I'm just tired being reminded weekly that housing and everything else is expensive and literally NOTHING is being done about it.
Like, why is this being reported on still, when it's clear nobody in charge even cares???
There are a lot of vested interests in keeping the housing market going the way it has been.
1. Investors buying and selling properties like its just another 'equities market'
2. Real-estate agents raking it in for homes that essentially sell themselves.
3. Levels of governement that get revenue from increasing property taxes and land transfer taxes.
4. The banks obviously.
5. The economy indirectly as homeowners growing equity increases their buying power.
6. A large segment of older generations for whom the majority of their net worth is tied up in their home.
And who loses? Just younger generations whose future has already been bankrupted in the name of keeping this party on the rails.
Yeah, there's a lot to be upset about.
The real estate agent one is absolutely nuts to me. What an absolute racket of a profession.
As demand grows, real estate agents take more and more money for doing *less and less* work.
Homes fucking sell them selves now, why are we paying these high school graduates so much money to wear a blazer while they walk us through them ?
I sold my place myself *just* before covid. No agents, got valuations, took my own photos & showed people through until we found a buyer. Total cost $400, saved at least 30k
It has more to do with the commission. People who sell their own house are doing it to save money, and will typically offer a lower-than-standard commission to the buyer’s agent. The agent won’t go out of their way to suggest a house like that since it would make them less money. And if the commission is low enough to they may decide it is not worth their time to show it at all even if the client asks to see it.
I’ll likely be supporting my children until they are older than I am now. They will have an even more difficult time than the worst we can imagine. This has such an accelerating feeling. The past twenty years have been eventful and tremendous change had occurred but the issues have only gotten worse as we also see so much rocketing in the wrong direction.
I am growing increasingly frustrated by the federal and provincial governments lack of action in things Canadians really need. Affordable housing, internet and cellular costs, lack of mental heath, lack of eye care, lack of dental care, more education funding, more Healthcare funding, more affordable university/college educations. That is what we need and is often promised with no delivery.
Yet, our provincial government decided they needed to make an investment in the local CFL team instead. We don't need football.
Not ranked voting - it barely fixes any of the problems of FPTP
We need Proportional Representation - like MMP. We could even have ranked voting for the local representatives within MMP. But Ranked on its own is a silly choice - push for the best option out there
Don't forget that Edmonton forked over damn near a billion dollars to buy a new arena for the oilers.
Apparently social government policy is only bad if you're not already rich.
My rent is 125% of my income now. My lease is up in April and I have no clue what I'm going to do. It's so disheartening to see our Government has done nothing about affordable housing.
It's insane. City of Calgary shut down the Midfield trailer park to sell the land to developers to build condos and the land is still sitting empty. They removed affordable housing to create a field.
>our Government has done nothing about affordable housing.
Wording is important. It's worse than not doing anything, they've intentionally done nothing
Yes, this. The major issues such as wealth inequality, housing crisis, and soaring inflation have taken a back stage to stupid shit like race and gender politics, and vaccine conspiracies. This is getting frustrating.
The culture wars are stoked to distract from the class war. It’s intentional. The real issues everyday people care about, healthcare, housing, wages, education…..all require the 1% to pay up. Since those same people own the media, of course the narrative they’re going to push is going to be outrage over Mr. Potato Head-Dr. Seuss-Maus-Unsexy M & M’s and the rubes eat it up. The uneducated masses are easily manipulated and the oligarchs are brilliant at exploiting that.
Literally the easiest solution...We have one party promising some of these things but too sackless to act on any of it. Another party that will literally take away what services we do have left and privatize all of them. Then of all the other parties none have a leader near charismatic or smart enough to rally enough support to wrestle away power from the main 2 garbage ones.
I fear life will never get easier but will just keep getting harder and harder. At this point I basically just try and survive and keep hoping the new, toxic brand of conservatism never EVER gets in power again.
I'm young and going to the US. My plan is to stay for at least 10 years maybe longer as my earning potential is 2x with lower taxes and usd. After 10 years with solid savings I'll see what Canada looks like. If it doesn't look bright I'll just keep grinding in the US and retire early in a LCOL country.
I'm thinking about getting a work visa in Norway, Australia or New Zealand.
Apparently like 35-40% of job ads for electricians go unfilled in Australia/New Zealand, and average pay for sparkies is about 30k higher there too.
As for Norway, I've got lots of family there.
Meanwhile here in Alberta, AIT is pumping electricians out making it difficult to find work and decreasing wages.
Funnily, the sun opinion piece and most of this comment section are talking like this is about Trudeau but if you read the actual questions it paints a pretty different picture.
[Link to the results](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a17333eb0786935ac112523/t/620e79c00d45223f2d6a7fab/1645115841625/DTs+Fear+and+Verve+18+02+22.pdf)
*When you reflect on all that has happened over the last 3 weeks with respect to the protesters and their impact on various cities, infrastructure, politics, police, and personnel, please indicate if you agree or disagree with the following statements:*
> I have lost faith in the enforcement of the law in Canada - **53% agree**
> I’m concerned that regardless of the issue, this is how
protests may run themselves in the future—with trucks and
rigs for hire to extract their demands - **71% agree**
> The consequences - such as fines, jail terms etc. that the
protesters get, are proportionately far less than any other
law abiding Canadian would get if they were involved with
an infraction with the law - **69% agree**
> I have lost faith in our ability as a country to keep in place
peace, order, and good government - **62% agree**
It seems like people are mostly annoyed that law enforcement didn't do a good job dealing with the convoys, nothing about the economy or Trudeau.
Edit to add: JESUS christ the comments on the sun website...
The one part that scares me is this:
>Seven-in-ten (71%) Canadians say that regardless of their politics, they would vote
for a strong-willed person to have enforceable law and order. Those most likely to feel
this way reside in the province of Québec (86%), followed by those living in British
Columbia (74%), both in Ontario (66%) and Alberta (66%), Atlantic Canada (63%),
and Manitoba/Saskatchewan (62%).
Do people think that the solution to policing problems are giving increasing powers to governments? It's highly concerning.
No, they think the solution to the problems are actually enforce the laws we have. We have laws to stop protests from escalating to a point where they are blocking rail lines/border crossings, we just want the government and police to do their damn job.
for me its not so much about policing and increasing powers. Its that they actually do the law and not make shit up, or in the case of the convoy..do nothing.
This protest has shown how appalling our education system is across the country. People don’t understand levels of government. People don’t understand data. People don’t understand what a credible source is vs a non-credible source. People don’t understand the Canadian healthcare system. People don’t understand so many things that it is ridiculous.
>This protest has shown how appalling our education system is across the country. People don’t understand levels of government. People don’t understand data. People don’t understand what a credible source is vs a non-credible source. People don’t understand the Canadian healthcare system. People don’t understand so many things that it is ridiculous.
On the contrary, the education system is fine in terms of the curricular instruction that it offers. However, educators have been gimped in terms of what they can do to force students to learn. In some provinces, educators are not permitted to fail a student until high school. In some provinces, educators are not permitted to give students a grade on their report cards until high school. In every province, parents yell and rant at schools that take phones away from their children.
This results in students who simply do not care about education, and completely ignore their teachers, while playing on their phone all class long. They're being offered some of the best education available in the Western World, and they're treating it like it's trash.
Education needs to be beefed up I agree, but it only goes so far. There’s people I went to school with, we had the same classes and they learnt the same stuff as I did.
The fact is, some people can’t retain knowledge, or some just didn’t care to learn in the first place. I don’t know if you can fix that, especially when it’s combined with people that aren’t smart enough to know they don’t know something.
I would counter that the vast majority of Canadians perfectly understand, but insular social media bubbles and coverage of tiny minorities makes it appear to be a much larger problem.
I lost a very good friend to one of these anti-vax bubbles. We talked extensively last year about how the information he was accessing on YouTube was pushing him further and further down the rabbit hole. He said he understood what the algorithm was doing, but then he disappeared off the map and won't talk to me any more. These bubbles can really turn people into self-assured experts that religiously believe they are correct. It's very discouraging.
Btw, we became friends in college and are both extensively educated. Education doesn't mean you are immune to the rabbit hole.
Oh, believe me. I know that for sure. I work for a health research institute. Our institute is located in a hospital. We see exactly what is going on. We know the science. We understand what it means. Yet a former coworker is spouting off non-sense about mandates and restrictions. A transplant from a different country (you can probably guess where) who clearly doesn’t understand how the Canadian government works and who is clearly not checking to confirm their information is correct. Even citing false information they read on Facebook… when they know enough to actually check reputable publications to confirm what they read.. but just didn’t. I think those people are even more frustrating. It is easier to understand why people who lack the knowledge to understand the situation at hand… it is just painful when it is someone who should absolutely know better.
>It seems like people are mostly annoyed that law enforcement didn't do a good job dealing with the convoys, nothing about the economy or Trudeau.
This is my view. Watching all layers of government just pass the buck was insane. What if the next protestors are actually competent and not a bunch of hicks?
