton in Delta South in a three way race, hard to see the NDP winning in Delta South.
8.Teresa Wat
9.Maybe Michael Lee
10.Kevin Falcon
11.West Vancouver-Capilano

So, up to 9 of the 16 incumbents running again.  I still end up with a minimum of 6 MLAs reelected and B.C United holding West Vancouver-Capilano as well.

[Hatman 🍁]

For what it's worth, here's where I think the state of the race is right now: https://twitter.com/Cadeyrnn/status/1770856146443583745?t=6xsnPySW7NXbxu_McbRK7A...

The first map 'feels' right to me, though the NDP winning Langara doesn't (but, I get it- vote splits).

I just hope my nemesis, the Conservative candidate in that riding, doesn't win.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

For what it's worth, here's where I think the state of the race is right now: https://twitter.com/Cadeyrnn/status/1770856146443583745?t=6xsnPySW7NXbxu_McbRK7A...

The first map 'feels' right to me, though the NDP winning Langara doesn't (but, I get it- vote splits).

I just hope my nemesis, the Conservative candidate in that riding, doesn't win.

A person I knew in middle and high school, Arzeena Hamir, is running for the Green Party in Courtenay-Comox. Arzeena is actually relatively well known throughout British Columbia as an organic farmer. She was also a two term regional district director.

[Upper Canada Tory]

For what it's worth, here's where I think the state of the race is right now: https://twitter.com/Cadeyrnn/status/1770856146443583745?t=6xsnPySW7NXbxu_McbRK7A...

The first map 'feels' right to me, though the NDP winning Langara doesn't (but, I get it- vote splits).

I just hope my nemesis, the Conservative candidate in that riding, doesn't win.

I can't believe someone as nice as you are has a nemesis 

[Hatman 🍁]

My 'nemesis' in question is not someone I know personally, but someone well known in the polling community, Bryan Berguet. You may know him as the guy who runs tooclosetocall. He has a vendetta against EKOS and I've sparred with him a few times online, but have mostly ignored him in recent years.

He also has some pretty toxic beliefs, so he'll fit in well with the BC Conservatives.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Finally the federal government has announced some measures to curb the growth in temporary residents, like the international students cap and the 20% reduction in overall temporary residents.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-targets-decrease-temporary-residents-population-1.7151107

But it's not close to enough. We need to go back to the Chretien-Martin-Harper immigration policy of 250K mostly high skilled workers annually via the points system.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The other issue that needs to be addressed is single-family zoning. 70% of land in Ontario that is zoned for housing is reserved for detached single-family homes - townhouses, condos, etc are not allowed.

Not allowing condos is probably a good thing. As they age, they are a ticking time bomb.

I would jokingly say 'spoken like a true NIMBY' here, but that would be mean.  

In all seriousness, it's not such a great thing when all non single family housing is cramped in small pieces of land. At least allow other types of housing to be built.

One of the problems with Canada's overreliance on condos is that it caters to a very specific kind of resident. When I say condo, I'm using it the way apparently every Ontarian over the age of 40 uses it, basically defined as "shiny tall residential tower". I know, rentals are by definition not condominiums, but a lot of rental apartment development in Canada's big cities have just been condo-style towers with similar demographics and price points.

So forget condos, let's look at the apartment buildings that many people erroneously call condos. In Toronto, you can take a look at basically every apartment tower south of the CN rail line and between Dufferin and the DVP. They're designed around lifestyle, not functionality. Pool? Check. Sauna? Check. Party room? Check. Screening room? Check. Gym? Check. Golf simulator? Check. But then you check out the units, and you see how impractical they are. You'll have 1-bed apartments under 500sqft well into the 2000's in rent. Very few units with more than 2 bedrooms, which ideally you would want for a replacement-rate family. At best you'll get a "den" which at this point is basically understood to be an additional bedroom, only without windows, closets, and a sliding glass door at best. Even the actual bedrooms are often so small that a queen bed will leave you with barely enough space for a nightstand and a sock drawer. They don't really function as housing for the average middle-class Canadian renter. And yet, demand never seems to go down.

