Freedom of Movement

[Zeitgeist]

8 hours ago, cougar said:

??  This is again growth.   We should be thinking of getting the birth rates down, reclaiming the land, turning parking lots into forests .......backing off, so we stand a chance in the long run.

I disagree.  Canada has lots of room, but not if we're all crammed into a 100 mile wide band along the border.  That's unsustainable.  Peter the Great built St. Petersburg in the far north of Russia.  That city has 5,000,000 people.  We have nothing approaching 500,000 people north of Edmonton.  We need to make a virtue out of northern settlement.  Otherwise, we probably should wind down immigration and accept permanent tepid growth.  However, it would impact our standard of living.  An important part of mortgage amortization and affordability is knowing that 10 or 15 years into paying it down, the overall amount simply isn't as much money as it once was because your wages have climbed and so has inflation.  We inflate our way out of debt as much as we pay it off, perhaps more so.

No growth means no inflation.  It can also lead to deflation, the worst scenario, when the things you bought become worth less and less.  Essentially there's no point in buying a home or anything else because it shrinks in value and no one wants to get stuck with a bad investment.  Essentially investment stops and the economy grinds to a halt, throwing people out of work and shrinking the tax base.  We could probably manage slow growth, but a shrinking economy is bad news.  

Edited January 19, 2021 by Zeitgeist

[Michael Hardner]

3 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

1. Canada has lots of room, but not if we're all crammed into a 100 mile wide band along the border.  That's unsustainable.  
2. Peter the Great built St. Petersburg in the far north of Russia.  That city has 5,000,000 people.  We have nothing approaching 500,000 people north of Edmonton.  We need to make a virtue out of northern settlement.  

3. Otherwise, we probably should wind down immigration and accept permanent tepid growth.  

1. I sort of agree, but even if we only had 100 mi from the southern border we would be bigger than France in area.
2.The pandemic should help us distribute work a little more, since WFH will be more of a thing now.
3.The immigration/growth relationship is not accepted by everyone.

[Zeitgeist]

14 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. I sort of agree, but even if we only had 100 mi from the southern border we would be bigger than France in area.
2.The pandemic should help us distribute work a little more, since WFH will be more of a thing now.
3.The immigration/growth relationship is not accepted by everyone.

3.  Growth requires at least a reliable highly skilled workforce, which may be hard to maintain without some immigration due to the coming demographic wave of retirements.

We may not have to swallow up more land, but we'll have to retrofit/rebuild what we have.  Also, while I support the benefits to transit and infrastructure use of a certain amount of densification, we're better off in the long run enhancing and settling multiple mid-sized cities that have ample space (with vibrant compact downtowns) than to pile everyone into two or three metro areas.

The Greenbelt around the GTA has been largely successful in maximizing careful land use, but it's time to enhance settlements outside those corridors, especially in the north.  The densest corridors can be better managed by adding high speed and RER commuter rail, so that fewer autos are necessary and goods and people can move more easily.  Essentially the benefits of economy of scale need to also be available outside Canada's few major cities.  

[Army Guy]

20 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

They won't have kids because urban Canadians don't want the expense, especially educated ones.  Here's the reality of the Canadian economy today:  Housing construction and development in general have been driving our economy for years. Our government relies on immigration both for workers and to continuously stoke housing demand.  It's somewhat counter-productive because it drives up the cost of housing and government services, but if on the most part the tax base is growing, government will call that success.

The bigger cost is in terms of quality of life, as we create overburdened infrastructure, crowding , and pollution, and create ghettos that are so large there's little incentive to learn an official language or engage with Canadian culture.  7 out of 10 immigrants move to the GTA.  Another 2 out of 10 move to Montreal and Vancouver, cities that cannot build infrastructure or housing fast enough to meet demand.  Let's at least spread the wealth.  We're paving over the best farmland in the country and creating pandemic traps.  We'll never make the most out of our resources without the local workforces to tap them.  Freedom of movement for citizens; territorial work visas for non-citizens except in high demand areas.  

I think your missing the objective here, make it worth their while, tax breaks , family allowance there are millions of ways to put money into Canadian pockets to entice them to have children, even educated people have kids.

