Liberals to import more impoverished, homeless people

[Moonlight Graham]

On 7/1/2021 at 9:02 AM, myata said:

And another stretching of truth. OK housing market cannot be predicted (sure about it though, with massive immigration?) but what about property taxes and municipal services? Chink, chink, ding ding, 2, 3, 5% year on year, no break, no matter what. Result: near doubled, in two decades. MP's salary kept up, GG all expenses paid, millionaire doing fine who else? Hello? Anybody else out there, with starting salary doubled in two decades?

Right, there is no incentive for politicians to fix this problem as long as it's not a key election issue that threatens their jobs.

Municipalities make more money on your property taxes when the value of your property goes up.  And yet for some reason our municipal services are being reduces in different ways lol.

[Moonlight Graham]

On 7/1/2021 at 4:21 PM, Argus said:

Immigration certainly has an impact. But the point I was making is that ordinary Canadians do not seem to be better off. In 1971 the cost of a car was 20% of the average salary and now it's 75%. Tuition was 3% of an average salary and now it's nearly 12%. How are Canadians lives better now than they were back then if you can't afford a car, an education or a house? They're not, so how has immigration benefited us again?

Besides housing prices, I don't think these hikes are related to immigration.   There's bigger economic issues at play, immigrants shouldn't be scapegoated for all of them.  Deregulation, free-trade are big factors too.

[Michael Hardner]

7 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

1.  There aren't enough homes being built (supply) to satisfy the demand.  But then Trudeau wants to bring in 400k+ immigrants per year, up from ~270k before Trudeau beat Harper about 5 years ago.

2. The solutions are:  build more homes (mostly a government red-tape issue at all levels of government) or decrease the demand (reduce immigration etc)

1. Demand for homes is greater than the demand for housing.  From what I have seen, there are a lot of empty homes, and other factors.

2. Naw.  Communism.

[myata]

8 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Right, there is no incentive for politicians to fix this problem as long as it's not a key election issue that threatens their jobs.

Well yes. In the market, one cannot bring the price up arbitrarily or drop the quality - with competition one can go bankrupt. But that rule does not apply to public services that are by definition monopolistic. So the bureaucracy pays itself, first too much then ridiculously much and beyond. And the rest is, best effort. Oops, not to worry.

[myata]

8 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Besides housing prices, I don't think these hikes are related to immigration.   There's bigger economic issues at play, immigrants shouldn't be scapegoated for all of them.  Deregulation, free-trade are big factors too.

That is correct, the core of the problem is not the immigration but lack of checks, accountability and resulting inefficiency and laziness of the public sector, and private as well to some extent, as it's becoming dependent on government projects and bailouts. Overall it results in compromised competitiveness of the society and inevitably, deteriorating real living standards whatever pretty ratings show. If the costs have doubled and salary has not, it cannot mean increased prosperity. It means only that a happy bureaucrat rolled the increases into GDP and is showing you the pretty picture, believe it or the bills, one or two.

Immigration is a symptom. With massive immigration the bureaucracy is trying hide the real problems of efficiency and adaptability by temporarily increasing, as it hopes, the tax base as immigrants are more likely to take any job, pay taxes and ask fewer questions. But is it sustainable in this century with ever less transparent and efficient bureaucracy making important decisions? The scary thing is that we don't even want to think about it. If it worked in the 1900s then why not now don't fix it.

[Argus]

15 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Besides housing prices, I don't think these hikes are related to immigration.   There's bigger economic issues at play, immigrants shouldn't be scapegoated for all of them.  Deregulation, free-trade are big factors too.

Sky high immigration helps suppress wages, though. They're a big part of why average hourly wages haven't moved in 40 years. 

[myata]

Fortunately world is a large place and it's always possible to compare.

Norway population, 1980 - 2020: 4.1 to 5.4 million, 32.5%

Finland population, same period: 4.8 to 5.5, 14.6%

Canada population, same period: 24.5 to 38 million, 55%

By these numbers one should expect Canada to do much better than Norway and a lot, Finland. Now take a look at the reality.

[Moonlight Graham]

6 hours ago, myata said:

Fortunately world is a large place and it's always possible to compare.

