Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages? | Hacker News Reader

Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages?

bloomberg.com

116 pointsbreitling192 comments

TL;DR — Fishing villages [...] sent into a tailspin by a fishery collapse, oil-price slump and mounting debt that left it with Canada’s most severe fiscal and demographic crisis. The provincial government now is pushing to close places like Little Bay Islands altogether rather than service them, offering [...] at least C$250,000 ($189,000) each to leave—and spurring a bitter, three-year fight over whether to cash out or endure.

(Actually, the article is not that long, but the title is clickbait)

I thought the reason was going to be related to the increment of sea levels, as villages near the coasts will surely be affected sooner than later by the constant floods in the coming years. Anyway, I agree with the sentiment of the people mentioned in the article, it is not clear when the Canadian government will pay that money, some people with houses near the coast are retired, they just want to live a peaceful life near the sea, they don't want to relocate, so it is logical to think that this strategy of the government to offer money to leave the place will not work, at least not very well.

It's not even "the Canadian government". This was purely a Provincial scheme to lower costs.

Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another?

> Isn't a province... government? Might not be the State/Federal government, but yet surely it's government one way or another?

To me, saying "The Canadian government is doing X", is a statement about the activities of the Federal government. The use of the definite article implies singularity. A provincial government is not the Canadian government -- it's one of many in a federal system.

It might in some narrow sense be technically accurate to rewrite the headline "Texas Urges Court To Ban Enforcement Of All Federal Pro-Transgender Restroom Policies In Workplaces" to read "the US Government Urges Court To Ban Enforcement Of All Federal Pro-Transgender Restroom Policies In Workplaces", but it's misleading to the reader and drops a lot of important context. It leads to an impression of a much broader situation than actually exists.

Texas is a bad example. The US is a federation of what are essentially 50 different countries, or at least different sovereign governments. Texas is not part of the US federal government, not even a subset. It's its own government with its own constitution and areas of absolute authority (See 'states rights'). Canada is under a single sovereign, with the provincial governments being smaller pieces without absolute authorities. So to describe a provincial government as "the government of Canada" is far more accurate than calling Texas part of the US government.

There's not really much difference between the idea of states and provinces. Just like US states, they have laws and elected officials to themselves. It's the same in many other countries as well. It's pure American exceptionalism to think their "states" are somehow unique in this.

Does any other country have separate courthouses for the local and federal governments? Courthouses that hear virtually identical cases, but apply different rules of evidence and procedure depending upon in which states the litigants reside? Courthouses that literally cannot be allowed touch each other? There are four or five standard courses at US law schools virtually dedicated to state/fed splits. The American system of divided sovereigns is exceptional. It's weird.

Yes. Provincial courts are a thing in Canada in addition to Federal courts. I'm not sure about the "not touching" rule, but they are separate, because many offenses at the provincial level (i.e. not having a sign in French for your business in Quebec) aren't offenses at the Federal level.

Hell, the entire Quebec legal system is distinct from anywhere else in Canada, owing to its roots in France's legal traditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_law

Only civil law.

This is just goal post shifting. That the US and Canada draw different lines between federal and state/provincial matters does not magically make the Provincial government of Newfoundland some adjunct arm of the government of Canada. Yes, in Canada, criminal law is a purely federal matter. Things that aren't a federal matter, like civil law, or like the bloody relocation program this story was about, vary wildly between provinces.

This whole insane dispute was whether you could refer to the actions of one Province as being a program run by "The government of Canada" without hopelessly misleading any sane person into believing it was a federal program. You simply cannot. It's a massive misunderstanding of Canada's governments to think otherwise. On Provincial matters, the provinces are wholly independent and asinine pedantry about minuteau of how constitutional devolution of powers to states or provinces works doesn't change that.

> Does any other country have separate courthouses for the local and federal governments?

The very country we're discussing here, Canada, does.

Federalism is not a uniquely American institution. Canada is a federal state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federalism

No. All canadian courts are under the SCC. We have a single sovereign. So-called "provincial" courts are directly answerable to the SCC. They are not the highest courts in their provinces on any matters. The US system of state/fed courts is totally different. Take it from someone who actually practices in both.

Enumerating the rights of states in the US is hard. The things that are clearly states rights is unclear. People assert various things as being states rights, but I think they are incorrect that this is an answerable question. There is usually an assertion that something is in that category, but others will not agree. Is the right to marry with restrictions a state right or a federal right or both?

Its actually not hard, as there aren't any.

States (like all governments) don't have rights, they have powers. And those powers are usually detailed in the state constitution.

The federal Constitution limits the powers of states, assigns certain roles to the states, and reserves certain powers to them (or them and the people together), but generally the powers of the state are defined per state by the state's own foundational governing documents, just as the powers of the federal government are in its Constitution.

State constitutions regulate the relationship between the state and its people. So they do not have rights per se in that relationship. But the term "state's rights" refers to the relationship between the states and the federal government. In that case states really do have certain rights against the fed much as individual persons have rights under the US constitution. This is most clear in case where the state sues various wings of the fed, asserting their rights under the US constitution. One of the largest cases in recent years would be Shelby County[1] v. Holder that struck down much of the voting rights act. At the most basic level, states have the right to bring cases in federal courts.

[1] Shelby County is a local government, a devision of the state of Alabama under the Alabama constitution. Holder is an attorney general, an employee of the federal government and, importantly, not an elected official. Suing the prez is a very different ballgame.

Alternatively, the rights of the people of a state to choose how they are governed (along certain dimensions) without regard to the federal government.

My point (which I know you weren't directly replying to), is that there are suits and supreme court decisions that change what those rights are from time to time. At a certain time all the southern states would have said they had a right to control who could get married (like blocking whites and blacks), but was overturned in that famous case (Loving v some state I think). Similarly, the const. allows fed control of interstate commerce, yet there were endless lawsuits about what this applies to until the supremes decided it.

Then states all thought they could control what marriage meant (again, see above :-)), until they were again overruled by the supremes. I know there are rules and precedents, but I find it murky and mostly a political football (half the country is for states rights to trump the things they like and against states rights for things they don't like).

> Texas is not part of the US federal government, not even a subset.

And the government of Newfoundland and Labrador is neither a part of, nor a subset of, the Canadian federal government. As recent as the 1949 it was an entirely separate country. It is a latecomer to the Canadian Confederation.

America is not unique in its federalism.

> Canada is under a single sovereign, with the provincial governments being smaller pieces without absolute authorities.

This is completely incorrect. In point of fact, Provinces have more power than the federal government (and, in practice, more power than states do in the US). Section 33 of the charter devolves power to override the federal constitution or acts of the federal parliament to provincial legislatures. This so-called not-withstanding clause effectively grounds British-style parliamentary supremacy at the provincial level.

