Why Canada Is Able to Do Things Better | Hacker News Reader

Why Canada Is Able to Do Things Better

theatlantic.com

46 pointsbrandonhall49 comments

Canada is far from perfect. We too have infrastructure deficits, the city I live in suffers from incompetent city planning (although recently it's gotten better), our house prices are insane, and the cost of living is very high.

That being said, the one thing I think Canada does 100x better is politics. Mainly because Canadians generally don't 'belong' to a political party or movement. Almost everyone here will vote almost any direction, depending on the issues at hand and happiness with the status quo. Identity politics is also non-existent here. This leads to a political class which is somewhat more pragmatic, less ideological, and certainly less extreme.

Also, at lower levels of government, politicians are more likely to be unaligned with any party, and at the provincial level the political parties vary by province and most aren't aligned with the federal parties.

So in general, I'd say Canada's advantage is simply that politics isn't as stratified. But again, while our country is amazing IMO, it's not perfect.

"Mainly because Canadians generally don't 'belong' to a political party or movement. Almost everyone here will vote almost any direction, depending on the issues at hand and happiness with the status quo. "

That's the number one thing that's bugging me in the US and I think is hurting the US a lot. The parties have managed to become so entrenched that people think they have to follow their chosen party instead of thinking about issues themselves.

Not entirely true. Canada has "conservatives" and "everybody else". We get a lot of american media here which unfortunately poisons a lot of our political debates.

  Canada has "conservatives" and "everybody else".

Not at all. Just because there is only 1 party with the word "conservative" in their name does not reduce it to a binary system with no tangible differences within the different parties. I do agree with the USA's political poisoning - it's a shame when we see "political trends" move home.

I'm in BC and we definitely have identity politics and polarized parties. It's not as bad as the US today, but it's there. Comparable to the US in the 90s maybe. Also BC leans heavily left which I'm not such a fan of. Maybe it seems less ideological to leftist but that's just because it's their ideology.*

* Not saying this about OP, just that I've observed that bias generally.

BC has had a conservative government for over a decade and the most recent election split things almost 50/50.

Canada has big areas that are pretty consistent in how they vote, and identity politics do play a role. This is not as consistent as it is in areas of the U.S., but there are definitely a large number of ridings where upsets are rare.

That being said, the biggest difference between Canadian politics and U.S. politics (at the Federal level at least) is campaign contribution limits. For non-Canadians, individual donations to political parties is capped ($1,550) and election campaign spending is also capped. In Canada you can't simply out-fund-raise and out-spend your opponents. This limits the influence of corporations and the ultra-rich, at least a little. Campaign spending is still climbing rapidly and I'd personally like to see campaign spending limits ratcheted downwards.

The Canadian system is not perfect. Shadowy PAC's, ostensibly funded by third parties or even foreign interests, do exert undesirable influence. Lobbyists ply their trade in Ottawa the same as anywhere else. However, the Canadian system seems to result in governments that represent the will of the people to a larger degree than we've seen in the U.S. lately. B.C. on the other hand...

--------------

As for big government vs low taxes... Ultimately, stuff has to get built somehow. In the U.S., private interests often wind up owning infrastructure that would be public in Canada. The results of this are frequently perverse. Let's go back to that bridge for a moment... Canada offered to pay for the bridge, and here's an ad that came out against letting Canada build that bridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v93ii7eKjjo

Why is this ad trying to make voters suspicious of a "free bridge"? Look no further than the person who funded that ad: Manuel Moroun. Why does he care about free bridges? He owns the ambassador bridge, a toll bridge that the "free bridge" would have competed with. Having a bottleneck to traffic is bad for the local economy, but great for Moroun. If the bridge hadn't been "free" and the opposition a little more subtle, it very well might not have been built. This is likely a big contributing factor to the infrastructure building paralysis in areas of U.S. that aren't adjacent to Canada's border.

> our house prices are insane, and the cost of living is very high

are you from Toronto or Vancouver? In Montreal (and Quebec in general), this is not true.

