What happened to Canada

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

All that is nice in theory. But largely unworkable in reality. A lot of businesses find cooperation better than competition, thus price fixing and oligopolies.

 

The reality is it has worked in reality many times in history

Yes - you will get 'clumping' where larger concerns suck up the market in very specific areas for extended times, but generally the market works that out itself over time. Legislation can make that work better and prevent it pretty much at all but generally speaking monopolies dont' last all that long and even oligarchies don't tend to in a market model.

Quote

Who is going to take down Google anyway, or Microsoft? Who is going to challenge the big banks, either here or in the US? And stop them from doing stupid things. That includes stupid things done by greedy CEOs who know what they're doing will ultimately be bad for their companies in the future but want to maximize their bonuses today.

who took down ibm? They had the market  absolutely LOCKED.  You did not BUY a computer that wasn't ibm for quite a while.

Who took down wordperfect? Remember for quite a long time THEY were the dominant word processor/spreadsheet company in the whole world. Absolutely OWNED the market - you didn't get an office job without knowing wordperfect.

Apple owned the phone market period. Have you heard of samsung?

Banks .... familiar with bitcoin? Or interac? Or paypal? the banks don't have the same lock on the financial transactions market they used to.  At one time you paid cash or chargex (shick shick). When was the last time you heard of chargex?

And on it goes.  Right now those companies have the market because you can make more money writing software and piggybacking on them than you can competing. That won't last forever.

Quote

Way back in the dawn of time, when we still recorded history on stone bl\ocks with chisels, one of my teachers in one of my business courses - I don't even remember which or who - told me that perfect Capitalism would be as dreadful for ordinary people to live under as any other economic system. Thus it has to be tempered by government.

Well... here's the thing, he was kind of right.  People don't "Live Under" capitalsm. Capitalism is an econoimc or financial model, it is NOT a political model as well.  It's a little like saying "what if people lived under accrual based accounting?" .  Doesn't really make sense.

A political model is necessary for people to live together as a community, even on a family level. The financial and economic model that a country uses is only one element of that larger system of governance, so sure - man can't live on capitalism alone   And capitalism will by default need some regulation to allow it to function within that larger model of governance, otherwise it couldn't work.  You can't just have capitalism - it's not a stand alone thing.   And it will always need to have 'connective and guiding' regulation.

And the free market does work much better with a few guidelines to ensure that it remains free and fair.  But that's still capitalsm.

[-TSS-]

The cost of living-crisis is really going on everywhere in the western world. Even though we like to critisize governments for such things it is really out of their control in a free-market economy.

 

Unless, of course, if Trump was in charge. Then all of it would be his fault entirely.

 

 

[CdnFox]

20 minutes ago, -TSS- said:

The cost of living-crisis is really going on everywhere in the western world. Even though we like to critisize governments for such things it is really out of their control in a free-market economy.

In the case of canada - it's vastly out of control AND unfortunately it is absolutely the gov'ts fault almost entirely and it's pretty easy to see how it happened.

Some of the provincial gov'ts played a supporting role, but the big mistakes of the feds were

1) out of control spending.The current gov't in 7 years has borrowed more money than ALL PREVIOUS GOV"S IN OUR ENTIRE HISTORY COMBINED.  When you dump that much unearned dollars into the economy you get massive inflation and cost increases.  I mean obviously that's the case.  THe scotia bank calculated that if gov't spending had been cut back 3 percent, there would have been no need to raise interest rates to fight inflation.

And of course we have tax issues. Payroll and other taxes have gone up and then there's the carbon tax, which is a tax on everything. And unfortunately because its a cumulative stacking tax and not an end user tax (meaning business pays for it, charges it to the next business who pays for it, who charges the next etc so it gets added to the mark up) the consumer often pays for it several times.

And that drives up costs.

But - the biggie is probably immigration. In 2015 immigration was somewhere around 250 thousand a year. Now it's close to a million and it's been growing every year.