The demographic for these kinds of buildings skew very wealthy, and there's no shortage of that in an international hub like Toronto. For one, you have upwardly mobile yuppies from all across the country, making 6 figure salaries and wanting to live it up. Then you remember what Trudeau said about Canada being a "post national state", and realize that he was actually right insofar as Toronto, Vancouver and to a lesser extent Montreal are concerned - you know, the three cities that make up the bulk of his base. These cities are increasingly more connected to other international hubs than they are to the rest of Canada, particularly in terms of where the cashflow is coming from. Don't get me wrong, the fact that we now have cities that attract capital from the whole world over, and people who are very good at maximizing the value of that capital, has been a very good thing for our economy, but all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. That reaction has been a country whose own citizens are increasingly second-class consumers in a globalized market. If you're a middle-class young Canadian who feels left out of the housing market, it's not just because of boomers who are attached to their single-family neighbourhoods, it's also because capital has been flowing very heavily to the kind of development that quite literally isn't for you.

I've been thinking about the ramifications of this a lot lately. Because it's not like this is only happening in the Toronto lakeshore, although that's in many ways ground zero. It seems like every new tower coming up in Toronto, including in places that used to be, and increasingly places that still are, suburbs. These luxury-type residential developments are the norm now, and they're marked up by all manners of bells and whistles, but their functionality as a place where you can actually raise a family is getting worse and worse. But this kind of housing is increasingly the equivalent to the suburban bungalows that we grew up in. As a result, young Canadians don't start families, and with a diminishing labour force we rely more and more on foreign labour and capital. A top-down infusion of capital from the wealthy global elites who understandably see Canada as a good place to live, and especially to invest in real estate, and a bottom-up infusion of unskilled labour to provide the service economy required to attract international capital. Notice how middle-class Canadians are completely missed in this equation.

[Upper Canada Tory]

The other issue that needs to be addressed is single-family zoning. 70% of land in Ontario that is zoned for housing is reserved for detached single-family homes - townhouses, condos, etc are not allowed.

Not allowing condos is probably a good thing. As they age, they are a ticking time bomb.

I would jokingly say 'spoken like a true NIMBY' here, but that would be mean.  

In all seriousness, it's not such a great thing when all non single family housing is cramped in small pieces of land. At least allow other types of housing to be built.

 One of the problems with Canada's overreliance on condos is that it caters to a very specific kind of resident. When I say condo, I'm using it the way apparently every Ontarian over the age of 40 uses it, basically defined as "shiny tall residential tower". I know, rentals are by definition not condominiums, but a lot of rental apartment development in Canada's big cities have just been condo-style towers with similar demographics and price points.

So forget condos, let's look at the apartment buildings that many people erroneously call condos. In Toronto, you can take a look at basically every apartment tower south of the CN rail line and between Dufferin and the DVP. They're designed around lifestyle, not functionality. Pool? Check. Sauna? Check. Party room? Check. Screening room? Check. Gym? Check. Golf simulator? Check. But then you check out the units, and you see how impractical they are. You'll have 1-bed apartments under 500sqft well into the 2000's in rent. Very few units with more than 2 bedrooms, which ideally you would want for a replacement-rate family. At best you'll get a "den" which at this point is basically understood to be an additional bedroom, only without windows, closets, and a sliding glass door at best. Even the actual bedrooms are often so small that a queen bed will leave you with barely enough space for a nightstand and a sock drawer. They don't really function as housing for the average middle-class Canadian renter. And yet, demand never seems to go down.

The demographic for these kinds of buildings skew very wealthy, and there's no shortage of that in an international hub like Toronto. For one, you have upwardly mobile yuppies from all across the country, making 6 figure salaries and wanting to live it up. Then you remember what Trudeau said about Canada being a "post national state", and realize that he was actually right insofar as Toronto, Vancouver and to a lesser extent Montreal are concerned - you know, the three cities that make up the bulk of his base. These cities are increasingly more connected to other international hubs than they are to the rest of Canada, particularly in terms of where the cashflow is coming from. Don't get me wrong, the fact that we now have cities that attract capital from the whole world over, and people who are very good at maximizing the value of that capital, has been a very good thing for our economy, but all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. That reaction has been a country whose own citizens are increasingly second-class consumers in a globalized market. If you're a middle-class young Canadian who feels left out of the housing market, it's not just because of boomers who are attached to their single-family neighbourhoods, it's also because capital has been flowing very heavily to the kind of development that quite literally isn't for you.

I've been thinking about the ramifications of this a lot lately. Because it's not like this is only happening in the Toronto lakeshore, although that's in many ways ground zero. It seems like every new tower coming up in Toronto, including in places that used to be, and increasingly places that still are, suburbs. These luxury-type residential developments are the norm now, and they're marked up by all manners of bells and whistles, but their functionality as a place where you can actually raise a family is getting worse and worse. But this kind of housing is increasingly the equivalent to the suburban bungalows that we grew up in. As a result, young Canadians don't start families, and with a diminishing labour force we rely more and more on foreign labour and capital. A top-down infusion of capital from the wealthy global elites who understandably see Canada as a good place to live, and especially to invest in real estate, and a bottom-up infusion of unskilled labour to provide the service economy required to attract international capital. Notice how middle-class Canadians are completely missed in this equation.