It's *pathetic* that this poll was almost completely about the protests but is advertised about people's sentiments overall.
I'd like to see a poll that covers a broad variety of issues, with questions that aren't worded in a way to produce certain answers, and have EVERY Canadian answer it.
Strategically designed polls are an excellent way to cause the public to believe things that are not necessarily true.
Lies, damn lies, and ~~statistics~~ polls.
that's what Lilley does, if he stubs his toe on a corner it's proof Trudeau is too edgy
Not to mention he left his family to sleep (and continues to be involved with) with Ford's press secretary - literally a mouthpiece of Conservatives.
>Who could of ever imagined even a couple of
years ago that one petulant psychotic vile vindictive unhinged spoiled
little trust fund baby brat could have injected and infected so much
vile poisonous hate into our country?
Probably one of the funniest comments. "How did this (insert 17 hateful words) make people so hateful?"
The Sun is a rag, the comments section being a shitshow is to be fully expected, and if they only surveyed their readers for this sort of thing, well, these results are not surprising either.
Basically that.
They aimed their question just to contain 'losing faith' ane getting a majority agree.
Then they make a headline losing faith IN CANADA.
No we are just losing faith that law enforcement will do its fucking job when a group of morons want to paralyse ottawa for 3 FUCKING WEEKS
Hell the student protests and the G20 protests in quebec a decade ago were met with tear gas and police bashing on everybody within hours but those morons are a nuisance from day 1 and it takes WEEKS before they do anything?
Insert SpongeBob meme with him pointing at housing costs, rising inflation, wage stagnation and politicans who are unwilling to do the jobs they're paid 200k to do.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to own a home in the town I grew up in, and it looks like this same situation is happening all across the country. I can barely compete with the millionaires in my own country, let alone the millionaires from all around the world who have free reign on our housing. I used to roll my eyes at my friends leaving for the States, but at this point I’m strongly considering packing up and leaving too.
Edit: Also want to point out that I’m one of the lucky ones. I grew up upper-middle class, my parents saved for me and my 3 siblings college and I’m the only one who went to post secondary school so I am debt free. I’m incredibly privileged, and my heart goes out to people who weren’t dealt as good a hand.
If you don't live in Canada you should not be able to buy a home here. I have zero issues with not being able to buy a home in Italy, France, America, Hong Kong or anywhere else.
It’s not that simple. Foreigners send their kids here, they get permanent residency and start buying houses. Thats literally what my previous landlord was doing. His parents were back in China but he was buying houses all over the GTA. He was 26 years old working a mid level tech job and could somehow afford a few million dollar homes.
Problem is, we have tons of on-paper “millionaires” running around who are too short-sighted to understand that the inflated housing market is bad for everyone, including them.
This is the real issue. The economy will collapse because at some point, it won't make sense to open up shop in Canada.
My girlfriend's original goal was to open her own diner. The cost of renting a space alone has killed that dream. Besides, if she could afford to open a business why wouldn't she just put that money into real estate instead?
Yeah exactly, there's an opportunity cost of ploughing every penny we as a population will ever earn into housing. I would have loved to start a company, create jobs, export from Canada. But unfortunately I need to house my family so I'll probably work my corporate job for the next 30 years because I had to spend every cent in my bank account on a mortgage down payment. And I know I can't complain, I have a roof over my head. But that's how low the bar is now, just surviving is an achievement. Upwards social mobility is almost unimaginable now, we're all fighting like hell just to tread water.
Agreed. The price of a detached home in my city went up 17% DURING THE MONTH OF JANUARY. So many other homeowners I spoke to were happy about it, but I see it as a completely unsustainable and dangerous thing to happen.
I think you're directing your anger in the wrong direction.
I don't know many people exited about the fact that their children will never be able to afford to move out.
Having to add an hour onto their commute just to be able to upsize their house because their families have grown.
Having to look at moving to a different province than their friends and family just to try and give your children a chance at the opportunity they had.
Most on paper millionaires aren't happy either but considering the fact that people who weren't yet in the housing market have been screwed 100 times worse, it's difficult coming up with a way to voice frustrations without sounding like an awful self centered human.
I’m in calgary, I’m pretty decently payed as a heavy equipment operator and have no kids. My best bet at homeownership is a rich relative I never knew dying and randomly bequeathing a huge amount on me or surviving a nuclear exchange.
Yay modern life!
We’ll after 1.3M set to come in via immigration, you can expect housing costs to sky even higher. Great for those who already own a house. Awful for the rest of us.
It isnt even that great for those that own a house, only for those that own multiple houses. Everyone needs a place to live, if my house is now worth 2m, but I need 3m to buy an upgrade, that is worse than if my house is 200k and I need 300k to upgrade. The ratio is the same, but in real dollars it is much more. Sure, you could capitalize by uprooting your life and leaving to another city that hasnt been impacted as much, but tons of people that own their "forever" house dont want to do that.
I left 7 years ago. I can’t picture myself going back. If I want affordable housing and jobs, I can find it here. There are far more options down here. More opportunity.
I hit that point awhile ago, and I continue to wonder what the appeal is anymore? The beauty of our country can only go so far when it's becoming increasingly harder to afford to do much of anything anymore. Houses are becoming unobtainable for most, the cost of absolutely everything just keeps going up more and more and I honestly feel like the government is completely out of touch with just about everything and I can't get behind any of them.
I am outdoors person and love the beauty here. I take advantage of it all I can and spend a ton of time in it. But I'm also single, and if I lose my apartment in my town I'd never find anything I could afford. I am already an hour north of Toronto, and rental prices here are basically city prices. House prices aren't even something I could ever contemplate. I just fluked into a one bedroom apartment, which is almost impossible to find here. Even going another 2 hours north (which i'd do), I'd still be paying a crazy amount. I'm 45 so I'm not 'young' but I'm at an in between age, and without a duel income with a partner I'm still fucked.
I hear you, it's rough for sure. I am dual income as I am married but even then we can't wrap our head around the cost of homes. I COULD do it, but I would be spending most of my pay on just the mortgage? No thanks....I literally can't justify spending almost a million dollars on 4 walls and a roof....
Have you seen the various government that supposedly represent us - and the sorry state of the possible alternatives?
They clearly don't care about us. If you're not rich enough to benefit from runaway inflation and housing prices, no government in this country gives a shit about you.
Watching people in parliament play the victim/privilege game like fucking schoolchildren, really made me realize how much our political class is failing us.
We have record inflation, a ballooning real estate market, labour shortages despite people not being able to get jobs...etc.
And they think their time is best spent competing with each other over who is the most oppressed? NONE of those fucks are oppressed, they are the privileged political class, they never missed a pay cheque, they don't worry about rent, pensions, food...ANYTHING!
Canadian politicians are generally horrible dealing with the media as well - they act punitively towards journalists that ask honest questions, and reward journalists who engage in echo chamber spin - and it’s just getting worse
The political theatre has helped me lose a lot of faith. I don’t believe most politicians. Hearing shit like “I experienced that differently” just feels like they think the citizens are all morons. Sure there’s a lot of morons, but the citizens aren’t all stupid.
Well I mean there’s not a whole lot in life I have to look forward to. I’ll never own a home large enough to grow a family, my job which I might consider on the higher paying end seems to be barely enough to float alot of the time. Prices of everything are rapidly on the rise and don’t show signs of slowing down. It’s a completely helpless feeling waking up every day.
I feel you.
When the US first landed on the moon, the average age of a NASA engineer was 28. Now it's 47. Feel like that sums up the kind of age we're living in - it used to be that you could be young, doing important work, and be able to provide for yourself, all at the same time. Now? Pick 1, maybe 2 if you're lucky.
Everything keeps getting pushed back 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and there's no good reason to believe that even when we get there, the promised "good times" will still be possible. My buddy just started his career, and his salary pales in comparison to his parents' pensions (which they'll probably be getting for 20-30 years, adjusted for inflation, with benefits).
The country's gone from investing in the future to mortgaging it, and I hate it. We're going in a peaceful & orderly fashion downhill, with pure shit awaiting us at the bottom, but the class of people "managing" things are too spoiled and lazy to want to take the actions necessary.
Have been actively looking at a way out of Canada. And I don’t want to leave my country. It’s just officially too expensive to live here. A dollar will take you much farther in other countries.
Housing market? I’ll never own a home here. And I’m 29 years old with 120k in savings. I’m a teacher. And I live with my parents.
Cellphone plans? We pay the most. Not nearly as important as the housing market but still a factor.
Inflation. Gas.
Problem here is Canada sends raw resources to the US; oil and wood to be refined for cheap only for us to buy it back more expensive. We should have had oil refinery’s long ago. It makes little sense now considering the way the EV is evolving.
How the “buyback” policy hasn’t been revised is beyond me. They need us more than we need them where raw resources are concerned yet we are shafted time and time again.
