Immigration to rise again, promises Liberals

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Whether it bugs you or not, it's a huge issue. The ratio of young, taxpaying citizens versus older, retired citizens who no longer pay income tax and are very costly in terms of health care has a huge impact on public finances and services.

Back in the 50s to 80s, when Canada (and most Western countries) had very young populations, we saw a huge expansion of public infrastructure and services. Schools, roads, hospitals. We also laid the foundation for our pension systems, and set up generous salaries and guaranteed pensions for public servants. As Fuzz says, it's a system built on the assumption of growth. Which was fine, as long as we still had a high ratio of young taxpayers to older citizens.

The decreased birth rate and ever-increasing life-spans have shrunk that ratio dramatically. The taxbase is stagnating at a time when public costs are rising steeply. The status quo in spending is not sustainable. Something has to give.

Canada and other Western countries have several options.

* Substantially increase the population of young, taxpaying citizens through immigration.
* Substantially increase taxes.
* Substantially cut spending.

It will be up to each country to determine what combination of the above it pursues. Of course, many citizens want their government to do none of the above. And governments that don't have the courage to take painful measures are only going to delay the reckoning. I expect the finances of several Western countries will collapse within the next 20 years.

Here's a sobering example. In 1956, there were 9 working teachers for each retired teacher. In 1986, that ratio was 5:1. It's now about 1.5:1, and expected to reach parity shortly. How do you think that ratio affects teacher's pensions? The head of the fund that manages the Ontario Teachers' Pension fund has warned that a system where teachers work for 30 years and then retires for 30+ is not sustainable. That's a glimpse of how changing demographics are putting tremendous pressure on balance sheets.

As one of my grad school profs said: if you want to keep our social safety benefits the way they worked for your parents, you all better stop using condoms, and take up smoking, and really stick to both until you have a bunch of kids, and then die shortly thereafter.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

If our birthrate is a concern, government provided childcare would make a huge difference. How many women have to leave the workforce because childcare costs more than their income? How many families stop at 1 or 2 kids because it's not feasible to pay $3000+ per month in child care alone?

Can't thank this enough. It's sad when having twins can literally ruin someone financially.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

If our birthrate is a concern, government provided childcare would make a huge difference. How many women have to leave the workforce because childcare costs more than their income? How many families stop at 1 or 2 kids because it's not feasible to pay $3000+ per month in child care alone?

The government already subsidizes 30-40% of childcare depending on your tax rate. They could increase this rate however immigration is far cheaper.

[takinghits]

I migrated to Canada so I am biased toward allowing more people into the country.

No Pain No Gain. Same thing with immigration few bad apples doesn't diminish overall positive impact after few generations.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

If our birthrate is a concern, government provided childcare would make a huge difference. How many women have to leave the workforce because childcare costs more than their income? How many families stop at 1 or 2 kids because it's not feasible to pay $3000+ per month in child care alone?

The cost of daycare in Alberta is appalling. But Quebec massively subsidizes daycare and pays people to have children (as do many European countries), and yet birthrates still aren't anywhere close to replacement level.

[icecube]

What the world needs is a radical alternative to both capitalism and communism. Don't ask me to define what that looks like, but it needs to take into account equality and sustainability. The old model will collapse in on itself sooner or later, just out of necessity. Human beings will cling to the old model out of stubbornness and stupidity, but a new model of global economy is something we should be talking about.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The cost of daycare in Alberta is appalling. But Quebec massively subsidizes daycare and pays people to have children (as do many European countries), and yet birthrates still aren't anywhere close to replacement level.

Touche. I am surprised by how low Quebec's birthrate is. I know we have a younger population, but maybe my idea is completely baseless.

[polak]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The cost of daycare in Alberta is appalling. But Quebec massively subsidizes daycare and pays people to have children (as do many European countries), and yet birthrates still aren't anywhere close to replacement level.

It's cause it's not about money. Now that we don't need kids to run the farm and work to feed the family, what's the point? With every kid the parents freedom and quality of life goes down. One and two is the norm and that's not going to grow the population.

Could very well become the downfall of civilization actually.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The cost of daycare in Alberta is appalling. But Quebec massively subsidizes daycare and pays people to have children (as do many European countries), and yet birthrates still aren't anywhere close to replacement level.

Because of their social subsidizes, Quebec has created a unsustainable economy that is reliant on transfer fees and federal dollars. they are also looking at pretty significant budget cuts, and if Alberta for example can't supply the normal money to those fees, Quebec's daycare will become affordable unless they do a massive across the board tax increase, which defeats the purpose of subsidized programs.

Quebec is also cutting their day care budget. They hacked about 75 mil last year, 60 mil this year and over 60 mil the year after.

[dino7c]

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The cost of daycare in Alberta is appalling. But Quebec massively subsidizes daycare and pays people to have children (as do many European countries), and yet birthrates still aren't anywhere close to replacement level.

This.

