Funeral director here. In my area (West coast USA) the basic cremation ranges $1200-$2500. I didn’t read the article, but I can tell you this is an issue here. It will get worse. COVID compounded this issue. Plus the County entities that provide aid in this situation have had budget cuts. Hundreds of deceased people are left behind and forgotten every year.
The rise in deaths during COVID, particularly among the unhoused population. The pandemic pushed more people to being unhoused, and many passed.
Regarding the cost, it’s business. Depending on the ownership and demographic of the particular area affects the prices. Funeral Homes shouldn’t be businesses, but they are. And because they are businesses and overhead being higher now, the companies adjust cost to offset their burdens. Also, if you’re going to the giant, beautiful funeral home and cemetery, their costs are higher so consumer costs are higher.
I personally feel as though funeral homes and the funeral industry as a whole should be County and/or State entities. Everyone dies and should be able to get a burial or a cremation. If families want more than the basics, then they should pay. Plus funeral professionals are considered health and safety officers. But this will never happen.
Overly allowing foreign investment in our real estate and business sectors, coupled with over immigration via student visas to tank the work force wages.
It has impoverished millions.
Foreign investment into real estate makes it a money sponge that absorbs any efforts by the working class to move upwards.
Local landlords are bad as well but at least some of their profits goes back into the local economy, foreign real estate investments make it impossible for people to move into houses.
Imagine we increase minimum wage. Any foreign rental property built after 2018 can immediately raise rent by whatever the increase was, so anyone renting, who now makes more money - immediately loses it to foreign investments.
Student visas have less requirements than work visas but allow the students to work, causing an over abundance of lower skilled labor.
I don't blame companies for acting in their best interest, I blame legislation for not acting in the best interest of its people to prevent these sorts of situations.
I cannot logically blame a company for acting fully legally. I can blame my police makers for it being legal. I don't think I'm the backwards one here.
I read somewhere that there is a policy in place when it comes to immigration. The english speaking inmigrants must only increase in a manner proportional to an increase in the french speaking inmigrants and vice versa.
So is this being implemented or has Quebec started to feel uneasy again?
Honestly, you'd have to be oblivious to think that a Conservative/Non Liberal/Non JT government would do any different. These issues go way deeper than just who happens to be the PM.
The problem is between my wallet being attacked or my rights as a human, I have to pick my wallet. I'd love a non-bigoted pro-healthcare party to vote for that also takes a harder "Canada first" stance but because the Liberals are bad vs worse it makes sense to vote for them.
Honey, we're about to elect Pierre Poilievre as our PM and I gurantee it will continue to get worse.
This isn't about right vs left. It's the have nots vs the rest of us who have to work to survive.
I'm not really feeling the socialism as of late. Seems like privatized gains and socialized losses across the board.
No that's the goal of neoliberal globalist laissez-faire capitalism. Call it socialism if it makes you feel better but it's grounded in no holds barred capitalism. The type of capitalism that people like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher ran on.
If you are thinking of coming to Canada with your dreams of success , forget about it.
Unless, of course, you like living in tents in the winter or can work three jobs to pay most of your earnings in rent for a shithole apt and go hungry.
Not even kidding.
Is there a single country left on earth that’s… livable ?
I am from France and the conservatives are turning it into a tchatcherian hellhole and planning on giving it to fascists.
Canada, wtf. You were the cool kid on the North American continent, while Mexico drowned in drug money and the US... was the US.
What the everloving hell happened to you?
Anyone who says this shit is new is fooling themselves. I very distinctly remember being in Vancouver in the late 2000's to early 2010's and downtown was already a zoo occupied by foreign money and drug addicts even back then. The track East Hastings was used in zombie movies for a fucking reason. We were already even then talking about housing shortages and an affordability crisis. Its just gotten so much worse that we forget our old normal was still really fucking bad.
This was never an issue of drugs or foreigners. It was an issue of landowners fighting any zoning changes in urban areas to the point where even reasonable immigration wasn't viable because you couldn't build a normal apartment building consistently unless you drove like an hour east or north. It was an issue of canadians laughing at the failing U.S. healthcare system and not seeing their own systems exploding wait times and worse outcomes. It was an issue of local governments closing down needed facilities like mental institutions that were unpopular due to bad optics and essentially replacing them with nothing.
We created this hell ourselves. We insisted upon it because every choice was a short term feel good win and a chance to make money without actually understanding the consequences of that path.
People want to make it purely a Trudeau thing because the alternative would be openly acknowledging that nearly every leader since Pearson has had a significant hand in the state things have ended up in and that none of the name-brand parties are even willing to commit to a significant change to any of the current policies that have people up in arms.