THe fact is we do not build enough homes or even come close to cover that kind of increase.  We don't train doctors fast enough or nurses etc.  And while our supply chains have been decent when you start adding an additional MILLION consumers a year there's no way for food or other producers or importers to catch up or keep up, and that means prices go up

So sadly - we should have been cruising through this with no inflation and good cost of living but sadly we're doing worse every year, and our gdp-per-capita is nosediving which means our quality of life is going down as well.

Bad times.

[-TSS-]

17 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

In the case of canada - it's vastly out of control AND unfortunately it is absolutely the gov'ts fault almost entirely and it's pretty easy to see how it happened.

Some of the provincial gov'ts played a supporting role, but the big mistakes of the feds were

1) out of control spending.The current gov't in 7 years has borrowed more money than ALL PREVIOUS GOV"S IN OUR ENTIRE HISTORY COMBINED.  When you dump that much unearned dollars into the economy you get massive inflation and cost increases.  I mean obviously that's the case.  THe scotia bank calculated that if gov't spending had been cut back 3 percent, there would have been no need to raise interest rates to fight inflation.

And of course we have tax issues. Payroll and other taxes have gone up and then there's the carbon tax, which is a tax on everything. And unfortunately because its a cumulative stacking tax and not an end user tax (meaning business pays for it, charges it to the next business who pays for it, who charges the next etc so it gets added to the mark up) the consumer often pays for it several times.

And that drives up costs.

But - the biggie is probably immigration. In 2015 immigration was somewhere around 250 thousand a year. Now it's close to a million and it's been growing every year.

THe fact is we do not build enough homes or even come close to cover that kind of increase.  We don't train doctors fast enough or nurses etc.  And while our supply chains have been decent when you start adding an additional MILLION consumers a year there's no way for food or other producers or importers to catch up or keep up, and that means prices go up

So sadly - we should have been cruising through this with no inflation and good cost of living but sadly we're doing worse every year, and our gdp-per-capita is nosediving which means our quality of life is going down as well.

Bad times.

I don't live in Canada so I'll take your word for what you have said since I don't know better.

However, despite all what you have just said there will never be more emigration out of Canada than immigration into Canada.

 

[Moonlight Graham]

4 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. Ok, well have at it.  I haven't seen a productive discussion of competing value systems yet.  Stop saying that it makes me uncomfortable.  It doesn't.  I just see it as a giant waste of time and am trying to make you see that.  If you agreed then maybe that would prove me wrong.

Convince me that I'm woke, that my values are bad for Canada.  Should be fun... Lots of effort for you, and me countering every opinion... 

You're already wrong on my motivation, my concerns... What makes you think that you can get inside my head and convince me that my values are wrong?

Would you be open to your values being proven wrong?  Of course not.  You'll never defeat conservative, liberal or socialist values... but go ahead and try.

2. Don't just state something, provide hard evidence.  Because I don't believe it, at least not as you depict it.

3. Ok

4. Bullshit.  

5.  Yeah, you're way wrong.  Justin has a team of advisors that he listens to, deputy ministers and so on.  He fired two women because they wouldn't help him rig the SNC Lavalin case.  Was that woke?  He skipped the first National Day of Reconciliation.  Woke right?

Baffles me that you don't like Trudeau, yet you believe his press releases.

6. I don't get it. We are on an anonymous message board. Right now. We are on one. We are anonymous. What social shackles are binding me and keeping me from saying what I really think?

I don't know how old you are, but maybe you haven't met a wide spectrum of people in your life? Life? I have met hard communists, hard libertarians and everything in between and been very close friends with all stripes. My number one criteria for a friend is that they be a mensh.

People's values are remarkably similar in this country. The only thing that differs is the flavor of organization that you would have to achieve the best systems for the people.

7. When you convince the crowd, you're not changing their ideology, or their values. You're changing their ideas of how to execute on those values.

I don't consider myself woke, I consider myself conservative and pragmatic... I argue the ideas, and even if I wonder about the personalities behind them... I don't try to change them.

