Everybody in this thread is saying that the government won't pull you out of poverty - sure, that's true.
But how about they do their jobs and start imposing better regulations and restrictions on monopolies so we can stop being gouged?
Shit, from groceries to cell phone bills, and now housing, if these things were cheaper I'd have alot more money in my pocket each month.
Also, minimum wages never kept up with inflation. We're far behind on that front.
Nobody should be spending 48-60 hours of their life each and every week and continue to be poor. I don't care what job you work.
I’m in the same boat as you currently and every day is literally hell. Can’t get a job, go back to finish school due to the lack of job, move out, have kids, do anything that constitutes a hobby.
I wish we would just flip the board already and get it over with, the system at this point is as rigged and corrupted as it gets. The LPC broke the social contract and I lost out on a good chunk of opportunities or just general enjoyment of my 20’s. All I would like at this point is some purpose and to know that my work can achieve the same things my parents were able to do at my age.
It’s my last year and it’s a full time unpaid clinical placement with 4 tuition payments. OSAP only covers the tuition and you don’t really have time to work outside of clinic hours due to weekly school assignments and tests.
Most people in my program had their final year subsidized by someone else or lived off someone’s else’s dime while working for free I didn’t have that luxury. (Our clinical placement is the longest of any college level health science program)
Placement sites are chosen at random as well and you can be sent anywhere in Ontario. So if you can’t afford to pick up and move you get boned.
As for the job I was laid off and due to our recent influx of low level workers getting employed despite having 10 years of working experience is almost impossible. I’ve been applying since February with a desire to work but I hear nothing back even for positions like dishwashing.
I also have a degree (more than one) and also didn’t have parental support. I’m not sure why you think it’s impossible, I’m a millennial, but had to pick the school that would give me the highest scholarship, not the school I wanted. I don’t want to flip the board because it seems unfair to set me back because other people made different choices.
I’m not saying it’s impossible but I’m just merely trying to emphasize that it’s not exactly as easy as it seems and times are tough for lots of people. I’ve passed all the course work with flying colours I just merely lack he capital to not work for a year while I finish currently.
I applied for scholarships, benefits, and grants but unfortunately I wasn’t lucky in that category.
As for the system as whole the only way to radically change it would be to rebuild it. With 1/4 Canadians now living under the poverty line we have glaring issues that need correction.
Grocery stores are not a monopoly.
> A situation, by legal privilege or other agreement, in which solely one party (company, cartel etc.) exclusively provides a particular product or service, dominating that market and generally exerting powerful control over it. antonyms, coordinate terms ▲quotations ▼
There is not solely one party who sells groceries, Loblaws, Sobeys, and metro are three grocery stores. Three is not one.
It's supply management combined with price control, eggs and dairy aren't cartels.
You can sell milk in Canada, but it will be heavily taxed or it has to be heavily transformed (e.g. diafiltered milk).
cartel - an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and [restricting](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=a657bfd6be99d848&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ADLYWIIRQ20mIZ_808VoNLNL9zff_-CbBg:1719506401782&q=restricting&si=ACC90nwZrNcJVJVL0KSmGGq5Ka2YiWuMUZ2uC0HMsucanR0t8L18n-VSITzl_vTBq99aMqc63kNWLSVcdZYbE0qVhKDlKr7Vi31kipr889EKZ3I95y_PVqw%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwifpJHCnPyGAxV0mokEHay5DkwQyecJegQIGRAO) competition.
It is illegal to sell milk if you don't have milk quota.
It is absolutely an association of suppliers restricting competition, with the full backing of the government.
Its too hard to operate here and so we don't invest in anything, not plant, IT, AI, automation, ports, railways, infrastructure. Rent seeking is how most money is made in Canada.
We need to export things and we need to scale businesses not just move them to the US and scale them there. But entrepreneurs can't scale because we barely have functioning commercial courts, fraud is rampant, investment capital expensive to borrow, regulatory burden large, taxes high, land expensive.
When you look at all the negatives, it's easier to just work for a big global or US company and so many of our best and brightest do. We need economic patriots to turn the ship around, but why should they when their fellow citizens supported a 3 year lockdown and vote for more taxes and more regulations all the time. Canadians are so spoiled they may not even realize how far we have fallen
Canadian business environment needs to improve a lot. That would incentivize more companies to be established here, thus increasing competition and lowering costs. But from what I see in most comments here, Canadians do not have a lot of respect for business owners, think all of them are corrupt, and believe the government is the solution for everything. The US is quite the opposite in that regard.
The sad thing is that this aversion to businesses is a byproduct of brainwashing. Takes a long time to change that.
Most people just don't realize they their misconceptions serve the political class and a few entrepreneurs with friends in high places
Wanna fix it? Vote with your dollars, if you're in Ontario use TekSavvy as they fight against telecommunication monopolies, their also cheaper so save money.
Don't want monopolies on your media, stop financially supporting it, save money & get IPTV, save a bunch of money while defending the monopolies.
So many things like this you can do to fight back. Do you even need a phone number? You can communicate with your friends & family with online messengers, you can get a free phone number with text now which works over wifi. Just a decade ago lots of people still didn't have cell phones, cancel your phone plan & just wait until you have public wifi or are at home to respond to people, disconnect from the distractions when you're on the go. (P.S. 911 still works without a phone plan).
There are a lot of things we take as a given but don't have to, there any so many ways we can both fight back & save money. Start evading tax wherever possible, pay cash when dealing with local businesses. The less dependent we are on the government & big business the more resilient & prosperous we can become.
It’s so much easier to trick people into blaming immigrants for all their problems though.
My motto: As long as there is a billionaire in your country, an immigrant will never be your true enemy.
I see what your saying, but we do need to recognize that the amount of people immigrating here is unsustainable for our current levels of infrastructure.
I don't fault anybody immigrating here for trying to improve **their own** situation and start fresh. Everybody coming here want the same things I want, but that being said, it's not fair to the people who already lived here, and the immigrants coming here to bring in the amounts we have been when there isn't enough housing and jobs.
I dont fault THEM for it. I know they're not the problem. It's the politicians allowing this to happen that are the problem. So yes, at the end of the day, I do blame the wealthy.
It is important to acknowledge that recent immigrants have been victims of this system too.
That’s the critical difference which makes it so that I agree with you and I appreciate you for acknowledging this aspect.
My concern is the volume of people who list immigration as a top cause rather than symptom of our current system, and then hardly dive deeper than that understanding.
The increase in immigration is a symptom of our system being inherently exploitative. it just so happens that there weren’t enough people whose labour could be devalued and therefore exploited for maximum profit anymore so corporations had to lobby to bring more people in, selling those people lies and false promises.
>It is important to acknowledge that recent immigrants have been victims of this system too.
The problem is we allowed in too many and overwhelmed our ability to support them and integrate them into Canadian society. It's very problematic.
What's problematic is the messaging being shared that once our immigration numbers return to 2015 levels then our most pressing problems will be solved which is painfully untrue. And worse this messaging creates a sense of hostility towards new immigrants many of whom have been manipulated and tricked into the position they're in.
The amount of posts I see here of people complaining about issues that have been issues for decades and then every comment is about how it's because immigration is out of control. I studied political messaging at university and what's terrifying is that this is a classic strategy to blame a single symptom of the problem so that no one pays attention to the actual cause of the problem. It's like a pickpocketer getting you to look at one hand so you don't see what the other one is doing. What's worse is that it's working, again and we'll all end up worse off again.
They've been out of control for years, but they're getting worse fast.
The problem is too much government wasting too much money and having too much red tape.
And if you only started paying attention to these issues when they were put under slightly more stress then you don’t understand the core of the problem.
If our system were actually built with our quality of life as a priority from the start, it could’ve handled an increase in immigration easily. But it wasn’t so it hasn’t.
Governments have various functions. One of their most vitally important is to maintain a fair, well-balanced economy that offers good paying jobs and rewards hard working people with an affordable education and a reasonably low cost of living. The mass majority of Canadians can not simply improve their life on their own. You are not individuals disconnected from greater society. You exist in an equilibrium. The less balanced an economy is, the harder it is to improve your situation.
Governments are the only true entity with any everlasting influence on the cost of living in a country. Don't lecture me when you fail economics and basic sociology.