This, and I think this is largely a product of the policies of the last decade. Trudeau (not only Trudeau, but various levels of government) have turned Canada's largest cities into 'international cities' in a way that they weren't before, and not in a good way. The problems you are describing here used to be associated with New York City, several cities in California, and places like London, UK, but not really Toronto, Montreal, and Vancover. A decade later, before Canadians can even blink and look around, we have those problems almost as much as real 'international cities' do.

Stephen Harper made a good monologue about this 5 or 6 years ago. He talked about 'somewheres' (people who are tied to a single place because of their job, circumstances or loyalties) and 'anywheres' (educated, elite cosmopolitans who earn a high income and can work from or travel to anywhere in the world) and how that is causing a divide internationally.

As recently as 10 years ago, Canadian cities used to feel very much like a place for 'somewheres', a place people are permanently tied to. Canada's society and economy felt like it was built primarily for its middle-class population. Not anymore. Trudeau has largely us turned into a place for 'anywheres'. Canadian cities no longer feel like 'our cozy home' anymore, they feel like a hub for international capital, which isn't necessarily bad, but it means the locals have to survive and adjust to the new economic circumstances.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The other issue that needs to be addressed is single-family zoning. 70% of land in Ontario that is zoned for housing is reserved for detached single-family homes - townhouses, condos, etc are not allowed.

Not allowing condos is probably a good thing. As they age, they are a ticking time bomb.

I would jokingly say 'spoken like a true NIMBY' here, but that would be mean.  

In all seriousness, it's not such a great thing when all non single family housing is cramped in small pieces of land. At least allow other types of housing to be built.

 One of the problems with Canada's overreliance on condos is that it caters to a very specific kind of resident. When I say condo, I'm using it the way apparently every Ontarian over the age of 40 uses it, basically defined as "shiny tall residential tower". I know, rentals are by definition not condominiums, but a lot of rental apartment development in Canada's big cities have just been condo-style towers with similar demographics and price points.

So forget condos, let's look at the apartment buildings that many people erroneously call condos. In Toronto, you can take a look at basically every apartment tower south of the CN rail line and between Dufferin and the DVP. They're designed around lifestyle, not functionality. Pool? Check. Sauna? Check. Party room? Check. Screening room? Check. Gym? Check. Golf simulator? Check. But then you check out the units, and you see how impractical they are. You'll have 1-bed apartments under 500sqft well into the 2000's in rent. Very few units with more than 2 bedrooms, which ideally you would want for a replacement-rate family. At best you'll get a "den" which at this point is basically understood to be an additional bedroom, only without windows, closets, and a sliding glass door at best. Even the actual bedrooms are often so small that a queen bed will leave you with barely enough space for a nightstand and a sock drawer. They don't really function as housing for the average middle-class Canadian renter. And yet, demand never seems to go down.

The demographic for these kinds of buildings skew very wealthy, and there's no shortage of that in an international hub like Toronto. For one, you have upwardly mobile yuppies from all across the country, making 6 figure salaries and wanting to live it up. Then you remember what Trudeau said about Canada being a "post national state", and realize that he was actually right insofar as Toronto, Vancouver and to a lesser extent Montreal are concerned - you know, the three cities that make up the bulk of his base. These cities are increasingly more connected to other international hubs than they are to the rest of Canada, particularly in terms of where the cashflow is coming from. Don't get me wrong, the fact that we now have cities that attract capital from the whole world over, and people who are very good at maximizing the value of that capital, has been a very good thing for our economy, but all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. That reaction has been a country whose own citizens are increasingly second-class consumers in a globalized market. If you're a middle-class young Canadian who feels left out of the housing market, it's not just because of boomers who are attached to their single-family neighbourhoods, it's also because capital has been flowing very heavily to the kind of development that quite literally isn't for you.

