Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Ironhorse]

Well said

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

Well said

One would hope he said it well, he says it every couple of months.

I’m just kidding Mr.Coffee

[Ozy_Flame]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1563181280678014976

[TheIronMaiden]

@ Mr.Coffee, there is a lot to agree with on your LNG post. That said, can you be more specific about how Canadians quality of life is diminishing?

[Azure]

To expand on our terrible business climate.

“Business investment is so weak that capital per member of the labour force is falling, and the implications for incomes and competitiveness are ominous,” says the C.D. Howe Institute report.

Prices are rising, but real incomes are not. The study says among the likely reasons for that, which the Bank of Canada itself has highlighted, is weak business investment and consequently low productivity.

“Investment per available worker lower in Canada than abroad tells us that businesses see less opportunity in Canada, and prefigures weaker growth in Canadian earnings and living standards than in other OECD countries,” said William Robson, one of the authors.

New business investment per worker in Canada was slightly over 50 cents for every dollar invested in America per worker in 2021, the lowest it has been since the beginning of the 1990s.

Canadian business investment also falls short of other peer nations. Projections show that Canadian workers will only see 73 cents of new capital for every dollar in other OECD nations, excluding the U.S., in 2022, said the study.

The report calculates that there will be $20,400 of new capital per worker this year for OECD countries, aside from the U.S., compared with $14,800 in Canada.

https://financialpost.com/executive/...ica-study-says

Liberals aren't solely at fault as this has clearly been years in the making. Gotta agree with Mr Coffee. Canadians are entitled and lazy. Zero foresight in economic development and our government is busy virtue signaling and appeasing the stupid.

[CaptainCrunch]

CMAC responds

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada...box=1661534257

The organization embroiled in a scandal after receiving a $133,000 government contract for an anti-racism project, even though one of its founders had sent a slew of bigoted tweets, has finally spoken out, issuing an email to supporters that says “online and mainstream media are powerful tools of White Supremacy.”

Friday’s statement does not address the questions raised by Housefather or Hussen.

“From Turtle Island to Palestine, CMAC continues to see the need for an anti-racism strategy for broadcasting that disrupts settler-colonialism and oppression in the media,” it said.

The email also urges patience on the part of organizers for events across Canada, and said it would be suspending events for the time being while it considers how to respond to Canadian Heritage.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

@ Mr.Coffee, there is a lot to agree with on your LNG post. That said, can you be more specific about how Canadians quality of life is diminishing?

The state of our health care and education systems are in somewhat disarray and can’t afford basic stuff. We have teachers buying school supplies for classrooms, we have high schools such as news ones in south Calgary that are way over capacity and have kids crawling on top of each other in hallways as makeshift classrooms. We have similar problems in health care with bloated giant bureaucracies with no end in sight and public institutions protecting them inhibiting our ability to fix real problems. For example, my wife is a nurse and doing a masters in nursing, and just finished interviewing the CEO of one of the hospitals for a project. Nursing staff shortages are a big problem but partially caused by the way the nursing union offers shifts being basically super inflexible. Front line nurses want it changed to promote more shift flexibility. New nurses want this, management wants this, admin wants this, but the union is against it (not sure why) and so nothing changes. Hospitals obviously lack adequate capacity, way worse than it used to be and was exacerbated by COVID. We have a provincial government openly hostile to doctors and public unions, which helps drive some of these positions to other countries.

Depression rates are at sky high levels and drug and alcohol dependency rates are on the rise. One could likely correctly argue these are a function of COVID but are still a reflection of declining standard of living.

Debt levels for Canadians have never been higher, and we are at the precipice of an inter generational collapse of real estate opportunities for young Canadians trying to start their lives. Now nobody can afford to buy a home in major metropolitan centres like Toronto, Vancouver, and arguably Calgary without dual income.

Not everything is dire and as with everything there are shades of grey to every argument. Mine is that we are at the beginning of a long term decline in standard of living and we should expect same without, as Cliff has said as nausem and he is 110% correct, massive increases in taxation. But that’s where I have a lot of concern. There’s been so much distrust built up in our government and public institutions to properly manage budgets and not be corrupt #######s, so there is a massive cultural tension when it comes to increasing the necessary taxes we need to do. And that’s completely understandable the way Trudeaus Liberals have managed things with so many corruptions and scandals and obvious bull#### going on.

