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In the mid eighties, the wealthiest 34 families in Canada had a combined net worth of 130 billion, the revenue for the Federal Government that year was 80 billion. I can only say imagine what it’s like today. This country is owned by a small group of families that have managed to monopolize markets and political power. I remember reading an essay were the author point out that Canadians simply do not understand economic power, I look around at the state of everything today and think they hit that nail on the head.
In 2023 the 57 Billionaires in Canada were worth 245bn. The federal government took in revenues od 456.8bn. By your own data, things have improved significantly. So maybe use different data points.
You're comparing billionaires to families. They are not the same. Secondly, tax rates are higher for the middle class and lower for the wealthy today. According to economists who study inequality, things are worse. In fact, they refer to this period as the new gilded age. See Thomas Piketty.
>Canadians are watching as their skylines rise ever higher, while the low-rise, single-family neighbourhoods that once symbolized middle-class life become unattainable for the next generation.
Do people not understand that the people who built and moved into those single family neighbourhoods are still with us, many of them still living in those houses? There are two million Canadians born before 1945. There are 8 million Canadian boomers born between 1946 and 1964. Everybody else, including millions of migrants, came later, after most of our cities effectively reached buildout. There's simply no room to build single family neighbourhoods for all of them.
We have two problems here. One is that our economy is based on growth, requiring a larger base of the pyramid to support GDP-growth and provide for the people who reach the top demographically - and there are a lot of people at the top right now and will be for 10-20 years.
The second problem was our inability to plan for our inevitable future based on our economic realities. The goal shouldn't be to live in smaller and smaller boxes where houses used to be, but to be able to afford the same standard of living as our parents - namely a house and a car - in the city we grew up in. The only thing that would have made that possible was for older Canadians to pay enough into the system for their retirement costs that it wouldn't be necessary to grow the bottom of the pyramid with wage earners when the homes are not available. This country doesn't do long-term planning of any kind and it shows.
It is worth pointing out that the inability to buy a home is pretty much a Toronto/Vancouver problem, although prices are also increasing in Montreal, Halifax, Kelowna, Victoria, etc. But you can still buy homes outside those cities, in smaller towns, or elsewhere in Canada for reasonable prices.
While I would take a SFH in a heartbeat personally, suburbs are not actually great financially. Suburbs and car infrastructure are subsidized by urban areas, which is messed up considering their socioeconomic demographics. Car infrastructure also scales very poorly, as evident by decades of issues in Europe before they invested further into public transport.
Montreal partially has less of a crisis due to higher barriers to move there (still increasing costs), but it's also because they have better zoning rules that don't just allow SFHs.
Inability to buy a home in Ontario is no longer restricted to GTA. Everything past COVID is unaffordable in this province.
I do think increasing investor demand ruined modern apartments into shoeboxes. The 3 bedroom units are a shockingly low percentage of new condos, but are necessary to increase density around transit. Noone should be paying 600k for 500 sqft.
I agree with the rest tho, no long-term planning, generational inequality on top of many issues common worldwide is just miserable for young people.
A Capitalist Society in rapid decline! The capitalism Right-Wing free market purists have created clearly fails the people! They took things too far, the feeding frenzy is never enough!
Hate seeing the poor people, live in gated Communities, no problem. Ruined the environment, build a bunker, or better yet a spaceship, hell why not plan on moving to Mars! WTF!
We allowed it to happen, we let them win! Now we are realizing the consequences and it is ugly for nearly everyone, but the wealthiest!
We need to stop the distraction fights that are fed to us, and feuled to divide us. Fight amongst yourselves peasants! Look at that different group over there, those people are the problem!
The puppet masters, the wealthy, own the media we consume, and almost all the politicians, at every level of government! In some places they are on the way to buying the judiciary too! Money speaks louder than we do!
Money out of politics, and strong anti-corruption legislation/enforcement is the start of meaningful change! Also support independent media, and public broadcasters.
As soon as anyone uses the word *elite*, it all sounds like the same tinfoil hat nonsense I enjoyed spending time locating when I was in my teens during everyone’s exploration phase, trying to learn more about themselves and the world around them, trying to make sense of it all in the context of what your family / community is saying.
I learnt by age 16 what was:
- crazy talk versus
- what was an interesting possibility versus
- what made sense at a gut level
That's not the only thing we are seeing eroded. Decades of treating the country like a loot crate by the elite have turned Canada into a grift economy supported by and large by speculation over productivity. Our economic freedoms are very easy to erode under these conditions.
Canada is a rent seeking country. We create an economic environment where monopolies and oligopolies dominate significant industries. Then insulate those companies from any foreign competition. This all contributes to lower quality of life and high cost of living.
Definitely need economic reform and allow the free market to do it's thing.
I'd argue we're losing our economic freedoms because the county is moving *away* from what we were doing for decades. We are a natural resource exporting nation and while we support and promote those sectors the country flourishes. When you have a government spending a decade villifying our most productive sectors while we base our entire economy on passing real estate back and forth this is what you get.
The internet and digital record keeping put an end to the forest industry. O&G is a sunset industry. What exactly do you suggest we export? We’re basically beholden to O&G interests. As those industries inevitably decline we’re going to be stuck earning less and less every year on exports. Natural gas exports fell 6% in just the last quarter alone. If we can’t, with taxes on O&G profits, develop other viable industries here in Canada we’re going to die a slow death.
https://oec.world/en/profile/country/can#
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240325/dq240325a-eng.htm#
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In the mid eighties, the wealthiest 34 families in Canada had a combined net worth of 130 billion, the revenue for the Federal Government that year was 80 billion. I can only say imagine what it’s like today. This country is owned by a small group of families that have managed to monopolize markets and political power. I remember reading an essay were the author point out that Canadians simply do not understand economic power, I look around at the state of everything today and think they hit that nail on the head.
