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Comment by kdamica | Hacker News Reader

Canada will be a major beneficiary of climate change as the continent’s northern reaches warm. If they combine that with smart policy-making like this (i.e. increasing population while attracting industry), I think Canada could be a world superpower in 100 years.

Note: I’m not a highly informed person in this regard, but I think this is interesting to consider as a possibility

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Ugh, not this again.

Our northern regions are rugged, heavily forested, undeveloped, and in the northernmost regions, experiencing loss of permafrost upon which communities and transportation corridors are built.

The southern parts of the country, where most people live, are increasingly experiencing record heat and drought that's straining our cities and threatening crop and grazing land, putting out food system at significant risk.

Maybe very long term northern countries can find a way to benefit from still being habitable, but by then the damage will have already been done.

There’s no doubt that climate change will negatively affect most countries in some way, but the question is: do you think Canada will fare better or worse relative to other countries?

I would wager that if future Montreal, for example, had winters more similar to today’s New York, far more people would want to live there.

I can only assume you've not been to either city if you think Montreal is that much worse or NYC that much better, in terms of year-round climate.

But more importantly, you can't increase your population if your cities have to ration the water or food supply because climate change has destroyed both. And mass migration is not going to happen without destroying lives and livelihoods.

I’ve lived in NY and have visited Montreal a bunch of times, including one unfortunate trip in January. The average high in January in NYC is almost 40 degrees, and it’s 25 degrees in Montreal. It is objectively much colder!

I think you are overestimating how much climate change will affect the food and water supply in North America. There will be huge problems but the apocalyptic idea you seem to have is more of a pop culture notion than a scientific one.

Being a super power is about a lot more than just temperature.

Look up videos on youtube that describe why US geography is overpowered and then see which of those reasons might apply to Canada if, say, sea levels rise and temperatures increase.

Other important factors: coastal access, number/size/depth of sea ports, current and future demographics, river systems, culture, natural resources, trade partners, military, economic system, access to nuclear weapons, military alliances, etc.

> Canada will be a major beneficiary of climate change as the continent’s northern reaches warm.

After all the forests burn?

No one cares of 100 years down the line, least of all 4-year cycle politicians.

> If they combine that with smart policy-making like this

Importing migrant workers drives down wages. Whether you think that's smart or not depends on whether you side with workers or business owners.

When you focus immigration policy on highly skilled migrants, which this policy is doing, you end up bringing more high paying jobs, so wages will increase. If the number of jobs were fixed, then yes, wages would decline, but second order agglomeration effects will increase the size of the pie.

If you want some proof that I’m not just making that up, here’s a paper showing that highly skilled migrants end up raising wages for native workers: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/679061

Agglomeration effects are very powerful and this seems to be what this Canadian policy is trying to harness

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