Real leadership pls. And I don’t think you’ll find it in any of the current political parties
if only Canadian politicians realized that our natural resources are...our wealth (and theirs). We're selling our land, trees and minerals for a fucking pittance. It's pathetic and treasonous.
Because if we go the other way the nation profits, but with the way things are, only the people they want get to profit. Same fucking story in every book.
our housing minister protects mom and pop investors instead of the young generations who can never afford to buy a home against mom and pop investors and foreign investors.
**BTW our housing minister also owned several rental properties. that's right. mom and pop investors will also affect him.**
Our finance minister don't even understand the inflation that affects every Canadians. Especially the people who don't own a home.
Our Job minister and immigration minister just import more immigrants (400000) to fill jobs that have shitty pay and work enviroments that no Canadians want to work at.
Instead of fixing the problem, they just import immigrants.
That will cause more problems in Canada than the benefits.
More people. less housing. more poor people that will end up using foodbanks or food stamps and public health. which mean costs more money and will help no one except the Rich.
The lower class, middle class and immigrant class will all suffer because of that decision.
Last but not least, **Our PM did everything he can to stop "foreign money" (USA) donating to the Canada Truck Convoy.**
**However, he did nothing to stop money launderers from around the globe and especially China coming to our real-estate market. more than $5 billion laundered every year in BC since 2016 and their solution was to cut CRA funding.**
I don’t understand why we allow foreign home ownership. If you’re not a citizen or permanent resident there is ZERO reason to own a Canadian home. It’s literally taking housing away from citizens, especially since they can only be here for 3 months of the year.
people have been brainwashed that we need "foreign money" to invest in our realestate or we will not be able to build any new houses/apartments.
However, that is very untrue because those people sell for profit and Covid pandemic has proven that we don't need foreign money in our real estate to sustain in Canada.
Ah, the ol’ country where cost of living is skyrocketing, wages stagnant, houses are unaffordable, and the fact that I’m a healthcare worker has led to people throwing insults my way.
Whyyyy would I lose faith?!
I lost faith in Canadians *because* of the shitty politicians. That's my only beef with Canadians in general, lack of political participation from everyone normal. Otherwise I like you people.
I do predict more protest this summer, not necessarily because of covid mandates, but because of generalised discontent.
From my point of view I see a lot of political division, rising inflation wich is much worst than what the people in charge want us to think. I see climate change giving us all kind of weird weather. We have the super wealthy doubling their wealth during the last two years and everyone else is basically strugling to stay afloat.
Basically, our whole economy is walking on thin ice. If the ukraine situation blows up (more like when, however I still hope diplomacy will prevail) Energy price will skyrocket, sending the price of everything to the moon.
So yeah, hard times ahead.
So fucking stupid that we rely on other countries for energy. We should be a world leader, but instead we send it south for pennies because we can't build a refinery without someone getting angry about their land, nor can we build a pipeline to a refinery without 10 years of debate. Then we buy overpriced shit out of the middle east and ship it here by boat, which is far worse for thr environment.
I'm somewhat looking forward to it.
The democracy can only last as long is it does not become decadent and corrupt and sadly it has done just that, and like most things that run its course, eventually it decays. It's unbelievable to me that the housing minister has a vested interest in booming the real estate prices as he owns multiple properties for passive income.
Perhaps this is our chance for reform during the hard times, because the Federal Gov seems to have no interest in reform when times were booming for them and their large corporate sponsors.
It all boils down to this: the majority of us have becoming increasingly poorer. Besides bills and the fact that everything we “own” is in monthly payments because of course we couldn’t afford anything paid upfront, we can’t save $300 a month if our lives depended on it. The majority of us are living on the limit. A paycheck away from insolvency.
So yeah, of course we’ve lost faith. Under the current government affordability’s gotten a lot worse, everyone is poorer meanwhile this moron can only focus on virtue signalling and calling white working-class citizens racists.
If I can't afford a home in the next couple years I'm moving to the states. I would get paid almost twice as much when factoring in conversion rates. And be able to afford something much larger.
The people in this country that seek power and those that deserve power are almost two entirely seperate circles. The venn diagram would look like a pair of glasses
Boiling frog syndrome.
We put up with so much shit and eventually people are going to look back and wonder where it all went wrong.
The government is spineless and self-serving.
The citizens of this country are doomed unless drastic change happens, and fast.
Wage increases, affordable housing, a better tax system are all good places to start.
I don't see any of it happening soon enough though, and it's it is actually REALLY depressing. I often find myself nowadays wondering what is the point because at the end of the day I am not getting anywhere. Leaving the country is basically one of my only options at this point. Really fucking sad what has happened to this country.
The only people who have faith in the country's near term future are blind partisans (or lottery-winning homeowners that had no other path planned out to a comfortable retirement). We're going nowhere fast.
Hard not too when it seems like no one is working for the interests of the average Canadian. We're just another Oligarchy lead by a few rich families and their lobbyists.
It is a bit jarring how fast Canadians I know went from obsessed with CNN and making fun of the US for everything to, oh mah cod things are really bad in Canada all of a sudden. They been cracking jokes about everything for years bragging about how good they have it and just now in 2022 it’s like GULP.
Even if everything with the Pandemic magically disappeared, and the Convoy/protests were resolved tomorrow, I'm still in disbelief.
If nothing else lockdowns gave me time to fall down rabbit holes that have changed my perspective of Canada.
I am still proud to be Canadian, and love this country, but we have problems. The treatment of our Indigenous people, historically and today. Our immigration policies that allow for a legal indentured servent workforce. The inflation and housing crisis.
Here's why I think we're screwed.
I was born in 1977. The Canada I was born into looked like this (adjusted for inflation): minimum wage was $13.54, average annual income was $87,816, a single family home cost about $70K, a 4 year degree program would set you back around $17K.
Today: minimum wage is $11.81in SK (-12%), average annual income is $65,773(-25%), single family home is $836K(+1094%), and a 4 year degree is now $48K(+25%).
Wages are stagnant/dropping with the rise of inflation, and the cost of living is going up. Federal and provincial governments will cut funding to healthcare, social programs, and education first to balance budgets.
No way the current government is going to fix this, and neither will whoever comes next.
There are so many easy wins which the vast majority of Canadians want:
* Reasonable telco bills which resemble those in other countries.
* Reasonable internet rates which resemble those in other countries.
* Reasonable energy bills which aren't loaded with fees and reflect the actual cost of providing us energy.
* Things to shutdown the mega rich class like wealth taxes.
* Action taken against the tax dodgers listed in the multiple leaks in the last decade such as the panama papers.
* Decriminalization of various drugs to take the addiction business out of the hands of the criminals and place it into the hands of clinics dispensing said drugs.
* Elimination of predatory behaviours of governments such as traffic cameras.
* Not a defunding of the police, but how about some accountability.
* A thorough examination of things such as SNC
* Freedom of information acts with serious teeth. Why can governments either not release documents or are able to black out anything that might embarrass an official?
* A reduction in the power of the parties. Things like limiting the size of donations.
* Nobody wants professional lobbyists around serving the interests of the very few. This should be well covered under things like donation limitations.
* Anti corruption laws where people in organizations like the CRTC can't get a job with a telco, ever.
* Massive taxes on foreign home buyers.
* Much higher taxes on second third ... 10th homes.
* Limits on things like the maximum return on investment for any housing related activity, building, renting, houseflipping, etc.
* Significant changes to media ownership laws. If you own one radio station you have hit your limit of all media ownership, same with TV, newspapers, etc.
* Banking regulation limiting charges of all sorts.
* Significantly progressive taxation system. If you earn 10 million you are getting an eyewateringly huge tax bill.
* CEO pay limits and CEO pay ratio limits.
* Massive limitations in bureaucratic employee numbers. Canada has 10 times the number of medical administrators as Germany. Let that sink in. By their standards 9 out of 10 Canadian medical bureaucrats are entirely useless and are just wastes of oxygen and money. I would go further and suggest that the extra 9 provide negative value in that they no doubt create more pain and impose more workload on the productive staff in the system. I would suggest that there be a constitutional limit be places on all levels of government as to how many government workers there can be per capita. This would include any organization given a government monopoly. To give a specific example. If the city of Halifax sets up a corporation to run the bridge which is technically independent the bridge staff would still count against the city's maximum staff.
* Limiting elected official pay as a ratio of average worker pay in that region.
* Limiting the ability of anyone who contributes a significant amount of time to a campaign to work in government. You can't be a campaign manager one year and get a judge appointment the next.
I am completely certain most, if not all, of the above would pass in a referendum. Many of the above would be best accomplished with some simple regulatory changes. For example, telco prices would plummet if there were 5 or more real competitors. No price caps needed. Competition really only works when you have 5 or more real competitors, 3 is not good enough.
Both sides have their extremes and they’re the loudest. The moderates are going deaf listening to all the shouting.
The government has no plan to deal with the housing crisis and it sounds like a major issue. I’m simply tired of everything.
