The Canada Political Thread

I want off this fucking ride. I did everything the baby boomers told me and got a business degree and am now back in university studying STEM. How are we gonna give jobs to foreign workers when so many Canadians are unemployed or underemployed? My father came here on a sunny Thursday in 1976. He started working as a janitor the following Saturday. Try finding a job within 3 months these days...

(03-08-2016 08:24 AM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  

Quote:New Quebec immigration policy aimed at attracting, retaining foreign talent


In a news conference today, Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil outlined a new policy aimed at attracting strategic talent to the province.

Weil said this new plan, called Together, We Are Quebec, will take into account changing labour trends and streamline the immigration process.

Another key aim of the plan is to retain immigrants who are here on temporary visas as students or temporary workers.

Weil said Quebec must do better to not lose top talent to other countries.

"People have a lot of choices right now," Weil said. "Many European countries and the U.S. are interesting [places] to potential immigrants and we want to do as well, or better, than our competitors."

A faster system

Weil said the current immigration system can take up to four years for a person to be approved to immigrate to Quebec.

"By the time [immigrants] get here, the labour market has changed."

The process will be sped up by using digital technology in the immigration process.

Competition for highly-trained immigrants

ndividuals trained in job sectors that are in high-demand will be targeted for immigration first.

When asked about what can be done for highly-trained workers like doctors and engineers to get their qualification recognized, Weil said the government and employers will have to step up.

"It's our objective to do much better.[…] We seek to have their qualification partially or fully recognized before they get here. We need to solve these problems. We have to mobilize all the players."

Learning French is seen as integral to having the program work.

"We need to be more flexible to open more French courses. We are going to offer it to foreign students and temporary workers. […] It's the first sense of insecurity new immigrants have."

Foreign students

Weil stressed the importance of retaining foreign students.

"Everyone is after them. We are the second largest university city in North America. These people are well-integrated, they have a degree, they bring incredible diversity."

Temporary workers are also seen as being well-integrated and valuable to Quebec.

Weil said retention of foreign workers is going well at about 20 to 30 per cent. But that this number still lags far behind places like New Zealand where retention is close to 90 per cent.

In Quebec's 2015-2016 economic plan, the province earmarked $42.5 million over five years to help immigrants and ethnocultural minorities contribute more to Quebec's development.

The new policy is accompanied by a five-year action strategy from 2016-2021.

Syrian refugees

Weil said the integration of Syrian refugees has gone very well in Quebec, partly because of the government's partnership with community organizations that help guide the new arrivals.

"We never lived what Vancouver, Ottawa, and Toronto lived because in Quebec, the province is responsible for settling refugees."

Weil said finding apartments and language courses for these refugees has gone smoothly.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/q...-1.3479558

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Completely off topic, but how hard is it really to pronounce Mississauga for non-Canucks?





and around the 7:05 mark for Roosh:

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(03-13-2016 09:31 AM)Mojambo Wrote:  Completely off topic, but how hard is it really to pronounce Mississauga for non-Canucks?

It's at moment like this that I consider myself blessed to be a speaker of Croatian, one of the rare languages where everything is pronounced exactly as it's written. It's a great platform for learning other languages. You can't really appreciate that gift until you've witnessed Obama struggling with this

Back on topic, are there any reports on how Trudeau's "progressive" cabinet is (under)performing? Has that no-name singer screwed up anything major in the energy sector yet?

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Quote:I want off this fucking ride. I did everything the baby boomers told me and got a business degree and am now back in university studying STEM. How are we gonna give jobs to foreign workers when so many Canadians are unemployed or underemployed? My father came here on a sunny Thursday in 1976. He started working as a janitor the following Saturday. Try finding a job within 3 months these days...

The janitor jobs are still plentiful and they're stilled manned by freshly arrived immigrants.

In regards to STEM, I'm starting to think that too many people are getting into it now. We'll have a whole batch of underemployed STEM grads in 5 years just as we had a batch of underemployed business grads 10 years ago (which I was part of).

I sure hope I'm wrong on this one.

The future is niche specialization. That's where the Canadian economy really lacks workers. It's highly specialized jobs. You can get your training from a college through a pre-employment with Co-op placement for experience.

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^ I have spoken to several kids in school, they say even a MBA doesn't guarantee you a good job anymore.

^^ So Obama doesn't know how to pronounce my "city", it wouldn't be the first time I have heard someone have that problem.

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(02-21-2016 09:07 PM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  Going way back to Scotian's original post.