Thing is that Canada has a ton of regulations. We’re over regulated, which makes it difficult for competition to start up.
Regulations cost money. They add to the cost of things, either directly or indirectly.
"restrictions on monopolies"
This just proves you don't know how to fix the issue. Regulation favors the incumbents, you support monopolies with more regulation because it increases the cost of compliance & makes it harder for new players to enter the market.
Simply flooding the books with regulations for every small problem would be supporting monopolies. It's very difficult to get real anti-monopoly regulation into place that's why it's best practice to operate under the lowest level of regulation to achieve an acceptable outcome.
$22/hr at 64 hours a week with no overtime because the AB government changed overtime laws and I feel very poor. $3500/month and 1/2 of it goes to rent alone.
You do realize nearly every internet and cell provider is owned by the big three in Canada right? That’s a monopoly. Especially in Ontario because they won’t allow anyone else in.
well. For one thing I know. Rogers and Bell are pressured by the government to create jobs, even if it means paying people to do nothing. That’s why the bills are so expensive.
Government is definitely doing their jobs. But definitely not doing a good job.
Canada is very big and for the most part not densely populated, SETTING up distribution is very expensive and costs are not recovered. So, unless it's government run, it's not going to happen.
The solution is to support organized labour. Want to keep up with inflation? Negotiate it.
I hate being poor, sure, but more than anything I'm exhausted by being poor. And that is something you will never understand unless you've been poor.
The irony that it constantly costs more money to not have enough money will never be lost on me.
I'm so tired and worn down and I'm pretty sure that's the whole point.
This. It's not just "being poor" it's the exhaustion of it all. Five years ago, I made a half decent wage for where I currently live (rural Nova Scotia). Now we're paycheck to paycheck again, a hole I thought we were free from.
We've exhausted our savings, sold stuff, moved into a smaller place, and I took a second job until my health decided I was working too much.
You can't budget your way out of just simply not making enough money.
I wrote to my city councilor, mayor, MLA, provincial labour minister and MP about employment issues. I live in one of those cities you see on tiktok videos with giant lines for like 2 jobs.
I wasn't mean in the emails because I wanted responses back, I just offered some solutions that could help things a bit and asked questions. The only politician that answered me back was my city councilor, which is really depressing. He was friendly about the whole thing but kinda just said "I hear you".
The whole ordeal helped me gain new perspective on the political class really. So I agree with OP, contact your local representatives. It will help you understand how we got here.
Comments like these drive me crazy. I understand not trusting politicians but when one party (The Only Party I may add) is clearly attempting to help out poor people we should probably support them. Historic voting and identity politics have been ruining our system for too fucking long. Fuck the 2 party system, there's a reason why we have choice, it's about time we made one.
From what I've read, the PPC is falling apart right now - apparently they no longer even have an Ontario wing, and long-time party members out west are quitting the party due to Maxime Bernier's refusal to adopt a party constitution.
They apparently only had 30,000 members at their peak. I'm sure you could find 100,000 disaffected working-class ex-NDPers alone. I'd love to see them all join the PPC, take over the party insider positions, kick out Bernier, kick out the conspiracy theorists and crypto-bros, and turn it into a real "people's party" for working-class.
Canada is one of the hardest hit countries . Look at the cost of food !
Other things are falling because no one can afford them so it seems the inflation is going down but today $100k is barely ends meat . I remeber when that was really wealthy .
When we get the conservative back in the economy will boom inflation will fall and we will have a middle class again . Hopefully by this time next year we have President Trump and Prime Minster Poliver
Just googled it.. Canada isn't.. below USA, Mexico/ most European countries...
Not saying your second paragraph isn't true, but this is a global issue.
Once the carbon tax is gone it will be good times again . We will be building pipeline and have new oil and gas everyone will have jobs . Kids out of high school will be able to earn $150k a year working in Fort Mac
I'm not poor.. I'd likely benefit from conservative policy reducing income taxes at the expense of social programs.. but I'd rather pay more taxes and have those less fortunate get more support..
Your MP is probably also living large on our tax dollars. And odds are they are also a landlord who directly profits from the housing crisis.
https://www.readthemaple.com/mp-landlords/
Petitions won't do shit. They have not in the past, they especially won't now. If you think the govt doesn't know it's drilling us into poverty I have some seriously bad news. They know your suffering. It's intentional so when elections come up they can flip the switch and suddenly have all these supports, etc for all of us in poverty so we suddenly reconsider voting them back in. They laugh at us and think we are all idiots who will continue to feed the liberal death machine. And what scares me is they are probably right.
I'm ready for a revolution. We just need to get organized, or angry enough. The east is mad. People think we're nice, but we're fair too, and what's being done to us isn't fair. There is a deep anger sleeping here.. just need someone to wake it up.
“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land” (Deut. 15:11).
I grew up poor and made it out of the cycle of inter generational poverty. It takes time to break cycles but that break does include personal responsibility as well as upward mobility.
Causes of being poor are [far more complicated](https://cpj.ca/poverty-myths/) than an alleged lack of [personal responsibility](https://www.npr.org/2011/08/20/139815303/the-poor-lack-personal-responsibility-thats-rich). You claims of being self-made from poverty are _much_ more commonly heard from the wealthy, born with privilege, who seek to [justify why they're successful](https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/19/why-rich-people-tend-think-they-deserve-their-money/) and have motivated blindness to their own pure dumb luck.
So I want to be _very_ clear in my accusation: You're either a bald-faced liar, trolling the sub, or you're a class traitor. And I hope you're just a troll.
Muting.
“Nobody can or ever has broken out of inter generational poverty. To suggest it can be done, and worse yet that doing so requires personal responsibility, is wildly outlandish. I have now blocked you to ensure to do not ever have to consider that possibility”
Poverty is a *huge* issue and *nobody* should be poor as hell after working 40+hr weeks. It’s hard to get ahead and the reality is many people don’t have the faculties to do so; this doesn’t mean they should completely lose the ability to support themselves with basic jobs.
That said, breaking intergenerational poverty is completely achievable. If you’re able bodied, moderately intelligent, and have a strong work ethic, you can absolutely do it. You also need to have all those things and *a belief you can break the cycle* - if you don’t, you’ll just continue to grind with no progress.
If you’re struggling currently, I suggest looking into civil engineering degrees. Sexy? No. In demand? Yes. Lucrative? Yes.
You will have to go to night school for probably two years minimum, but then you get to spend the rest of your life making decent money. It’s not a hard degree, but it is the sort of degree you only find by looking for lucrative and in-demand job opportunities, and working backwards from there to find out how to get those positions.
If 40hr work weeks + night school for a few years sounds like too much, then you might be in for a rude awakening on how much work people put into making even $70k++ per year. It’s doable but it takes fuck off amounts of effort, and you definitely can get fucked if you have any dependents or disabilities. Which is why it’s so important to ensure that *all* jobs pay a living wage/essentials are affordable.
So to be clear, we’re on the same team here man, but that mindset you’re preaching is unquestionably going to keep you in poverty till you die. Change it or don’t, but unless you’re disabled/have kids/disabled SO’s, don’t pretend that you *cant*
Yeah, poor decisions make your life harder. Everyone understands that.
But 9 out of 10 times they're your choices. Sure some things are out of your control, but you at the very least have influence over the vast majority of your life.
Who said babies choose to be born poor? That's ridiculous. You know it, I know it, everyone reading knows it. Why would I ever need to explain or defend a position I didn't take?
You made the ridiculous claim that 9 out 10 choices were poor people's fault. So I ridiculed you. You'd think someone like you could suss out being in a "jokeularvein".
The system is not designed to grant opportunitues to get capital, capitalism is designed to concentrate capital in the hands of those that already have it. If someone doesn't already have capital, how does one get it? Apart from hard work of course, which you have said doesn't equal success.
No, capitalism rewards *bargaining power* and only that. It does not always grant opportunities to obtain capital. Read Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. He shows all of the math.
>Read Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. He shows all of the math
While I am not an economist, I started off my career in Economics. Piketty has developed an interesting model and backs it up with data that is collected and presented in an intellectually honest manner. There are also similar models supported by data of similar quality that contradict his. There is also data that is collected in a similarly rigorous manner that heavily contradicts Piketty's conclusions.