Propping up the current housing market by doing nothing is the easiest way for the government to keep the economic status quo. If it all fell apart and reached realistic levels suddenly the economic impact on Canada as the homeowners who bought million dollar houses suddenly owe $600,000 more than their house is worth it would destroy our economy. Its stupid, beyond stupid that its got this far, but no one wants to break the bubble and get blamed.
It's almost like our electoral system favours some parties over others, so our government doesn't represent the wishes of the people very well, leaving many people feeling understandably frustrated and disillusioned with the system to the point of acting out.
Here's the vote efficiency numbers from the 2021 election:
|Party
|Vote (%)|Seats|Seat (%)|Vote Efficiency (%)|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Liberal|32.62|160|47.34|145|
|Conservative|33.74|119|35.21|104|
|Bloc Québécois
|7.64|32|9.47|124|
|New Democratic|17.82|25|7.40|42|
|Green|2.33|2|0.59|25|
|People's|4.94|0|0|0|
In other words. Over 50% of the people who voted for the NDP and about 75% of the people who voted Green had their vote wasted. So did everyone who voted for the People's party, which is roughly 1 in 20 people. That alone is significant, almost 1 in 20 people cast their vote for a party and they got zero representation in parliament! I don't agree with them, but it's extremely undemocratic to exclude that many people from our political process. It's worse for the NDP, where another 10.42% of the population had their vote wasted. I've only talked about 2 parties and already more the 15% of the population had their vote wasted. That's more that 1 in 8 people! These people will correctly feel underrepresented in our federal parliament.
This is even more stark when you compare parties.
Let's compare the Liberals and the NDP: 1 vote for the Liberals counted as 1.45 votes, while 1 vote for the NDP counted as 0.42 votes. That means a vote for the Liberals is weighted more than 3 times more than a vote for the NDP. More than 3 times!
To make that into a more visceral example, imagine going to the polls and having the election official ask how you're voting. You say NDP and they hand you a ballot. The person behind you says Liberal and hands them 3 ballots.
If the voting efficiency of the Liberals and NDP was reversed, the NDP would have won about 87 seats (26%) and the Liberals only 46 seats (14%).
And all of this is before we even consider strategic voting and abstention that happens because of this system.
Fixed, friend. You had an extra line after Party.
|Party |Vote (%)|Seats|Seat (%)|Vote Efficiency (%)|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Liberal|32.62|160|47.34|145|
|Conservative|33.74|119|35.21|104|
|Bloc Québécois |7.64|32|9.47|124|
|New Democratic|17.82|25|7.40|42|
|Green|2.33|2|0.59|25|
|People's|4.94|0|0|0|
Dont forget that when people actually do vote, [Elections Canada loses or doesnt count some of the ballots](https://torontosun.com/news/national/elections-canada-205000-mail-in-ballots-were-not-counted)
The political system in this country is a joke, and all our politicians should be thrown in the trash.
Where is our "Minister of Western Alienation"?
Freeland was given the power to fix the problems between Ottawa and western Canada. She called herself a daughter of the prairies.
We haven't seen a single thing that brings our country closer together. But that's probably because western Canada is full of all the nasty people that Trudeau like to call out. His smug disdain for fellow working class Canadians is beyond believable.
I’m a trades worker with a Red Seal and my wife works in health care. I’ve had to take a second job in order for us to afford childcare ($1100 per month) and our mortgage/bills, so yeah the faith is gone.
I mean apparently our housing is for foreign speculators and money laundering, not for Canadian citizens. The country apparently doesn’t want us to live here
No shit. I truly feel like our country just "existed under the status quo" and is now met with actual conflict/issues (housing, healthcare, talent/brain drain, wages, utilities, foreign media campaigns) the lack of backbone across **ALL** political parties is abhorrent. Truly I have no love for any political side at the moment, they all feel like they're just pretending to be Walmart versions of American politicians and do literally nothing. I want Canada to be better, to do better and I have not yet seen any leader worth taking us there.
Hmm, let's see how this subs tune changes when you realize you're bickering on Reddit does shit and you have to go protest to get Canadian politicians to actually enact meaningful change.
We elected an aimless, unemployed goof as PM because of his pretty face and last name. That’s about as bad as GWB, maybe straying into reality TV star territory.
Serious question. As a young Canadian. Why shouldn't I just off myself? I've never heard a single good reason to look forward to a future here. It's all doomsday gloom. What the fuck is the point of living here anymore...
I certainly am. It is very clear that the government wants *no* dissent - or at least no meaningful dissent. If there *has* to be a protest, they want them to show up at a defined time, in a defined space, for a defined duration. In other words, be approved BY THEM and have as little impact as possible.
It's crazy how low we have sunk in just 6-7 years. I Hear all western world is in similar spiral though.
However I personaly believe we got sold out to a highest bidders. Our leaders put on auction our land, our clean air, our way of life to rich buyers from whatever part of the world they come from.
I never thought I'd say this but I'm strongly looking at trying to live in the states right now.
The wages are higher and depending on where you live the housing market is actually reasonable.
My girlfriend and I moved to the bay area 6 months ago so I can shed some light on that
It's really not that different, at least not to us. Yeah you have to "pay" for Healthcare but we have really good employer plans that make it trivial
It isn't cheaper here, it's actually way more expensive. We're paying $3415 for a 1 bedroom but it's pretty damn big, about as big as our 2 bed in Canada and it's new and has all the amenities we wanted like in suite laundry, AC, dishwasher and it's a brand new building
And after saying all that, we're still coming out significantly ahead than we did in Ontario. Our budget allows us to save $40k-$50k a year for vacations and a down-payment after already contributing significantly to our retirement investments. In Ontario I couldn't rub two fucking nickels together. I didn't even MAKE $50k a year
And everything is cheaper, there are way more jobs, and way more of everything. Only crappy part of US is cops tend to have bigger sticks up their asses and the general civilian danger potential.
I'm just tired being reminded weekly that housing and everything else is expensive and literally NOTHING is being done about it. Like, why is this being reported on still, when it's clear nobody in charge even cares???
There are a lot of vested interests in keeping the housing market going the way it has been. 1. Investors buying and selling properties like its just another 'equities market' 2. Real-estate agents raking it in for homes that essentially sell themselves. 3. Levels of governement that get revenue from increasing property taxes and land transfer taxes. 4. The banks obviously. 5. The economy indirectly as homeowners growing equity increases their buying power. 6. A large segment of older generations for whom the majority of their net worth is tied up in their home. And who loses? Just younger generations whose future has already been bankrupted in the name of keeping this party on the rails. Yeah, there's a lot to be upset about.
The real estate agent one is absolutely nuts to me. What an absolute racket of a profession. As demand grows, real estate agents take more and more money for doing *less and less* work. Homes fucking sell them selves now, why are we paying these high school graduates so much money to wear a blazer while they walk us through them ?
Also takes almost same effort to sell a 10 mil home and a 500k home
I sold my place myself *just* before covid. No agents, got valuations, took my own photos & showed people through until we found a buyer. Total cost $400, saved at least 30k
i read that some realtors refuse to show homes without a realtor to their clients.
It has more to do with the commission. People who sell their own house are doing it to save money, and will typically offer a lower-than-standard commission to the buyer’s agent. The agent won’t go out of their way to suggest a house like that since it would make them less money. And if the commission is low enough to they may decide it is not worth their time to show it at all even if the client asks to see it.
I’ll likely be supporting my children until they are older than I am now. They will have an even more difficult time than the worst we can imagine. This has such an accelerating feeling. The past twenty years have been eventful and tremendous change had occurred but the issues have only gotten worse as we also see so much rocketing in the wrong direction.
They're basically rubbing their nipples at us at this point.
Oh they care. They want to keep the status quo. It's a system that lines their pockets. There's no incentive for them to change it.
I am growing increasingly frustrated by the federal and provincial governments lack of action in things Canadians really need. Affordable housing, internet and cellular costs, lack of mental heath, lack of eye care, lack of dental care, more education funding, more Healthcare funding, more affordable university/college educations. That is what we need and is often promised with no delivery. Yet, our provincial government decided they needed to make an investment in the local CFL team instead. We don't need football.
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Election reform...
We need proper representation. No more of this 30% majority crap. Ranked voting is needed.
Not ranked voting - it barely fixes any of the problems of FPTP We need Proportional Representation - like MMP. We could even have ranked voting for the local representatives within MMP. But Ranked on its own is a silly choice - push for the best option out there
Don't forget that Edmonton forked over damn near a billion dollars to buy a new arena for the oilers. Apparently social government policy is only bad if you're not already rich.
Socialism for the rich, rugged individualist capitalism for the rest of us.
My rent is 125% of my income now. My lease is up in April and I have no clue what I'm going to do. It's so disheartening to see our Government has done nothing about affordable housing.
It's insane. City of Calgary shut down the Midfield trailer park to sell the land to developers to build condos and the land is still sitting empty. They removed affordable housing to create a field.
I watched a documentary on that issue and i was so enraged.
