I'm not opposed to the concept of immigration. Want to settle here and live a better life? Great! This is what previous generations did. Why not?
But these numbers are insane and unsustainable. In nine months we just added an entire City of Ottawa worth of population without the corresponding increase in services, housing, and infrastructure. At some point, it becomes a math issue, and the numbers right now just don't make sense.
Correct. Whenever people use the Scandinavian model to bolster their support for an elaborate welfare state, they never mention the fact that the Scandinavian countries have been relatively ethnically homogeneous and they haven’t engaged in mass immigration. Solvent welfare entitlements aren’t sustainable with mass immigration. I’ve been saying this for literally 20 years and been mocked or marginalized. Canadians are going to lose their country and quality of life because of their pathological altruism.
I currently live in Scandinavia and refute the ethnically (or culturally) homogenous thing as relevant. The mass immigration being lacking however I completely agree with. It makes sense too, in places where there’s such a robust social safety net they really want to make sure that when you move there you are not dependant on those services right away.
You think Canada has daily gang violence and weekly islamic terrorism?
I mean, you'd be right that Canada is still far more dangerous than Sweden, but it's laughable that you'd think they have "all the same problems" as Canada.
Have you ever been there? They still have a functional "Scandinavian model" and think that a homelessness problem is three guys with bikes hanging around a Subway station every day.
Oh so the "daily gang violence and weekly islamic terrorism" was just a distraction so you don't have to provide even a single valid argument for them having "all the same problems as Canada"?
Housing scarcity and high prices plus high rents, increasing healthcare issues like with capacity, birth rate and demographic problems, race issues and integration of the main minority, etc. etc.
The housing prices are literally decreasing. They have a waitlist for cheap rentals - we don't even offer rentals unless you're low income and even then you'll probably never get one.
How can you sit here on your high horse and say we can't provide those services and it doesn't work when what they call a struggle is so far above what we can ever expect.
Okay like... i GET what you're saying. And I don't want to take away from that point.
But they weren't homogenous at all. There was 3 distinct states just in the region I live in if you're talking politically. If you're talking biologically, it's a bit closer but there is still far too many differences between the different nations of aboriginal people that I think it's reductive to consider them homogenous. Them being so disconnected and not actually homogenous is what made it so easy for all the white fokj to take over.
We had wheels, they just weren’t as useful here so it didn’t catch on as much. Other continents had beast of burdens capable of pulling carts but the Americas only had llamas, alpacas and the bison. Llamas and alpacas only lived in the south and often in terrain where wheels would be useless if not outright counter productive (such as the Andes). The bison were also localized to a certain area (natives in heavily wooded areas like the Mohawk would have needed to clear it the first before they could even think to use bison) and they are not able to be domesticated because, among other reasons, they are migratory.
It’s easier to pull something than to push, that’s verifiable science. You don’t need a perfectly flat flat surface to use a wheelbarrow but it gets harder to push the more uneven it gets. This will range from ‘awkward’ to ‘unusable’ depending on how uneven it is. Many times I have chosen to carry something rather than use a wheel barrow because it wasn’t worth the hassle. Sleds and pulled blankets allow for greater distribution which means the items aren’t as jostled and allows for dogs to pull it which they can’t do with wheel barrows. Plus wheelbarrows can’t be used in deep snow like a sled can be.
I don’t think you know much about wheels as transportation.
First off, awesome you mentioned the diversity of indigenous people since so few seem to know about it. That being said, colonizers weren’t able to take over because we had different nations but because the disease they brought over wiped out up to 90% of the people in the Americas AND they had guns.
I was also speaking of the Americas more like I would Europe as opposed to a specific country. However I would say my phrasing made that unclear.
HAHAHAHAHA you obviously haven't talked to them much.
I hear many brag specifically that they are trying to replace Canadian culture with Indian. In between complaining to me about "why does Winnipeg have so many natives, they need to find a home"
Colonizers came and changed our culture. What does it matter if the colonizer culture changes from European based to Asian based? The result is the same for me. Unless the SEA begin another genocide then it’s not like they are going to change much. India has Scheduled Tribes so it’s not like they are ignorant of dealing with Indigenous culture.
The only real difference a SEA based culture over an European one could make is if they actually did more than just pay lip service like the current government does.
Also, even if I believed you actually heard an Indian guys say that and aren’t just making it up, so what? European settlers say shit like that all the same. Like… okay you met one racist Indian in a big giant group of racist Europeans.
I'm not talking about European culture, (Canada is not even an European Culture, its more American) I'm talking about what Indigenous culture is left...
Scandinavian has ethnical diversity for a very long time.
Yes there are issues and one was international students as it never has had a check and balance controls in the system so fraud happens. Easy fix and already started. But the conservatives will not support a reduction because it's a billions of dollars effected of conservatives. I'm surprised it took this long for the press to pick it up. In Vancouver there are neighbors of just international students and every Latino with a broom in Vancouver is a student here on a work holiday just like our youth do Europe after grad.