> "Much of the surrounding road and rail infrastructure is in even worse shape (the trip from LaGuardia Airport to midtown Manhattan being particularly appalling). Washington, D.C.’s semi-functional subway system feels like a World’s Fair exhibit that someone forgot to close down. "

Yes, those low tax, anti-government strongholds of NYC and DC are great examples of how more taxes will solve everything.

"low tax, anti-government strongholds of NYC and DC"

Compared to the author's Ontario, Canada? Yes, they are.

Put $100k into each of these:

http://www.ey.com/ca/en/services/tax/tax-calculators-2017-pe...

https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-york-tax-calculator#iCk2xoX...

Then add another ~3.5% for living in NYC. There's at worst on almost equal footing. More than likely the person in NYC will pay more.

Ontario has the largest non-sovereign debt anywhere. In the world... If you are looking for example for a solid economic policy Ontario should be the farthest thing from.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/with-twice-th...

The yearly budget of New York City is around 85 billion dollars.

Adjusting for the exchange rate and using my own salary as a test, my income tax in Ontario is double that of somebody living in NYC.

Also our sales tax is 13% in Ontario versus 8.875% in NYC.

From what I can tell residential property tax rates are pretty similar.

How did you calculate the income tax in both places?

If I put $100,000 US dollars in this[1] calculator I get an income tax rate of 34% for central park west in NYC (not including the employer side of FICA, which would at another 7.5% for a total of 41%).

If I put $126,000 into this[2] calculator, I get an income tax rate of 31% of Ontario. Maybe there are other Canadian income taxes that this calculator does not account for? I'm American and don't know the details. The EI (Employment Insurance) is also taken out in America, but not usually included as an income tax.

[1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-york-tax-calculator#UYCGKmA... Total income: $100,000 Federal $17,443 FICA $7,650 State $5,610 Local $3,234 Total Income Taxes $33,937

[2] https://simpletax.ca/calculator Total income $ 126,000 Federal tax $ 22,752 Provincial tax $ 12,511 CPP/EI premiums $ 3,400 Total tax $ 38,664

Funny. As a Canadian, I look to (and moved to) America to achieve. I find our government, at many levels, to be very slow moving, averse to change and frequently lags behind the US in allowing innovation. Vancouver's down-right refusal to consider ride-sharing apps is nothing short of corruption. The archaic alcohol laws, including prohibition of transport of booze across borders (except for made-in-Canada wine, gotta protect your favoured industries!) is another example.

Looking north across the border, it's easy to see a greener field, but Canada has suffered a decades of brain-drain and poor multi-factor productivity because of slow, restrictive government policy and a refusal to embrace innovation. It's a shame it takes this long to enact change.

I was traveling in Illinois many years ago with some locals and we passed a county were supposedly prohibition is still in effect. So not sure about US being ahead of Canada there. I'm not a big fan of alcohol but it's now sold in supermarkets in BC and there's a million micro-breweries so I don't think we're that much behind in this questionable industry. People here (and in the US) seem incapable of drinking responsibly and that impacts others so not sure why we should worry about providing them with easy/cheap booze.

In Vancouver I'd point to the homeless issue is the biggest problem. After the weather ;)

All in all I think Canada strikes a good balance. Possibly one of the best in the world. If the weather was better we'd be ahead of the US in all parameters ...

>Canadians tend not to talk about making their country great again. Canada never was particularly great—at least not in the sense that Trump uses the word. Unlike Americans, Canadians haven’t been conditioned to see history in epic, revolutionary terms.

To be fair to Americans... once upon a time, they really were were that far ahead of everyone else. In 1945, it's estimated they constituted over 50% of the global GDP. You are the global economy at that point, and that's going to distort anyone's perception of what constitutes fiscal propriety. Most politicians were born either during this golden age, or a bit after when things were still very rosy. The US still represented 40% (edit: of gdp) even when relatively young politicians, like Barack Obama, came into the world. It's difficult to convince someone he can't just cut taxes to generate more good will with the electorate when, for most of his professional life, the economy was so good he could do just that and not seriously hurt anything.