I've been thinking about the ramifications of this a lot lately. Because it's not like this is only happening in the Toronto lakeshore, although that's in many ways ground zero. It seems like every new tower coming up in Toronto, including in places that used to be, and increasingly places that still are, suburbs. These luxury-type residential developments are the norm now, and they're marked up by all manners of bells and whistles, but their functionality as a place where you can actually raise a family is getting worse and worse. But this kind of housing is increasingly the equivalent to the suburban bungalows that we grew up in. As a result, young Canadians don't start families, and with a diminishing labour force we rely more and more on foreign labour and capital. A top-down infusion of capital from the wealthy global elites who understandably see Canada as a good place to live, and especially to invest in real estate, and a bottom-up infusion of unskilled labour to provide the service economy required to attract international capital. Notice how middle-class Canadians are completely missed in this equation.

This, and I think this is largely a product of the policies of the last decade. Trudeau (not only Trudeau, but various levels of government) have turned Canada's largest cities into 'international cities' in a way that they weren't before, and not in a good way. The problems you are describing here used to be associated with New York City, several cities in California, and places like London, UK, but not really Toronto, Montreal, and Vancover. A decade later, before Canadians can even blink and look around, we have those problems almost as much as real 'international cities' do.

Stephen Harper made a good monologue about this 5 or 6 years ago. He talked about 'somewheres' (people who are tied to a single place because of their job, circumstances or loyalties) and 'anywheres' (educated, elite cosmopolitans who earn a high income and can work from or travel to anywhere in the world) and how that is causing a divide internationally.

As recently as 10 years ago, Canadian cities used to feel very much like a place for 'somewheres', a place people are permanently tied to. Canada's society and economy felt like it was built primarily for its middle-class population. Not anymore. Trudeau has largely turned into a place for 'anywheres'. Canadian cities no longer feel like 'our cozy home' anymore, they feel like a hub for international capital, which isn't necessarily bad, but it means the locals have to survive and adjust to the new economic circumstances.

It's interesting how Harper's supposedly cold and utilitarian approach to immigration produced a globally acclaimed immigration system. Immigrants to Canada had remarkable levels of cultural integration and upward mobility, precisely because Canada's immigration system (not just under Conservatives, also under the original Trudeau and later Chretien/Martin Liberal governments) emphasized economic benefits to the native population, which consequently created an immigration system that was actually good for the immigrants too. Meanwhile Trudeau's supposedly warm and open approach to immigration is creating an underclass that primarily serves to provide cheap labour to the benefit of wealthy urbanites at the expense of the native middle class. Blowing up the one functional immigration system during a time of global instability and displacement was easily the most unforgivable thing Trudeau has done as Prime Minister.

I can't let Doug Ford off the hook for this though, because his government has taken advantage of Trudeau's nonsense ideological approach to immigration to bolster government revenues, and now he's pandering to NIMBYs which just compounds the problem. And hey, maybe we could have had those lovely suburban neighbourhoods that conservatives love raising families in, if you hadn't filled up our cities with more people than we can reasonably house. Honestly, at this point, I'll take Bonnie Crombie. Yeah she's a Liberal, but I'm not too concerned with labels when the current so-called Conservative government embodies everything I don't like about the Liberals.

[Upper Canada Tory]

The other issue that needs to be addressed is single-family zoning. 70% of land in Ontario that is zoned for housing is reserved for detached single-family homes - townhouses, condos, etc are not allowed.

Not allowing condos is probably a good thing. As they age, they are a ticking time bomb.

I would jokingly say 'spoken like a true NIMBY' here, but that would be mean.  

In all seriousness, it's not such a great thing when all non single family housing is cramped in small pieces of land. At least allow other types of housing to be built.

 One of the problems with Canada's overreliance on condos is that it caters to a very specific kind of resident. When I say condo, I'm using it the way apparently every Ontarian over the age of 40 uses it, basically defined as "shiny tall residential tower". I know, rentals are by definition not condominiums, but a lot of rental apartment development in Canada's big cities have just been condo-style towers with similar demographics and price points.

So forget condos, let's look at the apartment buildings that many people erroneously call condos. In Toronto, you can take a look at basically every apartment tower south of the CN rail line and between Dufferin and the DVP. They're designed around lifestyle, not functionality. Pool? Check. Sauna? Check. Party room? Check. Screening room? Check. Gym? Check. Golf simulator? Check. But then you check out the units, and you see how impractical they are. You'll have 1-bed apartments under 500sqft well into the 2000's in rent. Very few units with more than 2 bedrooms, which ideally you would want for a replacement-rate family. At best you'll get a "den" which at this point is basically understood to be an additional bedroom, only without windows, closets, and a sliding glass door at best. Even the actual bedrooms are often so small that a queen bed will leave you with barely enough space for a nightstand and a sock drawer. They don't really function as housing for the average middle-class Canadian renter. And yet, demand never seems to go down.