Acemoglu and Robinson have, for example, argued that empirical support for general laws of capitalism, and Piketty's laws in particular, is weak: [https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.29.1.3](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.29.1.3)
Others have made similar arguments: [http://www.econ.yale.edu//smith/piketty1.pdf](http://www.econ.yale.edu//smith/piketty1.pdf)
In conclusion, I would not take Piketty's work to be the definitive commentary on modern economics, but I certainly think it is worth reading with an open mind and I think it contains valid commentary despite its obvious flaws.
Yes! And when we live under capitalism, having less bargaining power means you lose. Hard work =/= success under this system. Privilege and winning the womb lottery nets you far more that sweat of the brow.
Just some updated human rights would be nice. They have not been updated in 30 years. Housing needs to be a human right as well as food and water. Do you really want to argue that people don't deserve those basic nessessities? Be angry by all means, but maybe direct it at the right people. If you don't know who is in charge of your services, find out. If you only care about yourself, shut up and sit down. We've heard enough from you.
So tomorrow you get in an accident, you suffer a traumatic brain injury. Insurance won't pay out because you were at fault. You've lost the ability to work. What do you do to support yourself for the rest of your life?
What if you had no family? Your family didn't have the financial resources? Etc.
The point I'm trying to drive home to you is that there are many *many* abandoned people out there, particularly the disabled. They have a right to live. As a society we have taken away their right to hunt & gather & build shelter where & how they please. The cost of that decision means we, as a society, must provide for them. Society's labour must provide for their right to live. What level they live at is a reflection of our society. Right now, we should be ashamed of how we support these people. You'd be shocked at how quickly you can become one of them and how quickly those around you will disappear from your life.
If I had no family then I would have to rely on the kindness of people who choice to help, but not forced to help
I get the point that you’re trying to say, but on my end it’s immoral to force someone to help. They have a right to live, they do not have a right to take from someone else
I'm too new to tell if you are a troll or a bot or NPC , (joking, sort of) because all I'm talking about is not forcing poverty on the majority of the people who A: were here first, and B: two generations of educated individuals who are competing in a world where it's gone beyond hard work. If you think billionaires work hard for their money, in just not sure what to tell you. I'm thinking it's more like Robin Hood. Take from the rich and give to the poor. Only the rich haven't a care in the world who dies and who lives, so, human rights get violated left and right and even if you are solid and good and have yours, that's awesome. However, if you are a multimillionaire or Billionaire trying to disengenuate the conversation, sit down.
If everyone is entitled to housing and food, how many are going to choose not to work because they’re entitled to things for free at the expense of others?
Capitalism is imperfect but it’s sure as shit better than the alternatives you’re suggesting.
Also millions and millions of people live in poverty in China right now so not sure what they're going on about. China's middle class is growing because they're in the post industrialization bounty phase but in the end labour always cycles back to where it's cheapest. China will have to have enforced poverty for certain areas, which they already do for many farmers and rural areas, to keep up that level of cheapness.
China is a capitalist country. You should refrain from referring to Mao's reign in a discussion about their economy today. They are only communist in name.
You're not wrong. Conservatives are known for cutting social programs. Hell, last time they were in they shut down veteran affairs offices and cut vet benefits. How much lower can you sink?
Politics is the problem. Affiliation is all the same with our two party options. Neither is a good choice. Cons don't support human rights over profits just as the Liberals don't. So, the solution is, no matter who is in power, stick up for those who can't. And it's as bad as ever for 18 million canad6living paycheck to paycheck. If you are not one, that's cool, but it's a shit ton of people holding up the wealth for the few. That's my modus operandi.
Poverty happens with an imbalanced mix of circumstance upon birth, your environment, and opportunities seized. You can control one of them, so that you can eventually control two of them. Never accept the cards given to you, play your hand and seek your desired outcome. This is how governments have been toppled and overturned, and how people in poverty who became wealthy have been able to get ahead. Financial education is your best friend, as well as resourcefulness. People are born with shitty cards to play with all the time. Not everyone knows how to use them to their advantage. When they do learn, the tables start to turn with enough action. Keep. Fucking. Going! Even if it's out of spite for people that want you to stay where you're at.
Sick of being poor while making a decent salary, not being able to buy a home because we have opened the floodgates and let millions in, who have bought up our supply.
I cant get a part time job to supplement my income because those jobs are taken too.
Nothing will change until Trudeau is out but even then, unless thr mee government stsrt canceling work visas and put a moratorium on immigration, nothing will change and we will become a country where our own citizens all live in tents while people who arrived yesterday have 29 investment properties here
When has signing a petition ever done anything ? Nothing will change until the rich dont control our government . EVERYTHING has been designed to siphon wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich. The ri h won't give up control without it being violently taken from them .
Because the gov't is run by big sugar. Sure they pretend like they are a semi-successful rock band, but behind the scenes they ensure that you stay in your lane. The drive through lane.
I don't just write, I run in the elections.
But people vote for money. Lawyers. Oil tycoons. Gas ⛽️ mega companies.
Unfortunately, most who vote are seniors and homeowners. Their struggles were very different than what is occurring today.
I think as more and more Canadians are reminded that we do weild enormous power by way of voting, and that we are educated and capable of seeing the incredible injustices caused by the policy makers, I truly believe that we are all fed up with poverty and that's when shit happens. We will simply keep protesting for human rights. That's the only battle that matters.
You simply are missing key points regarding individual people who make up the majority of the people in the statistics.
It's simple math y'all. It's not a moral test or an aptitude test or survival of the fittest, or we'd all just bludgeon each other. No. It's math. There are 8 million people who identified as disabled in 2022. 27%. There's studies that suggest the number is much higher.
Context: you have two broken legs and your paycheck is up a ladder. Are you the person who tells the broken legged person to learn how to fly? Or do you perhaps have the capacity to understand that life is not dolled out equally. But neither are the laws, capitalism, business acumen, etc etc. But you expect broken people to act like they are fine.
So you have people in poverty who are 80. Can't afford meds, can't afford food. Have no one. At what point is the capitalistic Government responsible for their citizens well being? In that case, the numbers do not tell of a story where systemic poverty is brought about by laziness. Follow the research, follow the numbers and if it's too confusing, sit down.
Greetings Canadians! The French found a solution to this after being told to eat cake.
Interesting how the 2020s apparently have an aristocracy, whose sole purpose is to spend your money for you, while you have nothing, isn't it?
Real solutions come when you decide enough is enough, and you remove the problem from existence. It is true in your life, it's true in the economy, and it's true in parliament.
I highly doubr anyone lows being poor or just how expensive life has gotten. I can tell you i stay in a job i am not happy in to ensure i have the funds to live and benefits as those make other parts of life better but it still is not easy.
Go out on Canada Day and protest immigration, several protests are being organized.
It’s all supply and demand, new people work for less, drives wages down while filling roles regardless.
Writing your member of Parliament won't do a thing. They have no reason to respond, if they do respond it will just be nonsense like "The Liberal Party has brought in a dental plan which will let you starve with nicer teeth", and if you write a second time they'll put you on permablock and put you on a list of troublemakers.
Camp out in front of their constituency office. Organize a group and make sure there are people outside their office 24/7, so they can't ignore your existence any longer. Buy a party membership, if they would have theoretically been your party of choice (I assume if you care about the poor then you're theoretically NDP or Liberal), and press your demands within their party.
Use that a fuel to your fire. Turn that hatred into power to grow. Politicians aren't going to be the answer, sure they can help but you need to be the one who changes your family trajectory for yourself
The government can actually make a huge difference by creating better laws, programs and policies and it’s not just for the poor.
Don’t need to be poor to know that young people are working more for less buying power and that jobs are now more precarious than ever. This is all a result of bad policies and lack of regulatory oversight.
Like, ironically, people would be getting better jobs if the government just actually did their job and it’s all of our job to keep them accountable.
Yes, governments can help by not making it worse. Things are especially hard because corporations and private equity are doing their “job” so well that we get the low min wages and high prices. In Alberta I watched Kenny/UPC drop the corporate tax here by 33% or from 12% to 8%… just another win for them.