You've said some interesting things.  Let me sit with them and respond when I have more time.

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, -TSS- said:

I don't live in Canada so I'll take your word for what you have said since I don't know better.

However, despite all what you have just said there will never be more emigration out of Canada than immigration into Canada.

 

I woudln't think so.  There's quite a bit out right now and the concern is the good people leave and the low skilled ones are 'trapped' but as far as i know immigration still far exceeds emigration.

[-TSS-]

Do many Canadians think that it is a small country since they always compare the size of the population to the southern neighbour?

Of course Canada is not a small country. It has the second largest land-mass in the world and a country of 40 million people is not a small country populationwise either. Perhaps a middle-sized country but not small.

Edited January 27 by -TSS-

[I am Groot]

20 hours ago, herbie said:

I shouldn't have to explain the obvious and no one can to someone who's already convinced himself Canada isn't. Mr hardcoe Can'tservative... we do okay so why even think of doing even better

That's a childish response that dodges the question again. You insist we're too small in population but you can't explain why smaller countries are doing fine. I think you just don't like anyone opposing mass immigration out of a rigid ideological belief that any system that brings in mainly non-white people has to be defended at all costs.

[herbie]

4 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

You insist we're too small in population but you can't explain why smaller countries are doing fine.

Duh, like double duhhh! You just answered yourself dummy. They're all smaller countries!  There aren't any other 10 million sq km countries with 40 million people spread out in one 7600 km long thin line.
There, saved you looking at a map or a library!

[Zeitgeist]

The truth is that most of Canada is very hard to inhabit, and we’re developing over our southern arable land at record pace.  It means that Canada’s usable land mass is around 60 million hectares.  Britain is about 25 million hectares, not all of it usable (69%).  Britain has about 67 million people and must have strict land use regulations to manage its densely populated north and Greater London, which make up a huge chunk of England.  I don’t know what the magic highest number is for Canada’s population in terms of quality of life, but I bet southern Canada would feel quite crowded at 67 million.  Of course it wouldn’t just mean an increase of population by around 68% evenly dispersed, because the biggest and most popular areas would increase to a much greater extent.  For example, 70% of immigrants to Canada settle in the Greater Toronto Area.  Imagine adding around 18 million people to the GTA, and that’s just if Canada reaches the 67 million mark. There’s also the matter of food security, since we need arable land for a reliable local food supply.  On that basis alone I wouldn’t seek to increase Canada’s population beyond about 55 million.

”Arable land (% of land area) in Canada was reported at 4.3532 % in 2021, according to the World Bank”

Edited January 27 by Zeitgeist

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

The truth is that most of Canada is very hard to inhabit, and we’re developing over our southern arable land at record pace.  It means that Canada’s usable land mass is around 60 million hectares.  Britain is about 25 million hectares, not all of it usable (69%).  Britain has about 67 million people and must have strict land use regulations to manage its densely populated north and Greater London, which make up a huge chunk of England.  I don’t know what the magic highest number is for Canada’s population in terms of quality of life, but I bet southern Canada would feel quite crowded at 67 million.  Of course it wouldn’t just mean an increase of population by around 68% evenly dispersed, because the biggest and most popular areas would increase to a much greater extent.  For example, 70% of immigrants to Canada settle in the Greater Toronto Area.  Imagine adding around 18 million people to the GTA, and that’s just if Canada reaches the 67 million mark. There’s also the matter of food security, since we need arable land for a reliable local food supply.  On that basis alone I wouldn’t seek to increase Canada’s population beyond about 55 million.

”Arable land (% of land area) in Canada was reported at 4.3532 % in 2021, according to the World Bank”

And if we're being honest - a lot more of our currently "Unusable" land could be developed for agricultural purposes if we wanted. We just don't. 

I'm told that with global warming that might become even MORE true.

[Zeitgeist]

52 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

And if we're being honest - a lot more of our currently "Unusable" land could be developed for agricultural purposes if we wanted. We just don't. 

I'm told that with global warming that might become even MORE true.