I'm in Arizona, and daycare is $25/day per kid including meals. I had them in a dayhome last year, and it was $20/day for 2 kids including snacks.

In Calgary it's twice that, no meals. I had 2 kids in daycare 5 days a week for a month and it was $2k, plus one in grade school that came with all kinds of school costs.

My wife and I have to make a great deal of money to offset the cost of 3 kids.

[corporatejay]

I blame Rubecube and other selflish individuals.

[Fire of the Phoenix]

The insane price of daycare prompted my wife to open up her own daycare. $40 per day is the going rate here and she would need to make around $60k per year to offset the amount we make with the daycare + having to put our own kids in daycare. As it stands, she can pull in the equivalent of $20/hr watching four kids full time. The economy is so dead here, I think think she would struggle to find $15/hour plus we would have to pay for daycare.

I think if more people were willing to operate day cares the cost would go down. There is a major supply and demand deficiency. My wife is always full and has a waiting list. It's pretty ridiculous.

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

This.

I'm in Arizona, and daycare is $25/day per kid including meals. I had them in a dayhome last year, and it was $20/day for 2 kids including snacks.

In Calgary it's twice that, no meals. I had 2 kids in daycare 5 days a week for a month and it was $2k, plus one in grade school that came with all kinds of school costs.

My wife and I have to make a great deal of money to offset the cost of 3 kids.

I have found that the struggle to make more money, in raising a family, can force some couples to do more with their lives than they would otherwise do.

It's true that kids cost money, however, I think the cost element is more than outweighed by what they add to our lives...especially when you get old.

IMO 3 kids is optimum...I believe it takes 2.1 kids to maintain the population. I think Churchhill once said, "One for your husband, one for your wife, and one for your country".

[peter12]

As an important addition to the discussion, an absolutely open border policy is not desirable in my view, either. It typically has not done the things that it has promised - ie. buttressing the tax base, invigorating communities, increasing productivity...

Ross Douthat wrote a great piece here:

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/201...n-immigration/

I found this point particularly cogent to Canada. Low-skill immigrants tend to drive down wages for future low-skill immigrants, and not natives. Thus, the less control exerted on immigration, the more difficult it is for recent immigrants to catch up to natives.

The one place where even the most pro-immigration economists generally concede that new immigration drags down low-skilled wages is among the previous cohort of immigrants. Thus the faster immigrant populations replenish themselves, the more slowly they can hope to gain ground economically relative to natives.

[RyZ]

Originally Posted by Red

Most immigrants are not refugees. I believe even most Syrian refugees that came to Canada were privately sponsored too. Of course rebel media types ignored that when they went on their tirades on social media etc.

The big difference is that a privately sponsored immigrant costs the government a lot less than someone born here because they don't need the healthcare and education from birth to adulthood.

This isnt true, the numbers I was able to dig up were that 8214 of the initial wave of 25000 that were brought in were privately sponsored. The mainstream Liberal media made it seem like many more were being privately sponsored but that was all part of the agenda.

Current numbers at this link http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugee...milestones.asp
10,837 Privately sponsored out of 29,817......... maybe Rebel wasnt wrong.

[GirlySports]

huge problem in Japan

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/20...japans-economy

More than half of all Japanese women quit their jobs after giving birth to their first child. That's more than double the rate in the U.S., and it's a problem for Japan's economy.

Mothers are leaving the workforce mainly because there's no one else who can take care of their babies; it's almost impossible to find childcare in Japan.

It took Keiko Shima almost two years to get her son into daycare. In the meantime, she had to quit her job at a public relations firm where she had worked for almost 10 years."I had no idea that I myself would become a housewife," she says.

In other countries, childcare jobs are often done in part by immigrants. But Japan has very few foreign-born workers.

And everyone with a job in Japan — men and women alike — work incredibly long hours. It's not unusual for a Japanese professional to leave for the office at 7:30 a.m. and not come home until midnight. Almost nobody in Japan takes their full allotment of vacation time.

Hiroko, 38, has a 7-month-old son. She didn't want NPR to publish her last name for fear of losing her job. She's currently on maternity leave from her data analysis job at a pharmaceutical company in Kobe. She used to work long hours, sometimes staying at her desk overnight. She says of the 100 people in her department, 70 are women, and only four of them have children. She worries that all her colleagues will have to work harder while she's on maternity leave.

"So I really feel guilty for feeling like I'm taking too much advantage of having children," Hiroko says. "That always makes me blame myself." Hiroko says there's a 50 percent chance that she'll end up staying home with the baby.

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm always amazed that the Japanese work "requirements" haven't created a whole country of serial killers.

[RyZ]

Looks like all the kids that voted Trudeau in are going to have to compete for entry level work with the Liberals new-newer bought and paid for voter group.

[polak]

Originally Posted by RyZ

Looks like all the kids that voted Trudeau in are going to have to compete for entry level work with the Liberals new-newer bought and paid for voter group.