5 ms·

I'm sure there's a number somewhere between 0% and 100% that can ameliorate both demographic problems, and the avoid the vague 'huge problems' you cite. Canada

by vkou 4y ago

I'm sure there's a number somewhere between 0% and 100% that can ameliorate both demographic problems, and the avoid the vague 'huge problems' you cite. Canada seems to be doing just fine with a quarter of its population being foreign-born. An alternative answer to this situation, of course, is to observe that the demographic problems in question are largely overrated, and that the productivity gains of the last century will keep old people from having to live under bridges and eating cat food.

sergers 4y ago
We essentially need the immigrants to prop up programs like pension for future. Canada is too big, land area wise for the population it has to support major infrastructure. So we need constant stream of new souls to collect taxes and help prop up the next group
- TylerE 4y ago
  I wouldn’t count the land area, really. It’s mostly tundra. Doesn’t something like 95% of the population live within 100 miles of the US border?
  - vkou 4y ago
    More than half of Canadians live south of Seattle, 80% of the country is completely uninhabited, and most of what is - is not much different in infrastructure (and the lack thereof) as the middle-of-nowhere parts of the US.
  - dsq 4y ago
    A lot of Canada has no soil due to glaciers repeatedly scraping it off and dumping it in the US midwest.
  - sergers 4y ago
    Yea sorry if my point wasn't clear, I was basically trying to say this. Because of the vast distance between inhabitable area, it is very Costly to support connected infrastructure without the population needs to support it
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  "It's too big for infrastructure" is a garbage take made up by American conservatives to pretend our absurdly bad infrastructure is not directly their fault from neglect and lack of funding. Meanwhile, 80 years ago we had no problems literally covering the entire country with brand new highways and giant dams and bridges everywhere, so many that we don't even inspect them all right now. We could build infrastructure perfectly fine when we taxed high incomes and invested heavily in infrastructure. Canada is not a poor country and could very well afford such infrastructure as well.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    The democrats also are in control in many areas…
    - vkou 4y ago
      The bones of the democratic party are 100% fiscally conservative.
      - mensetmanusman 4y ago
        The ‘no true democrat’ fallacy?
nivenkos 4y ago
Canada has the benefit of having no bordering countries aside from the USA though. So it chooses its immigrants carefully. Whereas Europe has a much bigger issue with the refugee crisis and illegal immigration.
richbell 4y ago
> Canada seems to be doing just fine with a quarter of its population being foreign-born. Canada is not doing fine. There are major problems with wage suppression and lowering standards of living, as well as dwindling access to housing and medical services. The Canadian economy has become a bubble propped up by massive influx of immigrants to hide glaring systemic issues; it's not sustainable, and in recent years has become a growing source of controversy.
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  Canada having not enough housing is because the established rich use their political power to block housing creation at the local level. It's not something induced by immigration existing.
  - richbell 4y ago
    It's exacerbated by the rich heavily relying on cheap labour and fresh credit to keep wages low and the GDP growing. Lots of companies rely on the Temporary Foreign Worker program to fill menial minimum-wage jobs, often paying those TFWs below minimum-wage and abusing them. Similarly, the student visa program is a backdoor for lots of companies (particularly delivery & logistics). I also used to work at a government-sponsored employment centre where I met hundreds of skilled new-immigrants who gave up everything to emigrate, only to arrive in Canada and realize they'd been deceived about their prospects (e.g. the barriers to recertification). I am not against immigration — both my spouse and I are children of immigrants — but it's important to differentiate between reasonable immigration policies and excessive ones designed to prop up a failing system by constantly injecting new bodies. Canada's immigration system is the latter; it predominantly benefits the rich and nobody else.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Housing problem is in the entire western world, mostly due to the 2007 financial crisis which caused builders to stop building for a few years which dried up supply.
- vkou 4y ago
  > There are major problems with wage suppression and lowering standards of living Canada's big businesses, protected by their political friends, and largely controlled by a few old-boys-clubs is to blame for that. > dwindling access to housing and medical services. Dwindling access to housing is because NIMBYs refuse to build any. Access to medical services continues to be the same thing that Canadians have complained about for decades. Everyone bitches about it, but all-in-all, they are fine. > The Canadian economy has become a bubble propped up by massive influx of immigrants to hide glaring systemic issues; it's not sustainable, and in recent years has become a growing source of controversy. 'It's become a controversy among the fringe-right' is not a sufficient metric for telling me that there's a problem. All sorts of normal things have a tendency to turn into controversies for those folks. What are the actual issues? Money laundering through the Canadian real estate markets? That's not an immigration problem, that's a ML problem, and it could be fixed by not selling permanent residencies to 'investors' building sham self-dealing companies.