Anyway, I’m musing a bit here too but let me tell you, I’ve worked for Canadians, Americans and groups in the Middle East. Guess who were the laziest and most entitled by a wide margin? Other countries want what we have, if we want to keep it, we have to be smarter and work harder. Smarter as in leverage what our economy is built on, resources. And then work for it all.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

The state of our health care and education systems are in somewhat disarray and can’t afford basic stuff. We have teachers buying school supplies for classrooms, we have high schools such as news ones in south Calgary that are way over capacity and have kids crawling on top of each other in hallways as makeshift classrooms. We have similar problems in health care with bloated giant bureaucracies with no end in sight and public institutions protecting them inhibiting our ability to fix real problems. For example, my wife is a nurse and doing a masters in nursing, and just finished interviewing the CEO of one of the hospitals for a project. Nursing staff shortages are a big problem but partially caused by the way the nursing union offers shifts being basically super inflexible. Front line nurses want it changed to promote more shift flexibility. New nurses want this, management wants this, admin wants this, but the union is against it (not sure why) and so nothing changes. Hospitals obviously lack adequate capacity, way worse than it used to be and was exacerbated by COVID. We have a provincial government openly hostile to doctors and public unions, which helps drive some of these positions to other countries.

Depression rates are at sky high levels and drug and alcohol dependency rates are on the rise. One could likely correctly argue these are a function of COVID but are still a reflection of declining standard of living.

Debt levels for Canadians have never been higher, and we are at the precipice of an inter generational collapse of real estate opportunities for young Canadians trying to start their lives. Now nobody can afford to buy a home in major metropolitan centres like Toronto, Vancouver, and arguably Calgary without dual income.

Not everything is dire and as with everything there are shades of grey to every argument. Mine is that we are at the beginning of a long term decline in standard of living and we should expect same without, as Cliff has said as nausem and he is 110% correct, massive increases in taxation. But that’s where I have a lot of concern. There’s been so much distrust built up in our government and public institutions to properly manage budgets and not be corrupt #######s, so there is a massive cultural tension when it comes to increasing the necessary taxes we need to do. And that’s completely understandable the way Trudeaus Liberals have managed things with so many corruptions and scandals and obvious bull#### going on.

Anyway, I’m musing a bit here too but let me tell you, I’ve worked for Canadians, Americans and groups in the Middle East. Guess who were the laziest and most entitled by a wide margin? Other countries want what we have, if we want to keep it, we have to be smarter and work harder. Smarter as in leverage what our economy is built on, resources. And then work for it all.

Thank you for answering in good faith.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

The state of our health care and education systems are in somewhat disarray and can’t afford basic stuff. We have teachers buying school supplies for classrooms, we have high schools such as news ones in south Calgary that are way over capacity and have kids crawling on top of each other in hallways as makeshift classrooms. We have similar problems in health care with bloated giant bureaucracies with no end in sight and public institutions protecting them inhibiting our ability to fix real problems. For example, my wife is a nurse and doing a masters in nursing, and just finished interviewing the CEO of one of the hospitals for a project. Nursing staff shortages are a big problem but partially caused by the way the nursing union offers shifts being basically super inflexible. Front line nurses want it changed to promote more shift flexibility. New nurses want this, management wants this, admin wants this, but the union is against it (not sure why) and so nothing changes. Hospitals obviously lack adequate capacity, way worse than it used to be and was exacerbated by COVID. We have a provincial government openly hostile to doctors and public unions, which helps drive some of these positions to other countries.

Depression rates are at sky high levels and drug and alcohol dependency rates are on the rise. One could likely correctly argue these are a function of COVID but are still a reflection of declining standard of living.

Debt levels for Canadians have never been higher, and we are at the precipice of an inter generational collapse of real estate opportunities for young Canadians trying to start their lives. Now nobody can afford to buy a home in major metropolitan centres like Toronto, Vancouver, and arguably Calgary without dual income.

Not everything is dire and as with everything there are shades of grey to every argument. Mine is that we are at the beginning of a long term decline in standard of living and we should expect same without, as Cliff has said as nausem and he is 110% correct, massive increases in taxation. But that’s where I have a lot of concern. There’s been so much distrust built up in our government and public institutions to properly manage budgets and not be corrupt #######s, so there is a massive cultural tension when it comes to increasing the necessary taxes we need to do. And that’s completely understandable the way Trudeaus Liberals have managed things with so many corruptions and scandals and obvious bull#### going on.

Anyway, I’m musing a bit here too but let me tell you, I’ve worked for Canadians, Americans and groups in the Middle East. Guess who were the laziest and most entitled by a wide margin? Other countries want what we have, if we want to keep it, we have to be smarter and work harder. Smarter as in leverage what our economy is built on, resources. And then work for it all.