You would think, with our hardier strains of wheat and other crops created by Canadian agri-tech decades ago plus the use of greenhouses.  However, our amount of arable land has declined, I’m guessing partly due to development. It sometimes increases year to year too.  I don’t know enough about why it shifts.

”Canada arable land for 2020 was 38,235,000, a 1.07% decline from 2019. Canada arable land for 2019 was 38,648,000, a 0.11% decline from 2018.”

Edited January 28 by Zeitgeist

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Zeitgeist said:

You would think, with our hardier strains of wheat and other crops created by Canadian agri-tech decades ago plus the use of greenhouses.  However, our amount of arable land has declined, I’m guessing partly due to development. It sometimes increases year to year too.  I don’t know enough about why it shifts.

”Canada arable land for 2020 was 38,235,000, a 1.07% decline from 2019. Canada arable land for 2019 was 38,648,000, a 0.11% decline from 2018.”

Well i don't know about that but i'm fairly sure it's harper's fault.

[I am Groot]

19 hours ago, herbie said:

Duh, like double duhhh! You just answered yourself dummy. They're all smaller countries!  There aren't any other 10 million sq km countries with 40 million people spread out in one 7600 km long thin line.
There, saved you looking at a map or a library!

I'm not sure why you think that's relevant, but I have come to understand that logic does not play a major role in your adversarial discussions with people of different viewpoints. 

Canada is, for the most part, a country a hundred miles wide by thirty-four hundred miles long with a big back yard we can raid for resources. Having access to that big backyard does not make it less economical to sustain an economy, but MORE. 

[Dougie93]

24 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

Canada is, for the most part, a country a hundred miles wide by thirty-four hundred miles long with a big back yard we can raid for resources. Having access to that big backyard does not make it less economical to sustain an economy, but MORE. 

a nation is more than the sum of its parts

your definition of Canada is a checklist, not a country

to wit, there is no point in sustaining an economy

on behalf of lunatic Orwellian Woke Communist treason against the Crown

better that such an abomination would burn in a fire of its own making

let slip the wrath of God upon the satanists therein

[GroundskeeperWillie]

On 1/20/2024 at 11:40 PM, Moonlight Graham said:

Encouraging everyone to retreat into separate identity tribes while demonizing the one tribe we all belong to and suppressing our collective pride for it is a really bad idea.

This has been the ideology of the woke left, including our current government of the past 8 years.  Yes we're all different and always have been, but we need to reject divisive identity politics and vote the current government out of office because they're destroying the country.

I believe with this post, however I feel that it is not enough to vote out the Liberals.  The conservatives are no better, they are just a watered down version of the liberals.  They have done nothing to stop gender ideology madness, they support mass immigration just as much, and they didn't stand up for us when the big government demanded that we take covid vaccines.  The reason the Conservatives exist is to catch the votes that hate the Liberals.  They don't stand for anything.

There is a party that is true opposition, in my opinion: https://www.peoplespartyofcanada.ca/  however, I honestly don't think they have a very good chance of winning seats.

[I am Groot]

1 hour ago, GroundskeeperWillie said:

I believe with this post, however I feel that it is not enough to vote out the Liberals.  The conservatives are no better, they are just a watered down version of the liberals.  They have done nothing to stop gender ideology madness, they support mass immigration just as much, and they didn't stand up for us when the big government demanded that we take covid vaccines.  The reason the Conservatives exist is to catch the votes that hate the Liberals.  They don't stand for anything.

There is a party that is true opposition, in my opinion: https://www.peoplespartyofcanada.ca/  however, I honestly don't think they have a very good chance of winning seats.

This message brought to you by the Liberal Party of Canada

[GroundskeeperWillie]

1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

This message brought to you by the Liberal Party of Canada

Nope.

I support the People's party of Canada.  Just in case you haven't noticed, I just promoted their website.  Stop with the baseless accusation.

[I am Groot]

18 hours ago, GroundskeeperWillie said:

Nope.

