Zeitgeist

I want to know the nature of those jobs. Too much precarious and low paying part-time work.

Well, condo developments have created new vibrant areas like Corktown Commons and the East Harbour neighbourhood. I agree that some are monstrosities, but on the architecture forums people usually like them. At least money and development is coming into the place. I find some cities on both sides of the border have stood still and not in a good way. I don’t know why Doug Ford doesn’t like the Foreign Buyer’s Tax. Seems like a no brainer to me.

Well I disagree. New York City is still far more expensive than Toronto, which is more in line with a city like San Francisco or Boston, more expensive but much bigger than either of those cities. Toronto is actually planning well. The waterfront is getting better and better and of course the Greenbelt and Places to Grow are ensuring the housing is built along transit hubs. We have the reverse phenomenon of many cities. People want to be downtown in Toronto. The city is actually booming culturally and economically. The cost of living is high which does pose a problem demographically, since we want diversity of income. However, the Toronto of today is much larger and denser than the TO of 30 years ago. Places like Brampton are like extensions of the city much as Scarborough or York once were. Toronto really ends at the Greenbelt and the Escarpment. Having the green boundary prevents sprawl, an advantage that Montreal and Manhattan have being islands, and that Vancouver has being hemmed in by ocean and mountains. Soon the only immigrants who will be able to afford to live there are the rich ones, like in Vancouver. They’ll have to move farther out like many Ontarians.

Trump has fucked up international relations quite enough thanks, with Canada, China and just about everyone else except North Korea, Russia and the Saudis. It’s a shit show: 5 GM plant closures in North America and billion dollar losses due to steel and aluminum tariffs. So much to show for all his clever deal making.

As long as this opens the Chinese market to exports from North America. I hope it does.

Yet the pattern of the greatest income gains going to the wealthiest is even worse south of the border. While real estate prices are high in Toronto, the city city still has far fewer homicides and less poverty than its closest rival, Chicago. Toronto is a victim of its own success, a phenomenon often described as the Manhattanization of the 416. What's more remarkable is that even the suburbs' property values have climbed substantially, making the Golden Horseshoe into a megalopolis. The Greenbelt and Places to Grow legislation has improved and controlled the sprawl, but with that comes higher real estate prices and more boxes in the sky. I'd argue that this is inevitable and necessary to push growth north. If a 2000 sq. ft. bungalow is $2,000,000 in Etobicoke and $200,000 in North Bay, it's time to consider packing your bags. That's where the immigration needs to flow. Vancouver's problem is that it's too bloody nice. Middle class can't live there anymore. It's Surrey or Richmond for Joe Shmuck if you're lucky. Then again, that's how it goes in Manhattan and London. In Toronto it can still be done, but you're going to have to work for it.

I think that’s a miscalculation on China’s part because under Trudeau China had a way in. They’re playing this worse than Canada, which has been forced into this awkward situation by the US. Trudeau has to go for sure. Our next PM probably has to be negative on China, as it’s clear that country still respects and adheres to fear more than constructive dialogue. It’s a shame because I find all of this national protectionism counter-productive. Good international rules would open up trade and better relations with all countries, but our “leader of the free world” to the south is playing the zero-sum Mercantile game, trying to counter China’s unfair game. I understand the reasoning but it’s a short-sighted game. Human development will happen to the fullest through the free exchange of goods, services and ideas. That dream is clearly postponed.

China has less trust in the US than in Canada right now because it sees the way games are played. It never had such challenges with Canada until this US extradition challenge, and look at the results: China mistreating Canada big time. Canada should focus as much trade as possible away from these trouble makers. Question to BC: How are publicly traded GM’s sales in China benefiting the American workers and public? That’s the heart of the matter.

Well having one or just a handful of bulk buyers gives government health providers a huge savings over smaller private companies. Canada spends a much smaller portion of GDP than the US. Yes some countries do public health care better than we do and we should look at that. The general consensus about health care in Canada is that if it’s small potatoes surgeries/treatments, expect to wait, however if it’s something serious like cancer the system comes to the party quite effectively. With regard to your other comments about overall economic performance in Canada, for me it comes down to living standards. Canada has had almost 15 years of continuous growth with a very mild couple of slowdowns. I look at how people live in many western countries, small homes on small lots or stacked townhouses and apartments, and I don’t just mean in major cities. In cities like London or Paris middle class people often rent and they rarely consider second properties. I also think about the safety of some of these cities, the entrenched class system, etc. We have it good here, though there’s much work to be done. I’d just caution you when looking at particular data points that indicate success in one or a few areas, as sometimes these mask bigger overall or multiple other problems.

Well the US has to maintain its middle class to maintain a market for its goods. China is trying to build a middle class market for its own goods and is still heavily dependent on exports. China is a potential market for North American goods, but right now that market is fairly closed. Banging the drum of human rights is important because it represents bringing China into the modern western democratic era of rule of law and standards for labour, the environment, and so on. Trump is trying to use the protectionist tariff stick to make China come across. It’s getting mixed results because Trump has made it clear that human rights are secondary to him than economics. That’s a green light for China to continue to break rules, to say one thing and do another. You need a president who is beyond reproach, exemplary in multiple ways. Only then can there be real conversations, because China doesn’t trust the US right now. Canada is trying to be true to its ally, the US, by honouring a treaty. The Justice Department claims to have concrete evidence of Huawei’s fraudulence and other charges. Let the evidence go before the court. Canada is far from perfect in its application of policy, but I’m sure our leaders are having a hard time trusting either country. Given a choice, it will almost always be the US. They don’t detain Canadians for dubious reasons or retry people to add a death penalty. More exchanges I’m sure will happen with China and other countries like it eventually, but certain things have to change.