I work in the trades, and I see how lazy & entitled Canadians are every single day.

We can argue all day and all night about paying people more, but I personally know LOTS of companies who simply can't find young workers who want to work their ass off for a good paycheck.

Extrapolate that behavior out across the entire economy, and it doesn't matter what industry you are in, Canadians lack the ambition an drive that is needed to build our economy.

There is a reason the public sector has created the most jobs the last year. Lazy people want to sit around on their ass all day long and what better place to do that than on the government payroll?

Yet these top-level claims require a deeper dive into what’s really behind Canada’s post-pandemic recovery. The data tell us a less favourable story than the prevailing narrative in the media or from the government. Much of Canada’s post-pandemic jobs recovery—indeed, nearly 85 percent since February 2020—has actually been concentrated in the public sector. We have experienced a G-shaped recovery: a government-centric recovery.

Start with Statistics Canada’s latest monthly jobs report.2 (New data, including for the month of June, will be released on July 8). As Chart 1 shows, Canada’s labour market has indeed recovered jobs lost after the onset of the pandemic.

https://thehub.ca/2022-07-08/sean-sp...0jobs%20report.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Azure

There is a reason the public sector has created the most jobs the last year. Lazy people want to sit around on their ass all day long and what better place to do that than on the government payroll?

Huh? In the last 12 months there has been a net increase of 215K public sector jobs compared to 471K new private sector jobs.

As for the pandemic recovery, since the bottom for job numbers in April 2020, there have been 3.46M net jobs added, with about 3M of those being in the private sector.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Huh? In the last 12 months there has been a net increase of 215K public sector jobs compared to 471K new private sector jobs.

As for the pandemic recovery, since the bottom for job numbers in April 2020, there have been 3.46M net jobs added, with about 3M of those being in the private sector.

Lazy people wanting to do nothing but sit on their asses all day for good money must be the reason we have so many fast food restaurant employees, skip the dishes and Uber drivers in this country.

[opendoor]

Oh, I see that article was using February 2020 as the baseline, which makes no sense if you're talking about jobs created as part of the recovery. Public sector jobs rise predictably year to year at about the same rate as economic growth, while private sector jobs ebb and flow. So if you take numbers right before a crisis and then compare them to the point of recovery, obviously virtually all the growth is going to be in the public sector. The exact same thing happened in 2008-2010.

But just for comparison, lazy Canada reached its February 2020 private sector jobs level in February 2022. The United States didn't get there until June 2022.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Oh, I see that article was using February 2020 as the baseline, which makes no sense if you're talking about jobs created as part of the recovery. Public sector jobs rise predictably year to year at about the same rate as economic growth, while private sector jobs ebb and flow. So if you take numbers right before a crisis and then compare them to the point of recovery, obviously virtually all the growth is going to be in the public sector. The exact same thing happened in 2008-2010.

But just for comparison, lazy Canada reached its February 2020 private sector jobs level in February 2022. The United States didn't get there until June 2022.

Don’t let facts get in the way of a good narrative.

[Azure]

Not sure what narrative you think that is. From 2003 to 2013 public sector jobs grew 2x faster than the private sector. I'd imagine the numbers will be similar from 2013 to 2023 if you factor in the fact that millions of jobs were lost due to COVID.

We have no high growth private sector jobs in Canada. We also have a massive amount of health care workers leaving, and we have an immigration backlog to fill those spots. Public sector growth is going to be slower than expected. And the private sector even slower than that.

Overall we have over a million job vacancies, and nobody is filling any of those spots. With the economy slowing down, a crash in the housing market coming, and possibly a looming recession, I'd bet that most of the job creation will be in the public sector trying to use foreign workers to stem the bleeding that is going on.

[StickMan]

Ottawa now underreports true level of spending.

During the pandemic, while Canadians were distracted by other things, the government changed the way federal spending is disclosed. As a result, Ottawa now underreports its true level of spending and presents an incomplete picture to Canadians.

https://thehub.ca/2022-08-24/opinion...l-of-spending/


.

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by StickMan

https://thehub.ca/2022-08-24/opinion...l-of-spending/


.

Note that the budget surplus of 10.2 Billion in Q1 2022-2023 includes Net Actuarial Loss. Without Net Actuarial Losses the surplus would have been 12.8 Billion. Considering this come from the Fraser Institute had it been a Conservative government I'm confident that they would be making the opposite argument.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

https://twitter.com/user/status/1563181280678014976

I put $300 toward my monthly Credit Card bill of $1000. I am also winning!?!