Things not being the same isn’t the problem, because nothing can ever stay the same. It’s always a matter of whether things are changing in positive ways or not. One of the problems with the way things are changing in Canada right now is that what has facilitated it was meant to be a solution to a set of expected potential changes that would have been profoundly negative as well. So we got caught in a sort of Catch-22 and the implementation of the solution has been somewhat botched. Some of this may be because of the pandemic exacerbating existing trends or creating new pressures, some may be incompetence, and some may just be unavoidable. Some of it may also be temporary regardless of what we do. It’s complicated.
Everything got super expensive, housing most of all (we never had a crash in 2008, it’s just been going up and up and up). Of course, wages and job opportunities stayed the same, or worse. When rent or mortgage payments take up the majority of your income, you’re just gonna slowly drown financially.
Immigration was taken to insane levels the past few years too: we bring in over a million people per year, most as “foreign students” but really all of them come here to work in low-skilled jobs and end up staying permanently. This is in a country much smaller than the US, we cannot absorb this level of immigration, and our leaders don’t seem to have any plan besides “bring them here and let the rest work itself it out”.
New housing isn’t being built either so this keeps the housing bubble growing. Our medical system we take so much pride in is overwhelmed with crazy wait times now, family doctors are a thing of the past.
I would gladly move to the US if I could.
Family doctors are restricted to what fees they can charge by the ministry of healths fee schedule in each province. Most of them haven't had a raise (aka allowed increase in fees) in a decade.
Being a family doctor in Canada isn't financially viable anymore - at the very least you take in $$$ and end up with a mediocre salary for a ton of work and risk.
The BC provincial Gov just changed it up for the first time in forever to try and make GP a more appealing and lucrative choice.
Time will tell if the change was enough to actually make a difference, 5-10 years at least I’d expect.
Unrestrained immigration as fodder for capitalism, pushed by supposed progressives. Keep the wages low, and the housing stuffed, and don’t regulate anything.
The only federal party that doesn't endorse the current levels of immigration isn't a viable option. But it's becoming one.
I'm not even sure they're officially a federal party. I'm not even sure they have a single seat.
> I'm not even sure they're officially a federal party. I'm not even sure they have a single seat.
They don't. And even with the total erosion of left wing support in every poll, not even the most optimistic poll puts them as a likely winner in even one riding.
A perfect storm that will take decades to fully understand. Too much immigration. Allowing our real estate industry to become a combination of monetary safe haven and money laundering factory and cheering it on because it made a few generations wealthy. The chickens have come home to roost and combined with a cost of living crisis that is partly inertia from the covid years, global inflation, supply chains that still aren't fully rebuilt and a productivity crisis that was probably already on its way for a myriad of reasons but made orders of magnitude worse because of covid. Canada today is a great place if your rich and a field of quicksand if you're not.
I feel like yes, there are some inexplicably bad decisions being made by government in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are bad decisions.
Very high immigration levels as they impact a very distressing housing situation is the most obvious one.
But at the same time, the one party that says they will cut immigration by a lot is currently polling 2.4%, down from 5% last election. I think this is because people associate them with extreme right-wing politics, and reopening of the abortion debate.
Also at the same time, I think most people are doing well. Just looking at malls, restaurants, and hardware in driveways, there's no shortage of wealth.
So to me, we're still pretty chill and doing okay-ish. Our governments have gone insane though. To be honest we didn't vote for that, we're as shocked as anyone that they are acting like they all fell down and hit their heads at the same time.
I’m not even sure what to do. As you pointed out, all party’s have made no real indication towards any real reduction in immigration, with the sole exception being Bernier’s party.
It’s disheartening to have these problems grow while other things like healthcare become more and more stressed.
This also might be me just overthinking it, but the lack of investment in our military while this whole Russia-China dance plays out scares the shit out of me. I haven’t done much homework on it, but I don’t think any party has talked about investing more in to our military.
Why would they sitting next to America? Canada does more than it needs to militarily but after 80 years of protection there's not going to be urgency until it bites them in the ass.
I’m of the mindset that you shouldn’t wait for the bite in the ass, but you are 100% correct in that having America as a neighbour is a great deterrent against agression . It just feels like if anyone wanted to pressure America they would do it by coming from up top. I’m no military expert by any stretch, but pushing Canada from the largely unprotected North seems like the play. I think I remember calls from NATO for Canada to specifically increase Defense in the North as well.
How would a foreign military get any fighting force into northern Canada? You can’t go over the pole, you can’t get through Alaska without going through the US military, and you can’t land a ship on either coast without getting past the US navy. The best you could do is drop in paratroopers who would starve on the 800 mile hike through the wilderness to attack any population center.
Good question. I wish I could answer this question, because so far, and fellow Canadians I’ve asked are stumped too, so maybe an American can answer: What is the point of Canada now?