This argument has always interested me:

"Because Canadian entrepreneurs can quit their day jobs without their spouse losing access to dialysis, or their children losing access to pediatricians, such a system allows business-builders more professional freedom."

Does the data show that countries with single payer, or even individual-based (not employer) health care, have greater percentages of entrepreneurs? How about overall entrepreneurial outcomes?

Don't know, but I do know that the SV model seems to be principally based around Ivy League kids who already have that kind of safety net in place.

That's a good question, but probably impossible to answer due to the US's peculiarity. From Wikipedia's list [1], it appears that the US is one of only a handful of countries with employer contribution. All of the others countries I could see are noted as using employer contribution as secondary, where a very large percentage of US coverage has employer contribution as primary or only.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_systems_by_country

> Does the data show that countries with single payer, or even individual-based (not employer) health care, have greater percentages of entrepreneurs? How about overall entrepreneurial outcomes?

It's worth noting that the quote from the article and this question are not at all the same thing. National economies are big complicated things.

Aside from the USA, few countries without+ universal healthcare have high rates of what we in the US would consider entrepreneurial activity (e.g., excluding "self-employed" subsistence farmers and the like). But the USA is one of if not the most entrepreneurial country. Again, those two facts tell us basically nothing about the effect of health care systems on entrepreneurship. Trust me, South Sudan's lack of functional universal healthcare is not the reason they haven't usurped SV...

People try to study the actual effect by controlling for other variables. Unsurprisingly, "it's complicated" and also EXTREMELY politicized, so you can find studies on both sides of the issue.

+ But does the US "not have" universal healthcare? cf Canada/western Europe and the answer is yes, but cf other countries and medicare/medicaide and the answer is more fuzzy.

I think Germany has a much lower percentage of entrepreneurs, but because of general averseness to risk, not because of health care.

I've never heard (anecdata!) that health care would be a deciding factor for founders in Germany. In general you can keep your normal state-level health insurance though.

If this article inspires anyone to finally move to Canada, there's lots of startups here in Toronto that are hiring. Also Amazon is hoping to fill 200 more desks this year in their Toronto office and Google is nearby in Waterloo.

Happy to help anyone interested.

As an addendum; the bar is extremely low for developers in Canada. If you show up on time, smell nice, and put on a smile, you will be lauded with awards, compliments, raises, and time off.

I wouldn't necessarily say the bar is low... but I feel like the work culture is certainly much healthier here.

How do I contact you, mabbo? Or should I ask here directly? I'm interested. Actually this thread is a great coincidence as I decided yesterday that I'm going to invest the next months to reallocate to another country and Canada is on the top of my list (I'm Brazilian). My biggest doubt is: should I look for a job from here in Brazil or it would be better to go to Canada first and look there? I'm a 29 years old self-taught developer, programming for a living since 12 with some international clients/employers.

I'm interested :), are people from Brazil welcome?

Share your email.

I am a UI designer in the States, and I've been working on moving to Toronto to be with my partner. I was going to keep my US job, and work remotely, but boy, it'd sure be easier with a Canadian job offer.

You might try WealthSimple. Not sure if they need ui designers specifically, but they're hiring like mad right now, and seem to care about good design.

Specifically, it is imagined that even severe and abruptly implemented tax cuts will serve to actually increase government revenue, thanks to the turbo-charging effect on economy growth.

- a conservative

> Denmark, with a tax burden of 49.6 percent, stands atop the OECD index. It also happens to be a wonderful place to live, with a high standard of living funded by a diversified, high-tech, export-driven economy.

Denmark is NOT a wonderful place to live. It is a stable society where everyone is equally poor except the tax dodgers. Furthermore, the climate is more bleak than Seattle. This article makes Denmark seem like THE place to be. It clearly is not. Just look at where the economic migrants are flocking to. That would be Germany. Furthermore, this article is a blatant propaganda piece. "More government is good for you" is the overriding mantra here. There is no discussion of the downsides of increasing taxation on the population at all. Instead, it is a pure puff piece which is engineered to make Canada seem great because of taxation. The reality is that the Canadians are functionally isolated from the United States. They decide their own policies. They decide their own cultural norms and laws. If anything, it is the decoupling of that region from the rest of the legislative United States that fosters such a wonderful culture localized to north of the US border. It's not taxation that makes Canada great, but jurisdiction and their right to self-determination.