[Cowboy89]

GDP per capita in Canada has been falling since 2014. This is happening while housing costs among other things are skyrocketing. We’re already in decline in living standards and quality of life. The only thing that has masked this from the national consciousness has been the wealth effect that house price increases have made for the homeowning portion of the population. Now that this bubble has popped with higher interest rates this reality will start to become more obvious in the everyday lives of Canadians. We are lazy, entitled, and think we can turn our noses up at developing our natural resources.

This is now so obvious, but no doubt we’ll have posters in the following pages post about how Alberta needs to forget about its energy despite being one of the most blessed jurisdictions on Earth and become an ‘emerging tech-hub’ like every other place in North America is also trying to be. We’re supposed to somehow compete in these fields globally without having a built in competitive advantage with everyone being able to WFH during cold/Covid seasons, only 4 days a week, with 6 weeks vacation, and whining about how it’s not enough that the government already pays for health care, but also has to pay for everyone’s drugs, dental etc. There’s a strong component of the Canadian population who think it’s inhumane to have to work any harder than that. Without natural resource revenue we’re completely screwed.

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

GDP per capita in Canada has been falling since 2014.

This is false. GDP per capita had been increasing steadily until 2020 with a partial recovery in 2021.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...D?locations=CA

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...N?locations=CA

This is now so obvious, but no doubt we’ll have posters in the following pages post about how Alberta needs to forget about its energy despite being one of the most blessed jurisdictions on Earth and become an ‘emerging tech-hub’ like every other place in North America is also trying to be. We’re supposed to somehow compete in these fields globally without having a built in competitive advantage with everyone being able to WFH during cold/Covid seasons, only 4 days a week, with 6 weeks vacation, and whining about how it’s not enough that the government already pays for health care, but also has to pay for everyone’s drugs, dental etc. There’s a strong component of the Canadian population who think it’s inhumane to have to work any harder than that. Without natural resource revenue we’re completely screwed.

You and some of the other posters need to understand the point of view of importer countries. Importing oil and gas is a huge strategic liability, but until very recently there very few alternatives. However you're starting to see alternatives like battery-electric vehicles. There a bit of nibbling on the demand for O&G. On the horizon you see things fueled by clean energy such as hydrogen, synthetic hydrocarbons, methanol, ammonia and potentially other things. Is it possible that they could completely displace oil and gas? Maybe, maybe not but it's entirely countries (especially rich ones) will aim to replace a significant share with clean fuels for climate and/or strategic purposes.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

This is false. GDP per capita had been increasing steadily until 2020 with a partial recovery in 2021.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...D?locations=CA

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...N?locations=CA



You and some of the other posters need to understand the point of view of importer countries. Importing oil and gas is a huge strategic liability, but until very recently there very few alternatives. However you're starting to see alternatives like battery-electric vehicles. There a bit of nibbling on the demand for O&G. On the horizon you see things fueled by clean energy such as hydrogen, synthetic hydrocarbons, methanol, ammonia and potentially other things. Is it possible that they could completely displace oil and gas? Maybe, maybe not but it's entirely countries (especially rich ones) will aim to replace a significant share with clean fuels for climate and/or strategic purposes.

Re: GDP growth as an isolated measure while correct in stating it is not declining is incorrect in that relative to western world democracies (including Europe) is falling behind and relative to BRIC countries who are leveraging populations and modernizing simultaneously is extremely disingenuous. The big challenge today is Canadian entitlement and laziness embedded in a culture that is increasingly global in its competitiveness. This is a philosophical question about what kind of standard of living Canadians want and what kind of standard of living Canadians need (these are 2 different things most likely and will be a cultural challenge we struggle with as a society for the next 100 years). To say here is a graph of GDP growth is 1/10 the story and is disingenuous idiocy, and something tells me anyone with a shred of self reflection and honesty knows this. Have you travelled anywhere? Like, outside of Canada?

The rest of your gobbly#### is 110% nonsense not based in reality about energy systems and how human beings and the world works. I too think that laser beams and flying cars that are powered by pixie dust are just right right around the corner. There’s cool new science and emerging technologies and then there’s 100s of years of human civilization history to tell us about technology adoption trends, timelines and realities that we would be ill advised to ignore if we want Canada to be a relevant country 50 years from now. But being ignorant about energy systems is cool and stuff, and Justin Trudeau the biggest idiot of all tells us from his mansion that climate change is the biggest crisis facing us (it could be, but it depends on your values, and most Canadians disagree- obviously- evidenced by actions).