The demographic for these kinds of buildings skew very wealthy, and there's no shortage of that in an international hub like Toronto. For one, you have upwardly mobile yuppies from all across the country, making 6 figure salaries and wanting to live it up. Then you remember what Trudeau said about Canada being a "post national state", and realize that he was actually right insofar as Toronto, Vancouver and to a lesser extent Montreal are concerned - you know, the three cities that make up the bulk of his base. These cities are increasingly more connected to other international hubs than they are to the rest of Canada, particularly in terms of where the cashflow is coming from. Don't get me wrong, the fact that we now have cities that attract capital from the whole world over, and people who are very good at maximizing the value of that capital, has been a very good thing for our economy, but all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. That reaction has been a country whose own citizens are increasingly second-class consumers in a globalized market. If you're a middle-class young Canadian who feels left out of the housing market, it's not just because of boomers who are attached to their single-family neighbourhoods, it's also because capital has been flowing very heavily to the kind of development that quite literally isn't for you.

I've been thinking about the ramifications of this a lot lately. Because it's not like this is only happening in the Toronto lakeshore, although that's in many ways ground zero. It seems like every new tower coming up in Toronto, including in places that used to be, and increasingly places that still are, suburbs. These luxury-type residential developments are the norm now, and they're marked up by all manners of bells and whistles, but their functionality as a place where you can actually raise a family is getting worse and worse. But this kind of housing is increasingly the equivalent to the suburban bungalows that we grew up in. As a result, young Canadians don't start families, and with a diminishing labour force we rely more and more on foreign labour and capital. A top-down infusion of capital from the wealthy global elites who understandably see Canada as a good place to live, and especially to invest in real estate, and a bottom-up infusion of unskilled labour to provide the service economy required to attract international capital. Notice how middle-class Canadians are completely missed in this equation.

This, and I think this is largely a product of the policies of the last decade. Trudeau (not only Trudeau, but various levels of government) have turned Canada's largest cities into 'international cities' in a way that they weren't before, and not in a good way. The problems you are describing here used to be associated with New York City, several cities in California, and places like London, UK, but not really Toronto, Montreal, and Vancover. A decade later, before Canadians can even blink and look around, we have those problems almost as much as real 'international cities' do.

Stephen Harper made a good monologue about this 5 or 6 years ago. He talked about 'somewheres' (people who are tied to a single place because of their job, circumstances or loyalties) and 'anywheres' (educated, elite cosmopolitans who earn a high income and can work from or travel to anywhere in the world) and how that is causing a divide internationally.

As recently as 10 years ago, Canadian cities used to feel very much like a place for 'somewheres', a place people are permanently tied to. Canada's society and economy felt like it was built primarily for its middle-class population. Not anymore. Trudeau has largely turned into a place for 'anywheres'. Canadian cities no longer feel like 'our cozy home' anymore, they feel like a hub for international capital, which isn't necessarily bad, but it means the locals have to survive and adjust to the new economic circumstances.

It's interesting how Harper's supposedly cold and utilitarian approach to immigration produced a globally acclaimed immigration system. Immigrants to Canada had remarkable levels of cultural integration and upward mobility, precisely because Canada's immigration system (not just under Conservatives, also under the original Trudeau and later Chretien/Martin Liberal governments) emphasized economic benefits to the native population, which consequently created an immigration system that was actually good for the immigrants too. Meanwhile Trudeau's supposedly warm and open approach to immigration is creating an underclass that primarily serves to provide cheap labour to the benefit of wealthy urbanites at the expense of the native middle class. Blowing up the one functional immigration system during a time of global instability and displacement was easily the most unforgivable thing Trudeau has done as Prime Minister.

I can't let Doug Ford off the hook for this though, because his government has taken advantage of Trudeau's nonsense ideological approach to immigration to bolster government revenues, and now he's pandering to NIMBYs which just compounds the problem. And hey, maybe we could have had those lovely suburban neighbourhoods that conservatives love raising families in, if you hadn't filled up our cities with more people than we can reasonably house. Honestly, at this point, I'll take Bonnie Crombie. Yeah she's a Liberal, but I'm not too concerned with labels when the current so-called Conservative government embodies everything I don't like about the Liberals.

And Pearson. Don't forget, the points system was a Pearsonian invention!

Also, yes. I am never voting for Doug Ford again.

