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Why Canada Should Join the EU

economist.com

461–470 of 823 posts

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#461
post #107
post #66

Canada will do much better joining US (and distancing itself from declining EU and its disastrous policies). The US is much better managed; the results speak for themselves.

Interesting. How do you define "success"? Is the average American Joe really better off than the average European Joe? In the U.S., a cancer diagnosis can lead to bankruptcy, while treatment is free (or close to free) in most EU countries. Education is largely free as well, and you don't see people walking around armed like they’re in the Marine Corps. So, I'm not sure what benchmark we're using to measure this.

Not to make a point in the overall healthcare funding discussion but cancer mortality is lower in the US.

https://www.politico.eu/article/cancer-europe-america-compar...

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remigration [...] is a [...] political concept referring to the forced or promoted return of non-ethnically European immigrants, often including their descendants who were born in Europe, back to their place of racial origin, typically with no regard for their citizenship [^1] Sounds pretty racist to me. Maybe you can be clearer on what you mean by non-racist remigration? The far-right groups, which are, at least in…

I think a lot of these discussions get held up on what "racist" means to them. I don't think the native people of Hawai'i or the Maori in New Zealand wanting Americans (for the former) and Anglos (for the latter) to leave is "racist." Similarly, I don't see how Germans wanting non-Germans to leave is racist. To me, "racist" would imply the belief one is superior to the other, and that's clearly orthogonal to the remi…

Wow. Comparing colonization with 20/21st century labor migration is peak far right playing victims. I guess the people of Hawai'i and the Maori were also asked and decided in a democratic process if they want their colonizers to come in and help rebuild their economy and do the jobs no one else wants to do.

> Similarly, I don't see how Germans wanting non-Germans to leave is racist.

Wanting non-Germans to leave when they are not refugees and do not participate in society is not the problem. The problem is the definition of non-German.

It would be inhuman to not give someone either citizenship or a permanent permit residency if they worked for a long time in a country. Do people really expect guest workers to come (alone?) into a foreign country, work the shittiest jobs for 15 years and then return to their home country to start a family with 35+ years?

Also, it would not work. Germany still attracts foreign workers in some fields (e.g. nurses). If you tell them, they get to work for 15 years and then have to return, no one would come. If the indigenous people of Germania advocating for no labor migration are ok with dying in their own excrement, because there are no nurses, I guess that would be one way to solve the problem.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#463

Canada should join the European Free Trade Association instead of the EU! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Associatio...

FWIW Canada does have a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU: CETA.

I remember when CETA was ratified, and there was talk about labor mobility which got me excited. Having more options on which countries to work is always better than fewer, but I ended up in the U.S. and turns out that worked out much better for me. Others may have different views.

I was once young and had romantic notions of living in Europe, but I realized that I cultivated those notions as a student, tourist and urbanist. The realities of living in Europe are more complicated. I can still deal with the downsides (would still love to live in London), but as I've moved around and lived in more places, I realized it's not incontrovertibly true that the European lifestyle is better than in North America. Just depends what you're optimizing for.

Europe is still a good destination for the well-heeled (and with a job lined up -- but that's true for almost any developed country), but if one isn't in that situation, Europe not the paradise many young people in Canada think it is. Sure you have walkable cities, universal healthcare, social safety net, train travel to tons of interesting destinations. But you also have to deal with a lot more bureaucracy, inefficiencies, and ultimately being a foreigner in a land that is not an immigrant nation like Canada is. The cuisines in European cities are nowhere near as diverse as the cuisines available in Toronto. You can't take risks and do new things as easily. The downside of the good life is comfort -- and a lack of dynamism.

p.s. looking back on CETA after 7 years (it's still not fully in effect), it looks like the effects were largely negligible to Canadians except in niche areas because of other effects that canceled out the advantages.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Young Canadians doubly so Similar situation in Australia and US. And most of it misplaced. One major issue is trying to buy a first home where the blame goes towards immigrants. Instead of towards older generations where the problem really lies. They apply political power across multiple levels of government to affect everything from planning, taxation, inheritance which systemically prevent young people getting in…

> And most of it misplaced. I've seen that tactic to try to discredit real, valid concerns with immigration, either by lumping it with racism (which definitely exists, but is not the only argument against unfettered immigration), or by pretending something else is the problem (something else may also be a problem, but that doesn't make the problems that people are worried about with high levels of immigration invalid…

In Australia up to 70% of the cost of a home is dictated by zoning and land release issues.

