Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Oh I can assure you I was most definitely not disingenuous in those posts.

I meant every one of them.

Good for you. Thank you for your contributions.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

Good for you. Thank you for your contributions.

I wish I could say the same about you

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

kind of a dick comment, dude.

good for you, but there are many of us who don't have an income income that can outpaces inflation, that are not ok with it.

sometimes it's not possible to simply pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get more money.

It’s not the first time he has made this comment to you specifically.

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Boots have straps for a reason.

I’m sure it was disingenuous the first time as well.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

It’s not the first time he has made this comment to you specifically.



I’m sure it was disingenuous the first time as well.

I don’t think a guy known on the board for his weird obsession with kid’s genitals should play the “dig up old posts” game.

[The Fonz]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I don’t think a guy known on the board for his weird obsession with kid’s genitals should play the “dig up old posts” game.

Drink!

[The Fonz]

Not even 9am and Pepsi's Law has already been invoked. Doesn't bode well for the rest of the day.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by The Fonz

Not even 9am and Pepsi's Law has already been invoked. Doesn't bode well for the rest of the day.

Which terminally online neo-Nazi account are you going to share with us today?

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Which terminally online neo-Nazi account are you going to share with us today?

Drink!

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

Drink!

Weren’t you pretending to be against bullying the other day? Don’t know if I’d immediately start parroting an antisemite if you want to keep that ruse up for a few more days but up to you.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

I read that as an unserious response to the unserious poster they were responding to.
But maybe I'm wrong and it was an actual dick comment.

sometimes I find it's hard to tell with people. I notice a lot of people seem decent but then occasionally say what they really think.

hopefully I just misunderstood.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

sometimes I find it's hard to tell with people. I notice a lot of people seem decent but then occasionally say what they really think.

hopefully I just misunderstood.

Agreed, I find it difficult too.
Unless they're the posters who are non stop spamming the threads, they make it pretty obvious.

[woob]

I'm just trying to figure out if calgarygeo actually cares about CBC funding, or if he's just cosplaying as someone who cares. I presumed he would align more with others who think CBC should get less funding, which could be a misread on my part.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

Regardless, clearly Canada has performed very poorly. We are at the bottom, or close to the bottom when compared to our peers.

What is your basis for that statement? You clearly don't actually know anything about worldwide food inflation if you're relying in Google AI summaries to tell you what to think.

Again, I'm not going to go through every single country's inflation. But just looking at OECD data since 2020, among the 35 OECD nations with full data, here's Canada's ranking in food inflation by year (lower is better):

2025: 16th
2024: 19th
2023: 30th
2022: 23rd
2021: 13th
2020: 18th

So an average ranking of 20th out of 35 nations in food inflation, so it has clearly been lower than the average peer countries. And as I mentioned before, it has been lower than most of the G7 nations as well.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Izzle

As a millennial, I love this quote cos it could equally apply to boomers and Gen z wrt computers.

I tried to leave it up to interpretation so as to not be too insulting. But as a stereotypical Gen X’er, I would exercise scepticism and pretty sure my ilk wouldn’t rely on a single-sourced AI result. Of course, if what they’re going for is subterfuge with a dose of “woe is me, AI said this so am I supposed to not believe it”, then who knows?

I guess being deceptive is better than just plain dumb.

[CliffFletcher]

Canada's inflation is around middle of the road. But it's the gap between income and productivity on one side and price inflation on the other that has Canadians feeling an affordability pinch.

From a speech by Deputy Bank of Canada Governor Nicolas Vincent:

Unfortunately, as I am sure you know, Canada’s productivity has been weak for some time. The Bank has highlighted this repeatedly.1 But the situation has grown more urgent. Shocks to our economy have become more frequent, and we are too vulnerable to their impacts. Stronger productivity would help protect us from these shocks.

...Even worse, over the past five decades, Canada’s productivity has deteriorated compared with that of other G7 countries (Chart 2). In 1971, Canada’s productivity was, on average, higher than that of its peers. By the early 1980s, the situation had reversed. And the average productivity gap between Canada and other G7 countries has continued to widen since the start of the 2000s, particularly with the United States.

...Deep down, Canada’s affordability problem is really a productivity problem. Inflation has come back down after spiking in 2022, but just about everything still costs more than it did before. Everyone is feeling this. If we want to make things more affordable, we need to raise our income. And the way to grow our income is by increasing productivity. Even modest improvements can make a big difference. To give you an idea, if our productivity growth since 2000 had been similar to that of other G7 countries, our GDP in Canada today would be about 9% higher, which translates to almost $7,000 per person.4 And as I mentioned earlier, income growth linked to an increase in productivity would come with little or no inflationary pressure. So it would represent real growth in our purchasing power.

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2025/11/...-productivity/

Canada ranks 6th in the G7 in labour productivity (ahead of only Italy).