> And the government of Newfoundland and Labrador is neither a part of, nor a subset of, the Canadian federal government.

Name one indictable offense unique to any province.

Name one indictable offense that has force in another part of Canada but not one or more provinces.

There is a real difference between the sovereignty of a Canadian province and a US state. In Canada the federal government has substantially more legal authority. Actually, a better way to look at it is that a province has a lot less authority.

> Name one indictable offense that has force in another part of Canada but not one or more provinces.

Possession of Marijuana in BC vs the rest of the country.

Nice try :)

>>>This so-called not-withstanding clause effectively grounds British-style parliamentary supremacy at the provincial level.

Um, that is my point. All of Canada is under a single constitution and, technically, one Queen. The US has multiple constitutions, at least one of which (MA) predates the US federal. Find a Canadian province with a constitution allowing it to ignore actions of the national government, ignore without separating. I can cite dozens, hundreds of areas where US states can tell the feds to take a hike. In the community of nations, that is strange.

> some people with houses near the coast are retired, they just want to live a peaceful life near the sea, they don't want to relocate,

What about social services? We have public health care in Canada and seniors are the most expensive. Plus, with no industry where are they going to get medication and food? And it's not all seniors, the person in the article isn't leaving because he scared he won't be able to find work elsewhere.

So they also have a bunch of non-seniors they have to support as well. And no industry for them to participate in, whereas elsewhere in the province they could contribute to the economy and pay taxes. Instead of just being an economic drain on the state.

There is a reason the province decided it would be more economical to offer them money to leave than paying for the services for them to stay.

Believe it or not, not everyone wants to participate in society once they've done their fair share (retired)

I didn't say anything about seniors needing to 'participate in society' after retirement. I specifically said "non-seniors" have no industry to participate in there... which makes economic sense to relocate them.

My point related to seniors was related to the increased medical care costs required for remote poorly serviced communities. They don't even have a fire department...

I'd seriously be fine with that. I would not mind giving up all social services, especially not if I got a cashback. That said, I would expect this to come with 'no taxation in the future' as well. That said, I am not everybody.

Would you be seriously fine with the nearest grocery store being an hour away (over deteriorating roads) and it possibly being 3x as expensive? Plus, what are you going to do about garbage? People forget that is also a social service.

If they are fine with the nearest store being an hour away, who are you to judge.

A tiny group can just burn garbage, or whoever is serving that town that's an hour away can have their truck spend 2 hours every other week to come pick it up.

Garbage collection is not a social service, it is a commercial paid service in most of the world. In Europe I don't pay taxes for garbage collection, I pay the garbage company for the quantity they pick up.

In Canada, it's generally the case that your taxes go to pick up the garbage. They might hire a company to do it, but it's usually the municipal government that pays. I'm living in a co-op and we get a tax break since we contract ours separately. Even if it's a commercial paid service, how many companies are going to do that in a dying community?

Not in highrises. Residents for that on their own. Though it's a municipal issue, so it may depend on where you live.

True, but in my co-op (one 6 story building and one 3 story building) we get a tax break because we handle our own garbage. It's far less than our garbage bill, but it helps. I know because a) I used to be the co-op treasurer and b) we actually list it as a line item on our budget so everybody in the co-op can see it if they look.

In the most rural parts of the US, people don't have garbage collection at all. They compost some of it, burn some, and either drive the rest to the dump themselves or bury it on their own land.

Not that those things would necessarily apply or happen just because the collective solution would go away, but yes - I would actually be fine with that.

>> I would not mind giving up all social services, especially not if I got a cashback.

It's not your decision. The collective system collapses if everyone is given the choose to opt out. Canada isn't going to let people suffer and die along in the woods without help just because they signed an opt-out form. Nor will the country allow seniors, who control most all privately-held wealth these days, to stop paying taxes because they want to live off the grid. Everyone is connected and everyone is expected to participate because when it hits the fan, everyone rushes in to help regardless.

I've had this discussion on countless climbing/skiing adventures. A person's choice to walk into the wilderness does not mean the government can abandon them to their fate once things go wrong, no matter what they say about not wanting help.

Believe it or not there's no legal basis in the west where the government owes help to individual citizens. Protecting the good common does not in itself transfer 1-to-1 to helping Joe Blow down the street. It just happens that for the common good Joe Blow gets help. It's why cops can let a person die and still get off the hook if helping might endanger more than themselves because if their actions expand the risk to others to help a single person or a small group of people then they can be held liable for negligence. So, there's no theory in law that allows you to make the assertions you're trying to make. I strongly suggest you read on the law because I've seen people try to argue the same sort of stuff you do and find out later in court they got smacked down hard by the judge for the same reasons I've mentioned.

>What about social services?

This a pretty strong argument against social services. These people who have paid their share into society are now being to forced to move because it's convenient for the government.

Canada isn't the typical country when it comes to social services. While much of the population is concentrated in cities the rest of the country is vast, Mongolia or Siberia vast. Some areas, while not vast, are extremely rugged. The west coast of BC is thousands of islands and tiny inlets.

For perspective, draw a line between Vancouver BC and Alaska. 800km and you cross 2 connected roads, one of which being the highway to Whistler. Note all the unconnected little towns along the way. Those are the areas at issue.

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8144629,-123.3765517,7z

Regardless of funding, there are practical limitations. Nobody could ever deliver something like 10-minute ambulance services to every resident. There probably aren't enough ambulances on the planet to station one within ten minutes of every Canadian. And a good number of those would have to be airborne. Roads are not the norm for much of the north.

Why not give them the option to pay a private company for those services?

Well in the end there is nothing. I watched Mangakino in New Zealand, a town built to service a dam nearby until those jobs were either finished or given to a computer, slowly deteriorate from a being regular town in the 1980s to something more dysfunctional in the late 90s, ending with the entire town being sold in a shady business deal. First the bank shut down, then the hospital, then the gas station...

There was a lot of petty crime committed by bored young people. My grandmother was punched in the face by someone prowling around her work at 6am in the morning. A cop was murdered, etc.

Apparently the town is doing better now as a tourist location for rich people; it has a beautiful lake that is heavily polluted by an upstream paper mill and dairy farming, but it was sad watching it slowly decay a little bit every day.

Newfoundland is mostly cliffs around the ocean.

> I thought the reason was going to be related to the increment of sea levels

It's still probably a good test-case for that soon-to-be-more-common situation.

The US still can't get the last people to leave Centralia, PA. Centralia has been on fire since 1962. So I think the answer is no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

>Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to only 10 in 2010

They're probably gonna be dead soon anyway.

I've always been fascinated by these decades-long coal mine fires. Too bad they can't harness that energy somehow.