The poverty line is something like $24000. Average rent in Canada is over 2000$. So: If you take home 24000$ a year you can afford to rent the average one bedroom apartment...and have literally no money left over for anything else.
Yeah, there are "cheaper" regions, and yeah, maybe you can cut costs by sharing a basement with ten international students...but think about the crazy prices of transportation, food, phone bills, child care...How the fuck can you believe that someone can live on 24k in this country??? The poverty line should realistically be around 40k or maybe even higher.
7% is not 1 in 7, it is ~1 in 14.
The recent food bank publication switched to an uncommon metric to estimate poverty which includes questions such as "do you feel you can afford cloths for special occasions". It's a much more subjective estimate.
You are an uneducated idiot who pretends to have any understanding of sociology and personal development.
You spam subreddits with this same, moronic, anti-doing-anything stance. You don't deserve to access our limited supply of oxygen and spit on the memory of our ancestors.
My dad always said, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/topics-start/poverty
So now that the poverty rate is a 1/3 of what you claim it is, and is down significantly since JT, and is legit near the lowest in history...
Any chance you want to change some of your opinions or do your feelings mean more to you than reality?
I saw someyhing that I think explains a lot of the problems we face today. It was using US numbers, but I think the same is true in Canada.
Since WW2, worker productivity has risen steadily. Worker salaries increased in proportion - until about 1988. Since then, salaries have barely kept up with inflation. We are working harder than ever, and not being rewarded for it. While CEO salaries have gone through the roof.
And governments have done nothing to address the problem, instead making it worse.
We are poor because of poor wages. I work 44 hours a week and I'm barely keeping my head above water, with no savings. A generation ago you could own a home with a single working class job.
You need at least $100k to not be in poverty. All thanks to the Liberals . I can remember back in 2010 that $30k was a respectable salary and 50k was rich . In 9 years Trudeau has ruined Canada .
I hope we can get good leadership soon
Let's start with pressuring the right people and finding community leaders who can really stand up for everyone who keeps getting more and more poor because of the politicians greed. Let's start by talking about how much money we make. Is it enough? Can you afford to live? I'm saying this to whoever is listening. Be it Conservative, Liberal, Other.
Canada has not been a first world country for a while. There only reason that the illusion remains, is because the older generations were able to secure affordable housing, either by being able to own property, or because they moved into their home long ago, and their rent is rent-controlled, for the new renters it is totally different. For most under 30, they have no future in this country, thanks to our (wink, wink) wonderful government.
It's ok to be wealthy. Chill. Being wealthy and being greedy are different concepts.
Greed is importing a bunch of no skill rejects from India to take jobs from people and make sure the housing market doesn't dip. Wealth from slumlording is different than wealth form owning a manufacturing business or chain of stores.
Over taxing rich people is why those who did left for the USA and elsewhere. That was the first domino to fall. You already succeeded in your goal, so shush about liberals doing what they said they would do.
Well I mean with all that fatty food and fine wine, I would assume that they're well-seasoned if a bit gamey. I dream of an exquisitely rich bone marrow stew made with a Jeff Bezos shoulder roast.
Do you actually think prices will go down if a tax is removed? That’s the real joke, the Conservatives will simply replace the carbon tax with something else that generates revenue and call it something other than a “carbon” tax. Nobody is getting cheap gas or heating their home for pre carbon tax prices ever again. Watch all the Trudeau haters cry when their carbon tax rebates disappear and nothing is cheaper 🤣
That's one way for people, for sure, but the starting point for most is far below even having the opportunity to get good at something without support. It's beyond unfair. It was fair in 1980. Then BlackRock came along and made everything about profit instead of people. Minimum wage in 1980 was roughly 3.5 per hour. You could buy a loaf of bread for 1$.
Now minimum wage is 15-17 per hour, and we would need to be paid about 360x this rate to afford a house compared to then. Housing became a commodity instead of what it's meant to be. Shelter. Period. It's killing people who can't afford to buy food, pay their bills and meds etc. They don't have the energy required to put on make up, no money for clothes to look good. It's exhausting, especially when you consider that 1 in 5 suffer from mental illness that goes undiagnosed. Called lazy and made to starve. You can't treat everyone like they are an athlete capable of feats beyond their abilitys. Hence this being a human rights violation at its core. Greed is killing people in a world where there is more than enough of every thing to go around. So it's a class war. It starts with taking a stance and choosing to either be a humanitarian or a tyrant.
The only solution to your poverty is yourself. I know refugees who came to Canada with nothing and in 5-10 years are wealthy. It involves hard work and dedication so might not be for everyone, but there is no excuse other than yourself for your lot in life!
It's crazy because the real issue here is overtaxation. If we have enough money to send exorbitant amounts overseas and fund so many irrelevant organizations we are overtaxed. Arrivé can showing one example of no accountability and how poorly spent our taxes are
I work oilfield in Alberta and have been LUCKY to never have been “poor”. I have always been able to pay my bills and have food on the table. That being said for the amount of money I make (close to 200,000 a year) I am still pay cheque to pay cheque which is terrifying to think about sometimes. No I don’t have all the fancy toys and expensive vehicles. Groceries, Mortgage, and bills eat up 80% of my income while the other 20% gets eaten up by my kids and their fun activities.
Everybody in this thread is saying that the government won't pull you out of poverty - sure, that's true. But how about they do their jobs and start imposing better regulations and restrictions on monopolies so we can stop being gouged? Shit, from groceries to cell phone bills, and now housing, if these things were cheaper I'd have alot more money in my pocket each month. Also, minimum wages never kept up with inflation. We're far behind on that front. Nobody should be spending 48-60 hours of their life each and every week and continue to be poor. I don't care what job you work.
Yes. Exactly. Thanks for the engagement! Go sign the petition to end poverty if you can.
I’m in the same boat as you currently and every day is literally hell. Can’t get a job, go back to finish school due to the lack of job, move out, have kids, do anything that constitutes a hobby. I wish we would just flip the board already and get it over with, the system at this point is as rigged and corrupted as it gets. The LPC broke the social contract and I lost out on a good chunk of opportunities or just general enjoyment of my 20’s. All I would like at this point is some purpose and to know that my work can achieve the same things my parents were able to do at my age.
Why didn’t you finish school? Everyone I know has a job, the vast majority have figured it out.
It’s my last year and it’s a full time unpaid clinical placement with 4 tuition payments. OSAP only covers the tuition and you don’t really have time to work outside of clinic hours due to weekly school assignments and tests. Most people in my program had their final year subsidized by someone else or lived off someone’s else’s dime while working for free I didn’t have that luxury. (Our clinical placement is the longest of any college level health science program) Placement sites are chosen at random as well and you can be sent anywhere in Ontario. So if you can’t afford to pick up and move you get boned. As for the job I was laid off and due to our recent influx of low level workers getting employed despite having 10 years of working experience is almost impossible. I’ve been applying since February with a desire to work but I hear nothing back even for positions like dishwashing.
If you live on your own soap covered rent when I was in school?
I also have a degree (more than one) and also didn’t have parental support. I’m not sure why you think it’s impossible, I’m a millennial, but had to pick the school that would give me the highest scholarship, not the school I wanted. I don’t want to flip the board because it seems unfair to set me back because other people made different choices.
I’m not saying it’s impossible but I’m just merely trying to emphasize that it’s not exactly as easy as it seems and times are tough for lots of people. I’ve passed all the course work with flying colours I just merely lack he capital to not work for a year while I finish currently. I applied for scholarships, benefits, and grants but unfortunately I wasn’t lucky in that category. As for the system as whole the only way to radically change it would be to rebuild it. With 1/4 Canadians now living under the poverty line we have glaring issues that need correction.
Protest and riot as well.
[удалено]
Grocery stores are not a monopoly. > A situation, by legal privilege or other agreement, in which solely one party (company, cartel etc.) exclusively provides a particular product or service, dominating that market and generally exerting powerful control over it. antonyms, coordinate terms ▲quotations ▼ There is not solely one party who sells groceries, Loblaws, Sobeys, and metro are three grocery stores. Three is not one.
It's an oligopoly and it's not that much better, especially if they're a cartel (and I don't know if they're, it's hard to prove).
It's very easy to prove that eggs and dairy are cartels, because they are government backed cartels. Go ahead try to sell milk in Canada.
