Argus

We do NOT have enough doctors. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who can't get a GP and you wouldn't have to wait for months and months to see any specialist or surgeon. We have a much lower number of doctors to population as compared to European countries.

Germany?

From what I understand they have a top notch medical system without the waits we have come to take as normal. They also have private hospitals and health care providers supplementing a robust public health system.

There are two things about this which come to mind. The first is that our universities accept and graduate a lot (I don't know how many) of foreign students whose tuition is paid for by their governments. Saudis, as one example. They have no intention of working in Canada, but they do take med school positions and they also take residency positions. This article doesn't seem to account for them. How many of these fulfil their residency requirements and then go home to Saudi Arabia or wherever? The second is to wonder how many foreign grads are allowed. There are only 3300 residency positions and we get 2500 requests in addition to the 2900 graduates from our schools. So the blockage would seem to be the number of residency positions which are restricted. Although since this in turn restricts the number of med school positions it's a moot point. We need more residency positions, obviously, but that too is something the governments are keeping down for cost saving purposes. I doubt, frankly, whether this really saves much money. I suspect it's a false saving in that it discourages people from getting prompt medical attention until things get so bad it's much more costly to treat.

Actually, it's rural people who vote Republican. Religious people in particular, who are vulnerable to fearmongering and rabble rousing about gays, transgenders and abortion. And I wouldn't call Republicans conservatives or they'd have some interest in fiscal responsibility. Although there's certainly something to be said about the effectiveness of the political indoctrination post-secondary students are subjected to and how that impacts their voting patterns. I wouldn't call people 'educated' though, just because they have a degree. I've met and dealt with too many blithering imbeciles with degrees. Most of our politicians have them, after all, including Trudeau.

It's unlikely to help many in the demographic which votes Tory. The high price of housing is due to the low supply, which in turn is due to incompetent local and provincial leadership which has allowed the proliferation of regulations and fees to deter the building and buying of the kinds of homes people want to live in and the supply of rental housing.

Then why do you support it? Especially given almost everyone holding these jobs lives at home with mom and dad?

Then maybe Toronto should have its own minimum wage because basing everyone's economic rules around Toronto screws up the rest of the province.

Interesting information on minimum wage workers. It seems that 92% do NOT live in low income households. “The fact is most minimum wage earners are teenagers or young adults, under the age of 25, and many live with their parents,” said Ben Eisen, co-author of the study, “Who Earns the Minimum Wage in Canada?” by the fiscally conservative think tank. For that demographic, minimum wage jobs are generally “a first step towards higher paid employment … younger minimum wage earners do not typically remain minimum wage workers for long; as they gain experience their salaries rise.” https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-new-study-breaks-down-how-minimum-wage-hikes-dont-help-the-poor

So are government handouts and an entitlement culture.

Nobody is complaining about the shortage of gender studies grads, or social studies or other grads from the humanities, social studies or various grievance studies. Maybe we should stop funding those.

In Toronto, maybe. But minimum wage jobs are primarily staffed by young people just starting out and still living at home anyway. Only 1% of minimum wage workers are over 25 in the US. Not sure of Canada since the huge number of refugees and immigrants might make the situation somewhat different.

The cost of living is a factor of what money people have. Raising the pay rate just raises the cost of living in a never ending cycle. All the stores and restaurants have to pay more so now they have to charge more. And that goes on up the line. You think the jobs that used to pay $15hr before the Liberals started their rapid pay raises are still making that? Of course not! They all had to go up by several dollars too.

The thing to bear in mind is these high requirements aren't there because you can't do the job with lower marks. They're kept high to screen out all but the number of people they can accept for the positions they're allowed to offer. This is not a situation where they're allowed to increase the seats based on demand. Nor is medical school.

In order to limit costs the provinces limit the number of people who can get into nursing and medical schools. We could be graduating far more doctors and nurses, but won't, because you practically need to be a genius even to get into nursing school. Never mind medical school. Abby Poffenroth spent her high school years focused on one thing: becoming a nurse. When she graduated this past spring with a 94 per cent average, Poffenroth never imagined she wouldn't make the cut for the program at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S. "I knew it was pretty competitive, but I didn't realize it was as competitive as it was until I got the letter saying I was not accepted," said Poffenroth, 18, who is from Antigonish. "I had my mind so set on it.... I wasn't really thinking about any other options." Nova Scotia's desperate need for nurses has some people questioning why the province doesn't simply train more people like Poffenroth, especially as those who are from the province are more likely to stay and work. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nursing-shortage-program-seats-1.6234226