Western Canada gets a raw deal, as does the east coast, as does the north, including northern ontario. Back in the day, there was unity and leverage of the far flung reaches of canada because the massive amounts of money flowing from mines, fisheries, paper mills, oil fields and steel mills were controlled by canadian corporations, with corporate headquarters somewhere between toronto and montreal as well as unions that had solidarity with the far flung regions. Massive companies like Domtar paper had the ear of canadian politicians and they did not want policies that fucked with their remote operations and remote workers.

Now, there is no canadian ownership and unions only exist to support government workers and teachers. Canadian government no longer serves voters and business, it just serves voters and those are in southern ontario, vancouver, montreal and calgary. So what if the oil patch turns over or canada's forests are essentially owned the china and south asians? Thats maybe 10,000 voters affected on the forestry side.

The separatist movement is on the rise again in ontario's far north, western canada and hopefully quebec once again. Canada would be much better if broken up and the resource provinces turned into US states which have far more independence. Every alberta cowboy and manitoba redneck would love to be under american gun laws than tim hortons tyranny...which is american as apple pie now since burger king and warren buffet bought it.

On paper US states have more powers than Canadian provinces but in real life the reverse is true. In Canada the environment is a shared provincial/federal jurisdiction. Would you really want the EPA running the oilpatch? Likewise, Ottawa has very little say in matters such as health care or education. Common Core or the Affordable Care Act aren't possible in Canada.

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(03-03-2016 06:39 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  Oh no I get what you're saying - but imagine if Mr. Trudeau tomorrow sat with Mr. Jinping and arranged with him to sell the entire oil sands of Alberta to Sinopec for a few billion (in exchange for a few donuts and a Nobel Peace Prize nod for Mr. Trudeau)? Same like he has sold all of your gold right now?

Natural resources might be vast, but they still have physical limits. Corruption doesn't.

Zoolander can't sell the oil sands to anyone. Constitution says otherwise.

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(03-13-2016 09:31 AM)Mojambo Wrote:  Completely off topic, but how hard is it really to pronounce Mississauga for non-Canucks?





and around the 7:05 mark for Roosh:

They have trouble with Nanaimo too.

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Full cuck achievement.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-commen...isgraceful

If a university cant see that by censoring our past, they are falling in with the book burners that civil rights protesters have been fighting against.

Its on days like this that I actually wonder how people of such mind get into positions of authority. I like to think that smart people are the ones running these large institutions and businesses. Knowing its not has been a bit sad for me.

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(03-14-2016 11:29 AM)Laner Wrote:  Full cuck achievement.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-commen...isgraceful

If a university cant see that by censoring our past, they are falling in with the book burners that civil rights protesters have been fighting against.

Its on days like this that I actually wonder how people of such mind get into positions of authority. I like to think that smart people are the ones running these large institutions and businesses. Knowing its not has been a bit sad for me.

Conrad Black Wrote:Canada is suffering from a prolonged pandemic of moral self-flagellation promoted by hemophiliac bleeding hearts and militant native agitators. The latest outburst of it is the recent decision of the governors of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., to withdraw from an arrangement to erect statues of all 22 of Canada’s former prime ministers on the campus, as part of the observation of the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation. There is something uniquely and disgracefully Canadian about such a decision.

Truth spoken. Uniquely and disgracefully Canadian. Just like Canadian anchor baby Lyin' Ted Cruz. I want to live in America.

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(03-14-2016 11:29 AM)Laner Wrote:  Full cuck achievement.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-commen...isgraceful

If a university cant see that by censoring our past, they are falling in with the book burners that civil rights protesters have been fighting against.

Its on days like this that I actually wonder how people of such mind get into positions of authority. I like to think that smart people are the ones running these large institutions and businesses. Knowing its not has been a bit sad for me.

If a statute of Sir John A. MacDonald is offensive to aboriginals, Wilfrid Laurier University should consider immediately changing its name as well.

In 1886, Laurier famously told the Canadian House of Commons it was moral for the government to take aboriginal lands (whom he and many others at the time called "savages") so long as the government paid compensation. He further continued that this was in the best interest of civilizing the lands which would remain barren and unproductive under aboriginal rule.

Of course, Laurier was a Liberal, so his views would never come under assault the way a Conservative like MacDonald's will.

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Exactly. This slippery slope will continue until the left gets what it wants. But then it will be too late, and the purge of anyone who does not think and look like them will all die.

From the French Revolution to Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.

In my optimistic eyes, the world actually needs this slide in order for a correction to the natural right to occur. Harper was a bit too early, and a bit too 'heavy handed'. He was ahead of his time, if he was in power when Trump takes the White House things would have been set for a good 20 years of reliable, common sense governance.