Norway population, 1980 - 2020: 4.1 to 5.4 million, 32.5%

Finland population, same period: 4.8 to 5.5, 14.6%

Canada population, same period: 24.5 to 38 million, 55%

By these numbers one should expect Canada to do much better than Norway and a lot, Finland. Now take a look at the reality.

But we are doing great, just ask the banks and the real estate developers!  lol.

Canada is a huge place that's mostly empty, it's not that we can't fit more people, but you have to do it at a pace that the infrastructure can handle, and the culture can handle.  Overpopulation isn't the problem, it's the pace of the changes and we can't keep up.

Most Canadians aren't anti-immigration, but they also want the government to do it in a way where the needs of Canadians that live here are respected.  Because then it just causes resentment towards immigrants, which is terrible and wrong because it's not the fault of immigrants at all, it's the fault of government.

[marcus]

It's true that the adults have it tougher. But guess what; immigrant children outperform Canadian born children. 

Children who come to Canada more likely than those born here to enter post-secondary education

In 2018, 70 per cent of 20-year-old immigrants who came to Canada before they turned 15 were in post-secondary education. This compares with 56 per cent of the overall population of 20-year-olds that same year.

 

the most recent findings are in line with previous studies, such as those showing child refugees, in general, have a university completion rate higher than those born in Canada.

Wilkinson said no one could discount the “immigrant drive effect,” which stems from families pushing to fight for a better life in a new country after overcoming barriers to get there.

Link

 

 

Edited July 11, 2021 by marcus

[myata]

6 hours ago, marcus said:

It's true that the adults have it tougher. But guess what; immigrant children outperform Canadian born children.

Data is not information. One can work on improving education system, for example making it free, flexible and top-notch quality like in some countries of Europe to make more people want education and succeed in it, improving the quality and efficiency of the economy; or one can just bring in more people from impoverished places who will do anything to make sure their children are educated in the system as is. Note that only one of the options ensures excellence, continuous improvement and adaptability to changing world; the other one just attempts to drag the status quo for as long as it could possibly be extended. And then?

[dialamah]

2 hours ago, myata said:

Data is not information

It's a key part of information; without data, one is simply guessing.

2 hours ago, myata said:

free, flexible and top-notch quality like in some countries of Europe to make more people want education and succeed in it, improving the quality and efficiency of the economy; or one can just bring in more people from impoverished places who will do anything to make sure their children are educated in the system as is. Note that only one of the options ensures excellence, continuous improvement and adaptability to changing world; the other one just attempts to drag the status quo for as long as it could possibly be extended. And then?

Why not both?  

[myata]

25 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Why not both?  

And why not unicorns? Should the public system address the issues and problems of the country or spend its time on the public paycheck asking all sorts of curious questions? Why not support WHO? Why not help China?

What is the purpose of mass immigration? Why is it needed and how does it improve the condition of the society?

[myata]

The change has been even more dramatic in Ontario:

1980 / 2020: 8.74 / 14.7. That's almost 70 percent, in a single generation. In just one generation, a whole new country added (Norway, Finland). Housing, education, municipal services, epidemiological preparedness. Prices and costs doubled and tripled. Salaries not, and by far. Why was it needed then? Who answered, but then, who asked?

Maybe it's time to face the truth? This country is not a democracy. It's a peasant country run by exalted and well-meaning (most of the time) aristocracy responding to nobody and accountable to no one. It was like that when the British arrived; it was that in 1860; and it will be celebrating second its centennial in that state, miracle or big surprise forbidding. Sure it has certain democratic attributes but attributes do not make a functional modern democracy. Only empowered, active citizens that can and hold the powers responsible and accountable, do.

[dialamah]

45 minutes ago, myata said:

What is the purpose of mass immigration? Why is it needed and how does it improve the condition of the society?

Canada's birthrate is below replacement; without immigration, we'll have declining population and that's not optimum for Canada.  Even replacement immigration rates would end up in a stagnating economy.  There's no indication that well-educated Europeans want to move here in numbers great enough to grow Canada's population so we're kind of stuck with selecting from who wants to come here.

