He’s the patriot that supported Canada doing mass immigration to reduce Canadian wages, to protect asset values against a “wage price spiral”, where workers finally had actual bargaining power for wages. The Liberals have hollowed out the middle class the last decade, while never funding a single program, so we owe a huge debt as per capita GDP fell.
Now Carney wants to withdraw the capital gains tax increase before it has even been implemented, and to tariff foreign emitters, a tax on ourselves in order to gift it to Brookfield’s ESG department for carbon capture. Coincidentally where he just used to work.
I’d like if we moved in the reverse direction, but I think too many people are benefiting from real estate to do anything about it. We just gifted 300m to Bangladesh, maybe its time we stopped destroying poor Canadians by removing GST on housing or building mass transit?
What are you a Russian agent? You’re just blind to the improvements and changes that have happened. As if the conservatives ever got anything done. You’re a joke.
What’s been accomplished that isn’t dwarfed by housing and rents doubling?
I’m happy for you if you happen to own real estate, but people in my family are renters, and have had their wages diminished by the 4% population growth.
I know why we did it, to prop up GDP, I just don’t think you should be distorting the market like that after QE raises asset values. Entrenching wealth inequality is bad for the poor, and people living in rest stops is heartbreaking.
What programs have even been funded, as far as I’m aware we pulled consumption forward, and all this progress only landlords feel is funded with future austerity; as we buy 50% of all mortgage bonds to pump their real estate holdings using borrowed money.
Wages being diminished by immigration is a wild assumption based more on personal sentiment than reality. Immigrating to Canada is Not easy. And we need that population growth to sustain our quality of life.
We need the immigrants for their labour, because we have a shortage of qualified labour. More people working together is how you’ll get housing built faster.
They’ve done a lot for housing but this is a sector where results aren’t instant it takes time to build and if you don’t have a strong GDP - buying the materials and paying the labour you need cost more and the end results is it cost more for us too. The cost of building falls back on buyers and renters alike.
We’re not building nearly as much subsidized housing as we need but you can thank conservatives for that one.
Conservatives are the ones who cut public funding for subsidized housings that are more affordable and pushed it into the hands of the private sector, under Brian Mulroney leadership. And now the liberals are the baddies? The conservatives are the ones who failed poor people, by cutting subsidized housing in exchange for lower taxes and made it the private sectors problem to build housing. The private sector isn’t a charity they are for profit and rightfully so. Subsidized housing is a public sector responsibility.
Improvements have been made - where now rent can count towards your credit, boosting renters credit so they can have an easier time getting a mortgage in the future. https://www.equifax.ca/about-equifax/press-releases/-/intlpress/equifax-canada-and-frontlobby-complete-first-rental-tradeline-study
But even programs like this take time to implement just like it takes time to build that credit. People need to have more patience if they want things done right.
Even in countries like Japan where they have so little immigrants that it could almost be considered no immigration - employees there have taken pay cuts, even ceos to keep a company afloat. It suck and it’s not easy to find yourself in that situation but lashing out by pointing fingers isn’t the solution. A pay cut is better than cutting jobs.
What’s been accomplished is Not dwarfed by housing/rent prices. Just like you don’t enjoy the pay cuts no one else does. No one owes you their labour for free.
Start a spreadsheet and monitor your spending and set goals to accomplish. I grew up poor, my mother was a cleaning lady and my father was a waiter and they managed to succeed getting paid minimum wage! They made it work by being diligent of their spending and planning wisely.
A lot of poorer people I know today have a lot more than I ever had growing up so the world is improving. The difference is poor people today feel more entitled to what would have been considered luxuries when I was growing up.
You sound bitter and like you’re looking for any random person to blame over holding yourself accountable for your own shortcomings. People make bad decisions and there a lots of programs to help them but nobody is going to do the work for you.
And you still sound like a Russian agent trying to create division by putting blame on immigrants who didn’t cause the situation we are all in.
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/remarks-2023-12-07.pdf
The Bank of Canada says they do drive up home prices, which has an effect on inflation.
The “labor shortage” is the Phillips curve, caused by QE, which caused the 8% inflation we experienced after Covid. Its not a real shortage, and the increased economic activity is temporary, as the BoC then raised rates to cool the overheated economy.
So you’re idea that you’re simply filling up job vacancies because our economy is strong is wrong, what youre actually doing is preventing wage pressures from correcting the wealth inequality the Bank of Canada’s QE caused. This is straight from a BoC publication as well that explains how wage pressure are a natural equalization after a bout of inflation, reversing this via mass immigration is bad for non-asset holders, which is why wealth inequality between renters and home owners increased so dramatically.
But thats easily seen by looking at the growing food bank usage, growing homelessness, growing wealth inequality, and reports like this:
If you were around in the 70s and 80s you’d likely be one of the people blaming unions for “causing inflation”, and telling them they needed to accept lower wages.
Where can I read more about this?
We did QE during Covid, which as per the Phillips curve it increased wages due to a labor shortage, and we then did mass immigration to depress wages.
If you want to look at the Phillips curve, QE’s effect on inflation, and a chart of Canada’s population growth.