Kalapana, Hawaii had a bunch of houses directly in the potential lava flow. They only moved out when it became obvious there was no way to stop it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalapana,_Hawaii

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/lava-approaches-homes-on-hawai...

> After appeals were settled, a total of 95 residents received ballots. Ninety percent of them needed to approve the move for it to pass. That’s 86 votes. They got 85.

Seems kind of daft to make it all-or-nothing AND set such a high bar. Why weren't the 85 residents who wanted to leave allowed to participate on their own, taking the money and leaving those 10 trolls behind to enjoy living in Nowheresville?

Most likely it would be legally difficult for the government to shut off services to the area if any residents remained.

What exactly are those services? There is no public education, no fire department, there is probably nothing, but they cannot just recognize "we give you nothing but we want you to pay taxes, so move somewhere else where we can give you something so you continue to pay up". It's a tax game, not a service game.

Ferry service

Lol, since when transportation is a social service? Is there any common sense left in Canada or socialism ate it all? What is NOT a social service in Canada, providing drugs and booze for the wealthy?

Building a road to my town, even if few people live there is a standard thing that taxes pay for. I'm pretty sure there is not enough traffic for regular ferry service there, yet the govt keeps running it. Maybe they reduce it in the winter, but its there. That island would probably hardly have anyone there if there wasn't regular ferry service.

If the point of the scheme is that the government wants to stop providing services to Nowheresville, then they basically have four options:

1. status quo

2. pay 85 people to relocate, keep paying to provide services for 10 people

3. pay 95 people to relocate; 10 of them really strongly do not want to relocate, but force them to do so anyway

4. pay 85 people to relocate, leave ten people to the wolves

None of these are very appealing.

If #4 was actually the option on the table, then perhaps the nay-sayers would have changed their mind, and all would have opted to leave.

It sounds like the option of leaving 9 people to the wolves was on the table; but they didn't want to leave 10 people to the wolves.

What about stopping the services as well a stop taxing them? Then if it is viable they can stay.

Could the down-voters at least tell me why? Thx

That's not how Canada works. We're way to the left of the US. Furthermore, that's outside the power of the provincial government to do.

I understand that it's not politically viable. But I don't think that disqualifies it from a suggestion worth exploring. Politics can change, especially when the money starts running out.

Ack! I wish our political system were so flexible as to permit this sort of exploration!

It is within the power of a province to credit 100% of provincial taxes back, although I wouldn't want to try that if I was governing a "have not" province, especially if part of the deal was cutting essential services subsidized by transfer payments.

The explanation is simple: Canada is socialist. As Margaret Thatcher said, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.". The problem with Canadians is that they don't like to run out of money to support their socialism, so even suggesting to consider giving up to taxes is worse than blasphemy, it's counter-revolution.

Canada is in no way a socialist country. Perhaps the term you're looking for is "social democracy".

Tomato, tomato. Living in a former communist country that was calling itself "socialist" you can call Canada any way you want, it is socialist. I am not saying communist, that's your "democracy" difference between the two.

That's the tricky part though, it would be the provincial government that's cutting all services and leaving them to the wolves. The federal government has nothing to do with this and thus will still expect the federal taxes to be paid in full.

From the viewpoint of the residents it will be a 25% tax cut (ballpark estimate) in exchange for the stoppage of all essential services, hardly a fair deal.

That would be tricky. I think fairness depends on the value for money - it's possible that they don't need as many services that are being provided with. It's also possible they could provide for themselves cheaper - perhaps with a few lifestyle changes. In anycase it would be up to them to decide what to do. I understand that it's not a politically viable solution but I wanted to add to the list of options the idea that perhaps there is no need to force them to buy government services or force other taxpayers to bail them out.

It also sounds like the federal government is spending money to support the area - instead of spending taxpayers money on growth (churn) perhaps a rebate on their federal tax as well.

One of the main service provided to the village in the article is a ferry with a subsidized rate since it's on an island. Without ferry, there's not going to be a village.

If the village cannot survive without taxes and without a subsidized ferry then I think the answer is clearly to allow the village to disband. You'd no longer need to force other canadian taxpayers to subsidise island residences lifestyles.

I wish there was ANY government willing to do that in the entire world.

Most governments won't ever do that, because it effectively means allowing a independent nation in their lands.

For example: I am from Brazil, and I am most certainly paying in taxes much more than I get in services, police is unreliable (even simple calls to emergency number because I saw shady shit, never worked, sometimes it didn't even connected at all), fire department is also unreliable (more than once they REFUSED to come, and I had to figure on my own how to handle a fire, once this resulted in half of the trees in my yard getting killed after some asshole made a huge debris bonfire on a empty area outside my house), my family purcahsed our own telephone cables and lines (literally), we purchased our own asphalt, we rely on private security, I was 100% privately educated, my health insurance is "private" (it is a private business owned by the Roman Catholic Church), electricity belongs to a private company, our military suck (in fact, I wasn't allowed to join the military when I signed up when I was 18, with the official stated reason being: Lack of money to purchase basic training equipment).

So... what I am paying my taxes for? Taxes in Brazil are about 38% of someone income, on average (I actually pay more than that, according to my calculations my family pays about 60% of our income in taxes).

I would gadly move to a place with no public services + no taxes, to me this would be 100% profit, since right now I have no public services but still pay taxes.

I hear you. Panama and Belize are poor man's tax havens if you can work remotely with a foreign source of income. I live in Panama. I haven't seen a homeless person since leaving SF.

Err .. if you have foreign employment income in the US, you will be taxed at the source, no?

You need to be a contractor, not an employee, then a lawyer can sort it out so you're all good.

Not paying taxes does not mean an independent nation. The purpose of a government is not to collect taxes, it is to provide services the people need, want and are willing to pay for (all 3 conditions). The taxes are supposed to cover for these services, not whatever politicians want or what the neighbors vote for.

yea, right!:) that would create a dangerous precedent, when people may suddenly realize that they can organize their life perfectly well without any government. that reminds me an episode during government shutdown in US a few years ago. local services stopped cutting grass in one of the war memorials. so some veteran brought his own lawn mower and started cutting the grass. the cops showed up! they were very angry and threw the veteran out. instinctively they understood that the illusion that government is indispensable, should be maintained at all cost.

The government in a broad sense is actually any form of political structure that governs a society. When some people secede and do their own laundry, unless you assume for their new society to live in harmony without any form of political structure (anarchy), then there you have got a new government!

____________

P.S.: I haven't downvoted you.

right, but i was obviously talking about government in a less broad sense - as an entity that uses force to coerce public into submission. which is what any self-respecting government is.

please, do not confuse anarchy with absence of political structure. if people invent a structure and voluntarily agree to follow its rules, this is anarchy (in fact this is the definition of 'anarchy'). when some group within the people invents a structure and forces others to comply with it, this is government. unfortunately the term 'anarchy' has been abused and its original meaning has been long lost.

