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Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

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Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#11
I am sorry but as Canadian, I don't see much point of development in Canada's North. That part of Country is simply unsustainable for human settlement and whatever is there currently is on back off massive amount of investment in infrastructure, logistic and construction. Even basics such as milk has to be imported from other parts of Canada 1000s of kilometers away.

Don't get me wrong - I applaud folks who have to live there but there simply is no point of encouraging people to stay living there or worse, to move there.

Coming back to the topic - Huawei aside, say Canadian Govt./some corporation decides to spend billion dollars to lay down required infrastructure to kick off high speed internet services in that part of Canada - do you even think they have the population to support their project financially? Sooner or later, tax payers will be on hook (that is how it works in Canada) to pay for some Yukon based teenager's right to surf youtube on high speed internet.

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ontario transfers $1 billion a year to the Yukon for exactly the kind of Development you're talking about. It's growing and expanding just as the government wants it to.

You mean Ottawa? Because the province of Ontario is not contributing to the territory of Yukon.

Equalization payments:

"do not, technically, involve wealthy provinces making payments to poor provinces, although in practice this is what happens, via the federal treasury."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#13
post #11

I am sorry but as Canadian, I don't see much point of development in Canada's North. That part of Country is simply unsustainable for human settlement and whatever is there currently is on back off massive amount of investment in infrastructure, logistic and construction. Even basics such as milk has to be imported from other parts of Canada 1000s of kilometers away. Don't get me wrong - I applaud folks who have to l…

A significant portion of Canada's wealth comes from the north and afaik settlement is required it retain claim over this territory.

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#14
post #11

I am sorry but as Canadian, I don't see much point of development in Canada's North. That part of Country is simply unsustainable for human settlement and whatever is there currently is on back off massive amount of investment in infrastructure, logistic and construction. Even basics such as milk has to be imported from other parts of Canada 1000s of kilometers away. Don't get me wrong - I applaud folks who have to l…

A significant portion of Canada's wealth comes from the north and afaik settlement is required it retain claim over this territory.

Because the High Arctic relocation was so beneficial... (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Arctic_relocation if you're not familiar with this event in Canada's history).

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#15
post #11

I am sorry but as Canadian, I don't see much point of development in Canada's North. That part of Country is simply unsustainable for human settlement and whatever is there currently is on back off massive amount of investment in infrastructure, logistic and construction. Even basics such as milk has to be imported from other parts of Canada 1000s of kilometers away. Don't get me wrong - I applaud folks who have to l…

A significant portion of Canada's wealth comes from the north and afaik settlement is required it retain claim over this territory.

[deleted]

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#16
post #11

I am sorry but as Canadian, I don't see much point of development in Canada's North. That part of Country is simply unsustainable for human settlement and whatever is there currently is on back off massive amount of investment in infrastructure, logistic and construction. Even basics such as milk has to be imported from other parts of Canada 1000s of kilometers away. Don't get me wrong - I applaud folks who have to l…

A significant portion of Canada's wealth comes from the north and afaik settlement is required it retain claim over this territory.

> A significant portion of Canada's wealth comes from the north

What do you mean by that? What natural resources are you referring to?

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Ottawa? Because the province of Ontario is not contributing to the territory of Yukon.

Equalization payments: "do not, technically, involve wealthy provinces making payments to poor provinces, although in practice this is what happens, via the federal treasury." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments

This is NOT in practice what happens. This way of framing it is popular by separatist segments in Alberta, but it's bullshit. Transfer payments come out of federal tax levies. No province is being targeted for levies. If one province has richer people and thus pay more in federal tax, then yes they will likely have a net loss in transfer payments. But this is no different than ANY federal service, whether it comes to military bases, natural resources, child care benefits, etc. It's simply how taxes work. If you're a poor person in Alberta you're paying less into equalization than a rich person in Quebec.

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#18
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equalization payments: "do not, technically, involve wealthy provinces making payments to poor provinces, although in practice this is what happens, via the federal treasury." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments

This is NOT in practice what happens. This way of framing it is popular by separatist segments in Alberta, but it's bullshit. Transfer payments come out of federal tax levies. No province is being targeted for levies. If one province has richer people and thus pay more in federal tax, then yes they will likely have a net loss in transfer payments. But this is no different than ANY federal service, whether it comes to…

Except that Quebec has additional social services that are being paid for by these levies. Child care for example. Also revenue from high income taxes often come with increased prices for residents so while two people may pay similar taxes between the provinces they can have vastly different standards of living. Not unlike here in SF where you can easily pay $35k/year in taxes and you’re barely getting by while people in other cities are paying far less taxes and they own their own homes.

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#19
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think the "heats up" in the title was very inappropriate. The humanity will likely collapse within 10 years and all we worry about is our internet speeds.

Don't you mean "appropriate"? If global climate is heating up, people will naturally move northwards in Canada and Siberia to take advantage of newly fertile farmland and moderate temps.

> people will naturally move northwards in Canada and Siberia to take advantage of newly fertile farmland

Is this the early 1900's? Farming these days doesn't require a large population - the day of family farms are few and far between. You need comparatively few people to farm an extraordinarily large area of land, so I can't see a reason why people would want to all move there for an industry they largely won't take part in.

I also doubt the moderate temperatures bit - while the average temperature will go up it will be subject to all sorts of radical weather, made more extreme by the atmospheres additional energy, and without the oceans to try and mitigate the temperature. I'm sure there will still be cold winters - moving the dial up an average of 5 C still sees the average January Fort McMurray day with a high of -5 C and a low of -17 C.

Re: Huawei heats up the battle for internet in Canada's north

#20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equalization payments: "do not, technically, involve wealthy provinces making payments to poor provinces, although in practice this is what happens, via the federal treasury." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_payments

This is NOT in practice what happens. This way of framing it is popular by separatist segments in Alberta, but it's bullshit. Transfer payments come out of federal tax levies. No province is being targeted for levies. If one province has richer people and thus pay more in federal tax, then yes they will likely have a net loss in transfer payments. But this is no different than ANY federal service, whether it comes to…

That's exactly what happens via the unequal distribution of federal income to the provinces.

We can argue that it's a good thing the program works the way it does and I'd argue, for the most part, that's true [0]. But all the programs you listed and the eq. program are net transfers from rich (and less politically powerful [1]) to poorer provinces.

It's akin to when coastal Americans bemoan that fly over Americans get net transfer of wealth from them.

[0]having lived in many US states, I kinda like knowing that NL, or NB is taken care of when they're in the dumps

[1] Being a 905er myself, let's be honest here! Quebec, between separatism and as a battleground province, can throw a hissy fit and get whatever they want (and good for them! Hate the game, not the player.)

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