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Quote:Sask. Party pledges graduate retention credits of up to $10,000 to help with down payment on home


A re-elected Saskatchewan Party government would introduce a tax incentive to help recent post-secondary graduates put a down payment on a new home.

During a campaign stop Monday in Saskatoon, Leader Brad Wall said people who receive Graduate Retention Program tax credits will be able to use up to $10,000 of those credits toward the down payment on their first home by May 1.

Eligible home buyers who apply will get an advance of up to $10,000 on their tax credits in the form of an interest-free loan, which will be forgiven if they own the home over a set period of time. Couples buying a house together will be able to pool their credits.

The Graduate Retention Program provides a tax rebate of up to $20,000 for post-secondary graduates living and working in Saskatchewan. The money is available for up to 10 years after graduation.

Allowing Graduate Retention Program recipients to use tax rebate credits on a home down payment is expected to cost the government $900,000 in 2016-17, $1.8 million in 2017-18, $2.7 million in 2018-19 and $3.6 million in 2019-20.

Also Monday, Wall said his party, if elected, will increase the amount of money Saskatchewan high school students going to post-secondary programs get from the Saskatchewan Advantage Scholarship to $750 per year from $500. That promise will only be introduced once the province’s finances have strengthened.

The scholarship is available for up to four years, meaning the change would bring the total value to students to $3,000 from $2,000. The promise is expected to cost the government $4.5 million annually.

This is just to remind RVF that all of Canada is on the left titty sucking away. Canada has always leaned left, so no surprise a election cycle is not left to waste. Even as the only conservative leader in the nation still standing in Brad Wall, in the near teflon Saskatchewan, from trotting out "free" money to young graduates to help them buy a first home.

Every Canadian benefits from goodies and freebies from the Provinces and Feds and they pander out shit like this all the time. Brad Wall did not need to do this. From what I read in those parts he has no competition as both the NDP and Liberals in that province are inept.

If you read the tea leaves this is essentially the Sask Government offering a interest free mortgage. This should boost up economic metrics during an election season as now you will see a inflated uptick in housing activity.

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(03-14-2016 02:56 PM)kosko Wrote:  If you read the tea leaves this is essentially the Sask Government offering a interest free mortgage. This should boost up economic metrics during an election season as now you will see a inflated uptick in housing activity.

This, in a country with the most overvalued and overheated real estate market in the world.

When this bubble pops (and it will) the devastation it will wreak on this country will make the aftermath of the US housing bubble look like child's play.

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(03-14-2016 02:56 PM)kosko Wrote:  This is just to remind RVF that all of Canada is on the left titty sucking away. Canada has always leaned left, so no surprise a election cycle is not left to waste. Even as the only conservative leader in the nation still standing in Brad Wall, in the near teflon Saskatchewan, from trotting out "free" money to young graduates to help them buy a first home.

Every Canadian benefits from goodies and freebies from the Provinces and Feds and they pander out shit like this all the time. Brad Wall did not need to do this. From what I read in those parts he has no competition as both the NDP and Liberals in that province are inept.

If you read the tea leaves this is essentially the Sask Government offering a interest free mortgage. This should boost up economic metrics during an election season as now you will see a inflated uptick in housing activity.

You're right but there is a need that Saskatchewan has that you have overlooked: people. I remember during the late 90's when I flew out to Calgary (from Ontario) for a short-term contract job, I met a businessman on the plane and he launched into a very impressive sales pitch on why I should relocate to Alberta permanently. As a businessman, he felt the shortage of talented people in Alberta quite acutely. Saskatchewan has a much worse talent deficit than Alberta did then, and Brad Wall is trying to attract professional, family-oriented people to his province so they will put down roots and stay there. Saskatchewan's biggest problem is that it's so boring. It's so flat that you can see forever in all directions and there is NOTHING going on culturally. Everyone who can gets the hell out as soon as they can. To be fair to Wall, he's just trying to fix the population deficit. Immigration has never helped Saskatchewan because immigrants land in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver and proceed to their nearest respective cultural enclave (here's looking at you Brampton! Or should I say Bramladesh?!) You are still right... Wall is perpetuating the typical Canadian socialist nonsense that permeates every corner of this country. That's why Tommy the commie Douglas is always voted "Greatest Canadian" every time that poll gets run. Douglas spearheaded our nationalized health care... and he was straight outta Saskatchewan.

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Stabbing at a Canadian Forces recruiting centre in Toronto today.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/st...-1.3491413

Quote:Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders says a 27-year-old man is under arrest after two members of the Canadian Forces were stabbed in north Toronto earlier on Monday.

Saunders said the unprovoked attack took place at around 3:30 p.m. at a military recruitment centre near Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue.

