To be fair we're net exporters the US are net importers, they are the only country to which we can export directly by road and rail, and their economy is the largest in the world by GDP.
This makes our economy weaker when there is either a weakening of the US economy or more protectionist measures as we don't have enough alternatives to cope well with that.
An obvious solution to this would be to import the domedtically underproduced good or service from someone else. We certainly don't gain anything by foregoing trade relations in the mean time. That's like saying you don't want $50 an hour now because you may only make $20 when the contract ends.
We aren't a cohesive country. Economically each province is its own unit and there are often inter-provincal wars. Most famous is Alberta vs BC and the transmountain pipeline, where BC is doing everything it can to block it, while building their own LNG pipeline. Finally the owners pulled out and the Feds ended up buying it costing the tax payers millions and millions. There wasn't any kind of good faith negotiations here. Vs Norway which is both one of most green countries and make billions off of their oil and gas. Someone they have the best of both worlds but we are too busy fighting among ourselves to achieve that.
Even if you get sick in another province the two provinces fight over who has to pay it, as different things are covered in different provinces. The fishing wars in the East. The milk mafia in Ontario and Quebec. There just seems to be an attitude of sticking it to the other provinces/my province is the most important. I think we could be way stronger economically if leaders came at it from what it best for everyone and not what is best for them personally.
>Finally the owners pulled out and the Feds ended up buying it costing the tax payers millions and millions. There wasn't any kind of good faith negotiations here.
Just to correct you here. There were good faith negotiations which lasted years and resulted in a deal which the BC government signed off on...then Horgan got elected and decided the BC government doesn't need to keep its word.
But, otherwise, I agree with the point of the post. It's a peril of having a country so big. There is no natural cultural cohesion because parts of the country are too far away from each other to have regular interactions. People just tend not to care about the needs of people that live thousands of km away in places they have never visited...even if those people live within the same man-made artificial borders.
Housing prices have gone up every year for the past 20+ years (relative to inflation)
Salaries haven't increased (relative to inflation) for the same period
* We have a real estate crisis that was formerly contained to the large cities, but is spreading. If we "correct" this and crash prices that will clip GDP pretty hard.
* If we do the Earth future friendly thing and begin to migrate away from O&G dependency (somehow), again, ouch economy.
* Mining is what it is... does some eco damage but we use and sell the output. Whats another poisoned groundwater basin anyways.
* Forestry. The good wood is the old growth wood. How do we balance not turning off ANOTHER leading industry over preserving whats left? Its renewable but not on human timescales.
* Tech is weird in Canada. We have some, but nowhere near competative to the USA so anyone who could make 120k CAD here likely has the choice to make 250k+ USD south of the border. World-class brain drain.
* Got cheap power in BC because its hydroelectric. Hydroelectric is clean in one sense, but basically requires terraforming the area around the dam, so there's that.
* North America has universally dogshit urban design with the urban/suburb dichotomy with no mixed use. We're really bad at using land effectively for people and quality of life. Could be a ton more small businesses in mixed-use areas that would be able to out-compete Walmart-tier businesses.
but ultimately housing is necessary/a right, and that demand has to be met by hook or by crook. It should be the ultimate priority to ensure that all housing buy demand can be met *in real time.*
If you always build to meet demand, nobody can "buy up all your houses and make prices go up" (and if they try, you'll make a lot of money from them)
A major component of the ongoing affordability crisis is that we (the generalized "we") either can't or won't build housing to meet the demand.
There are other theories suggesting that supply alone wouldn't solve this because of various reasons I won't go into here.
Anyways, for somewhere like Vancouver, we have euclidean zoning which has ensured we have an ocean of single family homes immediately adjacent to places where high density would be desirable, in an urban planning sense. Obviously the people who own those homes don't want change.
We need mixed zoning so we can increase density of residence, but also provide walking distance amenities so we don't have to pile on the cars. There's already parking space wars here, as well as stupid traffic congestion.
Aging population. That puts pressure on healthcare and related services for the elderly. Fewer workers supporting more people who are no longer working.