P.S.: thank you for not down-voting, but rather explaining your point of view.

So Newfoundland has been paying to relocate communities since the 1950s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_(Newfoundland)

I'm looking through the government's publications to try to understand this better. Does anyone here know if the relocation assistance includes any help relocating the community intact to a new location, or are they simply being paid to dissolve the community and leave? It would be interesting to see these folks all given neighbouring properties in a city so they can hold onto their social capital together.

http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/faq/faq_relocation.html http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/publications/relocation/Community%20...

My understanding is third hand at best, but certainly the stuff I've read / heard from the 80s talking about the first wave of resettlement was quite bitter.

"The Government Game": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/02/game.htm "The Blow Below The Belt": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/07/blowbelow.htm "West Moon": http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/01/west.htm

"To a place called Placentia, well, some of them went, And in finding a new home their allowances spent; So for jobs they went lookin' but they looked all in vain, For the roof had caved in on the government game."

"Now they're scattered like dried leaves from hell to high water..."

You see this on a smaller scale elsewhere in Canada, too. The global economy is changing, and this has a huge effect on small towns across the country. I know of a few towns that are mostly desert now that their main economic engine (either a large manufacturing plant or a mine) has closed down.

A few of them are trying to re-center around tourism, but the most successful ones I know are attracting small tech companies. They offer a lot of support, and free / cheap office space, and it seems to work quite well.

This has happened across a lot of the US (and is probably one of the reasons for Trump's popularity, given that he's promising those folks good jobs).

I'm surprised it works much at all. The main draw such places have is lower cost-of-living, but in my experience and observation, the companies that locate there pay significantly lower salaries, so you end up not having any more after-rent pay than living in a metro area. Worse, you're tied to this job, so if the job doesn't work out for some reason, now you have to pack up and move. Also, finding places to rent in such towns can be hard, and buying a house is probably a bad idea because if the town is that much on the brink, you don't want to buy something that you won't be able to sell if the company folds and the town implodes.

If anybody wants to see some dramatic pictures of past resettlement programs in Newfoundland check google images (https://www.google.ca/search?q=newfoundland+resettlement&sou...).

I wish I had seen many of these small towns when the fishing industry was thriving. They are beautiful places but they're just a shell of what they used to be. So many abandoned homes, businesses, stages. If you've got FU money there's plenty of cheap oceanview property.

They tried this in the fifties too with the out-harbour communities in Newfoundland like Fogo. Many communities disappeared but Fogo and others stayed and developed something called the Fogo Process.

It's sad really. The Marconi Tower is there. Some of the earliest settlements in North America were founded in Newfoundland. It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth to boot.

If you visit you can still find traces of the abandoned communities. Most would just float their houses towards the main island. Some were left behind. It makes for an interesting hike.

Some people out there love it. Generations going back to the 1700's have made their life on those islands. I think some portion of the population will refuse no matter how much is offered.

I actually live in Toronto and I agree real estate here is expensive.

What I don't get is WAY more expensive in places like London, Hong Kong, New York and San Francisco but I don't hear as many complaints or alarms going off in those areas. Why? Is this just me being oblivious?

Much of the conversation is really about the rate of change. San Francisco has at least as many complaints and alarms, by the way - and for similar reasons.

Some places have been very expensive for generations, so it has been normalized.

It's because Toronto is in a state of transition.

No one complains about NY, London, HK real-estate because it's already understood to be expensive in the mainstream.

But Toronto real-estate being expensive is relatively new such that you have people who grew up in Toronto not being able to afford it in adulthood.

People are slowly realizing that TO is now just another global city out of reach to the middle class unless you make heavy comprises. Give it some time, and soon people will stop complaining about being able to buy a house with a backyard here as well.

It's so cold there, who needs a backyard? You can only use it 2 weeks a year, and you'd be better off sailing.

Honestly, as a Canadian, this is what I find so dumb about our urban planning. People demand adequate house spacing, backyard space, etc... Only for it to be usable for 4 months of the year. Meanwhile, all that dead space makes our cities unwalkable in the other 8 months. I guess people are just so used to having to drive everywhere that they don't see how else it could be.

Where do you live in Canada? In southern ontario (where Toronto and most of the people are) there's no snow for 8 months out of the year. And backyards/sidewalks are really only impeded for maybe 2 months (if you're able-bodied). Meanwhile you can totally have a pool, a vegetable garden, a place for your kids to play, etc. the rest of the time.

I recently moved from an apartment to a house downtown with a tiny backyard, and it's a huge improvement. We didn't really use it in February/March. But the rest of the time it's awesome.

Where in Canada do you live, Whitehorse? Toronto is further south than most of Michigan, and folks in Michigan seem to use their yards and open space just fine for a large part of the year.

I agree that the pervasive car culture is very frustrating, but saying a backyard is only usable 4 months of the year is silly. Many of us with kids use them year round.

May-Sept is generally regarded as "spring/summer" and, while the backyard is useless half the year, it is still apparently nice to have.

I think they're a ridiculous pain in the ass and largely useless but that's beside the point -- some people still derive enjoyment from them.

It probably depends on the stage of your life. I had a house with backyard when I was single and didn't use it much.

Now, I have family and kids and totally enjoy having it even though I only get to use it 4-5 months out of the year: - kids spend a lot of time there on the trampoline - my wife has an organic garden and beautiful flowers - my dog chases rabbits and squirrels - enjoy being outside without having to go to a park (reading books, playing with my kids) - family gatherings, BBQs and etc

There's no way I'm going back to living in an apartment or even a townhouse with no backyard unless I really have to...

For folks with kids, if it is cold, the backyard becomes more useful because you can then make a backyard ice rink pretty easily.

I certainly complain about London, all the time. It's always been expensive compared to the rest of the country, sure, but the current flat-out-insane bubble prices are a comparatively recent (and deliberately induced/maintained) phenomenon.

Totally, 17 years ago a friend of a friend bought a 1 bed flat near Stratford in London for £35k... Nice 2 bed houses in Forest Gate were £65k. They weren't super cheap for the locals, but people could buy them. Now 2 bed house are £450k plus, and people are flocking to East (far east...) London because it's 'cheap' - no one who buys there now was born there.

So it has happened here too, but because the beast of London has always been pricey, then it kind of gets ignored, except by those in it and those not now quids in from the crazy prices.

I complain about London house prices all the time!

The other big issue is that there's no local economic boom driving the increase. Which is very confusing to locals -- salaries aren't going up, unemployment is fairly high, but prices are skyrocketing.

