PM Justin Trudeau's Canada

[Jonny5]

Good info; {thanks); suspect program; but in so far as they are both as well qualified, and as well paid as their Canadian (by birth or immigration) counterparts would have been; I take no issue w/it.

Insofar as it has been used to undermine wage growth for you or you compatriots, I take profound issue w/it.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on that.

I can't be sure--even after the recent changes in law literally no one in my office ever even whispers about how much they make--but I suspect these transplants from abroad do have starting salaries lower than those they replaced. One thing is this bank is kind of known on the street for being a lower pay but higher benefits workplace, which appeals to certain people, so it's hard to figure out, but I suspect they are starting here at a 10-15% lower salary than someone from Canada with the equivalent experience would ask for.

I should add it's not only Indians that they do this with; Ireland has also been a source of reverse-outsourced staff too, and my understanding is the same slightly lower pay may be in place for those transplants as I have heard them say financial industry pay in Ireland is notably lower than in North America, though still more than in India, but the difference is enough to entice the Irish over here to do similar jobs. There's presently three people in the office relocated from the bank's Dublin office (also one from Dubai).

 

[DSCToronto]

You're right, though can I be allowed to substitute 'not a good situation' with 'self-inflicted and harmful idiocy?

This piece on Cape Breton University seems an example of the desire (or obligation) to attract foreign students gone TOTALLY crazy!

SYDNEY, N.S. - Cape Breton University says it’s limiting enrolment to a popular business program following concerns the school is not equipped to handle the recent influx of international students.

The university is limiting admissions to its two-year post-baccalaureate diploma in business analytics — a program favoured by international students — starting May 2023 “as part of the deliberate strategy to manage the enrolment in that program downward,” Gordon MacInnis, vice president of finance and operations, said in an interview Thursday.

Based in Sydney, N.S., the university in the fall semester held classes for that program at the downtown Cineplex cinemas — about nine kilometres from campus — because of a lack of teaching space. All but two of the 2,681 people enrolled in the post-baccalaureate program are international students, and 85 per cent of those foreign students are from India. (My bolding).

More at https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...ul.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=thestar_canada

It really does look like a case of the tail wagging the dog.

 

[kEiThZ]

Great thread pointing out our current dilemma.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612120444177448963

 

[afransen]

Great thread pointing out our current dilemma.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612120444177448963

It is reassuring that the OPCs are willing to invest pretty heavily in transport infra. We just need to make it a habit/pipeline of infra development and foster some proficiency at doing it more cost effectively.

 

[Richard White]

Great thread pointing out our current dilemma.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612120444177448963

Honestly... Canada is going down the tubes and with as rosy of a picture that the feds are painting, nobody will see the problem until it is here.

I happened to fall ass first into money later this year and plan to buy a house. With the minimum Down Payment of around $75000.00 I am currently looking at a monthly mortgage payment of $4800 on the average home in Toronto.

The economy is just fine in Canada right?

 

[kEiThZ]

It is reassuring that the OPCs are willing to invest pretty heavily in transport infra. We just need to make it a habit/pipeline of infra development and foster some proficiency at doing it more cost effectively.

Sure. But we have huge issues. We took on massive amounts of debt even before Covid for very little return. Remember the original Trudeau Liberal promise of small $10B deficits for infrastructure? They used that as a convenient excuse to deficit fund social programs and created new structural deficits because they didn't want to raise taxes to pay for those programs. They'd already racked up $100B in debt before COVID hit. We're back to the pre-Chretien era as a country. The next government is going to have to make very, very difficult cuts.

Aside from the government's finances, we also let Canadians take on an insane amount of personal debt, helped by the government loosening lending policies like CMHC limits. We're now at at the point where mortgage debt alone exceeds GDP.

It's good that the provincial conservatives are moderating somewhat on the need for infrastructure spending. But as the person I posted above pointed out, even here we see some terribly wasteful decisions:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612125648243261443

I honestly don't think most Canadians actually understand how truly dire the situation is. And somehow, our political class (all parties) are actually even more ignorant. The federal Liberals have all but given up on regaining fiscal control. The federal Conservatives are hell bent on pretending the energy transition isn't real. The provincial conservatives seem confused. They invest tens of billions in new transit. But then build more highways and open up greenbelts to development, only adding more traffic to the network. All of this is going to carry a price.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

Great thread pointing out our current dilemma.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612120444177448963

I posted this in another thread but it belongs here as well:

Why Canadian wages never seem to go up​

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-why-canadian-wages-never-seem-to-go-up

The chart in Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s budget quietly acknowledges a forecast by the OECD, a club of mostly wealthy nations, that Canada will likely come in dead last in the next four decades in regard to GDP growth per capita. The downplayed chart, one tiny aspect of the 304-page document, serves as a warning that individual Canadians, compared to the citizens of 39 other economically advanced countries, will in the next decades likely suffer the lowest real growth in their wages. Freeland puts the blame for tepid wages almost entirely on Canadian businesses, which she claims “have not invested at the same rate as their U.S. counterparts.” The finance minister then boasts that Ottawa’s policies on housing and immigration will “strengthen the middle class and leave no one behind.”