by vkou 4y ago

sergers 4y ago

We essentially need the immigrants to prop up programs like pension for future. Canada is too big, land area wise for the population it has to support major infrastructure. So we need constant stream of new souls to collect taxes and help prop up the next group

TylerE 4y ago
I wouldn’t count the land area, really. It’s mostly tundra. Doesn’t something like 95% of the population live within 100 miles of the US border?
- vkou 4y ago
  More than half of Canadians live south of Seattle, 80% of the country is completely uninhabited, and most of what is - is not much different in infrastructure (and the lack thereof) as the middle-of-nowhere parts of the US.
- dsq 4y ago
  A lot of Canada has no soil due to glaciers repeatedly scraping it off and dumping it in the US midwest.
- sergers 4y ago
  Yea sorry if my point wasn't clear, I was basically trying to say this. Because of the vast distance between inhabitable area, it is very Costly to support connected infrastructure without the population needs to support it
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mrguyorama 4y ago
"It's too big for infrastructure" is a garbage take made up by American conservatives to pretend our absurdly bad infrastructure is not directly their fault from neglect and lack of funding. Meanwhile, 80 years ago we had no problems literally covering the entire country with brand new highways and giant dams and bridges everywhere, so many that we don't even inspect them all right now. We could build infrastructure perfectly fine when we taxed high incomes and invested heavily in infrastructure. Canada is not a poor country and could very well afford such infrastructure as well.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  The democrats also are in control in many areas…
  - vkou 4y ago
    The bones of the democratic party are 100% fiscally conservative.
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      The ‘no true democrat’ fallacy?

nivenkos 4y ago

Canada has the benefit of having no bordering countries aside from the USA though. So it chooses its immigrants carefully. Whereas Europe has a much bigger issue with the refugee crisis and illegal immigration.

richbell 4y ago

> Canada seems to be doing just fine with a quarter of its population being foreign-born. Canada is not doing fine. There are major problems with wage suppression and lowering standards of living, as well as dwindling access to housing and medical services. The Canadian economy has become a bubble propped up by massive influx of immigrants to hide glaring systemic issues; it's not sustainable, and in recent years has become a growing source of controversy.

Tiktaalik 4y ago
Canada having not enough housing is because the established rich use their political power to block housing creation at the local level. It's not something induced by immigration existing.
- richbell 4y ago
  It's exacerbated by the rich heavily relying on cheap labour and fresh credit to keep wages low and the GDP growing. Lots of companies rely on the Temporary Foreign Worker program to fill menial minimum-wage jobs, often paying those TFWs below minimum-wage and abusing them. Similarly, the student visa program is a backdoor for lots of companies (particularly delivery & logistics). I also used to work at a government-sponsored employment centre where I met hundreds of skilled new-immigrants who gave up everything to emigrate, only to arrive in Canada and realize they'd been deceived about their prospects (e.g. the barriers to recertification). I am not against immigration — both my spouse and I are children of immigrants — but it's important to differentiate between reasonable immigration policies and excessive ones designed to prop up a failing system by constantly injecting new bodies. Canada's immigration system is the latter; it predominantly benefits the rich and nobody else.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Housing problem is in the entire western world, mostly due to the 2007 financial crisis which caused builders to stop building for a few years which dried up supply.
vkou 4y ago
> There are major problems with wage suppression and lowering standards of living Canada's big businesses, protected by their political friends, and largely controlled by a few old-boys-clubs is to blame for that. > dwindling access to housing and medical services. Dwindling access to housing is because NIMBYs refuse to build any. Access to medical services continues to be the same thing that Canadians have complained about for decades. Everyone bitches about it, but all-in-all, they are fine. > The Canadian economy has become a bubble propped up by massive influx of immigrants to hide glaring systemic issues; it's not sustainable, and in recent years has become a growing source of controversy. 'It's become a controversy among the fringe-right' is not a sufficient metric for telling me that there's a problem. All sorts of normal things have a tendency to turn into controversies for those folks. What are the actual issues? Money laundering through the Canadian real estate markets? That's not an immigration problem, that's a ML problem, and it could be fixed by not selling permanent residencies to 'investors' building sham self-dealing companies.