Housing may be driving some sectors of our economy, but it is not the only egg in the basket, and certainly not the only money maker here.

We would not have to rely on so many foreign workers if Canadians got off their high horses and worked jobs that we have considered below us. Here in the Maritimes fair to good jobs are hard to find, without specials skills, after jobs out west dried up, as a result a good portion are on poggy or welfare. and I'm sure every province has cluster of the population in the same boat. maybe it is time for the government to put its foot down, and put them to work or educate them in the skills that are required and take the money away.

Once that is done you can bring in as many immigrants as need to fill in the gap.

In one paragraph your all for immigration, and on another your saying immigration is the main problem, in that they are creating all our infra structure deficit and all the problems that come with that.  We can not do both with out impacting the other.  

[Zeitgeist]

14 minutes ago, Army Guy said:

I think your missing the objective here, make it worth their while, tax breaks , family allowance there are millions of ways to put money into Canadian pockets to entice them to have children, even educated people have kids.

Housing may be driving some sectors of our economy, but it is not the only egg in the basket, and certainly not the only money maker here.

We would not have to rely on so many foreign workers if Canadians got off their high horses and worked jobs that we have considered below us. Here in the Maritimes fair to good jobs are hard to find, without specials skills, after jobs out west dried up, as a result a good portion are on poggy or welfare. and I'm sure every province has cluster of the population in the same boat. maybe it is time for the government to put its foot down, and put them to work or educate them in the skills that are required and take the money away.

Once that is done you can bring in as many immigrants as need to fill in the gap.

In one paragraph your all for immigration, and on another your saying immigration is the main problem, in that they are creating all our infra structure deficit and all the problems that come with that.  We can not do both with out impacting the other.  

There's an important role for targeted immigration.  Canadian born educated people with options don't want many kids. Those days are over.  We don't need big families to work on the farm.  Most people live in cities where space is at a premium.  We need more affordable cities/towns and job opportunities to go with them.  Facilitating that without immigration won't be easy, but we can tailor it to meet our social and environmental needs, improving quality of life for all.  Paving over our best farmland in the south to expand the southern metropolises won't bring us bigger homegrown families.  

Edited January 19, 2021 by Zeitgeist

[Army Guy]

4 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

There's an important role for targeted immigration.  Canadian born educated people with options don't want many kids. Those days are over.  We don't need big families to work on the farm.  Most people live in cities where space is at a premium.  We need more affordable cities/towns and job opportunities to go with them.  Facilitating that without immigration won't be easy, but we can tailor it to meet our social and environmental needs, improving quality of life for all.  Paving over our best farmland in the south to expand the southern metropolises won't bring us bigger homegrown families.  

I did not imply getting rid of immigration, but curtail it.  Immigration is still going to be needed, but as you said more targeted or selective in scope. as for Canadians not wanting bigger families, the number one reason for them not to grow families bigger is cost, they can not afford it... Canadians love money make it more raising a child more affordable and i think rubber sales will take a hit. Pour that money we are using on immigration into infra structure, incentives for companies to open production here in Canada, training or education opportunities.  

 

[Aristides]

16 hours ago, cougar said:

??  This is again growth.   We should be thinking of getting the birth rates down, reclaiming the land, turning parking lots into forests .......backing off, so we stand a chance in the long run.

Not growth. If you replace old people with an equal number of babies you can keep your median age down without increasing your population. Immigration ages your population more than having children because you are replacing old people with adults. 

[cougar]

9 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

I disagree.  Canada has lots of room, but not if we're all crammed into a 100 mile wide band along the border. 

 

This "room" is not empty useless space.  It is used by nature for various productive purposes.  You first need to destroy it to put yourself into it.

The North is mostly empty because of climate and poor productivity.  You cannot put people there and expect them to grow their food in their yards.  What you can reasonably expect is that they will simply decimate the last remaining caribou herds and then, if no food supplies are pumped to them, they will perish.  So to have those people there you need to provide them with:  FOOD.

Food will be grown in warmer climates where farms will have to get bigger and take over available land, till the point there is no more available land.

Inflation / deflation, all the same.  If we cannot keep our act under control we will suffer the consequences.