I recognise the benefit and purpose of unions, but recently I have to admit I’ve been a bit conflicted over them.
We frequently see stories about pending cuts / budget shortfalls here in BC, for things like Teachers and Transit workers. The news releases always phrase the issue as the amounts the govt gives these orgs having ‘failed to keep up with inflationary pressures’. They’ll very rarely also note that a huge % of that budget goes directly to salaries… where we’ve heard unions in past years negotiate fairly huge wage increases. Leads to a fairly simple conclusion that the “inflationary pressures” that are causing things like after school programs to be cut, are the union’s negotiated salary increases.
The wage increases that they negotiate, are also way higher than most of the increases I’ve seen / heard of in the private sector. The economy’s so bad, some jobs have even been unable to provide regular CPI increases… yet union workers still get their ~20% increase over 3-4 years or whatnot. The bank of Canada had cautioned people not to setup high-multi year increases due to the market uncertainty around the time covid restrictions were easing – private sector generally listened, unions/public sector did not.
The public sector also now employs more people than ever before – skewing statistics significantly. A recent stat I saw placed it at about 1 in 4 workers in Canada work for the public sector, where these sorts of increases are more standard. As a result, lopsided increases in public sector wages skews national numbers in regards to aggregate stats on wages. However, public sector funding comes from private sector taxes – and without gains in the private sector / productivity to fuel increased tax revenue, how exactly do unions / govt think we’re going to pay for those “inflationary pressures”? The private sector workhorse can only survive so much flogging.
When I was younger, govt work was viewed as lower pay, but far greater job stability. Now, it’s higher pay and greater job stability. And the amount of govt workers has increased dramatically, making it all the more obvious that it’s a golden ticket. When interacting with govt workers, there’s also a sense of ‘waste’ from the private side – like seeing 6 workers at a govt dispensary just standing around with no customers for hours, as they collect higher pay cheques than regular retail + have better job security. This creates animosity towards what’s essentially a privileged worker class. Govt workers in the states faced a huge backlash from the public, in part because of this sort of disparity, I imagine. I hope that the progressive folks are keenly aware of that gap, and are mindful of what may result if they leave it to fester. It’s the sort of situation that makes people vote in favour of things like DOGE, and allows more extreme folks to co-opt that message for far more nefarious purposes / more extreme actions. There needs to be an alternative, or a shift to more practical budgetary sanity.
“inflationary pressures” that are causing things like after school programs to be cut, are the union’s negotiated salary increases.
if you can’t afford to pay people a fair wage to deliver a service, that service is too expensive… this isn’t the fault of people asking for fair compensation
The wage increases that they negotiate, are also way higher than most of the increases I’ve seen / heard of in the private sector.
okay but that is an argument that the private sector should be unionised though
union workers still get their ~20% increase over 3-4 years or whatnot.
that 20% is pretty peanuts since it covers the last however many years of unmet CPI increases, as well as the next 3-4 years and probably accounts for another 5 years or more of unmet CPI increases after that
CPI is on average around 2%ish, so that’s 10 years of CPI adjustment total - that leaves 6-7 years, so really only 3 years before and after the time… strikes don’t happen right away - people have been unhappy about their wages for years before
This creates animosity towards what’s essentially a privileged worker class
perhaps, but the capitalist class has done a great marketing job then: it’s not unions that’s the problem, it’s the capitalists that aren’t paying people!
(australian, so i’m sure there are canadian specifics with this case but the general concepts don’t differ at all)
I disagree, especially when focusing on Public Sector Unions. Making arguments about the cost of a service compared to the wage, is nonsensical when discussing public sector employment – 80-90% of the cost is the wage, and the ‘value add’ is nebulous and undefined, removed from regular market pressures. Trying to equate the job security provided by public sector unions to private sector business realities is also not convincing – in private sector, if business is stagnant/declining due to a recession, you fire people – doing so may allow you to increase wages for those who remain, though they may also need to increase efficiency/productivity. The OPs article is basically about unions wanting to ignore market realities… something that public sector unions do all the time, as they don’t need to look at the ‘cost’ side from a market perspective. They just yell at the government to tax us private sector workers more.
Unions have a purpose and a function, yes. But in public sector they are detached from market realities, and have skewed public sector employees into a position where they are the subject of private sector anger. It sets the stage for Republican style/Musk style cuts to gain support amongst the voting electorate – so regardless of whatever high horse pro-union people want to perch themselves on, its folly if they don’t take this disparity as a serious risk.
Even the Ops article belies that unions are no longer about ‘regular’ working class people – the letter is specifically saying that the unions are petitioning to provide better Employment Insurance options for “high earners”. So these salaries, that are well above the Canadian average need our government to increase the payouts to help protect those unionized workers from potential job losses? If their high pay is justified by high demand, they should be able to get other employment quickly in their field… but that whole letter sure isn’t about protecting the ‘regular’ common workers, and its the sort of statement that’s just going to antagonize private sector workers who earn “regular” wages. Why should even more of a waiters paycheque go to paying taxes, so that an Airplane Pilot can have an easier time if they lose their top 5% salary job?