But, instead of relying on immigration to grow Canada's population, we should simply support Canadians having children.  Huge baby bonuses to allow one parent to stay home and raise the kids, free education up to a Masters, tax-free kids stuff (not just clothes), better mental health support, better support for single parent families.  The more Canadian kids we can grind out, the less immigration we'll need.  Persuading people that they can afford kids will be the challenge, and would require a lot of government money.  Or forcing businesses to pay workers a lot more money.

 

Edited July 11, 2021 by dialamah

[Argus]

13 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Canada is a huge place that's mostly empty,

If you include the northern tundra, sure.  You want to go live in Northern Saskatchewan or Manitoba? How about the deep woods of northern Ontario or up north with the Cree in Quebec?

This 'Canada is mostly empty' cliche is bullshit in terms of immigration. Immigrants aren't going up north. They're going to the cities and making them even more crowded than they already are. Thirty five percent of immigrants settle in Toronto alone. Add Vancouver and we're up to over 50%. 

[myata]

2 hours ago, dialamah said:

But, instead of relying on immigration to grow Canada's population, we should simply support Canadians having children. 

That's it you nailed it. There was a real problem of shortage of workforce, that could slow the economy and reduce tax base to pay for increasingly costly government and social services. The solution would be to stimulate population that is already there to educate and work; those on pension, women, students, communities with high unemployment. Reduce the cost of the system, make it lean and more efficient. Low cost or free lifelong education, flexible work arrangements. This way we are making the country work for its citizens while continuously learning to solve problems.

That isn't like the bureaucracy thinks though because it knows that it cannot change no matter how many plans and programs it creates, so the only practical option that remains is to leave the problem alone and change the country instead. And that's what we've been doing ever since and growing more dependent on it, can't stop like a Ponzi scheme. Will there be a good exit, at what point? In Ontario we are on the way to a population of four Finland's but are our services and quality of life on par? Are we developing long term solutions or sticking a bandaid? And is it solving problems for the society, or only / mostly the bureaucracy?

[Argus]

About the only major media where immigration is ever questioned is the Vancouver Sun. This is a piece on a report done by former BC  deputy minister Don Wright, who has a PHD in economics from Harvard. His paper deals with how politicians have abandoned the middle class by allowing wages to stagnate. And immigration is a major part of that.

“There seems to be a reluctance to challenge the arguments for growing immigration levels,” Wright says.

“Perhaps that is because they have been repeated so often they are generally believed to be true. At least in part, however, it is because the promoters of large immigration numbers are quick to label as racist, parochial or small-minded any questioning of larger immigration numbers.”

Wright finds flaws in the major rationales the powers that be put forth to justify Canada’s immigration levels, which in 2019 brought in a record 341,000 permanent residents, a target Trudeau last year hiked to 425,000 annually.

The argument that Canada needs immigrants to offset the aging baby boom “sounds reasonable on the face of it,” says Wright. But then he shows that, since immigrants as a whole are not much younger than the existing population, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Encouraging people to work a little longer would be at least as powerful, he says, citing a study by the C.D. Howe Institute.

A second standard Canadian explanation for large-scale immigration — that it grows GDP, or the overall economy — is promoted almost daily in the media by “somebody of influence,” says Wright.

But hiking immigration mainly satisfies employers who want low-cost labour, the real-estate industry and financial institutions, he says. “The critical metric is not GDP; it is GDP per capita — and how it is distributed.”

Another argument, which is pivotal to Wright’s thesis about the middle classes, is that employers claim they desperately need immigrants to fill jobs Canadians won’t do.

“But when businesses complain about having difficulty finding enough workers, what this really means is that they cannot easily find the workers they want at a wage they want to pay,” Wright says.

“But, within reasonable limits, this is a good thing. It forces employers to pay higher wages, provides better working conditions and drives the creative destruction that leads to higher productivity, more valuable products and better business models.”

A thrust of Wright’s paper is that Canada’s conservative-minded companies have become the least productive in the OECD (a club of rich nations) because they’ve relied on low-wage workers to survive, rather than on innovation, which hikes productivity.