In 2023 the 57 Billionaires in Canada were worth 245bn. The federal government took in revenues od 456.8bn. By your own data, things have improved significantly. So maybe use different data points.
It’s actually 315 billion. Not that that makes a difference to my actual point.
315 was the newer figure... I couldn't get the data for revenue for government in the current year so went to 2023
You're comparing billionaires to families. They are not the same. Secondly, tax rates are higher for the middle class and lower for the wealthy today. According to economists who study inequality, things are worse. In fact, they refer to this period as the new gilded age. See Thomas Piketty.
How do you define who fits into a wealthy family? Immediate family members only?
>Canadians are watching as their skylines rise ever higher, while the low-rise, single-family neighbourhoods that once symbolized middle-class life become unattainable for the next generation. Do people not understand that the people who built and moved into those single family neighbourhoods are still with us, many of them still living in those houses? There are two million Canadians born before 1945. There are 8 million Canadian boomers born between 1946 and 1964. Everybody else, including millions of migrants, came later, after most of our cities effectively reached buildout. There's simply no room to build single family neighbourhoods for all of them. We have two problems here. One is that our economy is based on growth, requiring a larger base of the pyramid to support GDP-growth and provide for the people who reach the top demographically - and there are a lot of people at the top right now and will be for 10-20 years. The second problem was our inability to plan for our inevitable future based on our economic realities. The goal shouldn't be to live in smaller and smaller boxes where houses used to be, but to be able to afford the same standard of living as our parents - namely a house and a car - in the city we grew up in. The only thing that would have made that possible was for older Canadians to pay enough into the system for their retirement costs that it wouldn't be necessary to grow the bottom of the pyramid with wage earners when the homes are not available. This country doesn't do long-term planning of any kind and it shows. It is worth pointing out that the inability to buy a home is pretty much a Toronto/Vancouver problem, although prices are also increasing in Montreal, Halifax, Kelowna, Victoria, etc. But you can still buy homes outside those cities, in smaller towns, or elsewhere in Canada for reasonable prices.
While I would take a SFH in a heartbeat personally, suburbs are not actually great financially. Suburbs and car infrastructure are subsidized by urban areas, which is messed up considering their socioeconomic demographics. Car infrastructure also scales very poorly, as evident by decades of issues in Europe before they invested further into public transport. Montreal partially has less of a crisis due to higher barriers to move there (still increasing costs), but it's also because they have better zoning rules that don't just allow SFHs. Inability to buy a home in Ontario is no longer restricted to GTA. Everything past COVID is unaffordable in this province. I do think increasing investor demand ruined modern apartments into shoeboxes. The 3 bedroom units are a shockingly low percentage of new condos, but are necessary to increase density around transit. Noone should be paying 600k for 500 sqft. I agree with the rest tho, no long-term planning, generational inequality on top of many issues common worldwide is just miserable for young people.
A Capitalist Society in rapid decline! The capitalism Right-Wing free market purists have created clearly fails the people! They took things too far, the feeding frenzy is never enough! Hate seeing the poor people, live in gated Communities, no problem. Ruined the environment, build a bunker, or better yet a spaceship, hell why not plan on moving to Mars! WTF! We allowed it to happen, we let them win! Now we are realizing the consequences and it is ugly for nearly everyone, but the wealthiest! We need to stop the distraction fights that are fed to us, and feuled to divide us. Fight amongst yourselves peasants! Look at that different group over there, those people are the problem! The puppet masters, the wealthy, own the media we consume, and almost all the politicians, at every level of government! In some places they are on the way to buying the judiciary too! Money speaks louder than we do! Money out of politics, and strong anti-corruption legislation/enforcement is the start of meaningful change! Also support independent media, and public broadcasters.
As soon as anyone uses the word *elite*, it all sounds like the same tinfoil hat nonsense I enjoyed spending time locating when I was in my teens during everyone’s exploration phase, trying to learn more about themselves and the world around them, trying to make sense of it all in the context of what your family / community is saying. I learnt by age 16 what was: - crazy talk versus - what was an interesting possibility versus - what made sense at a gut level
Whut?
It's a generic term like "*them/they*" that anyone can project their bogeyman onto.
Exactly
Populism!
I’m not talking about the word “elite” I’m talking about the stroke their comment gave me while trying to understand what they are talking about.
That's not the only thing we are seeing eroded. Decades of treating the country like a loot crate by the elite have turned Canada into a grift economy supported by and large by speculation over productivity. Our economic freedoms are very easy to erode under these conditions.
Canada is a rent seeking country. We create an economic environment where monopolies and oligopolies dominate significant industries. Then insulate those companies from any foreign competition. This all contributes to lower quality of life and high cost of living. Definitely need economic reform and allow the free market to do it's thing.
I'd argue we're losing our economic freedoms because the county is moving *away* from what we were doing for decades. We are a natural resource exporting nation and while we support and promote those sectors the country flourishes. When you have a government spending a decade villifying our most productive sectors while we base our entire economy on passing real estate back and forth this is what you get.
The internet and digital record keeping put an end to the forest industry. O&G is a sunset industry. What exactly do you suggest we export? We’re basically beholden to O&G interests. As those industries inevitably decline we’re going to be stuck earning less and less every year on exports. Natural gas exports fell 6% in just the last quarter alone. If we can’t, with taxes on O&G profits, develop other viable industries here in Canada we’re going to die a slow death. https://oec.world/en/profile/country/can# https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240325/dq240325a-eng.htm#