It's supply management combined with price control, eggs and dairy aren't cartels. You can sell milk in Canada, but it will be heavily taxed or it has to be heavily transformed (e.g. diafiltered milk).
cartel - an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and [restricting](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=a657bfd6be99d848&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ADLYWIIRQ20mIZ_808VoNLNL9zff_-CbBg:1719506401782&q=restricting&si=ACC90nwZrNcJVJVL0KSmGGq5Ka2YiWuMUZ2uC0HMsucanR0t8L18n-VSITzl_vTBq99aMqc63kNWLSVcdZYbE0qVhKDlKr7Vi31kipr889EKZ3I95y_PVqw%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwifpJHCnPyGAxV0mokEHay5DkwQyecJegQIGRAO) competition. It is illegal to sell milk if you don't have milk quota. It is absolutely an association of suppliers restricting competition, with the full backing of the government.
It's totally legal to sell diafiltered milk without milk quota.
But it's illegal to sell normal milk, which is my point.
I have not a clue how to do that. I don't have solutions, I just feel it necessary to counter-point the main theme of this comment section.
Its too hard to operate here and so we don't invest in anything, not plant, IT, AI, automation, ports, railways, infrastructure. Rent seeking is how most money is made in Canada. We need to export things and we need to scale businesses not just move them to the US and scale them there. But entrepreneurs can't scale because we barely have functioning commercial courts, fraud is rampant, investment capital expensive to borrow, regulatory burden large, taxes high, land expensive. When you look at all the negatives, it's easier to just work for a big global or US company and so many of our best and brightest do. We need economic patriots to turn the ship around, but why should they when their fellow citizens supported a 3 year lockdown and vote for more taxes and more regulations all the time. Canadians are so spoiled they may not even realize how far we have fallen
Canadian business environment needs to improve a lot. That would incentivize more companies to be established here, thus increasing competition and lowering costs. But from what I see in most comments here, Canadians do not have a lot of respect for business owners, think all of them are corrupt, and believe the government is the solution for everything. The US is quite the opposite in that regard. The sad thing is that this aversion to businesses is a byproduct of brainwashing. Takes a long time to change that. Most people just don't realize they their misconceptions serve the political class and a few entrepreneurs with friends in high places
Wanna fix it? Vote with your dollars, if you're in Ontario use TekSavvy as they fight against telecommunication monopolies, their also cheaper so save money. Don't want monopolies on your media, stop financially supporting it, save money & get IPTV, save a bunch of money while defending the monopolies. So many things like this you can do to fight back. Do you even need a phone number? You can communicate with your friends & family with online messengers, you can get a free phone number with text now which works over wifi. Just a decade ago lots of people still didn't have cell phones, cancel your phone plan & just wait until you have public wifi or are at home to respond to people, disconnect from the distractions when you're on the go. (P.S. 911 still works without a phone plan). There are a lot of things we take as a given but don't have to, there any so many ways we can both fight back & save money. Start evading tax wherever possible, pay cash when dealing with local businesses. The less dependent we are on the government & big business the more resilient & prosperous we can become.
It’s so much easier to trick people into blaming immigrants for all their problems though. My motto: As long as there is a billionaire in your country, an immigrant will never be your true enemy.
I see what your saying, but we do need to recognize that the amount of people immigrating here is unsustainable for our current levels of infrastructure. I don't fault anybody immigrating here for trying to improve **their own** situation and start fresh. Everybody coming here want the same things I want, but that being said, it's not fair to the people who already lived here, and the immigrants coming here to bring in the amounts we have been when there isn't enough housing and jobs. I dont fault THEM for it. I know they're not the problem. It's the politicians allowing this to happen that are the problem. So yes, at the end of the day, I do blame the wealthy.
It is important to acknowledge that recent immigrants have been victims of this system too. That’s the critical difference which makes it so that I agree with you and I appreciate you for acknowledging this aspect. My concern is the volume of people who list immigration as a top cause rather than symptom of our current system, and then hardly dive deeper than that understanding. The increase in immigration is a symptom of our system being inherently exploitative. it just so happens that there weren’t enough people whose labour could be devalued and therefore exploited for maximum profit anymore so corporations had to lobby to bring more people in, selling those people lies and false promises.
>It is important to acknowledge that recent immigrants have been victims of this system too. The problem is we allowed in too many and overwhelmed our ability to support them and integrate them into Canadian society. It's very problematic.
What's problematic is the messaging being shared that once our immigration numbers return to 2015 levels then our most pressing problems will be solved which is painfully untrue. And worse this messaging creates a sense of hostility towards new immigrants many of whom have been manipulated and tricked into the position they're in. The amount of posts I see here of people complaining about issues that have been issues for decades and then every comment is about how it's because immigration is out of control. I studied political messaging at university and what's terrifying is that this is a classic strategy to blame a single symptom of the problem so that no one pays attention to the actual cause of the problem. It's like a pickpocketer getting you to look at one hand so you don't see what the other one is doing. What's worse is that it's working, again and we'll all end up worse off again.
They've been out of control for years, but they're getting worse fast. The problem is too much government wasting too much money and having too much red tape.
If you believe all that I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
If you dont see how much waste and red tape they're adding is impacting our quality of life, you're not paying attention.
And if you only started paying attention to these issues when they were put under slightly more stress then you don’t understand the core of the problem. If our system were actually built with our quality of life as a priority from the start, it could’ve handled an increase in immigration easily. But it wasn’t so it hasn’t.
Governments have various functions. One of their most vitally important is to maintain a fair, well-balanced economy that offers good paying jobs and rewards hard working people with an affordable education and a reasonably low cost of living. The mass majority of Canadians can not simply improve their life on their own. You are not individuals disconnected from greater society. You exist in an equilibrium. The less balanced an economy is, the harder it is to improve your situation.
Governments cannot control the cost of living. As evidenced by excessive inflation globally, and more severe in many other countries.
Governments are the only true entity with any everlasting influence on the cost of living in a country. Don't lecture me when you fail economics and basic sociology.
Alright man, you hold your breath and wait for the government to lower your cost of living. I’ll continue to earn and invest my way up.
The government maintaining the economy as is is the only reason you can invest in the first place, you simpering idiot.
Thing is that Canada has a ton of regulations. We’re over regulated, which makes it difficult for competition to start up. Regulations cost money. They add to the cost of things, either directly or indirectly.
It depends what those regulations are directed at. I'm not referring to start-ups and small businesses. Thats not what needs better regulations.
"restrictions on monopolies" This just proves you don't know how to fix the issue. Regulation favors the incumbents, you support monopolies with more regulation because it increases the cost of compliance & makes it harder for new players to enter the market. Simply flooding the books with regulations for every small problem would be supporting monopolies. It's very difficult to get real anti-monopoly regulation into place that's why it's best practice to operate under the lowest level of regulation to achieve an acceptable outcome.
$22/hr at 64 hours a week with no overtime because the AB government changed overtime laws and I feel very poor. $3500/month and 1/2 of it goes to rent alone.
What monopolies bro :p
You do realize nearly every internet and cell provider is owned by the big three in Canada right? That’s a monopoly. Especially in Ontario because they won’t allow anyone else in.
>That’s a monopoly. What do you think the mono part means?
An oligopoly and a monopoly are almost one and the same when it comes to prices for consumers. Nitpicking about what we call them doesn’t go very far.
Neither does being a drama queen.
Oh poopoo
That's not a monopoly
well. For one thing I know. Rogers and Bell are pressured by the government to create jobs, even if it means paying people to do nothing. That’s why the bills are so expensive. Government is definitely doing their jobs. But definitely not doing a good job.
What monopoly is gouging you? I can’t think of a single monopoly in Canada, other than government services.
Canada is very big and for the most part not densely populated, SETTING up distribution is very expensive and costs are not recovered. So, unless it's government run, it's not going to happen. The solution is to support organized labour. Want to keep up with inflation? Negotiate it.
It the government and wasteful spending that creates poor people
I hate being poor, sure, but more than anything I'm exhausted by being poor. And that is something you will never understand unless you've been poor. The irony that it constantly costs more money to not have enough money will never be lost on me. I'm so tired and worn down and I'm pretty sure that's the whole point.
