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Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

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Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#101

Post by btilly »

Raphmedia wrote: post #89
btilly wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check the timeline. It wasn't separatism that drove companies out, it was Bill 101. (OK, Bill 101 was driven by the same motives as separatism.) Thanks to that bill, you had a population of professionals who had moved to Montreal for good jobs who found that, because they were born in a different province, their children could not be educated in English. These professionals found it less painful to move to Toronto an…

I'm from Québec. It's all about bilingualism. As someone who learned french from birth, I could not work in tech if I couldn't also communicate in english. That's a requirement for most jobs and I had to work really hard to get a good level of spoken english. We have people that speak french and spanish, french and english, french and german, etc. Bilingualism is strong here, pick it up if you want to work in the are…

Consider this.

I am a Canadian anglophone from British Columbia with highschool French. My children have been raised in the USA with no French. It would be easier for me to take a job and move my family to The Netherlands than to Montreal. (Not a hypothetical example. I turned down an offer a few years ago at a company that wanted to hire me there. My children would have had to learn Dutch, but would have gone to school in English.)

If you are founding a company and want access to anglophone talent, would you prefer to start it in Montreal or Amsterdam? What are the economic implications of this fact for Quebec?

Quebec has made a decision to value remaining French above economic growth. That's somewhat reasonable. But if you've chosen that, you should be honest with yourselves about the choice you made. And shouldn't be puzzled that your economy has not done so well.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#102

Post by tempVariable »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #8
turnip1979 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the brain drain. Toronto is a major (and expensive) world city. From talking with friends, 100K (Canadian, that's 70K US) is the ceiling for intermediate to senior developers. Junior devs make a lot less ... 50-60K (that's 35 to 42K US)! That said, free healthcare counts for a lot. Also, as a dev in a Canadian tech company, you are probably not going to see as much stress and volatility as your average Sili…

Having worked in Toronto's tech scene for almost two decades I just have a big 'meh' response to it. I now work at Google in Kitchener, and commute from a hobby farm near Hamilton. Quality of life is outstanding. I dread ever having to work in Toronto proper again. The startup scene in Toronto is a clique. The quality of management talent is sad. After working as employee #4 in a Toronto startup, I jumped ship to wor…

I worked across Toronto, Markham and now in Guelph bordering on Kitchener. Just the chaos, traffic and costs alone are worth not working at Toronto. I believe that my commute mirrors yours quite a bit, since I commute from the same area.

Having said that, I have references that Wattpad in Toronto is a great place to work. I believe that every place is quite unique and there are diamonds to be found amongst the rough.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#103

Post by Almaviva »

I've seen enough agreement that I think it's worth pointing out. The dating market for men in Toronto is terrible, at least if you're not in the mainstream attractive subset: over 5'10, have all your hair, have easy social charm and confidence. I don't know exactly why this is but anecdotally women are extremely selective and have it ingrained deeply to never settle for anything (and they're not happy about not finding "good enough" men either).

I can live with lower pay but after years of nothing but female rejection I'm really tempted to run to the US just for this reason. (Again, only anecdotally, but the way I'm treated by women in social settings is night vs day anywhere but Toronto.)

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#104

Post by tahssa »

graeme wrote: post #87
tahssa wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain the downvote?

Might be the Greece 2.0 prediction. I was with you till there. Greece's debt was in Euros, which the Greek government didn't control. So Greece had no option to devalue it's currency in response to a slowing economy. Whereas Canada can devalue currency (as we're doing). We have the additional benefit that our debt load is in our domestic currency, so we don't face the debt appreciation challenge many countries face w…

I thought that Greeces problems stemmed from excessive govt spending leading to a situation where the tax revenue could not compensate for the debt load with a consequence of either bankruptcy or bailouts from other countries. At least that's where my comparison starts and ends.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#105

Post by btilly »

guiomie wrote: post #90
btilly wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government invested all that money in small to middle sized local companies instead the province would be so much more prosperous. How exactly is anyone helped by money taking a round trip through the government rather than the same thing happening through free markets? You've made the cycle slower, you've made the recipients dependent on government bureaucratic decisions (who are not well-incentivized to deci…

"Quebec's largest mistake was, of course, Bill 101" ... I thought it was the almost won referendum that drove this exile, not Bill 101. My impression is that if you lowered the income tax in Quebec (much higher then Ontario), most probably more professionals would be willing to work there, english or french or any other language. I agree with your statement of "Quebec being full of people who believe that the economy…

I thought it was the almost won referendum that drove this exile, not Bill 101.

Nope. The almost won referendum was in 1995. The referendum that wasn't close was 1980. Bill 101 was 1977.

The Bank of Montreal announced its move in 1977.

(I'm aware of this because I had several classmates in high school whose families had moved from Quebec. They were extremely clear that they moved because of Bill 101, not because of the referendum.)

