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Oh wow, thanks for shedding some light. Do you mind sharing references to what you said? Will be useful to counter the "US so bad, look at Canada bwahaha" smug

Oh wow, thanks for shedding some light. Do you mind sharing references to what you said? Will be useful to counter the "US so bad, look at Canada bwahaha" smug narratives.

Tiktaalik 4y ago
Canadians can remain smug that their social safety net is much better than the USA and many other countries, but nonetheless there are enormous holes that can still be filled which would make life more affordable for regular people and would conceivably aid in making people feel more comfortable to be able to afford to have more children. Parent correct to note that Dentalcare is not part of Universal Healthcare, but even more significant than that there is no Universal Pharmacare, though there's some aids for the poor and elderly. Two weeks vacation is pretty standard and many Canadians have very little vacation time. Until very recently many people had no minimum sick days (though your typical tech company would have a few). Only during the pandemic has there been adgitation to try to create some minimums. The Feds brought in 10 days minimum sick days for workers under their purview, but provinces demurred from going that far. Only just now is Canada slowly rolling out affordable universal $10/day childcare and so the next few decades will be interesting in that academics can study the impact of this on births. The most significant thing Canada could do to encourage more births would be to make family friendly homes (ie. 1300 sqft+) dramatically more available and affordable. Right now there's a huge shortage and they're basically unaffordable without existing wealth. Japan does not seem to have this problem so bad as they have an enormous surplus of homes and their home prices have been stagnant for a long time.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  One note 1300sqft homes could be condos, even if Canadians are condo resistant. They should make the condo more soundproof, no doubt, but living in a 3 bedroom condo @ 1300sqft is pretty nice, we do so ourselves with 2 children. Plenty of space. It was super expensive for us.

Oh wow, thanks for shedding some light. Do you mind sharing references to what you said? Will be useful to counter the "US so bad, look at Canada bwahaha" smug narratives.

Tiktaalik 4y ago

Canadians can remain smug that their social safety net is much better than the USA and many other countries, but nonetheless there are enormous holes that can still be filled which would make life more affordable for regular people and would conceivably aid in making people feel more comfortable to be able to afford to have more children. Parent correct to note that Dentalcare is not part of Universal Healthcare, but even more significant than that there is no Universal Pharmacare, though there's some aids for the poor and elderly. Two weeks vacation is pretty standard and many Canadians have very little vacation time. Until very recently many people had no minimum sick days (though your typical tech company would have a few). Only during the pandemic has there been adgitation to try to create some minimums. The Feds brought in 10 days minimum sick days for workers under their purview, but provinces demurred from going that far. Only just now is Canada slowly rolling out affordable universal $10/day childcare and so the next few decades will be interesting in that academics can study the impact of this on births. The most significant thing Canada could do to encourage more births would be to make family friendly homes (ie. 1300 sqft+) dramatically more available and affordable. Right now there's a huge shortage and they're basically unaffordable without existing wealth. Japan does not seem to have this problem so bad as they have an enormous surplus of homes and their home prices have been stagnant for a long time.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
One note 1300sqft homes could be condos, even if Canadians are condo resistant. They should make the condo more soundproof, no doubt, but living in a 3 bedroom condo @ 1300sqft is pretty nice, we do so ourselves with 2 children. Plenty of space. It was super expensive for us.