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Comment by slopinthebag | Hacker News Reader

The country has just slipped into a recession (only one in g20 btw), food bank usage is at record highs, it's young adults are ranked 71st in the world in happiness (boomers in the top 10 tho), housing is out of reach for many, youth unemployment is at ~15%, outside investments are non-existent, government debt is at record levels, haven't won the Stanley cup in decades, in a trade war with the USA, nobody is starting businesses here, educated people are leaving, etc.

Liberal party: We need to spy on people on the internet!

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According to the central bank, the country is "not clearly in a recession"[0].

[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/11897931/bank-of-canada-rate-anno...

I'm skeptical of central bankers trying to sugarcoat the fact that we are in a "technical" recession. If you look at per-capita GDP it's lower than it was four years ago and if you talk to regular Canadians you'll come away feeling like we've been in a recession for years. I would say per-capita is a better metric because it better reflects what individuals are experiencing, whereas Canada's overall GDP has been bolstered by high immigration targets for years. Regardless, it meets the definition of a recession and matches with the experiences of many Canadians. I'm sure the beureocrats and central bankers aren't feeling that pain though.

Why did you casually jump to per capita GDP? Per capita GDP is finally going up after a long regression, and one of the reasons Canada slipped to a very small recession is that hundreds of thousands of migrants are leaving the country, their visas expired. When you remove a lot of people that were consuming housing and food and cell plans and delivery doordash, GDP drops.

You have two conflicting complaints simultaneously, and you should make up your mind. Were you happy when Canada's GDP was increasing courtesy of mass migration?

So are you happy with the changes? I'm super happy with it. I'm also quite pleased with how well Canada has weathered a criminal felon pedo that has tried his hardest to hurt us, many Americans blissfully oblivious.

And yup, the many tentacles are government are going to keep making laws and planning trains and doing pipeline projects and countless other programs -- they aren't restricted to whatever the imaginary pet is of a particular complainer -- and amazingly they can competently do all of this simultaneously! Not always in a way that everyone agrees with, though.

Per-capita GDP rose mainly because of what you said, declining immigration growth.

The issue is that our economy has been in decline for years, increasing the population dramatically masked that at, least in nominal GDP, and as population growth declines it reveals the weaknesses that were previously obscured. Simply reducing population growth is not enough to fix the last 10 years. Immigration was and is never the problem with our economy, a lack of real growth is.

So no, I wasn't happy when our GDP rose because of population growth, and I'm not happy today either because pulling a few levers on the immigration machine to change the numbers slightly doesn't fix anything. And it doesn't appear like the government is doing anything to fix it, instead focusing on the stuff we're talking about in this thread.

>The issue is that our economy has been in decline for years

Yup. We had a housing and immigration based economy.

>Simply reducing population growth is not enough to fix the last 10 years.

Ah, so damned if they do, damned if they don't. Yes, getting unchecked immigration under control was absolutely a problem that needed to be fixed (they still aren't there, and the TFW and "student" pipelines are a major remaining problem), and it was a contributor to our economy getting untethered.

>And it doesn't appear like the government is doing anything to fix it, instead focusing on the stuff we're talking about in this thread.

C-22 is a tiny, minor, law and justice bill that normal wouldn't get an iota of attention (it legitimately is a tiny, extremely simple bill). You think the government is "focusing" on this? Then you have zero idea how anything works. Pretending like the massive arms of government focused on this is necessary for your rhetoric though.

Further, saying they aren't doing anything else...yes, you are 100% a partisan. Nothing will please you. Everything is wrong. Everything is dire. But I'm sure only Saviour Party will fix things.

And it's funny that there are dipshits in here pretending like I'm the partisan. I hate this sort of dipshit politics on either side. When Harper was PM and the far left was apocalyptic about everything he did (doing the same incredibly stupid "everything is going to hell!" routine), it was just as profoundly stupid. I hate when both sides do this nonsense.

I’m not sure why you’re so eager to blame immigration for the economy doing poorly. Cutting immigration only makes the economy worse unless you offset that by creating growth elsewhere, which hasn’t seemed to happen in the last 10 years, nor the last ~350 days.

C-22 is not a tiny, minor thing. It has massive repercussions for people’s privacy and security, as well as for the economy. If it was some minor thing, why so much effort to push it through despite immense backlash? It’s clearly a top priority for the government for some reason.

The liberals were literally reelected on the basis that Mark Carney is a master economist and he is our only saviour against Trump.

>I’m not sure why you’re so eager to blame immigration for the economy doing poorly.

