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Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

There is no future in Canada. Our GDP per capita in USD has gone down 20% in the last decade [1]. We're one of the most expensive places to live and real earnings have gone down in the last decade.

Almost everyone I know is already gone, either to the US or Europe. If you're educated, the sheer amount of money you'll make in the US makes up for things like lack of socialized healthcare. In Europe, you get all the same socialized benefits (better actually), a similar to better income but housing and various day to day items cost much, much less.

We're basically a petro-state that only incidentally has other industries because we're a low-cost alternative to American labour.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...

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If you look at the GDP per capita graph for most developed countries it has a similar shape

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=canada+gdp+per+capita%2...

Ours is still the biggest decline. You're also missing the US which is a different story altogether... But even conceding that point, then compare to housing costs:

https://data.oecd.org/chart/6Ikm

And consider that housing costs for a desirable Canadian location (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa) are much higher than that chart. And that the middle of nowhere in any of those European countries is still liveable whereas the middle of nowhere in Canada potentially means thousands of KMs away.

And that's not touching on other COL metrics where Canada is uniquely bad.

> Our GDP per capita in USD has gone down 20% in the last decade [1].

It appears that much of this is due to CAD depreciating relative to USD over the last 10 years [2]. I suppose this is relevant for Canadians buying imported goods, but could be less relevant for local goods.

[2]: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CAD&to=USD&view=10Y

All our goods are imported since we make hardly anything. The few consumer products Canadians do make generally get exported to countries with higher incomes or as luxury goods. So it definitely matters.

Problem is that, compared to US,Canada is not very self-sufficient. The average Canadian imports a lot of stuff. Kind of limited what you can grow in this frozen wasteland.

Every modern economy imports a lot of things. It's far more efficient than trying to make it all yourself.

Calling Canada a petro-state is inaccurate at ~6% of GDP. Perhaps you mean more generally a resource based economy which is largely true.

Our #1 export is petroleum products by a very wide margin...

As a fraction of the economy it is small, but it is large as a fraction of foreign trade, and volatile.

Oil prices explain most of the moves in CAD/USD that aren't explained by diverging interest rates.

- https://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/201... - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-you-can-go-...

The worst side of Canada is what people have done to real estate. This is going to bite back the country eventually, it's really just a giant Ponzi scheme now.

They kind of forget that most well educated Canadians can easily go south of the border for better opportunities, cheaper housing and surprisingly better health care.

> surprisingly better health care

What do you mean by that? The problems with US healthcare are well known.

You must be talking about poor people's perspective. US has the best healthcare in the World for those that can afford it. Canadians already travel south of the border to seek care. The alternative for them is to wait in line for several months, or even a couple of years, and see their condition progress until get to see a second tier specialist.

>You must be talking about poor people's perspective. US has the best healthcare in the World for those that can afford it.

This seems to be contradicted by a study[1] that compared the health outcomes of americans in the top 1% and 5% of counties, against the average residents in other developed countries. The conclusion:

> This study suggests that privileged White US citizens have better health outcomes than average US citizens for 6 health outcomes but often fare worse than the mean measure of health outcomes of 12 other developed countries. These findings imply that even if all US citizens experienced the same health outcomes enjoyed by privileged White US citizens, US health indicators would still lag behind those in many other countries.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

Americans travel for healthcare too, including to India, Mexico, and IIRC Canada.

> US has the best healthcare in the World

I hear this repeated a lot, almost like a marketing tagline, but I haven't seen it.

Mostly I see what looks like highly constrained supply: wealthy people wait a long time, sometimes months, even with very alarming or painful conditions, and then get minimal attention - usually no diagnosis, just a guess and a pill - and then are on their own unless they want to start the process over again. Or they may get referred to someone else, which starts the clock over. The lack of diagnosis is now a joke among people I know; my impression is that the doctors lack the resources (i.e., time) to track down the actual problem; they just try to manage everything.

Is there a basis to the claim?

> my impression is that the doctors lack the resources (i.e., time) to track down the actual problem

Supporting anecdata: I happen to know of a well-regarded specialist, past retirement age, who works this niche by seeing patients for cash only, insurance billing.

> There is no future in Canada. Our GDP per capita in USD has gone down 20% in the last decade [1].

Looking at GDP per hour worked, Canada is higher than the US:

* https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm

Average hours worked in the US is 1767, while CA is 1644:

* https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS

Perhaps we Canadians have simply decided not to kill ourselves as much chasing the almighty dollar / loonie, and that's why we make "less" money in total.

Yes - of my high school group of friends, far more than half moved to nearby Vancouver initially and since then, half have left the country for the USA or Europe. These are almost all educated people, so it’s brain drain.

I worry a lot about the future my kids have in this country. I don’t tell people that often, but my spider senses are tingling like crazy.

Just moved back with mit degree. Couldn't wait to leave the us. Anecdata.

what were the anecdata reasons for moving there? the culture?

A bit of everything. I'm a simple person. Fun job with lots of time off and the Canadian wilderness is all I need.

That’s why I’m still here. I guess working in software meant it was easier for me to stay, so who knows. Maybe I would have gone with them had I felt stuck in some other career, but I’ve always earned more than most people I know simply because I know how to press the buttons on the keyboard better.

The wilderness here makes me feel like I could never leave. I’ve been plenty of other places, and the idea of not being in this place is unnerving. The ocean, the forest, the temperate climate, rain, all of it. I’ve come to feel a deep connection to it.

I feel that. I love the outdoors and Canada has plenty.

On the other hand, we're having a kid, and as much as I'd like them to grow up in the outdoors I'd also rather them be exposed to culture versus a bunch of hippies and redneck meth addicts... So we're making the move to Europe (back in the case of my SO).

Nice, seems like a good call! Loads of great cities in Europe aren’t far from great wilderness. Great culture. Your kids are lucky!

I seems plausible to me that a self-reinforcing death spiral could be well underway.

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