Apparently low interest rates are a big driver. If they increase then many people won't be able to afford their mortgages.

Statistically more people would be able to afford the mortgages because houses would be cheaper and wealth is on a powerlaw distribution. High interest rates is great for poor people for which their labor dominates their wealth.

High interest rates are great for buying a home. Both for the house prices falling, and for having the option of refinancing at a lower rate later. The big complicating factor is that most people buy and sell a house at the same time, and lower interest rates sound like "lower prices".

I think the wrinkle is that many people see rent as a function of mortgage payments and low interest rates and other rebates are seen as a way to lower rent and provide a win-win. Homeowners get value appreciation and renters get cheaper rent. Of course this is a temporary effect and will only persist during a period of accelerating asset price inflation - which is impossible to maintain long term.

At this point, the average million dollar home in the far suburbs of Toronto costs about 4K a month (mortgages, utility bills, etc.). A condo in a better location costs 1500 a month. We're just starting out our family (which is why we need a house, but we can also not depend on my wife's income). A 10K salary results in 6k after taxes. While we could put everything into the house, I am very very afraid to do so. When I've asked how others do it, I get crazy answers from parents helped get the downpayment down big time to unregistered rental suites. Craziest story I've heard is people buying a house and living in the basement. It all makes my head spin.

> salaries aren't going up

This. You can really see the disparity when looking at the divergence between Toronto rental prices (what people who work can afford to pay with their jobs) and purchase prices (what investors can afford to pay, which probably includes a lot of foreign investment and homeowners remortgaging their homes to invest in a 2nd).

Rental prices haven't increased nearly as much as purchase prices.

The article was more to do about the sad state of economic affairs in NL, and not the buoyed real-estate market.

I hear a ton of complaints about SF. Maybe you hear more about Toronto because it's where you are?

Poster has a point. Toronto real-estate has been said to be on the verge of collapse since 2004. It keeps growing at insane rates .. we're talking around 10% per annum (don't recall the actual figure). Also, this is despite a ton of construction .. we're talking near-China level cranes here ... any open space near subway lines turns into condos. Lots of stories of people flipping pre-construction units, waiting in line for days to put a deposit down on new construction, etc. I think Toronto is closer to Hong Kong when it comes to the real-estate game. Oh .. and for your viewing pleasure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT3YdJm6y3Y

Great video! I don't doubt Toronto is crazy, just saying that these other ones get attention to. Well, SF does, anyway.

Lots of stories of people flipping pre-construction units, waiting in line for days to put a deposit down on new construction

This has to be one of the strangest complaints, along with shadow flipping, that's come out of the real-estate debacle here in Vancouver.

Builders need to achieve 100% or near 100% sell-through on units in a project. Doing that through a pre-sell is hard, so they've traditionally offered a small discount on pre-sells. Buyers have typically been ok with committing themselves to a pre-sell because of the discount. Everyone's needs are satisfied.

If a pre-sell buyer decides to flip the property immediately, what harm is there in that? Is it that you didn't get the discount? This has exactly no impact at all on the steady-state market price of property; it's just a matter of who the builder decides to give this small one-time discount to.

Worse, it's a distraction from the real reason that real estate has become so expensive in Vancouver and Toronto, which is foreign investment. The BC government imposed a foreign investor tax here and the market is now in a slow-motion collapse; I've been watching about 2 dozen detached houses on realtor.ca and none of them have sold. Some have already dropped their asking price by about 100k-200k and they're still on offer.

If you want a real solution to housing prices, kick out the foreign speculators.

If a pre-sell buyer decides to flip the property immediately, what harm is there in that

http://www2.jurock.com/articles/columnist.asp?id=9370

But in 2008, worldwide financial markets tanked and with it condo markets in Vancouver. By December 2008, some 200 presale unit owners were offering their contracts on Craigslist - often at a loss. (On March 20, 2012 there were just 39.) When that did not work, many simply did not complete the deal and lost their deposit. Some lost not only their deposit, but where the price of the unit had fallen they were sued by the developer for the difference (developers won in many cases).

Needless to say, developers once burned have now tightened up the contracts. Buyers must realize that developers get their financing on the basis of pre-sales and rightfully expect and deserve all pre-sales in their development to complete.

Also, you then have issues with insider buying/selling etc. It's just not worth the hassle for the developers.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2823397/vancouver-pre-sale-condo-m...

I don't quite understand; this column simply re-iterates what I said.

So, the pre-sale game changed. But probably for the better.

Builders offer the 'pre-sale discount' because they're trading return for security; they need to sell-through on the units they're building. If a bunch of the pre-sell buyers then flake-out and decide not to pay, the builders are in a hole.

The point that I'm making is that this has no effect on the trajectory of prices; its merely a small discount on the market price for those units. Pretending that this is a key driver of prevailing market prices doesn't help anyone; if the market wasn't already rising feverishly then 'shadow-flipping' and 'pre-sale flipping' would carry more risk and you'd lose money as often as you made it.

In Toronto, I heard stories of brokers buying 5-10 pre-release condos and selling them all before taking possession. These people didn't have cash to pay more than the deposit and became millionaires overnight. I don't know how pervasive this was though. There are not too many asset classes where one can pull this off .. so I guess kudos to those people.

I think having tighter contracts to keep people from weaselling out of their pre-sale commitment is a Very Good Thing; anyone who makes a such a commitment should be bound to it.

But here in Vancouver there are people who are upset that pre-sales sometimes don't include the general public. There are builders who've restricted pre-sales to friends and families, and this is perceived as 'unfair'; when these units do show up on the market, they'll be more expensive than the pre-sale price (of course! they no longer get the discount and the market rose in the 8 months that it took to finish the project!). I think there are Vancouverites who then assume that this difference is cumulative across the market and that it is the cause rather than the symptom of the ridiculous increase in cost of housing here.

This is equivalent to betting on the margin — the downside is that you end up holding a contract that commits you to paying for the whole condo, and if you can't get rid of that contract when the market goes down or you become incapable of paying, the developer will sue you (see above comment about what happened in 2008 in Vancouver).

This is not easy to do. Most developers in Toronto will not allow you to post on MLS before possession. And many will not even allow reassignment (change the name of who will own the condo).

When I visited New York with some people who had friends there, I heard multiple times each day how expensive it was. They talk about it plenty amongst themselves.

And the only people I've heard about Toronto expenses from are my relatives living there, and a few people on the internet.

Whenever I heard about jobs in the big cities, I always hear someone remind people that living expenses in general are higher there, and to be careful of the salaries and what they're really worth.

There's been a lot of complaining about house prices in London for very many years.

Those articles tend to stay in the UK though.

