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Quebec can't even get 20 an hour such bs

Some of the stats cited here are straight up wrong or... creatively employed, and there's a lot of contradictory information and the typical conservative 'the sky is falling' sensationalism and misattribution. That said, the bas supposition isn't wrong. The bubble we've been sitting on for 20 or so years has completely burst. As someone born and raised in the Toronto area, it's impossible for me to afford to own a house or apartment here on a teacher's salary. Even rent pushes me to the limit unless I want to live in a... less than nice area. I'm living hand to mouth and enjoying the benefits of living in a 'developed' country less. Here's why:\n\n1. Wages aren't really even close to keeping up with the cost of living. The first tick upwards a bit. The second just keeps rising on the back of housing, food, amenities, and inflation: the four horsemen.\n\n2. Our grocery cabal ruthlessly raise prices whenever we look away, and their lobbyists are all ensconced within the leadership of our three major parties, particularly the Conservatives (so if anyone thinks that electing them will help, they're in for a nasty surprise).\n\n3. We're experiencing 'labour shrinkflation': increasing duties are downloaded onto workers and more is expected: more productivity, more availability (almost 24/7 in some jobs), and higher qualifications. Meanwhile, real wages are decreasing relative to living cost, more positions are 'contract', which is basically a way for employers to not have to give you benefits, and job security is tenuous for a lot of people.\n\n4. Houses are being bought by investors and not owners. Foreign entities are money laundering. The wealthy upper crust of high population countries are moving here and buying property because Canada is (still) more safe and stable and less repressive than their home countries in most cases. \n\n5. There's a cycle beginning: as people are squeezed and forced to spend more on 'needs', they spend less on eating out, entertainment, and other 'wants'. These are significant drivers of the service economy and they're being hit hard. So, what can they do? They can let go of workers or lower product costs to remain profitable, but they their quality declines and, in a market where people are pinching every penny and looking for quality for their dollar, they're less likely to go back. They can raise their prices, of course, but then they price people out completely and their profits still tank. I went to a decent steakhouse for my dad's 60th last week. I can't remember the last time that I went to one before that. \n\n6. Our politicians and news cycles focus on the most niche and irrelevant stuff because it'll stoke anger and get tongues wagging. This carbon thing is almost a non-issue, but our conservative leader is harping on about it like it's singlehandedly the death of the Canadian economy when it's a drop in the bucket. Trudeau focuses on 'equity' measures, hoping for a bit of cheap good press, while his efforts are, for the most part, just window dressing and the issues, while meaningful, are often not of paramount importance or even applicable to the vast majority of the people who elected him. Meanwhile, the middle class is pretty much evaporating as he speaks. The NDP keep talking about this in a pretty real way, for what it's worth, but Jagmeet Singh is giving off an increasing vibe of just being another fat cat politician beneath his rhetoric these days. Also, third-party trolls and screeching conservatives try to bury him on social media whenever he speaks... a lot more than other leaders as well, oddly. I wonder why? Oh yeah, the Greens exist and there's Quebec and the conspiracy theory party.\n\n\nUltimately, what we're experiencing is the revenge of the feudal system. Instead of paying rents to your lord and doing labour on the land for him whenever commanded to, you pay rent to your landlord now and go to work even when you're sick or when work hours are over because you have no union protection or are working 'on contract'. Unless we want to live in the armpit of nowhere, 95% of us are going to be wage slaves living hand-to-mouth, not owning our own property, and working to please our corporate overlords if current trends continue unchecked. While some of Canada's problems are unique, I fear that most aren't. As for me, I'm headed to the 'armpit of nowhere' where I can at least have a ghost of a chance of affording life.