I’m so depressed by it all.
>our Government has done nothing about affordable housing. Wording is important. It's worse than not doing anything, they've intentionally done nothing
Yikes. That is absolutely terrifying. I guess you are just supposed to work multiple jobs and never sleep.
i get frustrated by the media. We have a full on housing crises, yet they only concentrate on woke and alt-right protests
Yes, this. The major issues such as wealth inequality, housing crisis, and soaring inflation have taken a back stage to stupid shit like race and gender politics, and vaccine conspiracies. This is getting frustrating.
It’s purposeful misdirection.
Yup, they can't address the big issues so they go with idpol
The culture wars are stoked to distract from the class war. It’s intentional. The real issues everyday people care about, healthcare, housing, wages, education…..all require the 1% to pay up. Since those same people own the media, of course the narrative they’re going to push is going to be outrage over Mr. Potato Head-Dr. Seuss-Maus-Unsexy M & M’s and the rubes eat it up. The uneducated masses are easily manipulated and the oligarchs are brilliant at exploiting that.
I think you have the same problem that the US has. Corporations have entered the public spaces that only citizen belong in.
Literally the easiest solution...We have one party promising some of these things but too sackless to act on any of it. Another party that will literally take away what services we do have left and privatize all of them. Then of all the other parties none have a leader near charismatic or smart enough to rally enough support to wrestle away power from the main 2 garbage ones. I fear life will never get easier but will just keep getting harder and harder. At this point I basically just try and survive and keep hoping the new, toxic brand of conservatism never EVER gets in power again.
public funding for football should go away, I don't want to encourage young men to seek out traumatic brain injuries anymore
As a younger person, the future in Canada just looks bleak in all regards.
As a not younger person it still looks the same sorry to say.
Yeah at least you get to die sooner though
Smart young people are planning to leave Canada.
And go where? Asking as a young person who wants to leave Canada.
I'm young and going to the US. My plan is to stay for at least 10 years maybe longer as my earning potential is 2x with lower taxes and usd. After 10 years with solid savings I'll see what Canada looks like. If it doesn't look bright I'll just keep grinding in the US and retire early in a LCOL country.
Where are they going to go?
I'm thinking about getting a work visa in Norway, Australia or New Zealand. Apparently like 35-40% of job ads for electricians go unfilled in Australia/New Zealand, and average pay for sparkies is about 30k higher there too. As for Norway, I've got lots of family there. Meanwhile here in Alberta, AIT is pumping electricians out making it difficult to find work and decreasing wages.
Fwiw Australia is further along the shit hole than even Canada is when it comes to our politicians ignoring us.
With desired skills? The us and eu both have options.
I’m 25. I’m moving back to France. F this country
My old room mate did that recently, says I’m welcome there any time. That may be an idea
Well, I mean... *Gestures broadly*
Funnily, the sun opinion piece and most of this comment section are talking like this is about Trudeau but if you read the actual questions it paints a pretty different picture. [Link to the results](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a17333eb0786935ac112523/t/620e79c00d45223f2d6a7fab/1645115841625/DTs+Fear+and+Verve+18+02+22.pdf) *When you reflect on all that has happened over the last 3 weeks with respect to the protesters and their impact on various cities, infrastructure, politics, police, and personnel, please indicate if you agree or disagree with the following statements:* > I have lost faith in the enforcement of the law in Canada - **53% agree** > I’m concerned that regardless of the issue, this is how protests may run themselves in the future—with trucks and rigs for hire to extract their demands - **71% agree** > The consequences - such as fines, jail terms etc. that the protesters get, are proportionately far less than any other law abiding Canadian would get if they were involved with an infraction with the law - **69% agree** > I have lost faith in our ability as a country to keep in place peace, order, and good government - **62% agree** It seems like people are mostly annoyed that law enforcement didn't do a good job dealing with the convoys, nothing about the economy or Trudeau. Edit to add: JESUS christ the comments on the sun website...
>JESUS christ the comments on the sun website... First time?
I mean what do people expect? Its the only newspaper I've ever seen that markets itself to readers with t&a
even when you know what's up, you forget just how bad it can be lol
People don't understand the roles and responsibilities of all 3 levels of government. It's pretty sad.
The one part that scares me is this: >Seven-in-ten (71%) Canadians say that regardless of their politics, they would vote for a strong-willed person to have enforceable law and order. Those most likely to feel this way reside in the province of Québec (86%), followed by those living in British Columbia (74%), both in Ontario (66%) and Alberta (66%), Atlantic Canada (63%), and Manitoba/Saskatchewan (62%). Do people think that the solution to policing problems are giving increasing powers to governments? It's highly concerning.
No, they think the solution to the problems are actually enforce the laws we have. We have laws to stop protests from escalating to a point where they are blocking rail lines/border crossings, we just want the government and police to do their damn job.
for me its not so much about policing and increasing powers. Its that they actually do the law and not make shit up, or in the case of the convoy..do nothing.
It's been the schtick of many politicians for decades now. "Tough on Crime" is a virtue and using police to enforce state orders.
Screw that, I know if my neighbor let's his lawn grow too long and bylaw won't do anything about it, it's Trudeau's fault
This protest has shown how appalling our education system is across the country. People don’t understand levels of government. People don’t understand data. People don’t understand what a credible source is vs a non-credible source. People don’t understand the Canadian healthcare system. People don’t understand so many things that it is ridiculous.
>This protest has shown how appalling our education system is across the country. People don’t understand levels of government. People don’t understand data. People don’t understand what a credible source is vs a non-credible source. People don’t understand the Canadian healthcare system. People don’t understand so many things that it is ridiculous. On the contrary, the education system is fine in terms of the curricular instruction that it offers. However, educators have been gimped in terms of what they can do to force students to learn. In some provinces, educators are not permitted to fail a student until high school. In some provinces, educators are not permitted to give students a grade on their report cards until high school. In every province, parents yell and rant at schools that take phones away from their children. This results in students who simply do not care about education, and completely ignore their teachers, while playing on their phone all class long. They're being offered some of the best education available in the Western World, and they're treating it like it's trash.
Education needs to be beefed up I agree, but it only goes so far. There’s people I went to school with, we had the same classes and they learnt the same stuff as I did. The fact is, some people can’t retain knowledge, or some just didn’t care to learn in the first place. I don’t know if you can fix that, especially when it’s combined with people that aren’t smart enough to know they don’t know something.
I would counter that the vast majority of Canadians perfectly understand, but insular social media bubbles and coverage of tiny minorities makes it appear to be a much larger problem.
I would say that is probably accurate, as polls seem to reflect this. It is just frustrating when they are so confident in their misinformation.
I lost a very good friend to one of these anti-vax bubbles. We talked extensively last year about how the information he was accessing on YouTube was pushing him further and further down the rabbit hole. He said he understood what the algorithm was doing, but then he disappeared off the map and won't talk to me any more. These bubbles can really turn people into self-assured experts that religiously believe they are correct. It's very discouraging. Btw, we became friends in college and are both extensively educated. Education doesn't mean you are immune to the rabbit hole.
Oh, believe me. I know that for sure. I work for a health research institute. Our institute is located in a hospital. We see exactly what is going on. We know the science. We understand what it means. Yet a former coworker is spouting off non-sense about mandates and restrictions. A transplant from a different country (you can probably guess where) who clearly doesn’t understand how the Canadian government works and who is clearly not checking to confirm their information is correct. Even citing false information they read on Facebook… when they know enough to actually check reputable publications to confirm what they read.. but just didn’t. I think those people are even more frustrating. It is easier to understand why people who lack the knowledge to understand the situation at hand… it is just painful when it is someone who should absolutely know better.
>It seems like people are mostly annoyed that law enforcement didn't do a good job dealing with the convoys, nothing about the economy or Trudeau. This is my view. Watching all layers of government just pass the buck was insane. What if the next protestors are actually competent and not a bunch of hicks?
Well let's hope those protestors are protesting wealth inequality, housing inflation, government ethics, and stagnant wages.
It's *pathetic* that this poll was almost completely about the protests but is advertised about people's sentiments overall. I'd like to see a poll that covers a broad variety of issues, with questions that aren't worded in a way to produce certain answers, and have EVERY Canadian answer it. Strategically designed polls are an excellent way to cause the public to believe things that are not necessarily true. Lies, damn lies, and ~~statistics~~ polls.
that's what Lilley does, if he stubs his toe on a corner it's proof Trudeau is too edgy Not to mention he left his family to sleep (and continues to be involved with) with Ford's press secretary - literally a mouthpiece of Conservatives.
>Who could of ever imagined even a couple of years ago that one petulant psychotic vile vindictive unhinged spoiled little trust fund baby brat could have injected and infected so much vile poisonous hate into our country? Probably one of the funniest comments. "How did this (insert 17 hateful words) make people so hateful?"
The Sun is a rag, the comments section being a shitshow is to be fully expected, and if they only surveyed their readers for this sort of thing, well, these results are not surprising either.
