Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by Slava

GDP per capita is just useless though. It's politically expedient to use that to say how terrible Canada is, but means nothing in the grad scheme. It's like me sitting at a table with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and someone talking about the average net worth of that group as though it is useful information.

And yes, in case you're wondering, when the Liberals talk about how low our debt is on a per capita basis compared with the rest of the G7 it's also meaningless. Who cares what that figure looks like?

I disagree. GDP growth has to be related to how much or how little the population has grown.

More from the article.

Due to Canada’s sharp increase in population growth in recent years, aggregate GDP growth is a misleading indicator for comparing economic growth performance across countries or time periods. Canada is not leading the G7, or doing well in historical terms, when it comes to economic growth measures that make simple adjustments for our rapidly growing population. In reality, we’ve become a growth laggard and our living standards have largely stagnated for the better part of a decade.

[rubecube]

People who still take the Fraser Institute seriously are absolute rubes. Thinktanks in general are pretty unreliable. They have always been used to add an aura of legitimacy to otherwise heavily-biased research and reporting.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Slava

GDP per capita is just useless though. It's politically expedient to use that to say how terrible Canada is, but means nothing in the grad scheme. It's like me sitting at a table with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and someone talking about the average net worth of that group as though it is useful information.

And yes, in case you're wondering, when the Liberals talk about how low our debt is on a per capita basis compared with the rest of the G7 it's also meaningless. Who cares what that figure looks like?

I mean, how else would you compare economic performance across countries? GDP per capita seems like the best way to do that, doesn't it?

Otherwise you're not adjusting for the size of different countries, which is obviously ridiculous.

Eg the GDP of India is ~70% larger than the GDP of Canada, but India is a much poorer country. Once you adjust for the 35X larger population that becomes obvious (and would match the lived experience of the average person in both places).

[StickMan]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Yeah but

Originally Posted by PepsiFree View Post
Except Carney has supported and invested in more pipelines over his career than any other candidate or party leader.

Well then Canadian journalists should insist he clear this up.

The media must not allow Carney to be evasive or ambiguous on these matters. We don’t have time for a bait-and-switch prime minister. If Carney still believes the rhetoric he published through GFANZ, he should say so openly, so Canadians can assess whether he really is the right man to address our current crisis.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by StickMan

Well then Canadian journalists should insist he clear this up.

The media must not allow Carney to be evasive or ambiguous on these matters. We don’t have time for a bait-and-switch prime minister. If Carney still believes the rhetoric he published through GFANZ, he should say so openly, so Canadians can assess whether he really is the right man to address our current crisis.

Unfortunately Carney has decided to postpone his new book which would have provided a lot of insight into his "real" plan for Canada.

The book was also expected to address the race to reach net-zero carbon emissions and the rise of artificial intelligence, and how the world should respond to these transitions.

Penguin Random House of Canada, the book’s publisher, has wiped all information about the book, including its title, cover and description from its website, replacing it with an untitled book page and a message that further information is “coming soon.”

https://archive.ph/2025.03.13-193555...cc359ddb4.html

[Drak]

What we don’t have time for is a MAGAt pro Trump bootlicker like PP.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Unfortunately Carney has decided to postpone his new book which would have provided a lot of insight into his "real" plan for Canada.


https://archive.ph/2025.03.13-193555...cc359ddb4.html

fakenews from the rightwing moron you follow and worship?

Did he pay you $100 to post it in here?

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

fakenews from the rightwing moron you follow and worship?

It's bad you'll never know. You could learn something from reading the news.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I mean, how else would you compare economic performance across countries? GDP per capita seems like the best way to do that, doesn't it?

Otherwise you're not adjusting for the size of different countries, which is obviously ridiculous.

Eg the GDP of India is ~70% larger than the GDP of Canada, but India is a much poorer country. Once you adjust for the 35X larger population that becomes obvious (and would match the lived experience of the average person in both places).

Depends on what you're trying to analyze. Most can acknowledge we opened the immigration taps a little too much, so GDP/capita is inevitably not going to look awesome. But ignoring immigration for a moment, we see that our GDP has grown about as well as anybody's. So it's not nearly as doom+gloom as some would like to suggest.

It seems natural to me that immigration would have a lagging effect before we reap the benefits of their productivity

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I mean, how else would you compare economic performance across countries? GDP per capita seems like the best way to do that, doesn't it?

Otherwise you're not adjusting for the size of different countries, which is obviously ridiculous.

Eg the GDP of India is ~70% larger than the GDP of Canada, but India is a much poorer country. Once you adjust for the 35X larger population that becomes obvious (and would match the lived experience of the average person in both places).

Sure, but it is a gross tool that doesn't take into account individual differences. Yes it can give a quick snapshot and it is easy to compare India to Canada, but when you talking about tenths of a percent difference between peer countries, it doesn't take enough information to give a clear conclusion that one is truly not keeping up.

For example, opendoor's post about debt to GDP increasing as a way to increase GDP per capita. Or if you take into Fuzz's immigration point, I don't know how our peers are doing workforce wise, but Canada has been losing its working % of population as it increases immigration of students and families. If Germany's population grows 2% with 1.8% being working age people, and Canada's grows 2% but only 1% is working age people, that does effect how I would look at GDP/capita.

I don't have those specific figures, but I also want to look at more recent data than a FI report showing numbers for the past 25 years.

GDP is great at showing increase in overall capital, but it doesn't do a good job at describing the strength of the economy. And adding a per capita doesn't suddenly make it better for comparison, it takes a whole lot of aggregated data to give any indication of how an economy is doing.

Trump won on the economy because the average person in America as struggling, but if you look at the GDP then the economy has been rolling along great.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Yeah but

Thanks for retorting to StickMan’s tripe so I don’t have to.

It’s nice you’ve found purpose.

[CliffFletcher]

Excellent interview with David Frum about Trump’s lunacy. He also goes into the CPC’s miscalculation coming out of covid in branding the party as right-wing populist (@22:10).

Spoiler!

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

The statistics you posted are misleading when they don’t account for population growth. As pointed out, one country could have a 1% population increase while another could have a 25% population increase over a given period of time.

Canada has had a very poor record compared to peer countries. You don’t even have to compare us to the US (they are way, way ahead of us).

You should move to one of them.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

It's bad you'll never know. You could learn something from reading the news.

lol. Unlike a genius like you who gets it all from rightwing tweets?

Paragraphs aren't your friend?

How much did it cost you to rent this?

[Monahammer]

How many necro-mel accounts are there? Is this thing like a russian nesting doll of Mel?

What needs clearing? He was an investor, he invested in resource projects. Setting up a specific fund that targets renewable energy projects does nothing to impinge investment in pipelines.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You should move to one of them.

No. I will stay here. I hope that the Canadian economy recovers.

I know you keep saying that the Canadian economy isn’t struggling, Mark Carney disagrees with you.

Former Canadian and U.K. central banker Mark Carney said the Canadian economy is struggling and the Liberal government under outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn't put enough focus on policies aimed at fueling growth.

[Fuzz]

He either thinks we are unbelievably stupid, or he's unbelievably stupid.

[2ArmBands]

Ask UK economists how they feel about Mark Carney and their path to net zero. It should tell you everything you need to know.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

He either thinks we are unbelievably stupid, or he's unbelievably stupid.

Could be both

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

He either thinks we are unbelievably stupid, or he's unbelievably stupid.

That has to be a Beaver article right? he can't be that clueless. hahahahaha DrFever loves him!

Why did the deplorable capitalize the F? oh.. it's a slogan.