I think it has to do with local incomes and land area. The GTA is massive when considering land area. Incomes don't compare to places like SF and NY. Although I might be wrong on the income front. A friend of mine remarked that lawyers and bankers in TO may be making 300K+. So maybe I'm wrong about local incomes being depressed.

This is a big part of it. It's not that the cities are expensive, it's that they're so unaffordable. This is especially so in Vancouver where the average income (~C43k)[1] is lower than Toronto, and yet prices are higher.

The large disparity between local incomes and housing prices is a major reason why there is so much attention on the implications of foreign capital on Vancouver's housing market. It seems like there hasn't been as much concern or interest in Toronto, but there probably should be.

[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/for-vancouver-hou...

Vancouver real estate is the way it is because it has been targeted by Chinese ponzi schemes, bank fraud schemes, and money laundering:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/vancouver/out-of-...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/vancouver/canadia...

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/chinese-police-run-...

Alas, another victim of media hype.

It's fascinating watching the carnage on mls now, with the 15% tax in place. No one can sell their houses now. And everyone seems to have a story about holding an open house that no one attends. The money is just gone.

It's just like the market collapse back in the late 80's when interest rates climbed into the double-digits; no discretionary seller wants to lower their price from $1.3 million when that was a feasible offer 2 months ago, but no one wants (or rather no one is left) to offer that price. The market just seizes and eventually non-discretionary sellers are left to define the market.

It doesn't look like TO will implement the foreigner tax. Just hear talk but no action. Frankly, the amount of the tax is so tiny, it makes me believe that there is something else afoot. In any case, I'm dreaming of the day housing becomes affordable in Canada once again.

Frankly, the amount of the tax is so tiny, it makes me believe that there is something else afoot.

It won't make any difference at all to the dozen or so billionaires who are looking to buy their Nth house in Vancouver. But it has devastated the detached housing market below $5 million here and that will ultimately put pressure on condos and townhouses. I think the only reason it's working is that TO and Seattle don't have a similar tax; Vancouver has made itself less attractive, but only marginally so.

Finance and law associates here make $80-100k including incentives. SW devs $60-100k. $300k+ CAD would be for partners, top sales people and consulting/law rainmakers.

Well .. then I'm not sure how anyone affords a 2.5 million dollar detached home pretty much from Yonge and Finch to Yonge and Bloor. I mention the subway lines cause working people typically have to get to work :-p

Because they bought it when it was worth $700k with two working partners making the income I mention about. Toronto Life and Globe and Mail both frequently interview people about their personal financial situation. With a few high earning exceptions, mostly it is because they bought 10 years ago and are drowning in debt and/or sold their existing property. Very few people, even well-educated, dual-earning high-self-discipline couples, are really "entering" the market for houses. Depending on earning power my friends continue to live at home through 20s (low), rent an apartment or condo (mid) or buy a condo (high). That is about where it falls for people in their 20s here, similar I imagine to other world centers.

What I don't get is WAY more expensive in places like London, Hong Kong, New York and San Francisco but I don't hear as many complaints or alarms going off in those areas. Why?

Those places have always been expensive to my memory, and I'm not a young man. But Toronto? Expensive? Get outta here! And if Toronto is anything like Vancouver, BC, you get the same expensive housing as (places with which I'm familiar:) Seattle and SV with 60% of the salary.

Also, regardless of the expense, NYC, SF and the like are where you go to get your "big break" or what have you. Sure, you'll pay $2000/month for a closet, but if that audition goes well you'll be on your way. Toronto? Fine city, last I was there. It's not, however, top of my list of cities when I imagine myself packing up to seek my fame and fortune.

Given that 46% of the population of Toronto are immigrants, presumably many, many people disagree with you about the attractiveness of the city as a place where you pack up and move to seek fame and fortune.

I was considering moving from Toronto to London to pursue a job at DeepMind, and that sure put Toronto prices into perspective!

I'm an American, so take what I say with a grain of salt... but maybe part of it is that Canada has a small population but a large land area.

There's basically four major cities a Millenial would consider: Vancouver, Toronto, Monteal, and Ottawa. (And I've heard the latter crapped on even by Canadians.)

Montreal is lovely, but if you're an Anglophone.

Compare with the United States: New York is a large city, but I could live in Philadelphia if I wanted to go slightly cheaper. If Seattle is to expensive, there's Portland.

It seems to me that basically everyone who wants to live in the "big city" seems to either cram themselves into Vancouver or Toronto. (Ottawa didn't seem to have the level of bustle I'd expect for a capital compared to say, London or DC)

So basically, the TL;DR is people in NYC or SF choose to be there. You basically pick a climate, then pick a price range.

What is holding people from Vancouver off to move to Portland?

Social services like health care, I'd assume.

It's not as easy as you'd think to immigrate from Canada to the US. (Especially since it's difficult to be considered a rockstar ninja whatever if you went to a very good school like University of Toronto instead of Stanford)

I do know. I've been trying to find a job and I have an Engineering Ph.D. from University of Waterloo which is considered one of the best in the country. Companies in the US often hire from UW (Microsoft has traditionally been a big hirer), but I'm overqualified in one sense, but I don't have the work experience people want.

CS PhD in Engineer? If interested in Seattle, there are new hires for phds at Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook. Lots of other companies would hire you, but those places hire lots of new phds. Mine was a top 30 us, so basically invisible, and I had lots of companies trying to hire me.

Not in CS, it was in Systems Design Engineering. My Ph.D. was more mechanical than anything. My Master's had a big CS component as I was affiliated with the computer graphics lab (my Master's co-supervisor was part of the lab until he retired to look after his wife). I did most of the numerical CS courses and all the CS computer graphics courses.

There's not much call for my particular skill set, unfortunately. I interviewed for a position in Google X, but it was a very strange interview and I didn't get past that, despite giving a very thorough answer for the pre-interview problem they posed.

There are lots of non-cs majors programming these days. I sometimes meet people who are sharp but lacking in some fundamentals. If you are having trouble getting a job, I encourage you to make the investment to get a masters in CS. You already have most of the work and I'm sure that sounds terrible, but that would catapult you into being incredibly employable, instead of being irritated at near misses. I know a lot of EE who ended up as devs, but that's a hard thing to do as a start.

I was co-supervised by a professor in CS for my Master's degree and during my Ph.D. I did most of the CS numerical programming courses (and I did most of the computer graphics courses during my Master's). There won't be many CS courses for a Master's degree that I'd be interested in. Plus, I'd be forced to take a number of undergrad CS courses just to meet their requirements.

A big problem I have now is that I'm overqualified for a lot of jobs. Getting another grad degree probably won't help. To be honest, if I was to get a CS degree, I'd probably go straight for the Ph.D. instead. There's some things in computer graphics I'd love to explore. Unfortunately, the prof I'd want to supervise me left and is now working at Intel last I checked.