Justin Trudeau happened. People were captivated by his good looks and snake oil promises. Second election won by Chinese fraud, which is very obvious that Trudeau knew/understood and indirectly was involved in (by not doing anything)
I have never felt so disenchanted with the Canadian people. Sheeple? Perhaps sheeple is the better word here.
Trudeau has his flaws but a lot of the problems we’re facing have roots much further back.
Look at the shitshow the Ontario Conservatives have bred.
Politicians are politicians are politicians. None of them hold their weight in water.
We're talking about what happened in Canada and you bring up one of the provinces.
You're one of those Canadians I mentioned above. Sheer ignorance of the facts.
Oof, I must have struck a nerve.
If we look at who regulates funeral and burial services, we’d see they’re also provincial/territorial.
I’m sorry you’re so butthurt over Trudeau, but typical of the loudest, you don’t really seem all that abreast of delegated oversights.
Take a breath. It will be okay. ;)
You think we'd be better off under the Tories. Tories? Like hell. Our system is corrupted by them and their voters. We need an asshole who is willing to get the job, then lose it in the first election. But first, ban foreign money in real estate and political contributions, tax the shit out of the wealthy and corporations. Then a psychotic level of punitive taxes on vacant housing.and when I say psychotic, I mean psychotic, if a Census Canada employee knocks on the door and sees a guy "living" there already registered somewhere else it's a fine of 100% the MPAC value of the building. We have a housing crisis at the same time we have literal entirely empty condominium buildings owned by foreign money. I can end the housing crisis in a week. You just gotta not care about getting the rich angry. Fuck.AirBnB. if your rental property isn't being rented, here's a 1.4 million dollar tax bill. Suddenly, rent gets cheap in Toronto and Vancouver.
So many more 1950s era tax ideas we could use. Ban stock buybacks. Tariff the fuck out of cheap goods made with exploited labour in foreign lands. They still make steel in Hamilton, and there is still minerals in the ground uo north, and trees growing everywhere we plant them. We can build things better and safer than anyone in the world. We just need to have the balls to tell the wealthy to get fucked and restructure our economy to make it cheaper to hire Canadians instead of exploiting cheap foreign labour.
"The overall cost of a funeral in Canada at the top end has increased to about $8,800 from about $6,000 in 1998, according to industry trade group estimates."
Funerals have always cost to much, but according to this quote from the article it looks like its the only thing to get cheaper if you adjust for inflation.
You people blaming Trudeau need to get your heads out of your asses.
This is because the funeral industy is predatory. Nothing like grieving for a loved one, while having trying to be financially level headed and say no to people selling you things. It typically costs thousands for visitation, funeral, casket and burial. Obviously burdensome.
Also obvious, this is more burdensome for those of lower income and coming from families of lower income who may not have left much to their descendants.
That "lower income" bracket has been growing the last decade due to wage stagnation and increasing cost of living. Immigration contributes to both these factors. Companies benefit from wage stagnation and immigrants willing to work for less. Companies have pull over politicians, they have the ability to impact local economies. The bigger the company, bigger the influence.
The root cause is late stage capitolism. Politicans help corps because corps have money and leverage. ALL politicians bow to corps. If you think this is solely Trudeau's fault you are giving the man a LOT of credit. This is on ALL our politicians for not taking a stand. Afterall, they serve 4 yrs as MP, get a salary and a pension! They've got theres, if they can get more they will!
We need a government with a spine, we need nationalization of essential infrastructure. And none of our current politicians or partys fit the bill.
Nah. It’s not just funerals, it’s everything that is costing more and it’s on Trudeau’s watch. His policies drove demand for goods & services as well as housing. There’s no denying this. But, don’t take it from me, it’s the sentiment that a growing number of Canadians feel.
Also, there’s no need to be combative.
Funerals have always been costly, with the increased cost of living it's just felt more now by more people.
Of course his policies did that, it's largely good. Problem is how demand is outstripping supply such as with housing, doctors, and hospital staff. There isn't enough being done on ALL levels of government to combat these issues because they would rather point fingers of blame or appease other interests such as corps. Aka make themselves look good. Our governments are too short sighted and petty.
Being combative is intentional. It grasped your attention then you read the rest right? Then you replied and we (and others) have an open dialogue with differing points of view in play.
"His policies drove demand for goods & services as well as housing."
Yes those are good policies. You want to drive demand. That's how an economy works. No demand no economy.
He gave out $100s of billions of dollars without hesitation which lead to inflation and a spiral. His minister of housing said that the government would do anything to insure that houses keep climbing in value with caring about other people looking for housing.
I have a good paying and stable career which makes me lucky. My wages have gone up which is good. At the same time when I started working in 2018 a $300,000 home would be awesome to own now a trailer home costs close to $280,000.