[Upper Canada Tory]

The other issue that needs to be addressed is single-family zoning. 70% of land in Ontario that is zoned for housing is reserved for detached single-family homes - townhouses, condos, etc are not allowed.

Not allowing condos is probably a good thing. As they age, they are a ticking time bomb.

I would jokingly say 'spoken like a true NIMBY' here, but that would be mean.  

In all seriousness, it's not such a great thing when all non single family housing is cramped in small pieces of land. At least allow other types of housing to be built.

 One of the problems with Canada's overreliance on condos is that it caters to a very specific kind of resident. When I say condo, I'm using it the way apparently every Ontarian over the age of 40 uses it, basically defined as "shiny tall residential tower". I know, rentals are by definition not condominiums, but a lot of rental apartment development in Canada's big cities have just been condo-style towers with similar demographics and price points.

So forget condos, let's look at the apartment buildings that many people erroneously call condos. In Toronto, you can take a look at basically every apartment tower south of the CN rail line and between Dufferin and the DVP. They're designed around lifestyle, not functionality. Pool? Check. Sauna? Check. Party room? Check. Screening room? Check. Gym? Check. Golf simulator? Check. But then you check out the units, and you see how impractical they are. You'll have 1-bed apartments under 500sqft well into the 2000's in rent. Very few units with more than 2 bedrooms, which ideally you would want for a replacement-rate family. At best you'll get a "den" which at this point is basically understood to be an additional bedroom, only without windows, closets, and a sliding glass door at best. Even the actual bedrooms are often so small that a queen bed will leave you with barely enough space for a nightstand and a sock drawer. They don't really function as housing for the average middle-class Canadian renter. And yet, demand never seems to go down.

The demographic for these kinds of buildings skew very wealthy, and there's no shortage of that in an international hub like Toronto. For one, you have upwardly mobile yuppies from all across the country, making 6 figure salaries and wanting to live it up. Then you remember what Trudeau said about Canada being a "post national state", and realize that he was actually right insofar as Toronto, Vancouver and to a lesser extent Montreal are concerned - you know, the three cities that make up the bulk of his base. These cities are increasingly more connected to other international hubs than they are to the rest of Canada, particularly in terms of where the cashflow is coming from. Don't get me wrong, the fact that we now have cities that attract capital from the whole world over, and people who are very good at maximizing the value of that capital, has been a very good thing for our economy, but all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. That reaction has been a country whose own citizens are increasingly second-class consumers in a globalized market. If you're a middle-class young Canadian who feels left out of the housing market, it's not just because of boomers who are attached to their single-family neighbourhoods, it's also because capital has been flowing very heavily to the kind of development that quite literally isn't for you.

I've been thinking about the ramifications of this a lot lately. Because it's not like this is only happening in the Toronto lakeshore, although that's in many ways ground zero. It seems like every new tower coming up in Toronto, including in places that used to be, and increasingly places that still are, suburbs. These luxury-type residential developments are the norm now, and they're marked up by all manners of bells and whistles, but their functionality as a place where you can actually raise a family is getting worse and worse. But this kind of housing is increasingly the equivalent to the suburban bungalows that we grew up in. As a result, young Canadians don't start families, and with a diminishing labour force we rely more and more on foreign labour and capital. A top-down infusion of capital from the wealthy global elites who understandably see Canada as a good place to live, and especially to invest in real estate, and a bottom-up infusion of unskilled labour to provide the service economy required to attract international capital. Notice how middle-class Canadians are completely missed in this equation.

This, and I think this is largely a product of the policies of the last decade. Trudeau (not only Trudeau, but various levels of government) have turned Canada's largest cities into 'international cities' in a way that they weren't before, and not in a good way. The problems you are describing here used to be associated with New York City, several cities in California, and places like London, UK, but not really Toronto, Montreal, and Vancover. A decade later, before Canadians can even blink and look around, we have those problems almost as much as real 'international cities' do.

Stephen Harper made a good monologue about this 5 or 6 years ago. He talked about 'somewheres' (people who are tied to a single place because of their job, circumstances or loyalties) and 'anywheres' (educated, elite cosmopolitans who earn a high income and can work from or travel to anywhere in the world) and how that is causing a divide internationally.

As recently as 10 years ago, Canadian cities used to feel very much like a place for 'somewheres', a place people are permanently tied to. Canada's society and economy felt like it was built primarily for its middle-class population. Not anymore. Trudeau has largely turned into a place for 'anywheres'. Canadian cities no longer feel like 'our cozy home' anymore, they feel like a hub for international capital, which isn't necessarily bad, but it means the locals have to survive and adjust to the new economic circumstances.