A man walked into the recruitment centre, pulled out a knife and attacked the person behind the counter, Saunders said. The attacker attempted to move farther into the building, but was taken down by a group of between six and eight soldiers, the chief said.

Two people suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

(snip)

Quote:The chief also said the suspect uttered "certain comments" that are of concern, but declined to say what they were.

Hmmmmmmm... I wonder why the police chief is being so opaque about the "certain comments" that were uttered by the attacker? Wouldn't it be in the interest of public safety not to mention the safety of our soldiers at recruiting centres to KNOW MORE about this incident? Just sayin'. Political correctness puts lives in danger once again. Fuck we need a Canadian Trump. Run Lord Black! Run!

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Pretty good article from Margaret Wente on Trudeau and Obama's recent bromance in Washington:

Quote:The energetic idealists who are eager to turn Canada into the most climate-friendly, inclusive, feminist, diversity-positive country on the planet need to keep in mind that most Canadians don’t care much about any of these things. They didn’t elect Mr. Trudeau to be the new face of global progressivism. They elected him because he looked like a credible alternative to Stephen Harper. They’re not all that excited about his Syrian refugee project, either; Mr. Trudeau deserves credit for refugee resettlement, but he needs to stop the moral preening. If we were in Germany’s shoes, we’d be reacting the way they are.

Link

Basically, if Trump gets elected and the European elect nationalist, anti-globalist governments, Trudeau may be the on his own when progressive governments become passe. One term PM.

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(03-15-2016 12:14 PM)scotian Wrote:  Pretty good article from Margaret Wente on Trudeau and Obama's recent bromance in Washington:

Quote:The energetic idealists who are eager to turn Canada into the most climate-friendly, inclusive, feminist, diversity-positive country on the planet need to keep in mind that most Canadians don’t care much about any of these things. They didn’t elect Mr. Trudeau to be the new face of global progressivism. They elected him because he looked like a credible alternative to Stephen Harper. They’re not all that excited about his Syrian refugee project, either; Mr. Trudeau deserves credit for refugee resettlement, but he needs to stop the moral preening. If we were in Germany’s shoes, we’d be reacting the way they are.

Link

Basically, if Trump gets elected and the European elect nationalist, anti-globalist governments, Trudeau may be the on his own when progressive governments become passe. One term PM.

Yeah, I have been saying that Canada is a few years behind the US. Like the anxious little brother who can never quite catch up to his older brother. No matter what he does, he seems to always be late to the party.

We have our Obama at the moment. And as the rest of the world is forced to wake up from its liberal tsunami by way of near civil unrest, Canada just gets to quietly change its clothes.

One term PM no question, unless the Conservatives fail to get their shit together. I know here in BC the libtards and natives are starting to set their sites on Clark.

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^ Laner, I think you are spot on about Canada lagging behind the US in electoral sentiment and cycles and also that JT is our Barry Obama analogue.

However, I suspect JT is only a one-term PM if shit hits the fan in Canada faster than anticipated.

Most Canadians love the virtue signalling going on regarding refugees and especially environmental policies. They also love the borrow and spend model he's pursuing because they think it means more "free" stuff from the government for them (they're flat wrong, but whatever). The price tag for these absurd policies will take more than one term to hit the average Canadian in the wallet.

When it does, that is when JT will be in trouble. Probably deep trouble. That said, it is a very slow burn toward meltdown at present. A global financial crisis and a Canadian real estate crisis in the short term might speed all of this up, however, but who can predict when that will occur? The smart money said it should have occurred already.

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Talking with family in Alberta, people are starting to walk away from their homes and toys. Not sure how much of this is true, but I have not heard too much in the way of numbers about real estate bursting there. I would have thought it would be big news by now as the amount of people out of work in AB is staggering.

I only really know my own district and the vacancy is less than 1%, and has been for a few years. If there were a bunch of housing coming available, or there was a sudden migration away from here I could see a housing collapse.

But when there is such high demand and such little stock, its hard for me to see the big picture. Could a crisis in Calgary hurt Vancouver? I am sure Alberta residents are going to start to unload their summer homes and properties in BC very soon.

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I think the main fear is that exposure in those markets will affect Vancouver and Toronto via banks being hurt. CIBC, National, Canadian Western heavy with loans in Alberta vs. BMO, TD, Royal and BNS that have international exposure (significant US assets for the first three, latin America for the latter)

I'm fairly young and when I go in to do banking at certain banks/credit union, an advisor starts hyping me up on real estate. Some banks are certainly doing questionable things to get people buying homes.