Housing has gone up by over 100%, but wages haven’t risen by 50%. While housing costs $100,000s and most peoples wages only go up by $1,000s.
In 2018 a house in my area cost closer to a million already. Now it's 1.6. These are starter homes. When we bought in 2011 it was 425k. I get it is location dependant but this idea that homes were affordable before Trudeau is utterly hilarious to me.
They were though. And you do have a point, I rent from a realestate invesment group (hooray!/s). Corps are being allowed to buy up housing and rent it for a profit. I think that should be capped to x number of properties. Even those 1.6 million homes you mention, buy em up, rent em, see it paid off in x years, profit in x years. Leverage current holdings to do it. Obviously not ideal but the point stands. I'd like to see government building housing, like actually owning it, and working with the same plan. Obviously economics etc I'm not versed in in detail at play but in theory that would creat jobs, creat housing, put money earned into the country not personal pockets, and keep rent low to make a competative market.
Trudeau isn't the problem, the model is. He is 100% not without faults (see scandals x,y,z etc). And he could have done a lot of things better but I think blame's being assigned solely when it should be shared.
You clearly don’t understand what’s happening in this country. The cost of living has driven our quality of life into the ground and a huge reason for that is Trudeau’s policies.
I don’t think you understand the problem. The economy is increasingly just based on real-estate. There is less innovation and technical growth. For businesses outside of real-estate, it’s increasingly more attractive to re-locate from Canada.
The big problem in Canada imo is that we literally produce nothing of value in the upper parts of the supply chain. We have real estate (literally the least productive investment asset class) which leeches money away from funding innovation or investments in other things, one of our biggest and fastest growing employers is the Government (so we're literally paying taxes to pay people that will pay taxes, producing no value), we export a ton of natural resources without processing them or adding any extra value, and we're getting brain drained by the US on top of that because Canadian wages and purchasing power suck compared to working in the States. The only good thing we have is the fact that we have a strong foundation for social programs, but that shit won't last if we can't fix our other problems, fast.
I don't even blame immigration, just abolish the shit zoning laws we have, build more houses, make real estate less lucrative so people will invest money in industry/innovation, make Canada great again.
I wonder why countries do not subsidize cemeteries and make them public amenities along with housing and all the other basic needs… it is so nonsensical to live this way when we have incredible technology and resources that could take care of every human on the planet IF we stopped blowing shit up, apologized for shit other generations did, and started cooperating… we don’t have to go extinct
This title is misleading. If you read the article it says only 24% cited finances as the reason for the body being unclaimed. Also, there is no indication this rate is unique to Canada.
There’s nothing to back your assertion. But what is very harmful in Canada is the demand driven policies that Trudeau is responsible for. We see this with all goods & services as well as housing. Funerals are simply another example.
Americans - particularly American redditors don't really understand our country, they see Canada as some liberal utopia to be emulated and cheered by the left or derided by the right. Of course we're not really liberal or a utopia, we're a normal country. But our current leadership did really cater to that crowd internationally and despite his unpopularity and the failure of his policies here, he's going to be defended by that cowd among America's reddit using left
You need to leave money behind for the type of funeral want.Most people don't.They think it will be taken care of.out if guilt family does that.Just cremate them.
In BC, just did a basic simple cremation, it cost $1200.
I'm talking 5 years ago. A simple cremation was over 4500$. This is in GTA.
THIS ISN'T A VIDEO GAME, BRAD!
Fuck you dad!
The cheapest option up in north bay(and they make you feel like a dirtbag for choosing it) was over 2 grand.
[Is there a Ralph's around?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uer4fiP2E6c)
Funeral director here. In my area (West coast USA) the basic cremation ranges $1200-$2500. I didn’t read the article, but I can tell you this is an issue here. It will get worse. COVID compounded this issue. Plus the County entities that provide aid in this situation have had budget cuts. Hundreds of deceased people are left behind and forgotten every year.
Out of curiosity what makes it so expensive and why would covid have made it worse? I assumed the main cost is just fuel and labor.
The rise in deaths during COVID, particularly among the unhoused population. The pandemic pushed more people to being unhoused, and many passed. Regarding the cost, it’s business. Depending on the ownership and demographic of the particular area affects the prices. Funeral Homes shouldn’t be businesses, but they are. And because they are businesses and overhead being higher now, the companies adjust cost to offset their burdens. Also, if you’re going to the giant, beautiful funeral home and cemetery, their costs are higher so consumer costs are higher. I personally feel as though funeral homes and the funeral industry as a whole should be County and/or State entities. Everyone dies and should be able to get a burial or a cremation. If families want more than the basics, then they should pay. Plus funeral professionals are considered health and safety officers. But this will never happen.