It's interesting how Harper's supposedly cold and utilitarian approach to immigration produced a globally acclaimed immigration system. Immigrants to Canada had remarkable levels of cultural integration and upward mobility, precisely because Canada's immigration system (not just under Conservatives, also under the original Trudeau and later Chretien/Martin Liberal governments) emphasized economic benefits to the native population, which consequently created an immigration system that was actually good for the immigrants too. Meanwhile Trudeau's supposedly warm and open approach to immigration is creating an underclass that primarily serves to provide cheap labour to the benefit of wealthy urbanites at the expense of the native middle class. Blowing up the one functional immigration system during a time of global instability and displacement was easily the most unforgivable thing Trudeau has done as Prime Minister.

I can't let Doug Ford off the hook for this though, because his government has taken advantage of Trudeau's nonsense ideological approach to immigration to bolster government revenues, and now he's pandering to NIMBYs which just compounds the problem. And hey, maybe we could have had those lovely suburban neighbourhoods that conservatives love raising families in, if you hadn't filled up our cities with more people than we can reasonably house. Honestly, at this point, I'll take Bonnie Crombie. Yeah she's a Liberal, but I'm not too concerned with labels when the current so-called Conservative government embodies everything I don't like about the Liberals.

Laddicus finch's username evolution;

Laddicus Finch---->Average Melissa Lantsman Enjoyer----->Ontario Libertoryan---------->Doug Ford's Developer Buddy--------->Scott Aitchison's shadow account-------->laddicus finch-------->The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Laddicus finch's username evolution;

Laddicus Finch---->Average Melissa Lantsman Enjoyer----->Ontario Libertoryan---------->Doug Ford's Developer Buddy--------->Scott Aitchison's shadow account-------->laddicus finch-------->The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ

Even I had lost track!

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1771672728547864852

[Estrella]

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1771672728547864852

I wonder how the result would look if they asked just Ontarians, or how a hypothetical Premier Patrick Brown or Premier Christine Elliott (remember them?) would have scored here.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1771672728547864852

I wonder how the result would look if they asked just Ontarians, or how a hypothetical Premier Patrick Brown or Premier Christine Elliott (remember them?) would have scored here.

It's not specified anywhere in the Star article or the Abacus press release, but I'm assuming this is just Ontarians. It would be pretty pointless to ask a bunch of Nova Scotians what they think about Doug Ford.

My hunch is that Ford personally polls better with Conservative voters than a hypothetical Premier Elliott or Brown though. Elliott is harder to say because she's always been somewhat of a blank slate, but I'm convinced that Patrick Brown would have been a disaster. If you asked AI to engineer a politician who just oozes sleaze, you'd get something resembling Patrick Brown.

[lfromnj]

https://kitchener.citynews.ca/2024/03/28/conestoga-college-to-lose-more-than-half-its-current-international-students-in-ford-government-changes/
Seems the most infamous of the community colleges with 30k international students has lost most of them for next year.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Apparently Canada's population hit 41 million yesterday just 9 months after reaching 40 million.

I agree with those who say that this and not the carbon tax are why the Liberals will lose in 2025. It's not even just that Canada can not absorb this number of people in this period of time, but that for a long time the Liberals showed no interest or even understanding of the need to coordinate the population increase with the municipalities and the provinces. This is just basic incompetence.

I can't stand Poilievre or the Conservatives, but I can certainly appreciate the desire to fire a government that demonstrates basic incompetence.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Apparently Canada's population hit 41 million yesterday just 9 months after reaching 40 million.

I agree with those who say that this and not the carbon tax are why the Liberals will lose in 2025. It's not even just that Canada can not absorb this number of people in this period of time, but that for a long time the Liberals showed no interest or even understanding of the need to coordinate the population increase with the municipalities and the provinces. This is just basic incompetence.

I can't stand Poilievre or the Conservatives, but I can certainly appreciate the desire to fire a government that demonstrates basic incompetence.

Not only that, but what bothers me is that they destroyed Canada's previously good immigration system. Most of Canada's immigrants used to be high skilled and came through the points system and that was one of the most successful immigration systems in the world - that was the policy for 50 years (with minor adjustments). There was no need to allow the growth of the temporary resident population and lower the standard for permanent residency to the extent that the Liberals did. They could have kept the immigration system the same as it was in 2015 and it wouldn't be an election issue for them, because the old immigration system was effective and reasonably popular. Heck, they probably could have kept 2019 immigration levels without too much backlash. But what they've done in the last 2 to 3 years is completely insane.

