Federal Government & Politics II

[casper]

We are starting to see the impact of the recent federal government tightening on temporary student visas.

SFU is going to be eliminating around 100 positions, in part due to lower international student enrolment.

While I am certain there will be growing concern and pressure for the feds to reverse their decision, it likely was the the best option at this point.

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[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Don’t make threats at me for posting news stories from reputable sources. Seems the libs are getting panicky the closer we get to Trudeau being tossed to the curb.

It is not a threat. It is a fact. There has been an open discussion about your posting tendencies.

I suppose you'd rather not get a fair warning? Proceed with caution.

Seems the libs are getting panicky the closer we get to Trudeau being tossed to the curb.

I am not a "lib" and I would love to see Trudeau get tossed. Try again.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by casper

We are starting to see the impact of the recent federal government tightening on temporary student visas.

SFU is going to be eliminating around 100 positions, in part due to lower international student enrolment.

While I am certain there will be growing concern and pressure for the feds to reverse their decision, it likely was the the best option at this point.

I don't think it was the best decision at all. SFU international students are a net plus and essentially a services export generating income. It's colleges and especially private that are bringing in loads of fake students. A simple way to weed them out and naturally let the real students still come would be to simply not allow any working during the school year. We could also reduce the automatic work permit at the end though that is a big enticement for many real students as well. Instead we let the provinces decide how to deal with reduced permit numbers. Thus in Ontario the anti-elite bias has them prioritizing colleges as if they are going to go into trades when we know they will find the easiest fake degree in order to work. If we had a good path to apprenticeship that would be different. I am sure we could attract a lot of people in India interested and capable of doing many of those jobs.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

It is not a threat. It is a fact. There has been an open discussion about your posting tendencies.

I suppose you'd rather not get a fair warning? Proceed with caution.



I am not a "lib" and I would love to see Trudeau get tossed. Try again.

Remember when I was calling out justin and the liberals over the ever increasing poverty in Canada, and you were calling me “heca-hate”, and posting memes of me being that evil guy from star wars. lol

What changed?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I don't think it was the best decision at all. SFU international students are a net plus and essentially a services export generating income.

Really depends what they are studying. I don't think a random undergrad BA is anymore useful than a college marketing diploma. The idea that all majors at a good university are useful is bias. It's a perpetuation of the Boomer era idea that any degree is better than a diploma or trade license.

Originally Posted by YOWetal

It's colleges and especially private that are bringing in loads of fake students. A simple way to weed them out and naturally let the real students still come would be to simply not allow any working during the school year. We could also reduce the automatic work permit at the end though that is a big enticement for many real students as well. Instead we let the provinces decide how to deal with reduced permit numbers. Thus in Ontario the anti-elite bias has them prioritizing colleges as if they are going to go into trades when we know they will find the easiest fake degree in order to work. If we had a good path to apprenticeship that would be different. I am sure we could attract a lot of people in India interested and capable of doing many of those jobs.

You must not be aware of what has happened recently. The provinces were given the liberty to decide how to distribute their allocations. And Ontario chose to distribute virtually all their cuts at the college level and shut out private colleges almost entirely:

Ontario will allocate 96 per cent of permit applications to publicly assisted colleges and universities, with the remaining four per cent allotted to Ontario’s language schools, private universities and other institutions. Career colleges will not receive any applications.
....
22 of 23 universities will keep applications at the 2023 level. Only Algoma University will see a decline from its 2023 applications.

11 of 24 colleges will keep applications at the 2023 level. Colleges with public-private college partnerships and Conestoga College will see the largest decline.

https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1...r-market-needs

I would argue that university programs in areas we don't have shortages should be part of the cuts. It's very likely their foreign graduates have higher externalities for society in terms of housing costs and wage suppression than total benefits.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Remember when I was calling out justin and the liberals over the ever increasing poverty in Canada, and you were calling me “heca-hate”, and posting memes of me being that evil guy from star wars. lol

What changed?

yes, some mudslinging did occur, and you threw your share of it too.

I could have reacted to your rage posting in a more neutral manner (instead of throwing gasoline at the fire), and I would like to try to steer such a course in the future.

Be aware, however, that any semblance of prejudice and bigotry will not be tolerated from anyone. That is "what changed" (and this has not changed, it has been and will always be policy at SSP), and it was not me that started the conversation about the pattern observed about the forumer in question.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Yes none of those prefer Canada.

You must not spend that much time in the GTA. You'd be surprised. I have a Persian friend who regularly complains about the family members of relatively high ranking Iranian regime officials he sees around the GTA. Canada is bad enough that there's even a term for this: "Snow washing" and the US Treasury Department once considered sanctioning the Canadian financial sector for lax anti-money laundering practices and regulations. I wish they did. It's still way too easy to show up in Canada with a suitcase full of cash and buy a house without any questions.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You must not spend that much time in the GTA. You'd be surprised. I have a Persian friend who regularly complains about the family members of relatively high ranking Iranian regime officials he sees around the GTA. Canada is bad enough that there's even a term for this: "Snow washing" and the US Treasury Department once considered sanctioning the Canadian financial sector for lax anti-money laundering practices and regulations. I wish they did. It's still way too easy to show up in Canada with a suitcase full of cash and buy a house without any questions.