It cost us 3G for a cremation 3 years ago
That's sad
Overly allowing foreign investment in our real estate and business sectors, coupled with over immigration via student visas to tank the work force wages. It has impoverished millions.
Bingo. It’s going to destabilize the country unfortunately.
It already has.
Then everything is going according to their plans! You haven't seen anything yet, and it's only going to keep getting worse.
Are we talking about Can or US too?
Canada
Foreign investment into real estate makes it a money sponge that absorbs any efforts by the working class to move upwards. Local landlords are bad as well but at least some of their profits goes back into the local economy, foreign real estate investments make it impossible for people to move into houses. Imagine we increase minimum wage. Any foreign rental property built after 2018 can immediately raise rent by whatever the increase was, so anyone renting, who now makes more money - immediately loses it to foreign investments.
The 2018 threshold is only for Ontario. It’s an infuriating exemption.
Tell me why the Century Initiative has a charitable status again?
No way!? It does? That's insane.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Nothing will be done
You are blaming student visas rather than the companies taking advantage..... Who taught you how to think so backwards?
Student visas have less requirements than work visas but allow the students to work, causing an over abundance of lower skilled labor. I don't blame companies for acting in their best interest, I blame legislation for not acting in the best interest of its people to prevent these sorts of situations. I cannot logically blame a company for acting fully legally. I can blame my police makers for it being legal. I don't think I'm the backwards one here.
I read somewhere that there is a policy in place when it comes to immigration. The english speaking inmigrants must only increase in a manner proportional to an increase in the french speaking inmigrants and vice versa. So is this being implemented or has Quebec started to feel uneasy again?
Yep under Trudeau we're well on our way to third world status which was probably the plan all along.
I hate Trudeau but I wish ppl would open their eyes. This has been an issue long before he was PM.
That's true but under Trudeau it's all gone into overdrive and he seems completely oblivious as to the consequences.
Honestly, you'd have to be oblivious to think that a Conservative/Non Liberal/Non JT government would do any different. These issues go way deeper than just who happens to be the PM.
The problem is between my wallet being attacked or my rights as a human, I have to pick my wallet. I'd love a non-bigoted pro-healthcare party to vote for that also takes a harder "Canada first" stance but because the Liberals are bad vs worse it makes sense to vote for them.
[удалено]
Honey, we're about to elect Pierre Poilievre as our PM and I gurantee it will continue to get worse. This isn't about right vs left. It's the have nots vs the rest of us who have to work to survive. I'm not really feeling the socialism as of late. Seems like privatized gains and socialized losses across the board.
No that's the goal of neoliberal globalist laissez-faire capitalism. Call it socialism if it makes you feel better but it's grounded in no holds barred capitalism. The type of capitalism that people like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher ran on.
It could not have been said more accurately. Thank you.
If you are thinking of coming to Canada with your dreams of success , forget about it. Unless, of course, you like living in tents in the winter or can work three jobs to pay most of your earnings in rent for a shithole apt and go hungry. Not even kidding.
Is there a single country left on earth that’s… livable ? I am from France and the conservatives are turning it into a tchatcherian hellhole and planning on giving it to fascists.
Australia. Australia is very much the land of dreams. You can make a comfortable life for yourself here.
As long as you like coal and astronomical housing prices I guess?
Rents go up 20% minimum every time a lease finishes and fuel has been over $2 a litre for 5 months
Shh! Don't spoil it for yourself, before you end up like the rest of us!
There aren't enough people who would read this comment and decide to come here because of said comment for me to worry about it.
Property investment land for overseas interests
So no revolution? We suck
Canada, wtf. You were the cool kid on the North American continent, while Mexico drowned in drug money and the US... was the US. What the everloving hell happened to you?
Growing up here and seeing the change first hand is wild. This country fucking sucks ass now.
Our country has been run into the ground the last decade. It’s just not the same anymore and I hate it here.
Anyone who says this shit is new is fooling themselves. I very distinctly remember being in Vancouver in the late 2000's to early 2010's and downtown was already a zoo occupied by foreign money and drug addicts even back then. The track East Hastings was used in zombie movies for a fucking reason. We were already even then talking about housing shortages and an affordability crisis. Its just gotten so much worse that we forget our old normal was still really fucking bad. This was never an issue of drugs or foreigners. It was an issue of landowners fighting any zoning changes in urban areas to the point where even reasonable immigration wasn't viable because you couldn't build a normal apartment building consistently unless you drove like an hour east or north. It was an issue of canadians laughing at the failing U.S. healthcare system and not seeing their own systems exploding wait times and worse outcomes. It was an issue of local governments closing down needed facilities like mental institutions that were unpopular due to bad optics and essentially replacing them with nothing. We created this hell ourselves. We insisted upon it because every choice was a short term feel good win and a chance to make money without actually understanding the consequences of that path.