[Zeitgeist]

3 hours ago, cougar said:

This "room" is not empty useless space.  It is used by nature for various productive purposes.  You first need to destroy it to put yourself into it.

The North is mostly empty because of climate and poor productivity.  You cannot put people there and expect them to grow their food in their yards.  What you can reasonably expect is that they will simply decimate the last remaining caribou herds and then, if no food supplies are pumped to them, they will perish.  So to have those people there you need to provide them with:  FOOD.

Food will be grown in warmer climates where farms will have to get bigger and take over available land, till the point there is no more available land.

Inflation / deflation, all the same.  If we cannot keep our act under control we will suffer the consequences.

The human world sets itself off from the harsh elements of the natural world in order to have all of the elements of civilization that people value.  Even nature in the human would is controlled and managed, as in parks and conservation areas.  Raw uninhabited nature is quite remote from us. We need it as a carbon sink and to support our aquifers and air quality.  We need both nature and civilization.

Now, how much more we can expand the human world into nature depends on how much nature can handle.  That's where environmental science comes in.  There are hydrology and other formulas for measuring the health of ecosystems. Theoretically we could expand human civilization around the globe as long as the right balance is struck.  My point about northern expansion is simply that if we decide as a society to continue to grow our population, which is what is happening, it's better to do it in areas where maintaining that balance is easier to do.  Only about 4.8% of Canada's land is arable, and it's in the southern end of the country where land is being swallowed up by development at the fastest pace.  So, if nature is so important to you and so much modern work is information-based and can be done remotely, it makes good sense to focus development farther north.  If you don't think there should be more development or population growth anywhere, that's another issue.

Our current government supports large-scale immigration with no conditions on settlement.  Our biggest cities and their closest satellite cities will continue to swallow up precious farmland and stress our ecosystems without careful planning, yet concentrating development on smaller plots of land will make cities more crowded and congested.  Tall buildings have big carbon footprints.  Vertical sprawl, especially with insufficient green space and rapid transit, can be as bad as suburban sprawl for nature and people.  Big dense cities are losing residents during the pandemic because of the lack of space for people to spread out.  It seems that the optimum density is more like a Paris than a New York.

If we're following the example of nature, diversity of development, like biodiversity, is the key.  We need a wide variety of housing types and densities rather than a monoculture of skyscrapers or suburban sprawl.  Canada has room for sustainable growth, but only if we manage growth responsibly.  Cramming more people onto precious arable land in the dense south is unsustainable.  

Edited January 20, 2021 by Zeitgeist

[cougar]

2 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Now, how much more we can expand the human world into nature depends on how much nature can handle.  That's where environmental science comes in.  There are hydrology and other formulas for measuring the health of ecosystems. Theoretically we could expand human civilization around the globe as long as the right balance is struck.  

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 Cramming more people onto precious arable land in the dense south is unsustainable.  

Clearly nature can handle no more!  When you have almost all other species disappearing save for mice, crows and squirrels, you know you've reached the end of it.

This is why we cannot speak about further balancing anything with more people here and there.  It will be a political game of words ; yes involve science and hydrology but you know what?   My own two eyes can see pretty well despite the thick lenses and my head can still tell me the truth despite being brainwashed by the media.

Those tall buildings are ugly, scary and I would not live on the 15th floor of one of them, BUT they are way more environmentally friendly than the urban sprawl, considering our 8 billion population globally.  Still you need the FOOD!  You can leave all arable land to the farming industry and put all population on the North Pole or Mars, if you wish.  It is still not going to work with Constant Growth.

But to get back to the original Freedom of Movement question as you seemed upset the movement of people has been limited by the pandemic measures.  I have the following proposition to make.  Why not ask all those upset people who want to fly or drive to their far off destination to simply walk 25 km through knee deep soft snow in one day from 8am to 5pm with hunting boots on their feet (not snow shoes)  If they can do it, their wish for freedom can be granted.   But if they can't - no first aid for them - they are left to die in the snow.

I bet you we will see a population drop of 80%+ in one day in Canada and none of the remaining 20% will ever say a thing.

Here is a picture of a possible trail.  

P.S. What you see on the snow left of the dog are clumps of moose hair.  It is only the moose, wolves and me using this trail this time of year.

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by cougar