Why don't they form a partnership like the EU is? Who is the opposing factor?

As a German I think it is beautiful that moving to Austria or Switzerland is basically the same as moving inside Germany. Depending on where you live, the cultural differences inside Germany might even be higher.

After that there are the English speaking countries, with a low language barrier, then the countries with very high English or German fluency (Netherlands, nordic countries etc.), which would make it easier in the beginning and the South, mostly chosen by the elderly to go on permanent vacations.

When the East keeps growing economically, it might become another great option, even for people without global customers. There are some culturally interesting cities with a good standard of living and dirt cheap prices.

I would advise Americans and Canadians to create something similar, it is great.

There is a big culture difference.

There's possibly a couple of other cities. Kitchener-Waterloo (which is close enough to Toronto) and maybe Calgary. KW has the University of Waterloo which has spawned a number of companies including Blackberry, although SF (and Microsoft in Seattle) have been luring people south. Google did start an office here, though.

I've lived in Ottawa and it's big selling point for me is the various national museums. I used to love going to the National Art Gallery simply because of its architecture, but I did see an excellent retrospective on Escher (including a presentation by a guy who tried to take picture of places where Escher did drawings of) and one on Renoir's portraits. Skating on the canal is pretty big in the winter in Ottawa. A friend of mine commutes to work by skating on it. You're right in that it's not as busy as London or DC, though. I consider that a plus, but that's just me.

Montreal is beautiful, but you'd better learn to at least attempt French as you'll be treated better by the shops and restaurants for it. Other pluses are: the jazz festival, the comedy festival, and the F1 race. My sister and her family moved there in January as their jobs in Toronto were being phased out.

What, no Newfie jokes?

On a more serious note: there's a tectonic shift going on in the US too, it's just not as stark. Young'uns are moving to the cities enmasse, resulting in skyrocketing rents in places like SF, Seattle. The old American Dream of having a McMansion out in the 'burbs has largely died out. Now people prefer the urban areas.

> What, no Newfie jokes?

"How many Newfies does it take to screw in a light-bulb?"

"Don't screw in that light bulb - the power-grid can't take the extra load!"

Every time I hear McMansion now I'm reminded of this recent submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286724

Great read, but probably off-topic.

Agree its a great read! It is related because it discusses the underlying demand and what drives the "McMansion" living style

> Now people prefer the urban areas.

That's not new. What also isn't new is that when those same people get married and have kids, they'll be looking to move out of that urban environment.

And all of that is completely unrelated to what the article is about.

I think it is releated. The economic factors that have shifted jobs away from the land and into the cities are the same ones that attract young people to the cities.

The article is about the government wanting to close towns because it is too expensive to provide services that they must to citizens that live there. It's not about people moving from small towns to cities because they want different types of jobs.

You don't think those phenomena might be related?

No, the issue in Newfoundland is the collapse of the fisheries, not because more kids went to college. This isn't towns having an issue because more kids don't want to do fishing, this is because there are no fish to bring in.

Somewhere it's the collapse of the fisheries. Somewhere else it's shuttering of factories. And somewhere else it's consolidation of farming. Basically, it's the same thing: dwindling opportunities in the rural areas, and growth in the cities.

People are also having less children which lessens the pressure to exit the city.

It's amusing how HN as a community seems to have conveniently forgotten about the move-to-the-city trope, where small-town kid dreams of moving to the Big Apple/Hollywood and making his/her mark on the world.

What also isn't new is that when those same people get married and have kids, they'll be looking to move out of that urban environment.

What is new is that people are getting married and having kids much later, or not at all, and so they're staying in urban areas for much longer.

From what I see in Seattle, young people are moving in to the city, but middle-aged people are moving out. Just try buying a mean house in the suburbs around here. The competition is crazy.

Sure, the ratio of IN:OUT probably leans toward IN, but I wouldn't say (at least around Seattle) that the desire to live in the bubs has died out.

I don't know if they prefer urban areas but you have to go where the jobs are. It still sort of sucks that, as a developer, I can literally work remotely anywhere but in reality I have a downtown job and try to live less than an hour commute away.

It's funny, as a young'un I felt the draw to the city and have worked in some of the greatest cities in the world. Now I'm still not old, but I find myself drawn to places like this. I feel like they could turn their slump into a booming tourism trade. There's nothing like the ocean and the large majority of people only ever get to see it on vacation. I grew up next to the ocean and even in a city where we have easy access to the great lakes, it's not the same. With a remote-work job and the ability to provide your own food year round, it could be a beautiful place to live, and could even thrive on tourism during peak season meaning you're not so reliant on remote-work in the off-season.

I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that.

> I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that.

It's tough. This isn't "the suburbs", this is way way off the beaten path. Six-and-a-half hours one way, by car, to St Johns, which at 70k people is still a pretty small and rural city by most standards. You're a couple of days away from anything resembling Big City living.

The local talent pool is more or less non-existant, so you'd either have to accept remote workers (in which case you're not saving the town population-wise, but you're at least stabilizing the tax base), or you'd have to pay above SF rates to convince people to move out to the middle-of-nowhere instead of SF, where they'd have a much lower risk of finding another job if the company stops paying the bills. And access to actual amenities.

The cheap housing will help a bit in recruiting, especially among people with young families or older Devs who aren't traditionally the target of startups, but the lack of anything remotely resembling a nightlife or entertainment options (maybe there's a local watering hole in town that doubles as the only restaurant) is going to turn a lot of people off. And that's not even getting into the one-room "school" situation, the fact that the nearest hospital is so far away they need to air-evac you if you become ill, etc. It's a tough, remote life unlike anything most urban dwellers would be used to.

And god knows what kind of internet connectivity even exists out there.

Great points! Thanks :) I didn't look and didn't realize it was that far from St Johns (I'm in Ottawa and my east coast knowledge is laughably poor).

I'm in Edmonton and I promise you mine is at least as bad. I just took the drive times off google maps.

The problem with software companies is rarely rent. It's attracting talent. You'd have to offer something pretty special as a software company to get people to move to the middle of nowhere like that, especially if such a place has their schools closed.

Combination company and techno-utopian cult? Tech Kibbutz?

You can't have a tech company that's as isolated from the rest of the world as an old school kibbutz. No fiber, no life. If there were a massive government-funded effort to get fiber to every last bit of the country then it might work.

Well, you could take the VC money you'd spend on Silicon Valley rent and salaries, and use that to bring fiber to that area.