[CumbrianLefty]

Apparently Canada's population hit 41 million yesterday just 9 months after reaching 40 million.

I agree with those who say that this and not the carbon tax are why the Liberals will lose in 2025. It's not even just that Canada can not absorb this number of people in this period of time, but that for a long time the Liberals showed no interest or even understanding of the need to coordinate the population increase with the municipalities and the provinces. This is just basic incompetence.

I can't stand Poilievre or the Conservatives, but I can certainly appreciate the desire to fire a government that demonstrates basic incompetence.

Competence - or rather the lack of it - is sometimes underrated as a factor in big electoral swings; see the UK currently for another pertinent example.

[Flyersfan232]

Again, who are the Liberals going to turn to? No one who could actually reverse the course for them is going to want to captain the sinking ship.

Oh yeah, it would be a total Hail Mary. Carney just took a job as an economic advisor for Starmer (not that I think Carney would be a good leader anyway). Freeland feels like a disaster in the making, she is an AWFUL communicator on the hustings. And there go the two touted successors.

Honestly? Sean Fraser. Why not. Good communicator, pretty good looking guy, awful record as immigration minister but has made some announcements as housing minister that he could actually campaign on. I could think of worse.

Fraser is in a swing seat thought he might not even be in commons after the next election.

[Flyersfan232]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.

Anecdotally I'm seeing a lot of chatter on places like Reddit about the influx of student immigration from India, and how they're not integrating very well (to put it mildly) on campuses. It's certainly fuelling a lot of racism and xenophobia.   

 

the ppc are a fringe party

They got 5% of the vote last time. Whether you consider that fringe or not is up to you, but it's significant enough for the Conservatives to worry about losing votes to them.

fluke

[Flyersfan232]

Again, who are the Liberals going to turn to? No one who could actually reverse the course for them is going to want to captain the sinking ship.

Oh yeah, it would be a total Hail Mary. Carney just took a job as an economic advisor for Starmer (not that I think Carney would be a good leader anyway). Freeland feels like a disaster in the making, she is an AWFUL communicator on the hustings. And there go the two touted successors.

Honestly? Sean Fraser. Why not. Good communicator, pretty good looking guy, awful record as immigration minister but has made some announcements as housing minister that he could actually campaign on. I could think of worse.

Fraser is in a swing seat thought he might not even be in commons after the next election.

what about Andrew Furey?

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Apparently Canada's population hit 41 million yesterday just 9 months after reaching 40 million.

I agree with those who say that this and not the carbon tax are why the Liberals will lose in 2025. It's not even just that Canada can not absorb this number of people in this period of time, but that for a long time the Liberals showed no interest or even understanding of the need to coordinate the population increase with the municipalities and the provinces. This is just basic incompetence.

I can't stand Poilievre or the Conservatives, but I can certainly appreciate the desire to fire a government that demonstrates basic incompetence.

Not only that, but what bothers me is that they destroyed Canada's previously good immigration system. Most of Canada's immigrants used to be high skilled and came through the points system and that was one of the most successful immigration systems in the world - that was the policy for 50 years (with minor adjustments). There was no need to allow the growth of the temporary resident population and lower the standard for permanent residency to the extent that the Liberals did. They could have kept the immigration system the same as it was in 2015 and it wouldn't be an election issue for them, because the old immigration system was effective and reasonably popular. Heck, they probably could have kept 2019 immigration levels without too much backlash. But what they've done in the last 2 to 3 years is completely insane.

I'm not all that familiar with this because I know the provinces have been given a much greater say on immigration so I don't know if the skilled immigrant program has really been done away with or if its just been transferred to the provinces.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Again, who are the Liberals going to turn to? No one who could actually reverse the course for them is going to want to captain the sinking ship.

Oh yeah, it would be a total Hail Mary. Carney just took a job as an economic advisor for Starmer (not that I think Carney would be a good leader anyway). Freeland feels like a disaster in the making, she is an AWFUL communicator on the hustings. And there go the two touted successors.

Honestly? Sean Fraser. Why not. Good communicator, pretty good looking guy, awful record as immigration minister but has made some announcements as housing minister that he could actually campaign on. I could think of worse.

Fraser is in a swing seat thought he might not even be in commons after the next election.

As things stand, most Liberal MPs won't be in the commons after the next election. So at this point I'm not sure what difference it makes.