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-canada-has-abandoned-middle-class-says-b-c-s-former-top-civil-servant

[Michael Hardner]

Someone asked about the economics of mass immigration.

 

It's outlined here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_immigration_to_Canada#:~:text=In terms of the impact,are reduced by 7%).

 

[myata]

That pretty much summarizes it: "Maclean's described Canada's higher immigration numbers for increasing country’s GDP as a "window dressing a struggling economy" due to the decreasing GDP per captia". And as rightfully stated in another piece, GDP per capita does not tell the whole story either when statistics roll minimal wage server's income together with CEO's $2M golden parachute. Rapidly declining quality of life, when apples are compared to apples, same position then to same position now, costs of goods and services including housing taken into account, that is the story of a large part of Canada today. It's another story why it isn't often noticed and rarely discussed but it's based on facts that are impossible to deny.

Indeed the bureaucracy found an easy and cheap way to produce the dressing that satisfies politicians and populace without any real solutions or improvements. Utmost naivite bordering on st..dy is to give bureaucracy a paper objective and expect that it would something useful with it. But it will do a good window dressing at maximum possible cost and with minimal real change. That's how bureaucracy works. Unexpected consequences, unwanted side effects, like housing crisis - the answer is always ready oops, not to worry apology and compensation. Out of whose pocket - let's guess.

And a very essential, in my view, parallel: residential schools was a policy decision about a hundred years back; mass immigration is a policy decision taken around a generation back, 1980. And travel from Wuhan is a policy decision now. Notice something common in all of these examples? No discussion; no explanations and argumentation; and no accountability. Notice how it, the process affected the quality of the decisions? From apology to compensation to another apology and why, how would it get any better?

Edited July 11, 2021 by myata

[Michael Hardner]

4 minutes ago, myata said:

That pretty much summarizes it: "Maclean's described Canada's higher immigration numbers for increasing country’s GDP as a "window dressing a struggling economy" due to the decreasing GDP per captia". 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/650797/per-capita-gdp-canada/

 

I don't see GDP per capita decreasing.  Good for you for referencing statistics though.

[Michael Hardner]

On 7/10/2021 at 4:56 PM, myata said:

By these numbers one should expect Canada to do much better than Norway and a lot, Finland. Now take a look at the reality.

That's disgust, you have to provide statistics to say that we're doing worse. Immigration is just one factor that impacts the economy.

 

And doom and gloom doesn't cut it, you need sober and objective analysis. To add, I don't know what the answer is I just don't accept doom and gloom.

[myata]

We already discussed that GDP hand trick, take money as much as needed out of bottomless well you're sitting on, pay it to yourself with a sprinkle of "equitability" and voila watch GDP (incl., per capita) growing like those magic mushrooms, no need to waste any further time on that. GDP badge means nothing unless it improves the real standard of life for most citizens, including cost of housing, services, quality of healthcare, education etc.

[Michael Hardner]

3 minutes ago, myata said:

We already discussed that GDP hand trick, take money as much as needed out of bottomless well you're sitting on, pay it to yourself with a sprinkle of "equitability" and voila watch GDP (incl., per capita) growing like those magic mushrooms, no need to waste any further time on that. GDP badge means nothing unless it improves the real standard of life for most citizens, including cost of housing, services, quality of healthcare, education etc.

And yet in just your last post, you felt that the GDP statistic was worth using to prove your argument that things are worse?

[myata]

11 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

And yet in just your last post, you felt that the GDP statistic was worth using to prove your argument that things are worse?

Sure. A magician's trick doesn't prove that a bird can appear out of thin air. And sometimes it doesn't work too. Without meaningful criteria "GDP growth" per capita including, can be very misleading. So many examples of banana republics.

[Moonlight Graham]

On 7/11/2021 at 12:26 PM, Argus said:

If you include the northern tundra, sure.  You want to go live in Northern Saskatchewan or Manitoba? How about the deep woods of northern Ontario or up north with the Cree in Quebec?

I'm not talking about up north.

You just don't want "foreigners" coming to Canada and will support any argument that supports that stance.  Instead of giving argument X and Y just come out and say "I don't like people from other cultures/races and I don't want them here".