OTTAWA, ON – The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) is demanding immediate and decisive action from the federal government to protect workers and defend jobs as an escalating trade war—fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump—threatens Canada’s economy. Just today, Trump announced yet another round of retaliatory tariffs on steel and aluminum, this time in response to Ontario’s energy surcharge. “This is spiraling out of control, and workers across Canada are rightfully alarmed. They are looking to their government for urgent and concrete measures to shield them from job losses and economic uncertainty,” said Bea Bruske, President of the CLC. Canada’s unions...
He’s the patriot that supported Canada doing mass immigration to reduce Canadian wages, to protect asset values against a “wage price spiral”, where workers finally had actual bargaining power for wages. The Liberals have hollowed out the middle class the last decade, while never funding a single program, so we owe a huge debt as per capita GDP fell.
Now Carney wants to withdraw the capital gains tax increase before it has even been implemented, and to tariff foreign emitters, a tax on ourselves in order to gift it to Brookfield’s ESG department for carbon capture. Coincidentally where he just used to work.
I’d like if we moved in the reverse direction, but I think too many people are benefiting from real estate to do anything about it. We just gifted 300m to Bangladesh, maybe its time we stopped destroying poor Canadians by removing GST on housing or building mass transit?
What are you a Russian agent? You’re just blind to the improvements and changes that have happened. As if the conservatives ever got anything done. You’re a joke.
What’s been accomplished that isn’t dwarfed by housing and rents doubling?
I’m happy for you if you happen to own real estate, but people in my family are renters, and have had their wages diminished by the 4% population growth.
I know why we did it, to prop up GDP, I just don’t think you should be distorting the market like that after QE raises asset values. Entrenching wealth inequality is bad for the poor, and people living in rest stops is heartbreaking.
What programs have even been funded, as far as I’m aware we pulled consumption forward, and all this progress only landlords feel is funded with future austerity; as we buy 50% of all mortgage bonds to pump their real estate holdings using borrowed money.
Wages being diminished by immigration is a wild assumption based more on personal sentiment than reality. Immigrating to Canada is Not easy. And we need that population growth to sustain our quality of life.
We need the immigrants for their labour, because we have a shortage of qualified labour. More people working together is how you’ll get housing built faster.
They’ve done a lot for housing but this is a sector where results aren’t instant it takes time to build and if you don’t have a strong GDP - buying the materials and paying the labour you need cost more and the end results is it cost more for us too. The cost of building falls back on buyers and renters alike.
We’re not building nearly as much subsidized housing as we need but you can thank conservatives for that one.
Conservatives are the ones who cut public funding for subsidized housings that are more affordable and pushed it into the hands of the private sector, under Brian Mulroney leadership. And now the liberals are the baddies? The conservatives are the ones who failed poor people, by cutting subsidized housing in exchange for lower taxes and made it the private sectors problem to build housing. The private sector isn’t a charity they are for profit and rightfully so. Subsidized housing is a public sector responsibility.
Improvements have been made - where now rent can count towards your credit, boosting renters credit so they can have an easier time getting a mortgage in the future. https://www.equifax.ca/about-equifax/press-releases/-/intlpress/equifax-canada-and-frontlobby-complete-first-rental-tradeline-study
But even programs like this take time to implement just like it takes time to build that credit. People need to have more patience if they want things done right.
Even in countries like Japan where they have so little immigrants that it could almost be considered no immigration - employees there have taken pay cuts, even ceos to keep a company afloat. It suck and it’s not easy to find yourself in that situation but lashing out by pointing fingers isn’t the solution. A pay cut is better than cutting jobs.
What’s been accomplished is Not dwarfed by housing/rent prices. Just like you don’t enjoy the pay cuts no one else does. No one owes you their labour for free.
Start a spreadsheet and monitor your spending and set goals to accomplish. I grew up poor, my mother was a cleaning lady and my father was a waiter and they managed to succeed getting paid minimum wage! They made it work by being diligent of their spending and planning wisely.
A lot of poorer people I know today have a lot more than I ever had growing up so the world is improving. The difference is poor people today feel more entitled to what would have been considered luxuries when I was growing up.
You sound bitter and like you’re looking for any random person to blame over holding yourself accountable for your own shortcomings. People make bad decisions and there a lots of programs to help them but nobody is going to do the work for you.
And you still sound like a Russian agent trying to create division by putting blame on immigrants who didn’t cause the situation we are all in.
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/remarks-2023-12-07.pdf
The Bank of Canada says they do drive up home prices, which has an effect on inflation.
The “labor shortage” is the Phillips curve, caused by QE, which caused the 8% inflation we experienced after Covid. Its not a real shortage, and the increased economic activity is temporary, as the BoC then raised rates to cool the overheated economy.
So you’re idea that you’re simply filling up job vacancies because our economy is strong is wrong, what youre actually doing is preventing wage pressures from correcting the wealth inequality the Bank of Canada’s QE caused. This is straight from a BoC publication as well that explains how wage pressure are a natural equalization after a bout of inflation, reversing this via mass immigration is bad for non-asset holders, which is why wealth inequality between renters and home owners increased so dramatically.
But thats easily seen by looking at the growing food bank usage, growing homelessness, growing wealth inequality, and reports like this:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/secret-rcmp-report-warns-canadians-may-revolt-once-they-realize-how-broke-they-are
If you were around in the 70s and 80s you’d likely be one of the people blaming unions for “causing inflation”, and telling them they needed to accept lower wages.
Where can I read more about this?
We did QE during Covid, which as per the Phillips curve it increased wages due to a labor shortage, and we then did mass immigration to depress wages.
If you want to look at the Phillips curve, QE’s effect on inflation, and a chart of Canada’s population growth.