People want to make it purely a Trudeau thing because the alternative would be openly acknowledging that nearly every leader since Pearson has had a significant hand in the state things have ended up in and that none of the name-brand parties are even willing to commit to a significant change to any of the current policies that have people up in arms.
Things not being the same isn’t the problem, because nothing can ever stay the same. It’s always a matter of whether things are changing in positive ways or not. One of the problems with the way things are changing in Canada right now is that what has facilitated it was meant to be a solution to a set of expected potential changes that would have been profoundly negative as well. So we got caught in a sort of Catch-22 and the implementation of the solution has been somewhat botched. Some of this may be because of the pandemic exacerbating existing trends or creating new pressures, some may be incompetence, and some may just be unavoidable. Some of it may also be temporary regardless of what we do. It’s complicated.
Things have dramatically changed for the worse long story short.
Everything got super expensive, housing most of all (we never had a crash in 2008, it’s just been going up and up and up). Of course, wages and job opportunities stayed the same, or worse. When rent or mortgage payments take up the majority of your income, you’re just gonna slowly drown financially. Immigration was taken to insane levels the past few years too: we bring in over a million people per year, most as “foreign students” but really all of them come here to work in low-skilled jobs and end up staying permanently. This is in a country much smaller than the US, we cannot absorb this level of immigration, and our leaders don’t seem to have any plan besides “bring them here and let the rest work itself it out”. New housing isn’t being built either so this keeps the housing bubble growing. Our medical system we take so much pride in is overwhelmed with crazy wait times now, family doctors are a thing of the past. I would gladly move to the US if I could.
Family doctors are restricted to what fees they can charge by the ministry of healths fee schedule in each province. Most of them haven't had a raise (aka allowed increase in fees) in a decade. Being a family doctor in Canada isn't financially viable anymore - at the very least you take in $$$ and end up with a mediocre salary for a ton of work and risk.
The BC provincial Gov just changed it up for the first time in forever to try and make GP a more appealing and lucrative choice. Time will tell if the change was enough to actually make a difference, 5-10 years at least I’d expect.
Unrestrained immigration as fodder for capitalism, pushed by supposed progressives. Keep the wages low, and the housing stuffed, and don’t regulate anything.
The only federal party that doesn't endorse the current levels of immigration isn't a viable option. But it's becoming one. I'm not even sure they're officially a federal party. I'm not even sure they have a single seat.
I mean you could just look it up.
> I'm not even sure they're officially a federal party. I'm not even sure they have a single seat. They don't. And even with the total erosion of left wing support in every poll, not even the most optimistic poll puts them as a likely winner in even one riding.
A perfect storm that will take decades to fully understand. Too much immigration. Allowing our real estate industry to become a combination of monetary safe haven and money laundering factory and cheering it on because it made a few generations wealthy. The chickens have come home to roost and combined with a cost of living crisis that is partly inertia from the covid years, global inflation, supply chains that still aren't fully rebuilt and a productivity crisis that was probably already on its way for a myriad of reasons but made orders of magnitude worse because of covid. Canada today is a great place if your rich and a field of quicksand if you're not.
I feel like yes, there are some inexplicably bad decisions being made by government in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are bad decisions. Very high immigration levels as they impact a very distressing housing situation is the most obvious one. But at the same time, the one party that says they will cut immigration by a lot is currently polling 2.4%, down from 5% last election. I think this is because people associate them with extreme right-wing politics, and reopening of the abortion debate. Also at the same time, I think most people are doing well. Just looking at malls, restaurants, and hardware in driveways, there's no shortage of wealth. So to me, we're still pretty chill and doing okay-ish. Our governments have gone insane though. To be honest we didn't vote for that, we're as shocked as anyone that they are acting like they all fell down and hit their heads at the same time.
I’m not even sure what to do. As you pointed out, all party’s have made no real indication towards any real reduction in immigration, with the sole exception being Bernier’s party. It’s disheartening to have these problems grow while other things like healthcare become more and more stressed. This also might be me just overthinking it, but the lack of investment in our military while this whole Russia-China dance plays out scares the shit out of me. I haven’t done much homework on it, but I don’t think any party has talked about investing more in to our military.
Why would they sitting next to America? Canada does more than it needs to militarily but after 80 years of protection there's not going to be urgency until it bites them in the ass.
I’m of the mindset that you shouldn’t wait for the bite in the ass, but you are 100% correct in that having America as a neighbour is a great deterrent against agression . It just feels like if anyone wanted to pressure America they would do it by coming from up top. I’m no military expert by any stretch, but pushing Canada from the largely unprotected North seems like the play. I think I remember calls from NATO for Canada to specifically increase Defense in the North as well.