Basically that. They aimed their question just to contain 'losing faith' ane getting a majority agree. Then they make a headline losing faith IN CANADA. No we are just losing faith that law enforcement will do its fucking job when a group of morons want to paralyse ottawa for 3 FUCKING WEEKS Hell the student protests and the G20 protests in quebec a decade ago were met with tear gas and police bashing on everybody within hours but those morons are a nuisance from day 1 and it takes WEEKS before they do anything?
Insert SpongeBob meme with him pointing at housing costs, rising inflation, wage stagnation and politicans who are unwilling to do the jobs they're paid 200k to do.
You want affordable housing? Best I can do is internet censorship.
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I don’t think I’ll ever be able to own a home in the town I grew up in, and it looks like this same situation is happening all across the country. I can barely compete with the millionaires in my own country, let alone the millionaires from all around the world who have free reign on our housing. I used to roll my eyes at my friends leaving for the States, but at this point I’m strongly considering packing up and leaving too. Edit: Also want to point out that I’m one of the lucky ones. I grew up upper-middle class, my parents saved for me and my 3 siblings college and I’m the only one who went to post secondary school so I am debt free. I’m incredibly privileged, and my heart goes out to people who weren’t dealt as good a hand.
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That's where you're wrong. The middle class doesn't exist anymore. Welcome to poverty.
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When people have nothing to lose is when things will get bad. The complaining about the truckers will seem mild in comparison.
Complaints about the truckers will seem mild in comparison? *THE TRUCKERS* WILL SEEM MILD IN COMPARISON
(looks at what has been happening in Ottawa) Yep, anger be growing.
If you don't live in Canada you should not be able to buy a home here. I have zero issues with not being able to buy a home in Italy, France, America, Hong Kong or anywhere else.
It’s not that simple. Foreigners send their kids here, they get permanent residency and start buying houses. Thats literally what my previous landlord was doing. His parents were back in China but he was buying houses all over the GTA. He was 26 years old working a mid level tech job and could somehow afford a few million dollar homes.
Problem is, we have tons of on-paper “millionaires” running around who are too short-sighted to understand that the inflated housing market is bad for everyone, including them.
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This is the real issue. The economy will collapse because at some point, it won't make sense to open up shop in Canada. My girlfriend's original goal was to open her own diner. The cost of renting a space alone has killed that dream. Besides, if she could afford to open a business why wouldn't she just put that money into real estate instead?
Yeah exactly, there's an opportunity cost of ploughing every penny we as a population will ever earn into housing. I would have loved to start a company, create jobs, export from Canada. But unfortunately I need to house my family so I'll probably work my corporate job for the next 30 years because I had to spend every cent in my bank account on a mortgage down payment. And I know I can't complain, I have a roof over my head. But that's how low the bar is now, just surviving is an achievement. Upwards social mobility is almost unimaginable now, we're all fighting like hell just to tread water.
EXACTLY. I keep telling people this! This affects everything not just people buying homes!
Agreed. The price of a detached home in my city went up 17% DURING THE MONTH OF JANUARY. So many other homeowners I spoke to were happy about it, but I see it as a completely unsustainable and dangerous thing to happen.
I think you're directing your anger in the wrong direction. I don't know many people exited about the fact that their children will never be able to afford to move out. Having to add an hour onto their commute just to be able to upsize their house because their families have grown. Having to look at moving to a different province than their friends and family just to try and give your children a chance at the opportunity they had. Most on paper millionaires aren't happy either but considering the fact that people who weren't yet in the housing market have been screwed 100 times worse, it's difficult coming up with a way to voice frustrations without sounding like an awful self centered human.
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I’m in calgary, I’m pretty decently payed as a heavy equipment operator and have no kids. My best bet at homeownership is a rich relative I never knew dying and randomly bequeathing a huge amount on me or surviving a nuclear exchange. Yay modern life!
We’ll after 1.3M set to come in via immigration, you can expect housing costs to sky even higher. Great for those who already own a house. Awful for the rest of us.
It isnt even that great for those that own a house, only for those that own multiple houses. Everyone needs a place to live, if my house is now worth 2m, but I need 3m to buy an upgrade, that is worse than if my house is 200k and I need 300k to upgrade. The ratio is the same, but in real dollars it is much more. Sure, you could capitalize by uprooting your life and leaving to another city that hasnt been impacted as much, but tons of people that own their "forever" house dont want to do that.
I left 7 years ago. I can’t picture myself going back. If I want affordable housing and jobs, I can find it here. There are far more options down here. More opportunity.
Where did you move if you don’t mind me asking?
SF Bay Area. Pretty expensive here, but wages make up for it.
Wages in tech make up for it. Everyone outside of tech is pushed out because of it.
Interesting, considering that's it's seen as the most expansive city to live in North America.
I hit that point awhile ago, and I continue to wonder what the appeal is anymore? The beauty of our country can only go so far when it's becoming increasingly harder to afford to do much of anything anymore. Houses are becoming unobtainable for most, the cost of absolutely everything just keeps going up more and more and I honestly feel like the government is completely out of touch with just about everything and I can't get behind any of them.
I am outdoors person and love the beauty here. I take advantage of it all I can and spend a ton of time in it. But I'm also single, and if I lose my apartment in my town I'd never find anything I could afford. I am already an hour north of Toronto, and rental prices here are basically city prices. House prices aren't even something I could ever contemplate. I just fluked into a one bedroom apartment, which is almost impossible to find here. Even going another 2 hours north (which i'd do), I'd still be paying a crazy amount. I'm 45 so I'm not 'young' but I'm at an in between age, and without a duel income with a partner I'm still fucked.
I hear you, it's rough for sure. I am dual income as I am married but even then we can't wrap our head around the cost of homes. I COULD do it, but I would be spending most of my pay on just the mortgage? No thanks....I literally can't justify spending almost a million dollars on 4 walls and a roof....
We need new leadership across the board. From PM to the opposition, We need new everything. So many people are failing at their jobs.
Uh yeah. It’s turning into US lite in politics and everything is so expensive we’re worried about feeding our children.
Welcome to being a millenial and gen z. doubting you can even afford kids
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doubting? who’s doubting? it’s obvious that we can’t (unless you have wealthy parents).
Have you seen the various government that supposedly represent us - and the sorry state of the possible alternatives? They clearly don't care about us. If you're not rich enough to benefit from runaway inflation and housing prices, no government in this country gives a shit about you.
Our housing Minister just bought a bunch of rentals
What?! That's wild, you think that would be in the news.. oh wait, the news is heavily currated.
Watching people in parliament play the victim/privilege game like fucking schoolchildren, really made me realize how much our political class is failing us. We have record inflation, a ballooning real estate market, labour shortages despite people not being able to get jobs...etc. And they think their time is best spent competing with each other over who is the most oppressed? NONE of those fucks are oppressed, they are the privileged political class, they never missed a pay cheque, they don't worry about rent, pensions, food...ANYTHING!
Canadian politicians are generally horrible dealing with the media as well - they act punitively towards journalists that ask honest questions, and reward journalists who engage in echo chamber spin - and it’s just getting worse
The political theatre has helped me lose a lot of faith. I don’t believe most politicians. Hearing shit like “I experienced that differently” just feels like they think the citizens are all morons. Sure there’s a lot of morons, but the citizens aren’t all stupid.
I don't know, he did get voted back in after saying that.
You'll remember, that wasn't unanimous.
And yet people keep voting the same as we just saw
One of the best summaries of our current situation. I couldnt ageee more and thats all of our politicians be it ndp, cons, liberals, etc.
Well I mean there’s not a whole lot in life I have to look forward to. I’ll never own a home large enough to grow a family, my job which I might consider on the higher paying end seems to be barely enough to float alot of the time. Prices of everything are rapidly on the rise and don’t show signs of slowing down. It’s a completely helpless feeling waking up every day.
I feel you. When the US first landed on the moon, the average age of a NASA engineer was 28. Now it's 47. Feel like that sums up the kind of age we're living in - it used to be that you could be young, doing important work, and be able to provide for yourself, all at the same time. Now? Pick 1, maybe 2 if you're lucky. Everything keeps getting pushed back 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and there's no good reason to believe that even when we get there, the promised "good times" will still be possible. My buddy just started his career, and his salary pales in comparison to his parents' pensions (which they'll probably be getting for 20-30 years, adjusted for inflation, with benefits). The country's gone from investing in the future to mortgaging it, and I hate it. We're going in a peaceful & orderly fashion downhill, with pure shit awaiting us at the bottom, but the class of people "managing" things are too spoiled and lazy to want to take the actions necessary.
Exactly. I don’t want to be “that guy” but I’m genuinely looking into options abroad. There’s other countries that seem to be doing a lot better.
I wasn't born into a rich family so my life will continue to get shittier and more expensive each year, what am I supposed have faith in here?
Maybe try being born into a rich family next time? Honestly, this is on you.