70%. Thats not "Something else" thats "The majority of the issue"

Immigration is already controlled here so that its roughly just backfill for population growth targets. State governments are supposed to release enough land to meet population growth targets. They have never met these land release targets.

So "Immigration" is already meant to be factored in as one of many factors, but isn't, and that immigration is a tiny % of the overall problem.

To focus on immigration as the entire issue, as happens quite a bit here, is fundamentally racist. And quite obviously so.

I honestly couldn't give 2 shits about enclaves. I live in a region where the australian government has dumped every refugee population since the 70s and uses it as a baseline for targeted welfare studies. This worst part of living here is the halal pepperoni.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#465
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada, one cannot lump all immigrants together even those from the same part of the world. Canada used to be pretty strict on immigration only allowing highly skilled individuals from all over the world. But in the last decade this has changed to just importing as many bodies as possible. I won't go into the reasons for this change but it has dramatically altered the character of the country in this time. We have…

Canada is in a demographic crisis: The birthrate is too low, the population is aging and the country can’t afford to provide people with all of the social benefits AND have no laborers paying in to the benefit system. Importing lots of young labor rebalances the demographics and bolsters funding of benefits, at the expense of a housing crisis and social tensions. The alternative is to deeply cut benefits, which is po…

Exactly. Immigration is largely a symptom of declining birth rates. If the birth rate is above replacement, guess what, no immigrants needed!

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#466
post #8

> Europeans could learn from Canada how to allow immigration in a fashion that the population embraces rather than tolerates Clearly the author is ignorant. Canadians are sick of immigration. Young Canadians doubly so. Racism is becoming more acceptable by the day.

It's the classic thing where people are unhappy due to unrelated systemic problems and they lash out and blame the latest people to show up. Canadians are suffering due to decades on decades of poor housing policy and a continued reluctance to seriously engage in the problem. Suddenly immigrants are to blame. Never mind the fact that long ago, before this government even touched immigration numbers, or were even elec…

I'm not that familiar with Canadian economics, but doesn't Canada have a below replacement birth rate like most of the developed world?

How did they even manage to end up in a housing crisis?

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes cracking down. In a typical LPC “we’re going to reduce the number by 10% after tripling it, starting next year” fashion.

Are you my doppelganger? I made almost this exact comment word-for-word to a friend of mine a few weeks ago. Trudeau's immigration video from December [1] was one of the most dishonest, condescending productions that I've ever seen, basically amounting to, "Yes, we destroyed our previous internationally respected immigration system and imported five million low skilled laborers over a couple years without adding any…

The most shocking thing to me is the heavy involvement of McKinsey consulting in all this[1]. Feels anti-democratic to let a foreign consulting firm set immigration targets.

[1] https://thewalrus.ca/shadow-government/

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there are surely aspects of the immigration program(s) to criticize, but the racism aspect has been either totally unchanged or decreased over time, from my observation. Though, maybe that's unsurprising considering: "Vancouver is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in Canada: 49.3 percent of its residents are not native English speakers, 47.8 percent are native speakers of neither Engl…

In a, maybe not worst case, but really bad case, where there is violent conflict between the west and the PRC, how mught that play out in BC? My understanding is that a large portion of that 54.5% are from there? In the US during ww2 many Japanese business and land holdings were nationalized and then auctioned off to local business people. It seems like a work of fiction now, but such things have precedent.

> In the US during ww2 many Japanese business and land holdings were nationalized and then auctioned off to local business people.

Not just in the US. Canada has its own shameful history of that sort of thing during WW2.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Diversity is wonderful Why? You literally say on your very next sentence that it’s not - that diversity must be destroyed through integration and a melting pot. Diversity and immigration always has a cost and that’s the destruction of your existing culture in part. Sometimes that tradeoff is worth it. But you can’t overdo it. And getting pissed at the people that don’t integrate is barking up the wrong tree. They n…

I get some amusement out of people who are afraid of other cultures. Having a lot of cultures smooshed together is a culture. How do you think you got the culture you have now? Pro tip: the culture that existed when you were 12 years old might seem like it's the most emotionally 'correct' but it represents a blip in time and is no more or less significant than what came before or after it. Have some sense of perspect…

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Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#470
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Young Canadians doubly so. Racism is becoming more acceptable by the day. Always has been. Well at least in my experience in online gaming with a small portion of French Canadians.

Quebec would be a economic powerhouse if it weren’t French. One of the many reasons why.

Fewer than 25% of people in Quebec speak French fluently. Less than 1/10 use French as their primary language.
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