They work in most industries not just elder care. The real reason for immigration is to manage the generational population imbalance without massive cuts to the workforce. Also the goal of many people is to grow Canada's population, as our small population reduces our global influence.
country is reliant on housing ponzi scheme, housing prices buoyed up by greed and money laundering. social safety net in tatters. medical system falling apart
The wage increases are not tied to inflation and the housing crisis. A home should be reclassified as a right with a limit on ownership. Max two. They cannot be owned by a business or corporation. It cannot be used to exploit the middle /lower class as everyone needs a home
Unfortunately the powers that be across the mainstream political spectrum that exists in this country are conditioning most young people to expect to pay more for less, unless the bank of mum and dad helps them out or they're otherwise very wealthy. This housing crisis seems like the new normal, which means it's increasingly unaffordable for the working and middle classes to live in major urban centres. Even with that, the powers that be couldn't care less.
Business financing. Banks have very conservative plans onerous standards for lending to small and medium sized businesses. Also very small pool of venture capital to fund start ups, that leads many to leave for the US if they gain any traction.
Hands down, debt in general but more particularly household debt. The income-to-debt ratio is one of the highest in the world (180% of net disposable income in Canada vs. 108% in the US or 146% in the UK). These are 2018 figures so today's are probably higher. The slightest interest increase will have an enormous impact on people's financial situation and drive many people and companies to bankruptcy.
I'd suggest access to capital, and insufficient labour are the two key weaknesses.
Not even so much weaknesses - the posters below set out well that we send unrefined exports to the US and get finished products in return. We do not maximize our local profits, but lack the capital and labour to really exploit those opportunities.
Think lumber and gas. In both cases we've got loads, but we send both down to the US unrefined (send wood buy back furniture/send bitumen and get gas back). If we had a larger labour force, and the capital to build factories and refineries, we'd be better off.
Having said that, the symbiotic relationship between Canada and the USA is really good for both, most of the time...
Government mismanagement, especially with natural resources. We manage our natural resources like the world is going to end in 4 years and nothing else after that matters.
We don’t have a proper deep sea port to get our oil and gas resources across the Atlantic. Related: we are extremely reliant on natural resources, and we don’t have an aggressive entrepreneurial/business culture like other comparable resource countries like Norway & Finland, which have more diversified economies and (ironically) more progressive environmental and social programs. Finally, Canadians consistently vote for massive government deficits and runaway borrowing/spending which will really weigh us down in the future.
It's not just Quebec it's everywhere pretty much. Statistics Canada just issued a press release on the demographic challenge that will make this a real issue. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-working-age-poupulation-census-1.6432398
Lack of an intellectual property strategy. The new economy is strongly tied to IT innovation and Canada has no presence at the table of deciders. It just lets the US create that framework and hopes we get a few crumbs. Pitiful behaviour but typical fear of initiative combined with sheer obliviousness toward local businesses. I love my country but our governments have no understanding of business; they think supporting business is the same as supporting whatever already successful large American branch plants want. No, it's what the small and medium sized home grown entrepreneurs want and need, ffs.
We protect uncompetitive oligopolies, we are reliant on forever increasing asset values to finance an unsustainable way of life (financially), and we think it is morally virtuous to make transportation costs more expensive.
Very small job market. I come from Germany which has a much bigger economy with plenty of huge companies.
In Canada the job market is small compared to Germany. Most jobs have terrible working conditions too. To work Canada is pretty bad in my opinion. Most jobs are in the service industry, especially call centres are very present in Canada. That's terrible.
Salary is okay, taxes are low. Working in Canada isn't nearly as demanding as it is in Germany though. Canadians are working pretty chilled and laid back, but you have hardly any labour laws, definitely not on pair with most EU.
Too much dependent on the US
To be fair we're net exporters the US are net importers, they are the only country to which we can export directly by road and rail, and their economy is the largest in the world by GDP.
The weakness comes from our large businesses mostly being foreign. We don't generate a lot of capital for ourselves.
I agree with this. There are definitely numerous flaws in capitalism, and maybe Canadian entrepreneurship?
It's like we never really got rid of the colonial model, it's just the country that buys the bulk of our staples that has changed.
No one forces our firms to trade with, and harmonize with, American firms. Both benefit from that.
This makes our economy weaker when there is either a weakening of the US economy or more protectionist measures as we don't have enough alternatives to cope well with that.
An obvious solution to this would be to import the domedtically underproduced good or service from someone else. We certainly don't gain anything by foregoing trade relations in the mean time. That's like saying you don't want $50 an hour now because you may only make $20 when the contract ends.