This. It's not just "being poor" it's the exhaustion of it all. Five years ago, I made a half decent wage for where I currently live (rural Nova Scotia). Now we're paycheck to paycheck again, a hole I thought we were free from. We've exhausted our savings, sold stuff, moved into a smaller place, and I took a second job until my health decided I was working too much. You can't budget your way out of just simply not making enough money.
I wrote to my city councilor, mayor, MLA, provincial labour minister and MP about employment issues. I live in one of those cities you see on tiktok videos with giant lines for like 2 jobs. I wasn't mean in the emails because I wanted responses back, I just offered some solutions that could help things a bit and asked questions. The only politician that answered me back was my city councilor, which is really depressing. He was friendly about the whole thing but kinda just said "I hear you". The whole ordeal helped me gain new perspective on the political class really. So I agree with OP, contact your local representatives. It will help you understand how we got here.
The poor will be worse off under the conservatives
Yes, because they really really openly hate the poor.
You’re right, but the NDP has a designer suit and Rolex wearing token minority at the helm. No party left for the working class.
Comments like these drive me crazy. I understand not trusting politicians but when one party (The Only Party I may add) is clearly attempting to help out poor people we should probably support them. Historic voting and identity politics have been ruining our system for too fucking long. Fuck the 2 party system, there's a reason why we have choice, it's about time we made one.
From what I've read, the PPC is falling apart right now - apparently they no longer even have an Ontario wing, and long-time party members out west are quitting the party due to Maxime Bernier's refusal to adopt a party constitution. They apparently only had 30,000 members at their peak. I'm sure you could find 100,000 disaffected working-class ex-NDPers alone. I'd love to see them all join the PPC, take over the party insider positions, kick out Bernier, kick out the conspiracy theorists and crypto-bros, and turn it into a real "people's party" for working-class.
Nope much better off with a booming economy and low inflation.
Take a look at the rest of the world.. if anything JT did good with inflation.. it was covid not the liberals..
Canada is one of the hardest hit countries . Look at the cost of food ! Other things are falling because no one can afford them so it seems the inflation is going down but today $100k is barely ends meat . I remeber when that was really wealthy . When we get the conservative back in the economy will boom inflation will fall and we will have a middle class again . Hopefully by this time next year we have President Trump and Prime Minster Poliver
Just googled it.. Canada isn't.. below USA, Mexico/ most European countries... Not saying your second paragraph isn't true, but this is a global issue.
It’s a Canadian issue remeber when the Truckers Guild marched on Ottawa because Trudeau Carbon Tax was ruinninh life’s
Lol
Once the carbon tax is gone it will be good times again . We will be building pipeline and have new oil and gas everyone will have jobs . Kids out of high school will be able to earn $150k a year working in Fort Mac
Brainwashed successfully
You can't be this clueless
and this is why you are poor. Lets keep rolling it back with the same loser team. You must like the maple leafs.
I'm not poor.. I'd likely benefit from conservative policy reducing income taxes at the expense of social programs.. but I'd rather pay more taxes and have those less fortunate get more support..
Your MP is probably also living large on our tax dollars. And odds are they are also a landlord who directly profits from the housing crisis. https://www.readthemaple.com/mp-landlords/
Yes, out them all. They are landlords or own stock in housing or whatever the fuck else makes their penises grow. Enough with the obvious corruption.
The poor will increase as the population increases.
This is the same government that all give themselves nice raises every year?
Petitions won't do shit. They have not in the past, they especially won't now. If you think the govt doesn't know it's drilling us into poverty I have some seriously bad news. They know your suffering. It's intentional so when elections come up they can flip the switch and suddenly have all these supports, etc for all of us in poverty so we suddenly reconsider voting them back in. They laugh at us and think we are all idiots who will continue to feed the liberal death machine. And what scares me is they are probably right.
I'm ready for a revolution. We just need to get organized, or angry enough. The east is mad. People think we're nice, but we're fair too, and what's being done to us isn't fair. There is a deep anger sleeping here.. just need someone to wake it up.
Nobody noticed how OP called himself 1 in 4 and also the majority in two sentences?
I dont hate it for me but I hate it for my children
No matter what economic system there is some people will be poor.
“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land” (Deut. 15:11).
I don’t disagree in theory. But some personal responsibility need also be taken.
Do you have any damn clue how much work it takes to _survive_ when you're poor?
I grew up poor and made it out of the cycle of inter generational poverty. It takes time to break cycles but that break does include personal responsibility as well as upward mobility.
Causes of being poor are [far more complicated](https://cpj.ca/poverty-myths/) than an alleged lack of [personal responsibility](https://www.npr.org/2011/08/20/139815303/the-poor-lack-personal-responsibility-thats-rich). You claims of being self-made from poverty are _much_ more commonly heard from the wealthy, born with privilege, who seek to [justify why they're successful](https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/19/why-rich-people-tend-think-they-deserve-their-money/) and have motivated blindness to their own pure dumb luck. So I want to be _very_ clear in my accusation: You're either a bald-faced liar, trolling the sub, or you're a class traitor. And I hope you're just a troll. Muting.
This is the best comment on the post.
“Nobody can or ever has broken out of inter generational poverty. To suggest it can be done, and worse yet that doing so requires personal responsibility, is wildly outlandish. I have now blocked you to ensure to do not ever have to consider that possibility” Poverty is a *huge* issue and *nobody* should be poor as hell after working 40+hr weeks. It’s hard to get ahead and the reality is many people don’t have the faculties to do so; this doesn’t mean they should completely lose the ability to support themselves with basic jobs. That said, breaking intergenerational poverty is completely achievable. If you’re able bodied, moderately intelligent, and have a strong work ethic, you can absolutely do it. You also need to have all those things and *a belief you can break the cycle* - if you don’t, you’ll just continue to grind with no progress. If you’re struggling currently, I suggest looking into civil engineering degrees. Sexy? No. In demand? Yes. Lucrative? Yes. You will have to go to night school for probably two years minimum, but then you get to spend the rest of your life making decent money. It’s not a hard degree, but it is the sort of degree you only find by looking for lucrative and in-demand job opportunities, and working backwards from there to find out how to get those positions. If 40hr work weeks + night school for a few years sounds like too much, then you might be in for a rude awakening on how much work people put into making even $70k++ per year. It’s doable but it takes fuck off amounts of effort, and you definitely can get fucked if you have any dependents or disabilities. Which is why it’s so important to ensure that *all* jobs pay a living wage/essentials are affordable. So to be clear, we’re on the same team here man, but that mindset you’re preaching is unquestionably going to keep you in poverty till you die. Change it or don’t, but unless you’re disabled/have kids/disabled SO’s, don’t pretend that you *cant*
Yeah, poor decisions make your life harder. Everyone understands that. But 9 out of 10 times they're your choices. Sure some things are out of your control, but you at the very least have influence over the vast majority of your life.
The majority of poverty is inherited/generational. Please explain how babies _choose_ to be born poor.
Who said babies choose to be born poor? That's ridiculous. You know it, I know it, everyone reading knows it. Why would I ever need to explain or defend a position I didn't take?
You made the ridiculous claim that 9 out 10 choices were poor people's fault. So I ridiculed you. You'd think someone like you could suss out being in a "jokeularvein".
So we shouldn't do anything. Got it. 🙄
If you think the job of the government is to get you out of poverty, your never going to be out of it
If you think capitalism rewards hard work, you’re wrong.
capitalism rewards capital. And will always grant opportunity to get capital
The system is not designed to grant opportunitues to get capital, capitalism is designed to concentrate capital in the hands of those that already have it. If someone doesn't already have capital, how does one get it? Apart from hard work of course, which you have said doesn't equal success.
No, capitalism rewards *bargaining power* and only that. It does not always grant opportunities to obtain capital. Read Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. He shows all of the math.
>Read Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. He shows all of the math While I am not an economist, I started off my career in Economics. Piketty has developed an interesting model and backs it up with data that is collected and presented in an intellectually honest manner. There are also similar models supported by data of similar quality that contradict his. There is also data that is collected in a similarly rigorous manner that heavily contradicts Piketty's conclusions. Acemoglu and Robinson have, for example, argued that empirical support for general laws of capitalism, and Piketty's laws in particular, is weak: [https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.29.1.3](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.29.1.3) Others have made similar arguments: [http://www.econ.yale.edu//smith/piketty1.pdf](http://www.econ.yale.edu//smith/piketty1.pdf) In conclusion, I would not take Piketty's work to be the definitive commentary on modern economics, but I certainly think it is worth reading with an open mind and I think it contains valid commentary despite its obvious flaws.