Ottawa’s economic strategy is based on several “shaky pillars,” which include using “record immigration levels to turbo-charge population growth and housing demand in major cities,” Williams said. “The political class appears to have lost interest in efforts to raise workers’ productivity and real wage growth through higher business investment per worker.”

“Canada has embraced cheap growth by way of residential investment and debt,” Punwasi says. Canada has been putting too much emphasis on home construction, he said, as well as on printing money at a faster rate than almost any other country. The Liberals’ commitment to record immigration targets focuses mostly “on the benefits immigrants provide to older Canadians,” Punwasi said, including in the form of “strong housing demand and tax revenues.” But he cautions that Ottawa’s policies often exploit newcomers, who end up coming to the country unaware of flat wages, especially for the young adults who make up the bulk of immigrants, foreign students and temporary workers.

 

[kEiThZ]

I posted this in another thread but it belongs here as well:

Why Canadian wages never seem to go up​

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-why-canadian-wages-never-seem-to-go-up

I find it very interesting in that article how the bulk of immigrants we take in are Millennials only making things worse for that cohort. This looks like a setup for real political backlash against immigration from that cohort.

 

[Northern Light]

Some months back I mentioned that Canada's federal cabinet's Incident Response Group met, after the U.S. put forward a request for our involvement in Haiti. Then *crickets*.......that news item now shifts to the spotlight.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/wor...g-with-trudeau-to-push-for-security-force-in/ (paywalled)

But from behind the paywall, the key bits:

****

 

[kEiThZ]

LOL. Sustained major foreign deployment into what is effectively a counterinsurgency, when the military is 10 000 personnel short and has stopped all non-essential activity but recruiting and training? This is going to be entertaining to watch. Hopefully not tragic.

 

[picard102]

Why does the US need our help to police a foreign country that they have a problem with?

 

[kEiThZ]

Why does the US need our help to police a foreign country that they have a problem with?

Look up where the large Haitian diaspora lives, the refuge. Also, we have a complicated history there. We now kinda owe them.

On a broader policy level, this is what it looks like as the US steps back and demands others carry their weight. It's been easy for everybody else to portray the Americans as warmongering barbarians while the rest of us all benefit from the economic and geopolitical stability that the Americans bring. Increasingly they are demanding that their allies actually contribute.

 

[Towered]

Look up where the large Haitian diaspora lives, the refuge. Also, we have a complicated history there. We now kinda owe them.

On a broader policy level, this is what it looks like as the US steps back and demands others carry their weight. It's been easy for everybody else to portray the Americans as warmongering barbarians while the rest of us all benefit from the economic and geopolitical stability that the Americans bring. Increasingly they are demanding that their allies actually contribute.

I believe a foreign minister of one of the EU countries recently said that the NATO alliance with regards to the invasion of Ukraine would be in trouble without the massive support the US has been leading and providing.

 

[Richard White]

I believe a foreign minister of one of the EU countries recently said that the NATO alliance with regards to the invasion of Ukraine would be in trouble without the massive support the US has been leading and providing.

To be quite honest, our military is a joke.

It is so underfunded that if all hell did break loose in Europe we would not be able to assist very well.

The EU and US are far better prepared then we are for military action.

 

[lenaitch]

Why does the US need our help to police a foreign country that they have a problem with?

They don't "need" our involvement; they want it. Haiti is an ungovernable cesspool. Beyond our capacity to take on the role (which I doubt we can do in any sustained capacity), the optics are bad no matter which way any mission goes. If it has aggressive ROE (which I believe it would have to be at lest in the beginning), the image of dead Haitians in the street at the hands of a foreign military will flood the media and rattle the government's image. If it is not aggressive - more along a peacekeeper line - it won't work and the image of dead Canadians coming home will have the same effect. Think Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles.

They say that Afghanistan is the 'graveyard of empires'. Haiti is the graveyard of interventionists.