While Vancouver is indeed over priced, I don't think it would totally collapse (it would drop and tank, but not catastrophic), as while Vancouver is affected by the easy mortgages, China comes into play (buying the higher end properties, CAD $ being so low, Canadian Real estate being viewed as gold, people who sell move into the middle end with their new windfall, trickle down commences). Also in terms of supply Vancouver is constrained as to the north there's mountains, to the west there's water, to the south there's the border and to the east is farmland (which is provincially protected ALR land). Its almost impossible to obtain land to build a single housing unit, and even in new build, the redeveloped brownfield properties in the suburbs, super dense (no backyard) housing stock or townhomes are being built. There's also talk of establishing something similar to the abovementioned ALR but for industrial land, with the Port authority worried enough that they have been buying up a bunch of land, much to the dismay of regional planners.

The above only applies to land + detached housing in Vancouver, which will hold up better in a crash. Non-Detached, strata, condos ect. will face pressure due to the simple fact that supply for those units is almost endless (can keep building up to the sky), the fact that people are paying 700-1Million for a unit in a tower (no land at all) is crazy. In Vancouver's suburbs, micro units (think dorm room size) are going for 80-100K. Yet even then apartment supply is questionable in certain parts of the region due to zoning and regulations, Vancouver's downtown core is going to max out eventually and is constrained building upwards in height by the view cone rules in place. Vancouver city proper is going to have an extreme battle in the near future where they will have to pit land owning NIMBYS vs high density regulations outside the downtown core.

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International property 'investment' hubs like Toronto and Vancouver will not see a property market correction. If anything, a correction will be in upward trajectory, not downward. The market is up 17% this year alone.

The rest of Canada's property market is already sliding or stagnant.

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I have a mortgage and can tell you that it was NOT easy to get it. The down payment was high, the hoops I had to jump through to get them to believe my income was significant. I was denied once even.

So maybe this will become the reason that real estate cools down. Not many people are going to have the income to afford condo's that are now higher than $700K. But then again, to rent my condo the going rate is $3300-$3700 a month. So people are going to do whatever they can to get into a mortgage as the rent has increased in Vancouver finally. Rent has been very cheap here for a long time, only now has it increased to a point where it makes sense against the purchase price. It was for this reason that I bought a couple years ago.

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(03-16-2016 08:38 AM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  International property 'investment' hubs like Toronto and Vancouver will not see a property market correction. If anything, a correction will be in upward trajectory, not downward. The market is up 17% this year alone.

The rest of Canada's property market is already sliding or stagnant.

Disagree. Maybe Alberta is 'sliding' but 2nd tier cities are still rising. Thunder bay topped this list in 2015 and again this year http://www.moneysense.ca/spend/real-esta...to-buy-in/ the growth in prices is ridiculous and still continuing, not flattening.

I agree that Toronto and Vancouver will be immune from any correction, but the bubble is still growing outside of those areas.

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(03-16-2016 10:27 AM)Laner Wrote:  I have a mortgage and can tell you that it was NOT easy to get it. The down payment was high, the hoops I had to jump through to get them to believe my income was significant. I was denied once even.

So maybe this will become the reason that real estate cools down. Not many people are going to have the income to afford condo's that are now higher than $700K. But then again, to rent my condo the going rate is $3300-$3700 a month. So people are going to do whatever they can to get into a mortgage as the rent has increased in Vancouver finally. Rent has been very cheap here for a long time, only now has it increased to a point where it makes sense against the purchase price. It was for this reason that I bought a couple years ago.

Depends on the bank and the person you're dealing with, there's plenty of hustlers here that will stop at nothing to close. The bigger banks (RBC & TD) tend to be a lot more conservative in approving mortgages but there's plenty of smaller firms and credit unions that are pushing it, for example at one of the local CU I use, I let an advisor entertain the idea that I'm looking to buy, applied and I got approved even though I'm extremely young (hence not caring about the credit hit). I was even offered a seperate loan on the downpayment to bridge the gap to avoid the CMHC insurance!! Mind you this was for an older suburban 1bd $300K

There is a night day contrast with downtown/west side condos vs. everything else. Downtown condos tend to be $700K+ and up while you can still be in Vancouver proper and purchase a 1bedroom newbuild anywhere east of Main st. starting at 300K

Offnote: Got a call today from a Liberal volunteer asking for donations, told her I'm no longer interested in the LPC (hey, I joined while in High School pre-2Deau! Forgot about my membership) and she went off on a spiel about how they are the only ones that care about Youth and started spewing bullshit about college tuition, LGBT/diversity and women's issues. Told her she's triggering me and to take me off the phone list.

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