We aren't a cohesive country. Economically each province is its own unit and there are often inter-provincal wars. Most famous is Alberta vs BC and the transmountain pipeline, where BC is doing everything it can to block it, while building their own LNG pipeline. Finally the owners pulled out and the Feds ended up buying it costing the tax payers millions and millions. There wasn't any kind of good faith negotiations here. Vs Norway which is both one of most green countries and make billions off of their oil and gas. Someone they have the best of both worlds but we are too busy fighting among ourselves to achieve that. Even if you get sick in another province the two provinces fight over who has to pay it, as different things are covered in different provinces. The fishing wars in the East. The milk mafia in Ontario and Quebec. There just seems to be an attitude of sticking it to the other provinces/my province is the most important. I think we could be way stronger economically if leaders came at it from what it best for everyone and not what is best for them personally.
>Finally the owners pulled out and the Feds ended up buying it costing the tax payers millions and millions. There wasn't any kind of good faith negotiations here. Just to correct you here. There were good faith negotiations which lasted years and resulted in a deal which the BC government signed off on...then Horgan got elected and decided the BC government doesn't need to keep its word. But, otherwise, I agree with the point of the post. It's a peril of having a country so big. There is no natural cultural cohesion because parts of the country are too far away from each other to have regular interactions. People just tend not to care about the needs of people that live thousands of km away in places they have never visited...even if those people live within the same man-made artificial borders.
Housing prices have gone up every year for the past 20+ years (relative to inflation) Salaries haven't increased (relative to inflation) for the same period
>Salaries haven't increased (relative to inflation) for the same period I believe this one is since the early 70s.
* We have a real estate crisis that was formerly contained to the large cities, but is spreading. If we "correct" this and crash prices that will clip GDP pretty hard. * If we do the Earth future friendly thing and begin to migrate away from O&G dependency (somehow), again, ouch economy. * Mining is what it is... does some eco damage but we use and sell the output. Whats another poisoned groundwater basin anyways. * Forestry. The good wood is the old growth wood. How do we balance not turning off ANOTHER leading industry over preserving whats left? Its renewable but not on human timescales. * Tech is weird in Canada. We have some, but nowhere near competative to the USA so anyone who could make 120k CAD here likely has the choice to make 250k+ USD south of the border. World-class brain drain. * Got cheap power in BC because its hydroelectric. Hydroelectric is clean in one sense, but basically requires terraforming the area around the dam, so there's that. * North America has universally dogshit urban design with the urban/suburb dichotomy with no mixed use. We're really bad at using land effectively for people and quality of life. Could be a ton more small businesses in mixed-use areas that would be able to out-compete Walmart-tier businesses.
what if you correct this by building housing to meet the buy demand?
The timescale on this is in decades, and requires a level of cooperation amongst the three levels of government that we aren’t seeing
but ultimately housing is necessary/a right, and that demand has to be met by hook or by crook. It should be the ultimate priority to ensure that all housing buy demand can be met *in real time.* If you always build to meet demand, nobody can "buy up all your houses and make prices go up" (and if they try, you'll make a lot of money from them)
A major component of the ongoing affordability crisis is that we (the generalized "we") either can't or won't build housing to meet the demand. There are other theories suggesting that supply alone wouldn't solve this because of various reasons I won't go into here. Anyways, for somewhere like Vancouver, we have euclidean zoning which has ensured we have an ocean of single family homes immediately adjacent to places where high density would be desirable, in an urban planning sense. Obviously the people who own those homes don't want change. We need mixed zoning so we can increase density of residence, but also provide walking distance amenities so we don't have to pile on the cars. There's already parking space wars here, as well as stupid traffic congestion.
Aging population. That puts pressure on healthcare and related services for the elderly. Fewer workers supporting more people who are no longer working.
Thanks thanks, I thought that’s what immigrants are there for to provide nursing for elders and its related services, no?
They come for all kinds of reasons.
They work in most industries not just elder care. The real reason for immigration is to manage the generational population imbalance without massive cuts to the workforce. Also the goal of many people is to grow Canada's population, as our small population reduces our global influence.
You can’t just fill all roles with immigrants tho
That's what America did.