Somebody has. My current employer contracts out to a software consulting shop in Fredericton, which is the boonies to us (Boston area) but still the big city to those island dwellers. The other day I had the pleasure of meeting a pair of my Canadian colleagues, who had taken the drive down, in person.

The problem is, without an urban hub it becomes difficult to foster the sort of connections it takes to accelerate a company to the sort of fast growth that's expected of today's unicorn-oriented startup economy. So you haven't heard of any of the software shops in NB or PEI, because they're all small, and if one is destined to become big it'll take some time.

I used to visit relatives in Kenora, Ontario a couple of times a year. On day 1-3 of the visit I'd think of buying property and running a remote software company. By day 5 or so, I'd be homesick.

Really remote communities are quite different. Nature actively tries to kill you and you spend a lot of your time just dealing with that. Also, with respect to kids, everyone's in the same school. So, you can't really segregate based on socie-economic or educational background of the parents.

> Nature actively tries to kill you and you spend a lot of your time just dealing with that.

Hahahaha that's what makes it awesome! :D

I'm presently adjusting to the complete lack of decent internet speeds. That has been my single biggest issue with moving to the country. As soon as I figure out alternate methods to delivering my work, I'll be a much happier person.

My parents live about a half hour from Belleville which itself has decent Internet. But, where they are they're basically stuck with cellular. They have a WiFi-Cellular modem that they use. Unfortunately, they have a tiny data cap for people who would use it as their main Internet service. I think they upped it to 10GB.

Hell, I'd love to move to Newfoundland, but even so there's no way you'd ever get me to move to somewhere as isolated as Little Bay Islands. 6.5 hours to drive to St. John's? It's faster to fly from Toronto...

(Edited to add: thought I should say why. Besides fantastic scenery and wonderful people, the traditional music scene there is amazing. St. John's may be a fairly small city (100K), but there are more traditional sessions an easy walk from downtown than there are within an hour's drive of Detroit. Actually, possibly about the same number as in metro Toronto? It's just insane. Hell, last time I was there I was walking back from playing one session and got roped into joining a party of strangers who had an accordion and guitar going on the back porch.)

I think the harsh weather must be a big factor - I visited in June and it was still quite cold and windy. Lots of icebergs even. I'm surprised the article didn't mention this.

We saw some other tourists, mostly from nearby Canadian provinces. But from what I heard, there's almost zero tourism in the other seasons.

> On a more serious note: there's a tectonic shift going on in the US too, it's just not as stark. Young'uns are moving to the cities enmasse, resulting in skyrocketing rents in places like SF, Seattle. The old American Dream of having a McMansion out in the 'burbs has largely died out. Now people prefer the urban areas.

Popular public opinion but not actually true: http://web.archive.org/web/20160327033112/http://blogs.wsj.c...

One of my new favorite shows on Vice actually did a show about how abandoned Newfoundland is. They pointed out the over fishing of the area then the government banned fishing outright which started the collapse.

https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/Newfoundland-Coast/57bddb...

The way your (brief) sentence is written it sounds as though the government is given a good deal of credit for imposing the moratorium, whereas there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that they consistenly mis-managed it. It looks as though a combination of poor ecological models, concentration on simple resource production statistics, consulting only with large capital holders instead of small, local stakeholders led to this avoidable collapse.

Over-fishing in the maritimes was mostly as a result of "free-trade" liberalisation including transferable/sellable fishing licenses which led to a decrease in small, family operations and an increase in massive, mortgaged industrial fishing operations.

The small family business typically engaged in long-lining (single lines with multiple hooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing ) which did not require great capitalization/debt. These business became non-viable as larger operations flooded the market with fish caught by dragging -- a method which leads to the destruction of the seabed ecosystems which in turn decreases the catchable population.

This is one of the good references on the topic, pretty readable (Dean Bavington, _Managed Annihilation_, 2010 UBC Press): http://www.ubcpress.ca/books/pdf/chapters/2010/ManagedAnnihi...

Thanks for the link to the book, it looks like an excellent read. I'll be digging into that tonight.

Yes, the show points out exactly what you say. There was an increase in large scale, industrial fishing using huge trawling boats that quickly depleted the resources.

It seems this is an ongoing theme - as humans we just think natural resources will never run out.

> While she’s optimistic that the country can build a new economic base, she said it’ll happen only if Canadians “stop over-relying on the extraction of resources or, even worse, selling off our land.”

This Canadian seems to believe that, in some real or legal sense, the land belongs to her and Canadians in general.

But "Canadian land" truly belongs to anyone in the global real estate market with sufficient cash. This is also true in the US.

I think people would be better off if they clearly recognized this reality. It isn't "your" country. Let that notion go. It's hurting you. There's no "you" there. Fly. Be free.

Government is the guarantor of property rights. If the current government was overthrown do you think the new government would necessarily need to honor your deed?

Government guarantees property rights, full stop. It doesn't matter what the nationality of the owner is.

It's only reality because it's policy, which can change.

And then, there is this http://www.offgrid-living.com/2016/09/canadian-town-will-giv...

On the opposite end of Canada, in Vancouver, $250K CAD is enough of a down payment to get a parking spot where you can park a portable kids' play house from Home Depot or Rona, without having to pay mortgage loan insurance.

However, in the maritime provinces, with $250K CAD you can actually buy (completely pay for) a fully detached property with a decent house in an urban location.

I'd take the money and run while it's there for the taking. They are probably not going to up the offers for those who stubbornly wait it out.

Am I the only one to think "wow, those are some very scenic villages that would probably be great for tourism" ?

What's with the GIGANTIC title and header fonts on this page. The one on the bottom even has some bouncing animation associated with it.

The page probably needed to "pop" more, so the designers added a little more zazz to it.

I could see that being in a management email, with "please advise" at the bottom.

It's an unfortunate side effect of us humans leaning so much on visual stimulus. Huge text and a large image works great at catching peoples attention, which translates into more page views.

If I remove the huge image and use a very "simple" stylesheet for this article, you get a very functional but much less catchy looking page: http://nacr.us/media/pics/screenshots/screenshot--11-20-16-2...

Thankfully, there are plenty of pieces of software for presenting web pages in these greatly simplified forms.

"but the title is clickbait"

Almost every Bloomberg title is clickbait [1]. Probably Bloomberg should be flagged for title correction.

Perhaps: "Canadian government offering relocation to homeowners from some declining villages"

Financial news readers may enjoy Reuters, which has far less irritatingly misleading titles.

[1] source: Bloomberg.com

Yes, Bloomberg, I've hated them for a while now. Electrons not worth lining a bird cage.

We've updated the title and detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557290 and marked it off-topic.

The problem with doing it like this is that I was an inch away from replying to the very top comment that still calls the title clickbait. I had to reach the very bottom of the page to realize that was talking about a different title.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com