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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

Canada is definitely worse than it was ten years ago, but all of the major problems are provincial responsibilities: housing, health care, education, policing.

The largely conservative provinces have done a very good job of blaming Trudeau and immigration for problems that are entirely their own.

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The problem with Trudeau's government is he didn't/doesn't consult with provinces very much. They continue to announce programs and initiatives that live in the territory of the provinces without provincial buy in.

If it was one or two provinces you would be correct, but when every province is facing the same issue(s), then the turd starts to stick to the feds... The immigration issue is a prime example, he announced higher than normal targets but didn't consult or work with the provinces about this, which caused many provinces to be taken by surprise and have their social systems overwhelmed by the influx of people. Many of these same systems where still recovering from covid... so yea recipe for disaster.

It seems like every other week I hear a news article about a joint announcement between BC & the federal government having to do with housing or health care. It takes 2 to co-operate.

Go listen to the statements the PMs made after their all provinces meetings. A lot of it is "back off from our turf".

Previous govts had a minister who's only job was managing provincial-federal relations and making sure the feds and libs moved in sync

Out of curiosity, how is the housing & health care situation in those conservative provinces compared to other provinces (like Quebec, where I live in)?

It's instructive to compare Vancouver to Toronto. 10 years ago in BC health care was in worse shape and housing was ~2X the cost of Toronto. In the past 10 years BC has had an NDP government and Ontario a Conservative one. Both housing & health care have gotten worse in BC, but at a much lower rate than in Ontario. Today health care in BC is in much better shape than Ontario, and the cost of housing in Vancouver is about the same as it is in Toronto.

Are there any numbers/data for the quality of healthcare in the provinces over time?

At least for housing I see the average home prices in each category (condos, townhomes, detached) still higher in Vancouver than Toronto (when googling a bit, I found https://wowa.ca/reports/canada-housing-market with some data. But there's probably lots of real estate related sites with more).

> Are there any numbers/data for the quality of healthcare in the provinces over time?

Good question. Let me know if you find some. My assertion is anecdotal, I have FOAF doctors who have moved to BC.

I moved from a liberal province to a conservative province last year. My cost of living is 25% lower, gas is much cheaper and I was able to buy a new beautiful house which was an impossibility in my previous province.

What province to what province? This is an incredibly shallow observation without more information.

Living in QC, I'm scared about the future of medical care and infrastructure. I wonder too what's the situations for other provinces.

Quebec has been led by the Conservative CAQ party since 2018.

Immigration? The massive amount of temp foreign students?

Housing, healthcare and policing being provincial responsibility is an oversimplification. Provinces are basically compelled to comply with the federal Canada Health Act under threat of being taxed for, but not receiving the huge Canada Health Transfers which account for ~12% of provincial revenues. Housing on the supply side is largely provincial, but the feds could still take a larger role. They have had a long time to think of ways to bring in more skilled labour in the construction industry rather than, say, the fast food industry. And let alone thinking ways to solve the housing crisis, the Liberals wouldn't even admit until a few months ago that the price of housing is too high and should go down.

The feds run the RCMP, they set most criminal laws and sentencing, bail policy etc. As Poilievre repeats ad naseum, the same 40 repeat offenders are arrested thousands of times in Vancouver. It doesn't matter how good a job the police do if the justice system refuses to punish them.

I don't know what are the problems we're facing in education but I don't think that is on the top of the list of why Canadians are feeling frustrated with the Liberals.

> The largely conservative provinces have done a very good job of blaming Trudeau and immigration for problems that are entirely their own.

No. Immigration reduces available housing. Immigration overloads the health care system. Immigration strains the education system. Immigration creates ethnic enclaves that are hard to police.

Immigration is a federal responsibility. Trudeau and the Liberals are to blame.

Does immigration make these things worse? Yes. But it's only a very small part of the problem. You can't blame the entire problem on a minor cause.

Here's a very good 55 point plan to fix housing: https://www.ontario.ca/page/housing-affordability-task-force...

BC implemented far more of those points than Ontario has, and succeeded in changing Vancouver's housing costs from ~2X Toronto's to 1X Toronto's.

And P.S. the immigration surge was mostly in student visa's, driven by Colleges under provincial jurisdiction.

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