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by opendoor

What is your basis for that statement? You clearly don't actually know anything about worldwide food inflation if you're relying in Google AI summaries to tell you what to think.

Again, I'm not going to go through every single country's inflation. But just looking at OECD data since 2020, among the 35 OECD nations with full data, here's Canada's ranking in food inflation by year (lower is better):

2025: 16th
2024: 19th
2023: 30th
2022: 23rd
2021: 13th
2020: 18th

So an average ranking of 20th out of 35 nations in food inflation, so it has clearly been lower than the average peer countries. And as I mentioned before, it has been lower than most of the G7 nations as well.

First of all, there are 38 member countries in OECD. Please share your source.

Second, I was talking about G7 countries. Like I said before, Google AI may have given me incorrect data.

Expanding to include all G20 countries. Canada is third last in food inflation for the past few years. Only Argentina and Turkey are worse.

If your argument is simply that Canada is doing well compared to their peers, I would disagree.

https://tradingeconomics.com/country...?continent=g20

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Canada's inflation is around middle of the road. But it's the gap between income and productivity on one side and price inflation on the other that has Canadians feeling an affordability pinch.

From a speech by Deputy Bank of Canada Governor Nicolas Vincent:

Canada ranks 6th in the G7 in labour productivity (ahead of only Italy).

Good speech, he at least provides a few useful insights beyond "we suck."

In my conversations with workers and employers, I’ve learned that many think boosting productivity means people will have to work harder and longer. However, this is not what economists mean by productivity.

I think this is an important message, just to dispel cynicism from the working class.

But Canada’s weak productivity itself is one of the factors that reduces investment. As I explained earlier, weak productivity growth weighs on the wages that businesses pay their workers. And the slower wages rise, the more fragile consumption becomes and, with it, household demand for the company’s products. Faced with sluggish demand growth, businesses are then less inclined to invest in new equipment or technology that could improve their productivity. Moreover, the impact of weak productivity on wages makes it harder to keep our best workers in Canada and to attract top talent from elsewhere

So as these businesses consolidate wealth, it's important they are incentivized to not this money, or pay out to shareholders, but to re-invest to boost wages and productivity.

o how do we do this? To start, we need to identify the most critical areas to focus on—what I like to call the levers we can pull. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I’d suggest three areas in particular: creating a better investment climate, increasing competition in Canada and investing in our talent—what economists call human capital.12

Things like giant mergers between telecoms reduce competition. It's hard enough to enter given the size and population density in Canada, recognizing reducing competition hurt, rather than help, would be a good start.

The bold stuff is broken down into sections if anyone wants more detail.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

First of all, there are 38 member countries in OECD. Please share your source.

OECD data. Only 35 countries have data for that, and in some years it's fewer than that, so Canada comes out looking even better.

Second, I was talking about G7 countries. Like I said before, Google AI may have given me incorrect data.

"May have" been incorrect? It clearly is and even a rudimentary search to verify the info you're being fed illustrates that. Stop using AI if you're not capable of thinking critically about the information you're being presented.

Expanding to include all G20 countries. Canada is third last in food inflation for the past few years. Only Argentina and Turkey are worse.

Quit lying. That link of yours refers only to the latest data, not "the last few years". And as I've explained, Canada's number is artificially high because of the GST holiday from a year ago which temporarily reduced prices. If you buy something on sale at half off one week and then the price goes back to normal, prices didn't actually increase by 100%, it's just a statistical artifact.

As I have shown with data, the UK, Germany, and the US have all had higher food inflation than Canada over the last 5 years and the last 10 years. As have places like Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and many other countries.

If your argument is simply that Canada is doing well compared to their peers, I would disagree.

https://tradingeconomics.com/country...?continent=g20

Well that's because you obviously don't worry about things like facts or data when it comes to deriving your opinions.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Canada's inflation is around middle of the road. But it's the gap between income and productivity on one side and price inflation on the other that has Canadians feeling an affordability pinch.

From a speech by Deputy Bank of Canada Governor Nicolas Vincent:

Canada ranks 6th in the G7 in labour productivity (ahead of only Italy).

Luckily the average person gets paid with wages, not GDP. And in terms of median Real Wage growth (which takes inflation into account), Canada is #2 in the G7 over the last decade, just behind the US. And Canada's growth is more than 2x higher than #3 ranked Germany.

In the longer term, Canada looks even better. Over the last 20 years (roughly the time period that person is talking about), Canada is #1 in the G7 in Real Wage growth.

Yes, GDP is a useful metric for a lot of things. But when we're talking about affordability, Real Wage growth is a better indicator. If productivity gains largely just end up in the hands of the ultra wealthy (as they tend to in the US), then what's the real benefit to the population? There's a reason why labour's share of GDP in Canada is 66% while it's only 56% in the US.

[Wormius]

Isn’t the only relevant metric is how we compare to every other single country in the world? I mean, if we’re 6th in the G7, we’re pretty much 6th in the entire world. That doesn’t seem bad.