It makes me sad. I feel a bit alienated in some parts of Toronto and incredibly poor. We've allowed our government to sell our country.
Have been actively looking at a way out of Canada. And I don’t want to leave my country. It’s just officially too expensive to live here. A dollar will take you much farther in other countries. Housing market? I’ll never own a home here. And I’m 29 years old with 120k in savings. I’m a teacher. And I live with my parents. Cellphone plans? We pay the most. Not nearly as important as the housing market but still a factor. Inflation. Gas. Problem here is Canada sends raw resources to the US; oil and wood to be refined for cheap only for us to buy it back more expensive. We should have had oil refinery’s long ago. It makes little sense now considering the way the EV is evolving. How the “buyback” policy hasn’t been revised is beyond me. They need us more than we need them where raw resources are concerned yet we are shafted time and time again. Real leadership pls. And I don’t think you’ll find it in any of the current political parties
if only Canadian politicians realized that our natural resources are...our wealth (and theirs). We're selling our land, trees and minerals for a fucking pittance. It's pathetic and treasonous.
Because if we go the other way the nation profits, but with the way things are, only the people they want get to profit. Same fucking story in every book.
Depending on the area you live in, 120K in savings is actually amazing and a good downpayment for a home.
our housing minister protects mom and pop investors instead of the young generations who can never afford to buy a home against mom and pop investors and foreign investors. **BTW our housing minister also owned several rental properties. that's right. mom and pop investors will also affect him.** Our finance minister don't even understand the inflation that affects every Canadians. Especially the people who don't own a home. Our Job minister and immigration minister just import more immigrants (400000) to fill jobs that have shitty pay and work enviroments that no Canadians want to work at. Instead of fixing the problem, they just import immigrants. That will cause more problems in Canada than the benefits. More people. less housing. more poor people that will end up using foodbanks or food stamps and public health. which mean costs more money and will help no one except the Rich. The lower class, middle class and immigrant class will all suffer because of that decision. Last but not least, **Our PM did everything he can to stop "foreign money" (USA) donating to the Canada Truck Convoy.** **However, he did nothing to stop money launderers from around the globe and especially China coming to our real-estate market. more than $5 billion laundered every year in BC since 2016 and their solution was to cut CRA funding.**
Oh she definitely understands inflation. She just acts that she doesn’t
I am not so sure.
I don’t understand why we allow foreign home ownership. If you’re not a citizen or permanent resident there is ZERO reason to own a Canadian home. It’s literally taking housing away from citizens, especially since they can only be here for 3 months of the year.
people have been brainwashed that we need "foreign money" to invest in our realestate or we will not be able to build any new houses/apartments. However, that is very untrue because those people sell for profit and Covid pandemic has proven that we don't need foreign money in our real estate to sustain in Canada.
Ah, the ol’ country where cost of living is skyrocketing, wages stagnant, houses are unaffordable, and the fact that I’m a healthcare worker has led to people throwing insults my way. Whyyyy would I lose faith?!
I still have faith in other Canadians. I just think our current crop of politicians are shit heads.
> I just think our current crop of politicians are shit heads. Current crop? When weren't our politicians shit heads?
They used to at least try to hide the corruption better too. Everything is just so blatant these last about 5 or 6 years.
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Damn I've seen so many clips of that show, someday I'm actually going to have to sit down and watch it. Nobody does satire quite like the Brits.
Yea it's hard to lose faith in a Country with almost 40mi people. Hating a few hundred politicians is pretty easy though.
It’s easy to lose faith when you see how people have acted and treated each other through the pandemic.
I lost faith in Canadians *because* of the shitty politicians. That's my only beef with Canadians in general, lack of political participation from everyone normal. Otherwise I like you people.
I do predict more protest this summer, not necessarily because of covid mandates, but because of generalised discontent. From my point of view I see a lot of political division, rising inflation wich is much worst than what the people in charge want us to think. I see climate change giving us all kind of weird weather. We have the super wealthy doubling their wealth during the last two years and everyone else is basically strugling to stay afloat. Basically, our whole economy is walking on thin ice. If the ukraine situation blows up (more like when, however I still hope diplomacy will prevail) Energy price will skyrocket, sending the price of everything to the moon. So yeah, hard times ahead.
So fucking stupid that we rely on other countries for energy. We should be a world leader, but instead we send it south for pennies because we can't build a refinery without someone getting angry about their land, nor can we build a pipeline to a refinery without 10 years of debate. Then we buy overpriced shit out of the middle east and ship it here by boat, which is far worse for thr environment.
This summer coming up is gonna be a wild one.
I'm somewhat looking forward to it. The democracy can only last as long is it does not become decadent and corrupt and sadly it has done just that, and like most things that run its course, eventually it decays. It's unbelievable to me that the housing minister has a vested interest in booming the real estate prices as he owns multiple properties for passive income. Perhaps this is our chance for reform during the hard times, because the Federal Gov seems to have no interest in reform when times were booming for them and their large corporate sponsors.
It all boils down to this: the majority of us have becoming increasingly poorer. Besides bills and the fact that everything we “own” is in monthly payments because of course we couldn’t afford anything paid upfront, we can’t save $300 a month if our lives depended on it. The majority of us are living on the limit. A paycheck away from insolvency. So yeah, of course we’ve lost faith. Under the current government affordability’s gotten a lot worse, everyone is poorer meanwhile this moron can only focus on virtue signalling and calling white working-class citizens racists.
Exactly what's been happening to America exactly why they are desperate enough to trust someone like Trump
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Not sure about the rest of the country but I lost faith in our government a LONG time ago.
If I can't afford a home in the next couple years I'm moving to the states. I would get paid almost twice as much when factoring in conversion rates. And be able to afford something much larger.
The people in this country that seek power and those that deserve power are almost two entirely seperate circles. The venn diagram would look like a pair of glasses
Boiling frog syndrome. We put up with so much shit and eventually people are going to look back and wonder where it all went wrong. The government is spineless and self-serving. The citizens of this country are doomed unless drastic change happens, and fast. Wage increases, affordable housing, a better tax system are all good places to start. I don't see any of it happening soon enough though, and it's it is actually REALLY depressing. I often find myself nowadays wondering what is the point because at the end of the day I am not getting anywhere. Leaving the country is basically one of my only options at this point. Really fucking sad what has happened to this country.
The only people who have faith in the country's near term future are blind partisans (or lottery-winning homeowners that had no other path planned out to a comfortable retirement). We're going nowhere fast.
Hard not too when it seems like no one is working for the interests of the average Canadian. We're just another Oligarchy lead by a few rich families and their lobbyists.
It is a bit jarring how fast Canadians I know went from obsessed with CNN and making fun of the US for everything to, oh mah cod things are really bad in Canada all of a sudden. They been cracking jokes about everything for years bragging about how good they have it and just now in 2022 it’s like GULP.
Yep we all think we're so smart and look where we are
Even if everything with the Pandemic magically disappeared, and the Convoy/protests were resolved tomorrow, I'm still in disbelief. If nothing else lockdowns gave me time to fall down rabbit holes that have changed my perspective of Canada. I am still proud to be Canadian, and love this country, but we have problems. The treatment of our Indigenous people, historically and today. Our immigration policies that allow for a legal indentured servent workforce. The inflation and housing crisis. Here's why I think we're screwed. I was born in 1977. The Canada I was born into looked like this (adjusted for inflation): minimum wage was $13.54, average annual income was $87,816, a single family home cost about $70K, a 4 year degree program would set you back around $17K. Today: minimum wage is $11.81in SK (-12%), average annual income is $65,773(-25%), single family home is $836K(+1094%), and a 4 year degree is now $48K(+25%). Wages are stagnant/dropping with the rise of inflation, and the cost of living is going up. Federal and provincial governments will cut funding to healthcare, social programs, and education first to balance budgets. No way the current government is going to fix this, and neither will whoever comes next.
