3 ms·

This comment is just my observations about the nature of comments regarding Canada. I'm not trying to lean one way or another by writing this... I can't speak

• mgh2 3y ago
  Sometimes HN/Reddit can be more realistic/honest than news corporations, but both can be biased or manipulated.
• Waterluvian 3y ago
  There is a TON of astroturfing going on. And we've got a Conservative Party leader who is happy to encourage the classic cowardice-based attitudes about how the immigrants other easy targets are to blame for it all. Basically, "this is a very complex situation but I want to be elected so I'll distill it down to something raw and emotional for votes." But that's really just a symptom of the fact that there are very real economic problems here. Climate change is becoming a disaster. Economic ripples from COVID continue. The housing market is completely broken. Inflation up. When times are tough, people get scared. When people get scared, they respond more to emotion and impulse than logic and reason. That creates a market for charlatans who will give them simple explanations and simple solutions.
  • version_five 3y ago
    This is just some partisan talking points. Certainly you're not the only one with this view but it doesnt represent even the majority in Canada, and everyone that disagrees with you are not astroturfers or people who have been scared into seeking simple solutions. I see this "everyone who doesn't think like me must have been manipulated" garbage every day online and it's extremely offensive. People can think for themselves and come up with a different conclusion than yours, which is essentially the most orthodox mainstream media view there is.
  • llm_nerd 3y ago
    Apologies for the lengthy reply, however I simply had to write a more detailed comment for other readers. >And we've got a Conservative Party leader So you have adopted your "everything is fine [just ignore that the house is on fire]" position purely for partisan reasons? You convince yourself that everyone with a different position than you is actually some astroturfing Conservative operative? I hope you realize how intellectually dishonest that is. I detest PP and his veneer of populism and conspiracy theory adjacency. But no amount of fairytales or painting over can change the absolutely dire situation in Canada right now, and I would be absolutely ashamed to try to paint this as okay because I want the current guy to win. Canada added a million+ new residents in the past year, and continues at that staggering clip. This is a rate that makes developing countries blush[1]. In absolute numbers it beat every other developed country in population growth. Not per capita, absolute numbers. All despite the fact that there is an enormous housing crisis and housing starts have actually dropped (though if they didn't they couldn't accommodate 1/4 that rate). Millions of Canadians are in the perilous situation of being unable to afford housing if their current situation demanded it, anxiously worry about the next mortgage renewal or that their landlord decides to pull a renoviction. People are staying with abusive partners, and children are going to be living with their parents indefinitely. Fertility rates were bad and now they're going to devastated. Economic homelessness -- not mental illness or substance abuse -- is exploding. There was a time when you might get priced out of the big city, but now there literally is nothing left. For those falling through the cracks there are no cheap areas left anywhere in the country. But don't worry -- we can solve the housing crisis by, they claim, more immigration. And when that fails I'll let you fill in the blanks with the solution, so long as you guess "more immigration". This government has been selling rolls of quarters for a nickel and then demanding more rolls to make up for the losses. Every ill just demands more immigration to this government. And to the governments before, and likely the government after, because ever questioning immigration was verboten, forbidden under the guise that despite Canada being a hugely diverse country built by immigrants, if you questioned immigration levels you clearly must be a racist. Wage suppression is Canada's "competitiveness" (our productivity gap just keeps increasing. In Canada you don't automate or seek efficiencies, you just demand the government give you an army of TFWs. We have a GDP per capita below Alabama and dropping). Canada's best tech workers leave to the US, so just import foreign workers who couldn't get into the US, or who are poised to get sent out from the US. What a loser strategy. We do the same with scientists and doctors. The best go to the US, so just accept the sloppy seconds from elsewhere. Canada has more international "students" than the United States, despite having 1/12th the student spaces. And I quote students because many are students of strip mall diploma mills, taking advantage of the fact that this government gave them a full work permit and is a track towards permanent residency, whereupon they can sponsor their family from home as well who funded this adventure. Get a full time job, live 8 to a basement for a slumlord and hit up the food bank for food. This is happening en masse right now. It is scandalous exploitation. Canada has a massive temporary foreign worker program using wage suppressing foreign labour at staggering rates in critical positions like...factory worker and fast food worker. Under this purportedly "progressive" government the program, like the rate of immigration and the number of "students", has exploded. It is because I am a progressive that I find all of this disgusting. We are at the end stages of some of the most hostile anti-worker policies conceivable. So while this announcement is just a raindrop in a downpour, that doesn't excuse it when the country is flooding. [1] - Like all developed countries Canada has a birth rate deficiency, and is a nation of immigrants that relies upon immigration for continued health. The actual deficiency is 1/4 the current pace of intake, however.
  • JacobThreeThree 3y ago
    Getting fed up with the current party that's in power is a reoccurring theme in Canadian politics going back many decades. It's a pattern the repeats over and over. It would be extraordinary if Canadians weren't getting sick of a government that's been in power for going on 9 years. Polling data shows that the recent slide in approval is coming mostly from Liberal and NDP voters. https://angusreid.org/trudeau-poilievre-singh-approval-favourability-confidence-and-supply/ https://angusreid.org/trudeau-poilievre-singh-approval-favou...