I support the People's party of Canada.  Just in case you haven't noticed, I just promoted their website.  Stop with the baseless accusation.

The Liberals are, I'm sure, promoting the PPC in order to split the conservative vote so they can get in again.

[Zeitgeist]

5 hours ago, I am Groot said:

The Liberals are, I'm sure, promoting the PPC in order to split the conservative vote so they can get in again.

I hear you, but Willie’s not wrong about some of these things.  I don’t understand why in Ontario, for example, Conservative Ford isn’t bringing in a Parental Bill of Rights like Alberta.  Actually I do know why, because Ford’s Conservatives are Red Tory.  They’re very similar to the Liberals.  They’re scared to do anything that might offend anyone.  I still think they were a necessary correction of the previous Liberal government.  Poilievre has his best chance of doing something effective in his first couple of years, especially if he wins a majority.  By about year three the scandals appear.

[James Bilodeau]

What happened to Canada? It has been usurped by the most vile and loathsome of creatures. A coward has taken control and made it into his image. His cabal is made up of insane and unreal characters. Each willing, so it seems , to take the fall for dear leader.

 His WEFty agenda, absorbed by his second louie, Freakie Freeland, is all that matters. Our Canada is falling to Laurentian elites, puppets of much more sinister forces.

 

[I am Groot]

Perhaps in future when people ask what happened to Canada they'll answer "The schools collapsed under the onslaught of left wing ideologues.

Equally disturbing may be the content being taught. In Canada, as in the U.S., primary school curricula are becoming increasingly politicized. There’s a sense, derived from the universities, that Canada’s past is essentially a record of evil and that the country is itself fundamentally illegitimate, the product of colonial political oppression rather than a flawed, but ultimately successful nation. Canadian children are in danger of losing their own heritage, of being deprived access to anything bright in their history.

..

The roots of this decline stem from the universities, which train school teachers and administrators, and the educational fads they proffer. We may think of schools as incubators of thought and technology, but they can also serve as  tools of autocracy, as was clear even in Medieval times. One of the first great higher education institutions, the University of Paris also served as  a staunch guardian of orthodoxy, and in the 1300s it held a conclave to affirm the reality of demons that were supposedly infecting society. The historian J. B. Bury, in 1913, described the Middle Ages as a time when “a large field was covered by beliefs which authority claimed to impose as true, and reason was warned off the ground.”

 

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/joel-kotkin-decolonized-universities-dividing-canadians

[Dougie93]

On 2/2/2024 at 12:13 AM, Zeitgeist said:

  Actually I do know why, because Ford’s Conservatives are Red Tory.  They’re very similar to the Liberals.  They’re scared to do anything that might offend anyone.

Robert Borden was a Red Tory

Robert Stansfield may have been the ultimate Red Tory

yet in the face of the outright Communist treason against the Crown in play now

even Canadian Red Tories would have most of the politicians in office at this juncture

prosecuted under Section 46 of the Criminal Code

then executed for High Treason therein

Robert Borden after all, had 25 Canadians shot at dawn

for "cowardice" in the Great War

[Zeitgeist]

True.  To me a guy like Bill Davis was the best kind of politician.  Rational and productive but no nonsense. Responsible. These virtues are in short supply among today’s politicians. Ideological capture by the radical left seems complete in Canada. All sorts of self-destructive policies are implemented and proposed. The strong and healthy role models are cancelled and replaced by parodies of leaders.

Edited February 9 by Zeitgeist

[Dougie93]

1 hour ago, Zeitgeist said:

 The strong and healthy role models are cancelled and replaced by parodies of leaders.

yet the silent majority are good & decent folk

whose lives are ultimately shaped by a Christian sense of good & evil

whether they recognize that behaviour as being divine or not

they can be saved, if you can incite just a crack in their barrier of disbelief therein

as salvation is not by acts, but by faith alone

thus even if they never admit it to one other person

if that crack in the barrier exists in the end

they will be saved at the end, when the angel of death comes for them, they will repent

no atheists in foxholes