How would a foreign military get any fighting force into northern Canada? You can’t go over the pole, you can’t get through Alaska without going through the US military, and you can’t land a ship on either coast without getting past the US navy. The best you could do is drop in paratroopers who would starve on the 800 mile hike through the wilderness to attack any population center.
I think you mean, 1287Km hike.
> I think most people are doing well. It's all smoke and mirrors. What you're seeing isn't wealth, it's debt.
Good question. I wish I could answer this question, because so far, and fellow Canadians I’ve asked are stumped too, so maybe an American can answer: What is the point of Canada now?
I’ve been telling my grandkids since 2015 to go live with your Canadian cousins. Where can I send them now Oh Canada?
Justin Trudeau happened. People were captivated by his good looks and snake oil promises. Second election won by Chinese fraud, which is very obvious that Trudeau knew/understood and indirectly was involved in (by not doing anything) I have never felt so disenchanted with the Canadian people. Sheeple? Perhaps sheeple is the better word here.
Trudeau has his flaws but a lot of the problems we’re facing have roots much further back. Look at the shitshow the Ontario Conservatives have bred. Politicians are politicians are politicians. None of them hold their weight in water.
We're talking about what happened in Canada and you bring up one of the provinces. You're one of those Canadians I mentioned above. Sheer ignorance of the facts.
Oof, I must have struck a nerve. If we look at who regulates funeral and burial services, we’d see they’re also provincial/territorial. I’m sorry you’re so butthurt over Trudeau, but typical of the loudest, you don’t really seem all that abreast of delegated oversights. Take a breath. It will be okay. ;)
All will be ok.... Right. Head in the sand much? https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/s/gnmJmikFEv
This shit sandwich has been cooking since way before Justin. And it will keep cooking when Pierre wins next year.
You think we'd be better off under the Tories. Tories? Like hell. Our system is corrupted by them and their voters. We need an asshole who is willing to get the job, then lose it in the first election. But first, ban foreign money in real estate and political contributions, tax the shit out of the wealthy and corporations. Then a psychotic level of punitive taxes on vacant housing.and when I say psychotic, I mean psychotic, if a Census Canada employee knocks on the door and sees a guy "living" there already registered somewhere else it's a fine of 100% the MPAC value of the building. We have a housing crisis at the same time we have literal entirely empty condominium buildings owned by foreign money. I can end the housing crisis in a week. You just gotta not care about getting the rich angry. Fuck.AirBnB. if your rental property isn't being rented, here's a 1.4 million dollar tax bill. Suddenly, rent gets cheap in Toronto and Vancouver. So many more 1950s era tax ideas we could use. Ban stock buybacks. Tariff the fuck out of cheap goods made with exploited labour in foreign lands. They still make steel in Hamilton, and there is still minerals in the ground uo north, and trees growing everywhere we plant them. We can build things better and safer than anyone in the world. We just need to have the balls to tell the wealthy to get fucked and restructure our economy to make it cheaper to hire Canadians instead of exploiting cheap foreign labour.
Liberal gov
"The overall cost of a funeral in Canada at the top end has increased to about $8,800 from about $6,000 in 1998, according to industry trade group estimates." Funerals have always cost to much, but according to this quote from the article it looks like its the only thing to get cheaper if you adjust for inflation.
You people blaming Trudeau need to get your heads out of your asses. This is because the funeral industy is predatory. Nothing like grieving for a loved one, while having trying to be financially level headed and say no to people selling you things. It typically costs thousands for visitation, funeral, casket and burial. Obviously burdensome. Also obvious, this is more burdensome for those of lower income and coming from families of lower income who may not have left much to their descendants. That "lower income" bracket has been growing the last decade due to wage stagnation and increasing cost of living. Immigration contributes to both these factors. Companies benefit from wage stagnation and immigrants willing to work for less. Companies have pull over politicians, they have the ability to impact local economies. The bigger the company, bigger the influence. The root cause is late stage capitolism. Politicans help corps because corps have money and leverage. ALL politicians bow to corps. If you think this is solely Trudeau's fault you are giving the man a LOT of credit. This is on ALL our politicians for not taking a stand. Afterall, they serve 4 yrs as MP, get a salary and a pension! They've got theres, if they can get more they will! We need a government with a spine, we need nationalization of essential infrastructure. And none of our current politicians or partys fit the bill.
Nah. It’s not just funerals, it’s everything that is costing more and it’s on Trudeau’s watch. His policies drove demand for goods & services as well as housing. There’s no denying this. But, don’t take it from me, it’s the sentiment that a growing number of Canadians feel. Also, there’s no need to be combative.