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#106

Post by beachstartup »

Almaviva wrote: post #103

I've seen enough agreement that I think it's worth pointing out. The dating market for men in Toronto is terrible, at least if you're not in the mainstream attractive subset: over 5'10, have all your hair, have easy social charm and confidence. I don't know exactly why this is but anecdotally women are extremely selective and have it ingrained deeply to never settle for anything (and they're not happy about not findi…

you are feeling the same frustration many men in large cities feel these days. look around on the internet.

all i can say is, don't expect different results if you keep doing the same things. it's on you to produce the outcomes you want in your life.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#107

Post by Almaviva »

beachstartup wrote: post #106
Almaviva wrote: post #103

I've seen enough agreement that I think it's worth pointing out. The dating market for men in Toronto is terrible, at least if you're not in the mainstream attractive subset: over 5'10, have all your hair, have easy social charm and confidence. I don't know exactly why this is but anecdotally women are extremely selective and have it ingrained deeply to never settle for anything (and they're not happy about not findi…

you are feeling the same frustration many men in large cities feel these days. look around on the internet. all i can say is, don't expect different results if you keep doing the same things. it's on you to produce the outcomes you want in your life.

> look around on the internet.

I know the places you're talking about, and I can't stand them because they're dehumanizing and hypocritical. But believe me I've looked, and in my experience a disproportionate number of these men are actually from Toronto! I'm not saying men don't feel like this elsewhere, but it was surprising to me how this city sticks out.

http://www.returnofkings.com/58796/15-reasons-why-toronto-is...

(Edit: I don't endorse the above article, it's demeaning and ridiculous, but I'm using it as an example of how this city often comes up in "worst of" discussions.)

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#108

Post by dionidium »

Almaviva wrote: post #103

I've seen enough agreement that I think it's worth pointing out. The dating market for men in Toronto is terrible, at least if you're not in the mainstream attractive subset: over 5'10, have all your hair, have easy social charm and confidence. I don't know exactly why this is but anecdotally women are extremely selective and have it ingrained deeply to never settle for anything (and they're not happy about not findi…

"over 5'10, have all your hair, have easy social charm and confidence"

I think you'll find that those things grease the wheels of conversation basically everywhere

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#109

Post by eigenvector »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #97
eigenvector wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at the nature of the previous gov'ts budgetary and economic planning (in as much as they did that kind of thing). Overwhelmingly in favour of the resource sector. You seem quite married to this simplistic thesis that oil is Canada's downfall, but "just look" isn't an argument. I looked, and the non-oil economic output continued to grow through the oil boom, just not as fast as the oil and gas sector. Yes, oil…

No I don't think the gov't caused the oil boom, or high oil prices or high oil production -- you have created a straw man to rail against. But from their words -- openly lambasting Ontario and Quebec and their provincial gov'ts -- as well as actions they showed a disregard for diversification. Instead of investing money in infrastructure which would increase manufacturing sector effectiveness, they cut gov't revenue…

You're entitled to your opinion of the Harper government, but Canada isn't a centrally planned economy, and the Prime Minister's comments don't play a role in capital allocation in the economy. You're pointing at a handful of politically charged decisions that play a vanishingly small role in the performance of the overall economy today. Besides, your statements are inaccurate. The Harper government spent more on municipal public transit than every other federal government in history combined. The Eglinton subway you cite isn't even funded by the federal government, it's funded by the Ontario government you claim Harper hated. You missed the Scarborough subway which runs entirely through Liberal ridings. Public transportation is a provincial responsibility and the Harper government was the first federal government to invest in it substantially, doling out billions for subways in Vancouver and Toronto and the Toronto government's SmartTrack program. I hope you realize the entire existing Toronto subway system was built without federal funding.

I don't really want to defend the Harper government's track record on transportation, because I don't think they did enough, but trying to say that Canada lacks economic diversification because Harper didn't build enough subways is just ludicrous.

Government program spending both in real $ and as a percentage of GDP are higher today than when Harper took office, although they've declined from the peak of the 2008 recession and stimulus program. Direct program expenditure by the federal government was 12.8% of GDP in 2005-06 and 12.9% in 2014-15. Cutting taxes doesn't mean cutting spending, if the economy is growing. The biggest cuts to government spending occurred during the 1990s as part of Chretien's deficit elimination program. Spending has only now recovered to the level of the mid-90s. This is all shown in Finance Canada's fiscal tables. I suggest you examine the numbers yourself rather than relying on newspaper editorials that cherry-pick examples.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#110

Post by fche »

wavefunction wrote: post #92
fche wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"expending massive political capital" Luckily, political capital is a fiat currency and can be created or destroyed by the CBC in moments.

How many Americans (US + Mexico + South)/Europeans/Asians/Africans watch the CBC? I think the parent was referring to international political capital.

Sorry: I should not have implied that the CBC is the only one with a royal charter for political capital minting/disposal.
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