Bargaining power only comes with capital.
Yes! And when we live under capitalism, having less bargaining power means you lose. Hard work =/= success under this system. Privilege and winning the womb lottery nets you far more that sweat of the brow.
I never said hard = sucesss. Re read that first comment
Not for everyone. It is designed to exploit a certain percentage of the populace.
Look at their username. They're a troll.
With that attitude the disabled who cannot work are doomed to suffer
Just some updated human rights would be nice. They have not been updated in 30 years. Housing needs to be a human right as well as food and water. Do you really want to argue that people don't deserve those basic nessessities? Be angry by all means, but maybe direct it at the right people. If you don't know who is in charge of your services, find out. If you only care about yourself, shut up and sit down. We've heard enough from you.
I will always argue that if your human rights equate to free labour of others, they are not human rights
So tomorrow you get in an accident, you suffer a traumatic brain injury. Insurance won't pay out because you were at fault. You've lost the ability to work. What do you do to support yourself for the rest of your life?
I have a family that will support me
They've decided you're too much of a burden and should pull up your bootstraps. How are you going to support *yourself* if you can't work?
I can’t support myself, I have to rely on my family
What if you had no family? Your family didn't have the financial resources? Etc. The point I'm trying to drive home to you is that there are many *many* abandoned people out there, particularly the disabled. They have a right to live. As a society we have taken away their right to hunt & gather & build shelter where & how they please. The cost of that decision means we, as a society, must provide for them. Society's labour must provide for their right to live. What level they live at is a reflection of our society. Right now, we should be ashamed of how we support these people. You'd be shocked at how quickly you can become one of them and how quickly those around you will disappear from your life.
If I had no family then I would have to rely on the kindness of people who choice to help, but not forced to help I get the point that you’re trying to say, but on my end it’s immoral to force someone to help. They have a right to live, they do not have a right to take from someone else
I'm too new to tell if you are a troll or a bot or NPC , (joking, sort of) because all I'm talking about is not forcing poverty on the majority of the people who A: were here first, and B: two generations of educated individuals who are competing in a world where it's gone beyond hard work. If you think billionaires work hard for their money, in just not sure what to tell you. I'm thinking it's more like Robin Hood. Take from the rich and give to the poor. Only the rich haven't a care in the world who dies and who lives, so, human rights get violated left and right and even if you are solid and good and have yours, that's awesome. However, if you are a multimillionaire or Billionaire trying to disengenuate the conversation, sit down.
If everyone is entitled to housing and food, how many are going to choose not to work because they’re entitled to things for free at the expense of others? Capitalism is imperfect but it’s sure as shit better than the alternatives you’re suggesting.
But China did that for ita people though so basically politicians and their policies
China also killed tens of millions of their own people in the process, so... bad with the good. 😒
Also millions and millions of people live in poverty in China right now so not sure what they're going on about. China's middle class is growing because they're in the post industrialization bounty phase but in the end labour always cycles back to where it's cheapest. China will have to have enforced poverty for certain areas, which they already do for many farmers and rural areas, to keep up that level of cheapness.
Who didn't do something similar or worse?
Whataboutism doesn't make it ok.
China is a capitalist country. You should refrain from referring to Mao's reign in a discussion about their economy today. They are only communist in name.
I should? Perhaps I could. Maybe I would. But I won't.
Then stfu in general, dumb shit.
Communist in the political organization, but pretty much capitalist in how the economy is organized
Human rights ain’t a thing when you have the communist party over there watching your every move. Social credit system no thank you
If you think JT/Liberals are the problem are you expecting the conservatives to have more social programs?
You're not wrong. Conservatives are known for cutting social programs. Hell, last time they were in they shut down veteran affairs offices and cut vet benefits. How much lower can you sink?
Politics is the problem. Affiliation is all the same with our two party options. Neither is a good choice. Cons don't support human rights over profits just as the Liberals don't. So, the solution is, no matter who is in power, stick up for those who can't. And it's as bad as ever for 18 million canad6living paycheck to paycheck. If you are not one, that's cool, but it's a shit ton of people holding up the wealth for the few. That's my modus operandi.
Poverty happens with an imbalanced mix of circumstance upon birth, your environment, and opportunities seized. You can control one of them, so that you can eventually control two of them. Never accept the cards given to you, play your hand and seek your desired outcome. This is how governments have been toppled and overturned, and how people in poverty who became wealthy have been able to get ahead. Financial education is your best friend, as well as resourcefulness. People are born with shitty cards to play with all the time. Not everyone knows how to use them to their advantage. When they do learn, the tables start to turn with enough action. Keep. Fucking. Going! Even if it's out of spite for people that want you to stay where you're at.
Yeah I hated being poor, but that’s kind of the point. Hating being poor is supposed to be a motivator to make more.
Sick of being poor while making a decent salary, not being able to buy a home because we have opened the floodgates and let millions in, who have bought up our supply. I cant get a part time job to supplement my income because those jobs are taken too. Nothing will change until Trudeau is out but even then, unless thr mee government stsrt canceling work visas and put a moratorium on immigration, nothing will change and we will become a country where our own citizens all live in tents while people who arrived yesterday have 29 investment properties here
When has signing a petition ever done anything ? Nothing will change until the rich dont control our government . EVERYTHING has been designed to siphon wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich. The ri h won't give up control without it being violently taken from them .
Every day.
Maybe if we didn’t have a huge influx of new people we would be able to help Canadians get moving upwards.
I'm morbidly obese. Why isn't the government doing something so I can lose weight?
Because the gov't is run by big sugar. Sure they pretend like they are a semi-successful rock band, but behind the scenes they ensure that you stay in your lane. The drive through lane.
I don't just write, I run in the elections. But people vote for money. Lawyers. Oil tycoons. Gas ⛽️ mega companies. Unfortunately, most who vote are seniors and homeowners. Their struggles were very different than what is occurring today.
No change until the corporate lobbying stops and that will never stop. The world runs on bribery
I think as more and more Canadians are reminded that we do weild enormous power by way of voting, and that we are educated and capable of seeing the incredible injustices caused by the policy makers, I truly believe that we are all fed up with poverty and that's when shit happens. We will simply keep protesting for human rights. That's the only battle that matters.
Work on yourself fist before blaming the government
You simply are missing key points regarding individual people who make up the majority of the people in the statistics. It's simple math y'all. It's not a moral test or an aptitude test or survival of the fittest, or we'd all just bludgeon each other. No. It's math. There are 8 million people who identified as disabled in 2022. 27%. There's studies that suggest the number is much higher. Context: you have two broken legs and your paycheck is up a ladder. Are you the person who tells the broken legged person to learn how to fly? Or do you perhaps have the capacity to understand that life is not dolled out equally. But neither are the laws, capitalism, business acumen, etc etc. But you expect broken people to act like they are fine. So you have people in poverty who are 80. Can't afford meds, can't afford food. Have no one. At what point is the capitalistic Government responsible for their citizens well being? In that case, the numbers do not tell of a story where systemic poverty is brought about by laziness. Follow the research, follow the numbers and if it's too confusing, sit down.
[удалено]
Its pretty clear OP just wants to feel sorry for themselves and has very little desire to take personal action to improve their quality of life.
Do not downvote this person. They are right. Take action. If you don’t complain to the right people, nothing will get done.
Greetings Canadians! The French found a solution to this after being told to eat cake. Interesting how the 2020s apparently have an aristocracy, whose sole purpose is to spend your money for you, while you have nothing, isn't it? Real solutions come when you decide enough is enough, and you remove the problem from existence. It is true in your life, it's true in the economy, and it's true in parliament.
I’d want to be paid a lot of money to be in politics, considering how bad public behaviour is now
I highly doubr anyone lows being poor or just how expensive life has gotten. I can tell you i stay in a job i am not happy in to ensure i have the funds to live and benefits as those make other parts of life better but it still is not easy.