YOU complained about immigration. Immigration and housing allowed the government to basically ignore economic policies, productivity, and so on, for a lost decade. It allowed partisans (just like you) to declare that GDP went up so everything is great and nothing can be criticized, as Canadians got poorer and worse off. And yes, fixing a problem -- unsustainable, outrageously destructive mass immigration -- has consequences, but they're well worth it. YOU are the one who brought up per capita GDP.

>The liberals were literally reelected on the basis that Mark Carney is a master economist and he is our only saviour against Trump.

Eh, considering everything we're doing fantastic, and we're in a much better position for the next century. I hope that USMCA falls apart, personally, however much some small but extremely loud minority of my bootlicking, wanna-be-MAGA countrymen want to be a poor work colony of the US for eternity. Bowing to rapist bullying by a corrupt failing idiocracy is never a winning move.

Foreign investments just hit an 18 year high. Employment numbers just went positive (at about 5x the per capita rate of the US). The country is recovering nicely from being addicted to mass immigration/housing. Export markets are rapidly diversifying, and Canada has made a number of new strategic partnerships. Two straight months of growing trade surpluses.

All while our largest trading partner explicitly and openly tries to harm us.

And who gives a flying fuck about the Stanley cup. What a weird thing to cite.

You understand governments are large things with many departments and focuses, right? This "whataboutism" angle is always spectacularly boring horseshit, and usually is plied by partisans that just want to piss and moan about everything Not Their Team does.

This bill is deeply imperfect, and I hope it dies. Your comment is just noisy partisan bluster.

The comment you've replied to is clearly not "partisan bluster". While it may be a tad hyperbolic, with the Stanley Cup line, it's driving a valid point that while Canada is facing a number of very real challenges, the government in power is spending its time on internet censorship bills.

These bills are of almost no benefit to the average Canadian, and the point is that the government should focus more on things that matter to citizens. Instead of playing into people's fear and exposing them to potential government overreach, privacy violations, data breaches, etc., Canada's leadership should focus back on the economy.

Your comment actually seems to be the bluster, considering the ranting and swearing.

> while Canada is facing a number of very real challenges, the government in power is spending its time on internet censorship bills.

You could have said this at any point in the last ~15-20 years and it would apply. It's a problem certainly but not a new problem and has little to do with the current government nor current issues. They will try and try again until they succeed.

Instead of arguing over these semantics we should be focusing on a more permanent measure of preventing this garbage from getting inevitable shoved down our throats.

I agree, we need more permanent measures. I'm tired of seeing these bills pop up over and over and having to play whack-a-mole. Any suggestions?

> And who gives a flying fuck about the Stanley cup. What a weird thing to cite.

If I was PM I would prioritise tax cuts to athletes playing for Canadian teams, repurpose the new Major Projects Office to be the Athletic Performance Office to provide funding and support to Canadian teams, and install a tax on Canadian players on American teams. I'm also joking, lighten up :P

I did misspeak about the foreign investments, what I was referring to is that we are seeing much more investments leaving the country than what are coming in, and of the investments in Canada, it's not just the sheer volume and direction that matters - foreign firms buying out Canadian businesses to later move them out of the country isn't a good thing long-term.

I have no doubt that Carney will be better for the economy than the last 10 years under Trudeau, and I hope they spend more time focusing on that then spending billions on useless gun buybacks, surveillance bills, banning social media, etc. We saw a sharp drop in entrepreneurship in Q1, hopefully they can do something to reverse that. I doubt it though.

This is basically just shilling. Average Canadians cannot point to many things that have improved or gotten cheaper in how many years? You are acting like we are a day away from being a debt free hyper economy that everyone is knocking on the door to get involved with.

It's partisan to deny your country is falling to shit just because you voted for the parties that made it fall to shit.

Their comment was directly, overtly partisan. Further, it plies the rhetoric of a partisan -- literally, every talking point directly from conservative Canada-land -- and then does the cliche "whataboutism" that is a signature.

This whataboutism is a go-to because it's universally usable, and is the biggest tell that you're dealing with a partisan spouting worthless noise. Anything the government of the day does, whatabout this other things. It is spectacularly stupid, and is an immediate example that the speaker has nothing of value to add to anything, ever. It is one of the greatest cancers in Western democracies, and is exactly how malignancies take hold.

And the "Bounces off me" tactic is so boorish. I don't like this bill. I don't like a lot of the things this government has done. But the "OMG EVERYTHING HAS FALLEN TO SHIT" is so laughable.

I dunno, man, despite the problems I think Canada's a pretty great country. I'm glad that the government is capable of actually doing many things at once.

No offence but you’re the one coming off as having a partisan agenda

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