It might be puffy, but it brings up points about how disastrous the attitude about tax cuts in the U.S. is.

I agree with you fully. The United States has HUGE problems, and taxes are nowhere near the biggest issue. The United States suffers from enormous cultural heterogeneity, leading to distrust, corruption, and political gridlock.

Possibly by design, as the political parties and news media find it in their interest to antagonize groups against one another.

This thousand times. Socialism is an illusion. People should be able to pick their poison but please do not try to put one system above other.

"Socialism is an illusion" ... " please do not try to put one system above other"

I guess then it's ok to put one below...

I did not mean it like that. I meant it as a personal opinion. I am not writing articles or pushing for a single solution for everyone. I believe every system has strengths but cannot be universally used in any society.

>It is a stable society where everyone is equally poor except the tax dodgers.

Funny. The family friends I have in Denmark are among the wealthiest people I know. Would you consider yourself as far as someone who lives in Christiania?

There's basically a single statement about Denmark and it merely an example that a high tax burden isn't universally harmful. A reasonable counterexample would be a country with a high tax rate that is in terrible conditions caused by it rather than pointing out that Denmark isn't perfect (which is a straw man argument in the first place).

There conflation of paying taxes and "more government" is also on display on in this comment that isn't true. You can have a large poor government or a large well funded government.

I think ultimately the article makes a good point about Canadian's attitude towards taxation and services. Canadian's understand that you get what you pay for. If you want nothing then pay nothing but that means you get poor schools, crumbling roads, and crippling healthcare bills.

The article doesn't make a point backed up by data, though. For example, the US spends much more than Canada per capita on schools yet performs worse.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-globa...

Except that Denmark was named the "Happiest Country to live" in 2016, and got 2nd Happiest country to live in 2017[0].

From the article, this is based on:

-social happiness

-freedom to make life decisions

-generosity & social support

-good governance & public trust

-honesty

-health & life Expectancy

-income & income inequality

-GDP per capita

[0]United Nations World Happiness report http://worldhappiness.report/

The US now has a federal budget of $4 trillion. Lack of money is not the problem.

There is a lot of valuable information and,in my opinion, the author's views are well supported by his experience and his research. However, you get the sense he has been paid by the word. I think democratic systems are under threat. I think, as well, that the threats are resulting in lower economic growth and fewer opportunities for evolving generations. This article does not provide an important context as to why this is happening. Society would be better off if everyone knew this stuff. I just wish it was a little more readable.

> The health care in Canada is terrible. If I want to see a doctor I have to wait typically 2+ weeks to get an appointment. Go to emergency room you have to wait 8+ hours and receive poor treatment.

Oh, how I enjoy first world problems. I'm feeling like I'll love Canada.

Of course the power to amend provincial constitutions is restricted to changes in the internal machinery of the provincial government

If not so many countries are doing better than them, I think they are doing the best work as it is not easy to manage a country. Outsiders don't do good judgement.

     Nothing that the Canadian Government does is good. All 
  government institutions survive through theft, deception
 and immorality. All government programs are dysgenics

programs. All functions of government can be surpassed by regulation free markets. All non-voluntary regulations are implicitly sexist, racist and immoral. All government programs perpetuate abusive relationships. All government workers are bad people. All functions of government should be replaced by regulation free markets.

   Canada is one of the worst places to live in the world

right now, as it on the verge of a complete TechnoMarxist takeover and well on the way to becoming a neo-third-world country. In < 10 years we will have a complete surveillance state, forced labor camps and eugenics programs. The federal government already has apps with points based rewards systems that track all of your behavior and give you tax credits for destroying your country and people.

  To see people praising this obviously paid by the federal

government shill is shocking, here on this website, a website for intellectuals. You utter fools! You're playing right into the hands of the authoritarians.

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