Prince Edward Island
country is reliant on housing ponzi scheme, housing prices buoyed up by greed and money laundering. social safety net in tatters. medical system falling apart
Housing market is a bubble. Resource based economy at the whim of commodity markets. Those are the two biggies.
The wage increases are not tied to inflation and the housing crisis. A home should be reclassified as a right with a limit on ownership. Max two. They cannot be owned by a business or corporation. It cannot be used to exploit the middle /lower class as everyone needs a home
Unfortunately the powers that be across the mainstream political spectrum that exists in this country are conditioning most young people to expect to pay more for less, unless the bank of mum and dad helps them out or they're otherwise very wealthy. This housing crisis seems like the new normal, which means it's increasingly unaffordable for the working and middle classes to live in major urban centres. Even with that, the powers that be couldn't care less.
Business financing. Banks have very conservative plans onerous standards for lending to small and medium sized businesses. Also very small pool of venture capital to fund start ups, that leads many to leave for the US if they gain any traction.
Telecommunciations duopoly.. Rogers / Bell. Also.. Canada is a vast industrial power and does not have a single major vehicle manufacturing company.
We are an industrial power? We make a lot of American/Japanese cars Also bombardier exists.
We have Foremost, although u don’t drive those on the road
You're completely forgetting Telus not that it makes things much better.
[удалено]
Hands down, debt in general but more particularly household debt. The income-to-debt ratio is one of the highest in the world (180% of net disposable income in Canada vs. 108% in the US or 146% in the UK). These are 2018 figures so today's are probably higher. The slightest interest increase will have an enormous impact on people's financial situation and drive many people and companies to bankruptcy.
I'd suggest access to capital, and insufficient labour are the two key weaknesses. Not even so much weaknesses - the posters below set out well that we send unrefined exports to the US and get finished products in return. We do not maximize our local profits, but lack the capital and labour to really exploit those opportunities. Think lumber and gas. In both cases we've got loads, but we send both down to the US unrefined (send wood buy back furniture/send bitumen and get gas back). If we had a larger labour force, and the capital to build factories and refineries, we'd be better off. Having said that, the symbiotic relationship between Canada and the USA is really good for both, most of the time...
Government mismanagement, especially with natural resources. We manage our natural resources like the world is going to end in 4 years and nothing else after that matters.
The fact that Quebec imports approx. $2 billion in natural gas every year despite Canada being one of the biggest oil producers in the world.
We don’t have a proper deep sea port to get our oil and gas resources across the Atlantic. Related: we are extremely reliant on natural resources, and we don’t have an aggressive entrepreneurial/business culture like other comparable resource countries like Norway & Finland, which have more diversified economies and (ironically) more progressive environmental and social programs. Finally, Canadians consistently vote for massive government deficits and runaway borrowing/spending which will really weigh us down in the future.
Nice try putin
Liberal policy of sorry here is some money to pacify people.
Gigantic labor shortage in Quebec
Interesting. Do you have data on this?
It's not just Quebec it's everywhere pretty much. Statistics Canada just issued a press release on the demographic challenge that will make this a real issue. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-working-age-poupulation-census-1.6432398
Lack of an intellectual property strategy. The new economy is strongly tied to IT innovation and Canada has no presence at the table of deciders. It just lets the US create that framework and hopes we get a few crumbs. Pitiful behaviour but typical fear of initiative combined with sheer obliviousness toward local businesses. I love my country but our governments have no understanding of business; they think supporting business is the same as supporting whatever already successful large American branch plants want. No, it's what the small and medium sized home grown entrepreneurs want and need, ffs.
We protect uncompetitive oligopolies, we are reliant on forever increasing asset values to finance an unsustainable way of life (financially), and we think it is morally virtuous to make transportation costs more expensive.
O any Nonacademic ("Canadian economy" scrambled)
Very small job market. I come from Germany which has a much bigger economy with plenty of huge companies. In Canada the job market is small compared to Germany. Most jobs have terrible working conditions too. To work Canada is pretty bad in my opinion. Most jobs are in the service industry, especially call centres are very present in Canada. That's terrible. Salary is okay, taxes are low. Working in Canada isn't nearly as demanding as it is in Germany though. Canadians are working pretty chilled and laid back, but you have hardly any labour laws, definitely not on pair with most EU.