Hey there, you fine American... Just to let you understand, our system is FAR from perfect, but it's still easy access and quick service IF you don't need a rare specialist or a not so rare one). The thing is, it's ALL priority based, so if you wait, it's because someone needs your resources even MORE than you do. Sometimes, it ends up in a tragedy, but MOST times, it allows for the neediest to get it first. \nAs far as having children here, we have a NEGATIVE birthrate, so our government PAYS us to have children. My son grew up in Quebec, and they have a double everything. Double taxes (not that bad after the tax deductions and credits), but they also Double the safety net and services, compared to the rest of Canada. Not only was childbirth free, so were the pre-natal courses and everything else, AND we got around 1000$/mo in childcare benefits, until he turned 18, with full of tax credits per kid. Plus, daycare was 5$/day back then, it's 7$/day almost 20 years later.. Pretty citizen friendly. \nThings MIGHT be changing though. Our conservatives are taking their talking points from the US GOP since COVID, and they are all-in to please their Oil lobby overlords and donators out in our prairies region. The Alberta Premier is a far-right conspiracy nutcase and her new pet-project is Capitalist healthcare (among her trolley of lunacies). SAME place the far-right rednecks always come at us from. It's like they binge-watch FUX nonnews and get their ideas from the dumbest idiots there. Disgraceful Canadian MAGAt wannabes are the result of Trump polluting everything since 2016. He made shameless individuals get some traction in this new, crazy world we live in. And it infected the whole Western world. Canada is not immune to idiocies, Q , conspiracy nuggets, and belly-button Anarchists everywhere.\nSorry a bout this little rant, but things are getting steadily worst as the year goes on. \nAnyways, YOU give me a sense that what we SEE about Americans isn't all there is to see. Some of you are decent, so keep it up and don't let the ranting morons give your whole country a bad rep.

I live in Canada (Quebec), and I dont think I would move to the US, not even sure I want to visit...\nAnd the thing is, if you would have asked me maybe 20 years ago, I would have loved to live there, in NY even.\nMind you, I dont have any firm confirmation of how it is, but if we listen to the media, it seems like simply walking in NY is risky, thieves and mentaly ill people at every corner. What I'm getting at is that the picture drawn by the medias is one of complete insecurity, dirty and almost evil place, fill with mostly good people, but surrounded by madness left unchecked (sorry for my bad english, still learning).

Every province has good and bad qualities, except Ontario. I lived in Ontario on and off for about 20 years. Not one good thing comes to mind about this province, not one. I've also lived in Quebec and Alberta, both great. Ontario is like the armpit of Canada, it just stinks, definitely because of the government overreach, extremely high tax robbery on everything you buy, very high cost of living compared to both Quebec and Alberta. Both Alberta and Quebec are wayyyyyy cheaper to live than Ontario, and to be totally fair, the people in Ontario seem to be the most narcissistic i've seen within 3 provinces i've lived in, and with the worst roads. So much car repairs every single year from just driving on the main roads, which are basically just pot holes because they line their pockets with the taxes instead of using the money to fix the roads. The people in gov make so much money, there is none left after their payday to fix the roads or build any parks or things for families. Ontario is actually a bad place to live, especially with other good options available, it's the only province i don't recommend moving to if you want a decent quality of life. You can't even find a doctor here unless you live within or drive for 2 hours to get to the city. It's extremely inconvenient and expensive for no reason other than tax grabs and high fees for every single thing you have to do in life, there's a high fee for that in Ontario.

To me, the problem is threefold. a) Toronto and Ontario in general - and perhaps the whole of Canada - are accepting way more immigrants than they have quality jobs for. If you need taxi drivers and plumbers, maybe this experience should be valued way higher than education as part of the existing immigration programs (which is not the case). At least then potential immigrants know this before they come and get stuck in low-paying or relatively OK-paying but repetitive and demoralizing jobs with debts and mortgages that become a trap preventing them from leaving. It's also partially on immigrants themselves who come to Toronto to only find out there's 100 people competing for one spot and that you need to be exceptional - or connected through your ethnic network - to work regular white-collar jobs. b) The official bipartisan policy of non-integration. The naive expectation that having people live in ethnic enclaves will somehow make the overall culture richer is not what happens: instead, people tend to stick to their own communities and the common culture thus gets eroded and limited to economic and financial matters. This makes some cities feel like one large business with everyone networking 24/7 instead of socializing normally. And arguably, having the right culture / social life is what motivates already successful people move in the first place. So when they come and they find out there's nothing but money talk and hustling, they leave (if they're smart). Quebec is doing better in that regard, but then Quebec is not really Canada and it's been pressured to cave in to the same money-centred, uncultured and disconnected society by the feds for decades now. The States is smarter in that it actually makes sure to integrate its immigrants (and let's be honest, many immigrants like being part of a new culture if it fits them) c) Treating real estate as an investment and not as a basic necessity (as Japan or some Nordic countries do, for example). That coupled with a lot of Asian money being laundered in Canada through immigration channels and private equity firms buying whole apartment blocks for rental purposes has led to the highest housing price increase in all of the developed world in the past 20 years or so. The median price of a condo in Toronto is higher than in New York despite the massive gap in salaries and the fact that New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world to begin with. Some draconian measures are needed here to prevent foreign - or even out-of-province ownership -, second property ownership and corporate ownership for renting purposes.