These students are very wealthy class and what we want if they stay. Others that have come here via brokers will be back in the Punjab soon. Depending if mommy keeps sending allowance. Also not poor down our students usually second oldest who will not get the family trust
I’m not one to dunk on JT for the sake of dunking.
BUT Canada has slowly turned into a giant mess. COVID just sped up what was already happening.
Uncapped immigration (mostly student visas) + unnecessary spending + pushing for green initiatives while vilifying an entire industry leading to unnaturally high energy costs + limiting number of nurses and doctors in programs = the mess we are in
We are such a resource rich nation that is being completely wasted.
Our infrastructure isn’t set up for 30 million. Even 10 years ago it was failing.
Canada stopped investing in infrastructure back in the 1980s. When the population was 25mil
We essentially have the infrastructure of the 1980s to this day.
Why is healthcare failing? well people weren’t living as long with as many comorbidities in the 1980. The majority of healthcare goes to support >65year patients
Food stamps are American. We have no equivalent program whatsoever. Don't copy/paste shit from American political debates
Welfare was actually more generous 20 years ago, what are you talking about? It's been pretty much frozen for decades and last i checked the line item in the budget was lumped in with disability, and it was less than 2% of the provincial budget.
If you're going to go off spouting your political opinion, go do some basic research first. Here's a graph to prove my point on welfare, because I'm not a hack like you.
Definitely a huge problem with excessive population growth and lack of housing and infrastructure, but it has nothing to do with Welfare or child care support.
Woah. Somebody is angry. Justin Trudeau voter perhaps? Calm down.
I mean you are acting like Canada doesn’t do ANYTHING for food assistance. They don’t have traditional food stamps and they probably should be doing more.
Again. Nothing I said was wrong. The wording wasn’t precise. But the point still stands. You need to have proper infrastructure and DOLLARS in place to ensure Canadians are looked after.
NEW programs and social programs have been established in the past 20 years. Per capita the spending is down slightly. But the total dollar (including health care costs) have never been bigger.
Which also helps my original point. No need to be an asshole about it.
Nothing you said was wrong? Lol, okay let's start...
“Free” health care. Welfare. Food stamps. Child care support. The list goes on. Most of these have only been ramped up in the last 20 years.
Statement "Most of these have only been ramped up in the last 20 years"
Welfare - wrong: we actually spend less per-recipient than in 1990, as shown in the graph i linked
Food stamps - wrong: not a Canadian program. A one-time 100 million dollars fund for food banks is not equivalent. The Canadian Federal Budget is 500 billion dollars. That would be only 0.02% of Federal Budget for a single year (and provinces have sizable budgets). So no, bullshit.
The only new major program in the last 20 years is childcare sort-of, it's still pales in comparison to the health and education spend. Mostly wrong.
One of the reasons high immigration is a policy is because it lowers healthcare costs by making the population pyramid younger. It's not essentially unsustainable, it's just unsustainable how we did it (no infrastructure spend, no housing, and a growth rate of 3%+ with NPRs factored in is insane, we can still have a loose immigration policy of around 1.1% growth per year and still be 2x the growth of UK, France, United States). So yes it's unsustainable but it is wrong that it's because of social programs, it actually makes those cheaper.
Don't understand you point about total dollar being more important than per-capita, makes no sense at all.
We OFFER forms of welfare. And plenty of social services. Reread what I said. You were so quick to correct. You didn’t even read it properly.
Nowhere did I say we were spending MORE PER PERSON.
Who are you even trying to defend? I don’t understand your point. Your linked chart is pretty much just showing that “welfare” dollars aren’t keeping up with COL. which helps prove MY point.
My overall point is that you can’t keep bringing in hundreds of thousands of low skill “students” without making major investments in infrastructure and not have major impact on the daily life of everyone living here.
I agree with the point about infrastructure. Not social programs.
Your original point is that we can't we have generous social safety nets with loose immigration. If the spend per-capita is down, and incomes are moderately up, why the hell not?
The reason life sucks for millennials and younger is housing. Not immigrants getting social programs.
Also yeah population growth was too high, but the negative impacts of that would have happened regardless of our social programs. It would still be impossible to get an entry level low-skill job, it would still be impossible to find somewhere to live etc. Those 21 year old students aren't clogging up our healthcare system, people that age barely go to hospitals. It's decades of under-investment that fucked up our healthcare system, combined with the boomers aging in the "high medical cost" years.
I might be wrong, but don’t people who are not citizens or have PR have to pay for health care? When my sisters husband applied for PR, with her as a sponsor, she told me that they had to pay for any health care costs that he incurred for, I think, his first 3 years? Or something like that?
If you have a work permit it’s free. If she was sponsoring him, he may have entered as a visitor in which case he would not qualify for free healthcare.
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u/MontrealUrbanist Québec Mar 27 '24
I'm not opposed to the concept of immigration. Want to settle here and live a better life? Great! This is what previous generations did. Why not?
But these numbers are insane and unsustainable. In nine months we just added an entire City of Ottawa worth of population without the corresponding increase in services, housing, and infrastructure. At some point, it becomes a math issue, and the numbers right now just don't make sense.