I know. The US has fallen into the trap of importing more goods from China than any other country. At least you still have Canada, which buys more of your goods than any other country.

Capitalism thrives in those countries for the same reasons it thrives here: highly educated and highly skilled workforce with all basic health needs addressed. The majority of the population is well positioned to produce products and services that the world wants. The overall health and well-being of the society is the pay-off for economic success, not concentrated wealth in the hands of a handful of extremely wealthy individuals who have to gate themselves off from the wider impoverished society and hire armed guards. That’s been the old fascist South American model. Take your pick, rogue survival of the fittest capitalism or a rules based system that both creates and distributes wealth. The kleptocracy in Russia moved radically from false communism to false capitalism, resembling the South American model more than the Scandinavian one.

All research and science says otherwise.

Apples and oranges. Small countries need to trade and be light on their feet and are better equipped to be light on their feet. The advantage for larger countries is that they are big markets for the goods they produce. Even without the big US market to the south, Canada has to be a trade nation.

I disagree. Use the tax revenue for health and education. All progressive democracies do this. It’s one of the ways you advance a society, disincentivizing bad behaviour and supporting a desired outcome.

You need more sin taxes on vodka in Russia, so your workers become more productive and men live past age 60.

No, countries want to export, not import, because exporting creates jobs and wealth. Yes, cheap imports help consumers, but they also drive down wages and eliminate jobs. Imports only help a country if the country cannot produce or does not have the goods domestically. For example, Canada doesn’t have citrus fruit, so we import it. That’s where USMCA, free trade with Chile, the CETA free trade with Europe, and the TTP with Japan and other Pacific Rim countries was brilliant. We opened up export markets and ensured access to affordable imports. Sometimes a small country like Canada has no choice but to import technology from a particular sector, because, though we produce high tech goods, it’s hard for a small country to produce everything, obviously. Canada needs to focus on exporting, and no doubt China has given us a big trade deficit. Canada used to have multi-billion dollar trade surpluses, even when the US didn’t. We rely too much on cheap imports these days, like the US and many developed countries.

Prohibition of what? More freedoms in Canada, including legal weed.

Explain this. China benefits far more from sales to Canada than the reverse. Canada was thriving before China’s export boom.

Canada’s challenge isn’t employing people in highly skilled jobs or creating successful businesses, it’s retaining the successful businesses once they reach a certain size. Waterloo and Ottawa are full of companies that eventually get snapped up by or merged with other firms. Yet some will say we need this capital investment. Apparently much of Huawei’s original telecom tech came from Nortel, which was acquired by American outfits. Think about Corel or Blackberry. Same kinds of stories. Interac is of course a huge player in digital payment. There’s social media like Kik and all of the entertainment and film work. We’ve got some of the best sound stages. In some ways government policy, however thoughtful or effective, is just tinkering around the edges. People want to be here and our cities are growing fast. If we can find ways to push settlement north, the country can really benefit from the wealth in the ground. As for your concerns about nanny social programs, taxation and government spending in general, Canadians actively elect for these policies. They speak to the quality of life that alll Canadians enjoy. Ask Scandinavians if they like their programs and generally the answer will be yes. These are some of the most successful countries in the world, like Canada.

That’s absurd. Canada’s institutions are as old as England’s. Australia has managed fine. It would be a major readjustment but not insurmountable. It would be stupid and inconvenient for both countries to stop trading. For what? You suffer from slave morality, the mindset that says, “My master is powerful and can destroy me and therefore I should bow and admire his glory.” No you should not. Call out the problems as you see them and negotiate your wishes based on political realities, but don’t give credit or admiration where it isn’t due, whether that be for Canada, America, or anywhere else.

Canada simply responded to an extradition request by putting the matter before the court. Meng still has quite a bit of freedom. China on the other hand has detained two Canadians for obviously retaliatory reasons and has revised the sentence of a Canadian drug dealer to the death penalty. The US president has politicized the process by making Meng a trade bargaining chip. McCallum basically reminded everyone who launched this extradition request, the US, and directed questions to that regime, as Canada is merely determining through the courts whether the case merits extradition. Let the court do its work. It’s a dubious case that will likely get thrown out unless the US presses the request through further court challenges. So far, silence from the US. This is a test of Canada’s loyalty to the extradition treaty by the US. It’s also evidence that the Canadian government respects rule of law and China has a long way to go and still can’t be trusted.

For now. I wouldn’t bet long on the US, though it should be fine for the rest of.your natural life.

Canada is the future.

Well on your last point, immigrants earn less than Canadian born workers, which will lower average incomes. While I appreciate the argument that reducing immigration will tighten the labour market and raise wages, I call your attention to Hungary, which has done just this and is now in the unfortunate position of forcing workers to work overtime and accept late payment of wages in order for industry to meet market demand. Many have called this slave labour. With regard to Canadians leaving to work elsewhere, that doesn’t seem like an unseemly number in today’s global marketplace. I’m surprised only a third of them go to the US, which is so large and close. As I mentioned, I know a lot of young people working in Asia, which says something about where the growth is. I agree that retaining and building up the middle class, especially bringing the lower classes into it, should be top priority. The richest have made the biggest gains for sure, but that’s all the more reason to have progressive tax policy. Earnings over a million dollars and especially over ten million dollars a year should be taxed at much higher rates.