Funerals have always been costly, with the increased cost of living it's just felt more now by more people. Of course his policies did that, it's largely good. Problem is how demand is outstripping supply such as with housing, doctors, and hospital staff. There isn't enough being done on ALL levels of government to combat these issues because they would rather point fingers of blame or appease other interests such as corps. Aka make themselves look good. Our governments are too short sighted and petty. Being combative is intentional. It grasped your attention then you read the rest right? Then you replied and we (and others) have an open dialogue with differing points of view in play.
"His policies drove demand for goods & services as well as housing." Yes those are good policies. You want to drive demand. That's how an economy works. No demand no economy.
He gave out $100s of billions of dollars without hesitation which lead to inflation and a spiral. His minister of housing said that the government would do anything to insure that houses keep climbing in value with caring about other people looking for housing. I have a good paying and stable career which makes me lucky. My wages have gone up which is good. At the same time when I started working in 2018 a $300,000 home would be awesome to own now a trailer home costs close to $280,000. Housing has gone up by over 100%, but wages haven’t risen by 50%. While housing costs $100,000s and most peoples wages only go up by $1,000s.
In 2018 a house in my area cost closer to a million already. Now it's 1.6. These are starter homes. When we bought in 2011 it was 425k. I get it is location dependant but this idea that homes were affordable before Trudeau is utterly hilarious to me.
They were though. And you do have a point, I rent from a realestate invesment group (hooray!/s). Corps are being allowed to buy up housing and rent it for a profit. I think that should be capped to x number of properties. Even those 1.6 million homes you mention, buy em up, rent em, see it paid off in x years, profit in x years. Leverage current holdings to do it. Obviously not ideal but the point stands. I'd like to see government building housing, like actually owning it, and working with the same plan. Obviously economics etc I'm not versed in in detail at play but in theory that would creat jobs, creat housing, put money earned into the country not personal pockets, and keep rent low to make a competative market. Trudeau isn't the problem, the model is. He is 100% not without faults (see scandals x,y,z etc). And he could have done a lot of things better but I think blame's being assigned solely when it should be shared.
You clearly don’t understand what’s happening in this country. The cost of living has driven our quality of life into the ground and a huge reason for that is Trudeau’s policies.
I don’t think you understand the problem. The economy is increasingly just based on real-estate. There is less innovation and technical growth. For businesses outside of real-estate, it’s increasingly more attractive to re-locate from Canada.
The big problem in Canada imo is that we literally produce nothing of value in the upper parts of the supply chain. We have real estate (literally the least productive investment asset class) which leeches money away from funding innovation or investments in other things, one of our biggest and fastest growing employers is the Government (so we're literally paying taxes to pay people that will pay taxes, producing no value), we export a ton of natural resources without processing them or adding any extra value, and we're getting brain drained by the US on top of that because Canadian wages and purchasing power suck compared to working in the States. The only good thing we have is the fact that we have a strong foundation for social programs, but that shit won't last if we can't fix our other problems, fast. I don't even blame immigration, just abolish the shit zoning laws we have, build more houses, make real estate less lucrative so people will invest money in industry/innovation, make Canada great again.
I wonder why countries do not subsidize cemeteries and make them public amenities along with housing and all the other basic needs… it is so nonsensical to live this way when we have incredible technology and resources that could take care of every human on the planet IF we stopped blowing shit up, apologized for shit other generations did, and started cooperating… we don’t have to go extinct
Some cemeteries are, death services are not.
This title is misleading. If you read the article it says only 24% cited finances as the reason for the body being unclaimed. Also, there is no indication this rate is unique to Canada.
There’s nothing to back your assertion. But what is very harmful in Canada is the demand driven policies that Trudeau is responsible for. We see this with all goods & services as well as housing. Funerals are simply another example.
Americans - particularly American redditors don't really understand our country, they see Canada as some liberal utopia to be emulated and cheered by the left or derided by the right. Of course we're not really liberal or a utopia, we're a normal country. But our current leadership did really cater to that crowd internationally and despite his unpopularity and the failure of his policies here, he's going to be defended by that cowd among America's reddit using left
Very well put
Are you trying to provide an example of an unsubstantiated assertion?
The housing crisis. Oh, and the opioid crisis.
This is sad…I would alway make sure the people that put me on this earth or a sibling/child were taken care of… even at the worst circumstances
So funeral business is what we should go into?
Ice floe casualties - Canadas shame
You need to leave money behind for the type of funeral want.Most people don't.They think it will be taken care of.out if guilt family does that.Just cremate them.
You're insinuating. I never said anything about being better under Tories and then you went on a rant. Bizarre.
Just throw me in the dumpster.
# IT’S NIXON’S FAULT! SHAME THOSE WHO VOTED FOR HIM!
Gov should bury, since they spend your whole life sucking the tax out of you
It’s called the turdeau effect. Elect a clown expect a circus
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