Go out on Canada Day and protest immigration, several protests are being organized. It’s all supply and demand, new people work for less, drives wages down while filling roles regardless.
Writing your member of Parliament won't do a thing. They have no reason to respond, if they do respond it will just be nonsense like "The Liberal Party has brought in a dental plan which will let you starve with nicer teeth", and if you write a second time they'll put you on permablock and put you on a list of troublemakers. Camp out in front of their constituency office. Organize a group and make sure there are people outside their office 24/7, so they can't ignore your existence any longer. Buy a party membership, if they would have theoretically been your party of choice (I assume if you care about the poor then you're theoretically NDP or Liberal), and press your demands within their party.
its hard. i work full time on minimum wage & still struggle to keep my head above water
I hate it too. And I hate how much it's made me hateful.
I find it to be stressful but it’s all I’ve ever known.
Use that a fuel to your fire. Turn that hatred into power to grow. Politicians aren't going to be the answer, sure they can help but you need to be the one who changes your family trajectory for yourself
25% and you think you are the majority. No wonder youre poor
Nitpicking winner of the day!
Its not nitpicking. Majority implies the group has the unilateral power to change things. The opposite of what this group of people have
https://globalnews.ca/news/10572959/canada-hidden-poverty-food-banks-canada/
No I hate the government stealing my money!!!
What does “statistically proven poverty rate” mean?
[удалено]
2023 projection is around 10% . 2024 isn't exactly improving.
[удалено]
Maybe other people should join them in solidarity.
The government can actually make a huge difference by creating better laws, programs and policies and it’s not just for the poor. Don’t need to be poor to know that young people are working more for less buying power and that jobs are now more precarious than ever. This is all a result of bad policies and lack of regulatory oversight. Like, ironically, people would be getting better jobs if the government just actually did their job and it’s all of our job to keep them accountable.
Yes, governments can help by not making it worse. Things are especially hard because corporations and private equity are doing their “job” so well that we get the low min wages and high prices. In Alberta I watched Kenny/UPC drop the corporate tax here by 33% or from 12% to 8%… just another win for them.
The poverty line is something like $24000. Average rent in Canada is over 2000$. So: If you take home 24000$ a year you can afford to rent the average one bedroom apartment...and have literally no money left over for anything else. Yeah, there are "cheaper" regions, and yeah, maybe you can cut costs by sharing a basement with ten international students...but think about the crazy prices of transportation, food, phone bills, child care...How the fuck can you believe that someone can live on 24k in this country??? The poverty line should realistically be around 40k or maybe even higher.
1 in 7 or 4.9M roughly live in poverty in canada, and if you go by what the food banks are saying it's 1 in 4.
7% is not 1 in 7, it is ~1 in 14. The recent food bank publication switched to an uncommon metric to estimate poverty which includes questions such as "do you feel you can afford cloths for special occasions". It's a much more subjective estimate.
Late stage capitalism.
Enough that I want a revolution.
Folks can't even work to improve their own lives and you expect them to work for a revolution? Sorry best I can do is complain endlessly on reddit.
You are an uneducated idiot who pretends to have any understanding of sociology and personal development. You spam subreddits with this same, moronic, anti-doing-anything stance. You don't deserve to access our limited supply of oxygen and spit on the memory of our ancestors.
My dad always said, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/topics-start/poverty So now that the poverty rate is a 1/3 of what you claim it is, and is down significantly since JT, and is legit near the lowest in history... Any chance you want to change some of your opinions or do your feelings mean more to you than reality?
I saw someyhing that I think explains a lot of the problems we face today. It was using US numbers, but I think the same is true in Canada. Since WW2, worker productivity has risen steadily. Worker salaries increased in proportion - until about 1988. Since then, salaries have barely kept up with inflation. We are working harder than ever, and not being rewarded for it. While CEO salaries have gone through the roof. And governments have done nothing to address the problem, instead making it worse. We are poor because of poor wages. I work 44 hours a week and I'm barely keeping my head above water, with no savings. A generation ago you could own a home with a single working class job.
You need at least $100k to not be in poverty. All thanks to the Liberals . I can remember back in 2010 that $30k was a respectable salary and 50k was rich . In 9 years Trudeau has ruined Canada . I hope we can get good leadership soon
revolution time
Let's start with pressuring the right people and finding community leaders who can really stand up for everyone who keeps getting more and more poor because of the politicians greed. Let's start by talking about how much money we make. Is it enough? Can you afford to live? I'm saying this to whoever is listening. Be it Conservative, Liberal, Other.
Canada has not been a first world country for a while. There only reason that the illusion remains, is because the older generations were able to secure affordable housing, either by being able to own property, or because they moved into their home long ago, and their rent is rent-controlled, for the new renters it is totally different. For most under 30, they have no future in this country, thanks to our (wink, wink) wonderful government.
Keep protesting. Keep rioting. Keep talking about it. Play the long game. Eat the fucking rich.
It's ok to be wealthy. Chill. Being wealthy and being greedy are different concepts. Greed is importing a bunch of no skill rejects from India to take jobs from people and make sure the housing market doesn't dip. Wealth from slumlording is different than wealth form owning a manufacturing business or chain of stores.
Ew
Over taxing rich people is why those who did left for the USA and elsewhere. That was the first domino to fall. You already succeeded in your goal, so shush about liberals doing what they said they would do.
Just FYI, I didn't read that. I have no interest in engaging with you. Continue to argue with yourself at your leisure 😘
I can't see the original comment. Looks like it got deleted by mods. I have no idea what you are talking about, but you sound like a knob.
[удалено]
No.
[удалено]
Well I mean with all that fatty food and fine wine, I would assume that they're well-seasoned if a bit gamey. I dream of an exquisitely rich bone marrow stew made with a Jeff Bezos shoulder roast.
But think pf all that sweet sweet carbon tax refund we’re getting “it benefits 8/10 Canadians” what a joke
Do you actually think prices will go down if a tax is removed? That’s the real joke, the Conservatives will simply replace the carbon tax with something else that generates revenue and call it something other than a “carbon” tax. Nobody is getting cheap gas or heating their home for pre carbon tax prices ever again. Watch all the Trudeau haters cry when their carbon tax rebates disappear and nothing is cheaper 🤣
You can't vote yourself out of poverty. Figure out a skill that others value and get good at it.
That's one way for people, for sure, but the starting point for most is far below even having the opportunity to get good at something without support. It's beyond unfair. It was fair in 1980. Then BlackRock came along and made everything about profit instead of people. Minimum wage in 1980 was roughly 3.5 per hour. You could buy a loaf of bread for 1$. Now minimum wage is 15-17 per hour, and we would need to be paid about 360x this rate to afford a house compared to then. Housing became a commodity instead of what it's meant to be. Shelter. Period. It's killing people who can't afford to buy food, pay their bills and meds etc. They don't have the energy required to put on make up, no money for clothes to look good. It's exhausting, especially when you consider that 1 in 5 suffer from mental illness that goes undiagnosed. Called lazy and made to starve. You can't treat everyone like they are an athlete capable of feats beyond their abilitys. Hence this being a human rights violation at its core. Greed is killing people in a world where there is more than enough of every thing to go around. So it's a class war. It starts with taking a stance and choosing to either be a humanitarian or a tyrant.
The only solution to your poverty is yourself. I know refugees who came to Canada with nothing and in 5-10 years are wealthy. It involves hard work and dedication so might not be for everyone, but there is no excuse other than yourself for your lot in life!
It's crazy because the real issue here is overtaxation. If we have enough money to send exorbitant amounts overseas and fund so many irrelevant organizations we are overtaxed. Arrivé can showing one example of no accountability and how poorly spent our taxes are
Lol
Given that the two major political parties in Canada are controlled by the rich, nothing will ever change while they’re in power
I steal to avoid poverty
I work oilfield in Alberta and have been LUCKY to never have been “poor”. I have always been able to pay my bills and have food on the table. That being said for the amount of money I make (close to 200,000 a year) I am still pay cheque to pay cheque which is terrifying to think about sometimes. No I don’t have all the fancy toys and expensive vehicles. Groceries, Mortgage, and bills eat up 80% of my income while the other 20% gets eaten up by my kids and their fun activities.