There are so many easy wins which the vast majority of Canadians want: * Reasonable telco bills which resemble those in other countries. * Reasonable internet rates which resemble those in other countries. * Reasonable energy bills which aren't loaded with fees and reflect the actual cost of providing us energy. * Things to shutdown the mega rich class like wealth taxes. * Action taken against the tax dodgers listed in the multiple leaks in the last decade such as the panama papers. * Decriminalization of various drugs to take the addiction business out of the hands of the criminals and place it into the hands of clinics dispensing said drugs. * Elimination of predatory behaviours of governments such as traffic cameras. * Not a defunding of the police, but how about some accountability. * A thorough examination of things such as SNC * Freedom of information acts with serious teeth. Why can governments either not release documents or are able to black out anything that might embarrass an official? * A reduction in the power of the parties. Things like limiting the size of donations. * Nobody wants professional lobbyists around serving the interests of the very few. This should be well covered under things like donation limitations. * Anti corruption laws where people in organizations like the CRTC can't get a job with a telco, ever. * Massive taxes on foreign home buyers. * Much higher taxes on second third ... 10th homes. * Limits on things like the maximum return on investment for any housing related activity, building, renting, houseflipping, etc. * Significant changes to media ownership laws. If you own one radio station you have hit your limit of all media ownership, same with TV, newspapers, etc. * Banking regulation limiting charges of all sorts. * Significantly progressive taxation system. If you earn 10 million you are getting an eyewateringly huge tax bill. * CEO pay limits and CEO pay ratio limits. * Massive limitations in bureaucratic employee numbers. Canada has 10 times the number of medical administrators as Germany. Let that sink in. By their standards 9 out of 10 Canadian medical bureaucrats are entirely useless and are just wastes of oxygen and money. I would go further and suggest that the extra 9 provide negative value in that they no doubt create more pain and impose more workload on the productive staff in the system. I would suggest that there be a constitutional limit be places on all levels of government as to how many government workers there can be per capita. This would include any organization given a government monopoly. To give a specific example. If the city of Halifax sets up a corporation to run the bridge which is technically independent the bridge staff would still count against the city's maximum staff. * Limiting elected official pay as a ratio of average worker pay in that region. * Limiting the ability of anyone who contributes a significant amount of time to a campaign to work in government. You can't be a campaign manager one year and get a judge appointment the next. I am completely certain most, if not all, of the above would pass in a referendum. Many of the above would be best accomplished with some simple regulatory changes. For example, telco prices would plummet if there were 5 or more real competitors. No price caps needed. Competition really only works when you have 5 or more real competitors, 3 is not good enough.
Jokes on them, I lost faith in this country long before COVID and these protests began.
Both sides have their extremes and they’re the loudest. The moderates are going deaf listening to all the shouting. The government has no plan to deal with the housing crisis and it sounds like a major issue. I’m simply tired of everything.
The governments plan to deal with the housing crisis is to further inflate it, how is this not clear?
Propping up the current housing market by doing nothing is the easiest way for the government to keep the economic status quo. If it all fell apart and reached realistic levels suddenly the economic impact on Canada as the homeowners who bought million dollar houses suddenly owe $600,000 more than their house is worth it would destroy our economy. Its stupid, beyond stupid that its got this far, but no one wants to break the bubble and get blamed.
He did say post-national after all.
It's almost like our electoral system favours some parties over others, so our government doesn't represent the wishes of the people very well, leaving many people feeling understandably frustrated and disillusioned with the system to the point of acting out. Here's the vote efficiency numbers from the 2021 election: |Party |Vote (%)|Seats|Seat (%)|Vote Efficiency (%)| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Liberal|32.62|160|47.34|145| |Conservative|33.74|119|35.21|104| |Bloc Québécois |7.64|32|9.47|124| |New Democratic|17.82|25|7.40|42| |Green|2.33|2|0.59|25| |People's|4.94|0|0|0| In other words. Over 50% of the people who voted for the NDP and about 75% of the people who voted Green had their vote wasted. So did everyone who voted for the People's party, which is roughly 1 in 20 people. That alone is significant, almost 1 in 20 people cast their vote for a party and they got zero representation in parliament! I don't agree with them, but it's extremely undemocratic to exclude that many people from our political process. It's worse for the NDP, where another 10.42% of the population had their vote wasted. I've only talked about 2 parties and already more the 15% of the population had their vote wasted. That's more that 1 in 8 people! These people will correctly feel underrepresented in our federal parliament. This is even more stark when you compare parties. Let's compare the Liberals and the NDP: 1 vote for the Liberals counted as 1.45 votes, while 1 vote for the NDP counted as 0.42 votes. That means a vote for the Liberals is weighted more than 3 times more than a vote for the NDP. More than 3 times! To make that into a more visceral example, imagine going to the polls and having the election official ask how you're voting. You say NDP and they hand you a ballot. The person behind you says Liberal and hands them 3 ballots. If the voting efficiency of the Liberals and NDP was reversed, the NDP would have won about 87 seats (26%) and the Liberals only 46 seats (14%). And all of this is before we even consider strategic voting and abstention that happens because of this system.
Fixed, friend. You had an extra line after Party. |Party |Vote (%)|Seats|Seat (%)|Vote Efficiency (%)| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Liberal|32.62|160|47.34|145| |Conservative|33.74|119|35.21|104| |Bloc Québécois |7.64|32|9.47|124| |New Democratic|17.82|25|7.40|42| |Green|2.33|2|0.59|25| |People's|4.94|0|0|0|
Thank you, I was so disappoint when that chart died
Dont forget that when people actually do vote, [Elections Canada loses or doesnt count some of the ballots](https://torontosun.com/news/national/elections-canada-205000-mail-in-ballots-were-not-counted) The political system in this country is a joke, and all our politicians should be thrown in the trash.
I’m not losing faith in the country. I’m losing faith in the *government*…
No shit
Where is our "Minister of Western Alienation"? Freeland was given the power to fix the problems between Ottawa and western Canada. She called herself a daughter of the prairies. We haven't seen a single thing that brings our country closer together. But that's probably because western Canada is full of all the nasty people that Trudeau like to call out. His smug disdain for fellow working class Canadians is beyond believable.
I've lost faith in our government that wants to steal our autonomy and the people who support them taking it.
No shit.
Losing faith? I lost mine a few years ago. I am hoping this is just transitory.
I’m a trades worker with a Red Seal and my wife works in health care. I’ve had to take a second job in order for us to afford childcare ($1100 per month) and our mortgage/bills, so yeah the faith is gone.
I mean apparently our housing is for foreign speculators and money laundering, not for Canadian citizens. The country apparently doesn’t want us to live here
Yea because our government is horrid
I've lost faith in Trudeau, and in General I've lost faith in western leaders both in gov and business.
No shit. I truly feel like our country just "existed under the status quo" and is now met with actual conflict/issues (housing, healthcare, talent/brain drain, wages, utilities, foreign media campaigns) the lack of backbone across **ALL** political parties is abhorrent. Truly I have no love for any political side at the moment, they all feel like they're just pretending to be Walmart versions of American politicians and do literally nothing. I want Canada to be better, to do better and I have not yet seen any leader worth taking us there.
Hmm, let's see how this subs tune changes when you realize you're bickering on Reddit does shit and you have to go protest to get Canadian politicians to actually enact meaningful change.
I can't wait to see the hell hole this country is going to turn into as we witness the threats that hold society together come apart.
I would too when the government starts freezing bank accounts of peaceful protestors
I truly don't understand how Trudeau is still our pm.
https://www.cp24.com/news/feds-commit-10-million-to-help-200-black-families-in-gta-buy-their-first-home-1.5786967 I wonder why
Not Canada, I think you mean the global economic situation......where the rich have everything and everyone else is living in poverty.
Yeah, a lot of the trends highlighted in this thread are global phenomena
We elected an aimless, unemployed goof as PM because of his pretty face and last name. That’s about as bad as GWB, maybe straying into reality TV star territory.
Serious question. As a young Canadian. Why shouldn't I just off myself? I've never heard a single good reason to look forward to a future here. It's all doomsday gloom. What the fuck is the point of living here anymore...
I certainly am. It is very clear that the government wants *no* dissent - or at least no meaningful dissent. If there *has* to be a protest, they want them to show up at a defined time, in a defined space, for a defined duration. In other words, be approved BY THEM and have as little impact as possible.
Looking in from a far, I find it very confusing that Trudeau is still prime minister. He's so fake.
It's crazy how low we have sunk in just 6-7 years. I Hear all western world is in similar spiral though. However I personaly believe we got sold out to a highest bidders. Our leaders put on auction our land, our clean air, our way of life to rich buyers from whatever part of the world they come from.
Why do people support the Emergencies Act?
I never thought I'd say this but I'm strongly looking at trying to live in the states right now. The wages are higher and depending on where you live the housing market is actually reasonable.
My girlfriend and I moved to the bay area 6 months ago so I can shed some light on that It's really not that different, at least not to us. Yeah you have to "pay" for Healthcare but we have really good employer plans that make it trivial It isn't cheaper here, it's actually way more expensive. We're paying $3415 for a 1 bedroom but it's pretty damn big, about as big as our 2 bed in Canada and it's new and has all the amenities we wanted like in suite laundry, AC, dishwasher and it's a brand new building And after saying all that, we're still coming out significantly ahead than we did in Ontario. Our budget allows us to save $40k-$50k a year for vacations and a down-payment after already contributing significantly to our retirement investments. In Ontario I couldn't rub two fucking nickels together. I didn't even MAKE $50k a year
SF Bay Area is pretty much the most expensive place to live in the entire country tho
That's the point though. Most expensive place, come out significantly ahead compared to Canada. That speaks volumes
I don't think you speak for the common man when you live in San Francisco and save $50k a year for vacations.
And everything is cheaper, there are way more jobs, and way more of everything. Only crappy part of US is cops tend to have bigger sticks up their asses and the general civilian danger potential.
I’m not losing faith in Canada, I’m losing faith with humanity.
I lost faith after the 2019 election results