For sure there are some. Khadafi family owned several Toronto properties and grey money from all over the world. Someone who arrived as a penniless student in Ottawa whose father is politician in Malaysia is now one of the larger landowners in the city. But numbers wise in Canada there is one source by far larger than the others. Honestly it's mostly a benefit to Canada especially as most Chinese money isn't dirty per se it's more that all business has some level of corruption as a part of the system. It's not like drug money that brings high levels of violence and corruption. It's getting there money out and living a law abiding life after that.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

But numbers wise in Canada there is one source by far larger than the others. Honestly it's mostly a benefit to Canada especially as most Chinese money isn't dirty per se it's more that all business has some level of corruption as a part of the system. It's not like drug money that brings high levels of violence and corruption. It's getting there money out and living a law abiding life after that.

As others have pointed out though, it does have pretty major downsides for the locals. Our policy of welcoming anyone who shows up with suitcases of cash has turned real estate into an almost-lottery (almost, because you could easily foresee it ) with winners and losers.

(This situation could be remedied, if always-increasing real estate values were considered a bug rather than a feature by the people who vote.)

[Truenorth00]

The AfD that those CPC members met during the Convoy? They are getting busted up in Germany for being a Russian front and corruption racket. Hopefully, the CPC has learned a bit about foreign interference and we aren't just trading a Chinese sympathetic government for a Russian sympathetic one.

Germany's parliament lifts immunity for prosecution of a far-right lawmaker

BERLIN, GERMANY - German lawmakers on Thursday lifted the immunity from prosecution of one of the far-right Alternative for Germany party's top candidates in the upcoming European Parliament election as he faces an investigation.

The German parliament's lower house, or Bundestag, voted to lift Petr Bystron's immunity to clear the way for searches in connection with the investigation. Lawmakers from Alternative for Germany, or AfD, abstained.

Prosecutors in Munich said they were investigating a member of the Bundestag on an “initial suspicion” of corruption and money laundering, without offering more details. They would not identify the lawmaker, but German news agency dpa and other media reported that it was Bystron.

Prosecutors said properties in Berlin, Bavaria and on the Spanish island of Mallorca were being searched Thursday and documents and other evidence seized.

Bystron is currently a lawmaker in Germany’s national parliament but is the no. 2 on his party’s list for the June election to the European Union’s legislature. Last month he denied allegations in a Czech daily that he may have received money from a pro-Russian network.

....

The investigation adds to events that have cast an unflattering light on AfD, which has enjoyed strong support in recent months.

Last month, an assistant to Maximilian Krah, a European Parliament lawmaker who is the top candidate on AfD's list for next month's election, was arrested on suspicion of spying for China. German government and mainstream opposition lawmakers have assailed the party for its alleged closeness to Russia and China.
....

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/germany...aker-1.6889364

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Honestly it's mostly a benefit to Canada ....

No it isn't. This is Boomer Brain. All that "Hot Asian Money" (HAM as it's called) brings, is, asset price inflation. That's good for you as a homeowner. But it's most definitely not good for the country as a whole. Boomers have been mixing up their personal interests and the national interest for far too long.

If you want that money to serve Canadian interests, you gotta make sure it goes into something productive, like a business. The only way that money is useful in real estate, would be if it were helping expand housing stock. It doesn't do that. So all we get is inflation making affordability worse.

[WarrenC12]

PP hates doctors!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poi...ains-1.7206338

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was noncommittal Thursday when asked what a government led by him would do with Ottawa's proposed changes to the capital gains tax.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Honestly it's mostly a benefit to Canada especially as most Chinese money isn't dirty per se it's more that all business has some level of corruption as a part of the system. It's not like drug money that brings high levels of violence and corruption. It's getting there money out and living a law abiding life after that.

It's astonishing to think that dumping money into real estate is seen as "a benefit to Canada". Like, have you not witnessed the housing crisis?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

It's astonishing to think that dumping money into real estate is seen as "a benefit to Canada". Like, have you not witnessed the housing crisis?

Should we be against exports as they dump money into Canadian real estate ? This kind of logic doesn't make sense. It's the fake student uber workers who are causing a housing shortage. Rich chinese buying West Vancouver housing renovating and paying taxes is almost all positive for our economy.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

It's astonishing to think that dumping money into real estate is seen as "a benefit to Canada". Like, have you not witnessed the housing crisis?

Statistically, it is a net benefit.

International students and foreign money flowing into our real estate creates a positive balance of payments as such things are considered exports.........we sell degrees & homes to oversea buyers. It also helps to boost our economic growth which again looks good for the politicians. Of course, for the average Canadian, stats mean squat. All they know is that these students are taking all of our housing units and real estate flippers are pushing our real estate prices into the stratosphere. The GDP numbers go up but not at the rate of population growth so we are in a "per-capita recession".........a bigger pie but divided into smaller pieces meaning we all get less.

Canada needs a year or two of zero population growth to solve our housing crisis and force businesses to invest in technology or their current workforce as opposed to importing more cheap labour. If this mean tossing hundreds of thousands of current students/TFW out of the country then so be it.

Our economy would shrink but conversely our standard of living and quality of life would rise.

[thewave46]

If the housing market could keep up to the influx of demand, certainly, selling mansions to foreigners can be a quite profitable venture.

Dubai does well on the influx of money doing exactly this.

Now, if we engage in a scenario in which we limit (or are unable to build rapidly enough) housing supply, bring in many new bodies to fill our low-wage sector without a plan to house them, and allow foreigners to purchase Canadian homes at the luxury end of our market, it will very much increase prices for the locals.

The luxury homes will be built for foreign money. They will absorb a chunk of our construction workforce to build the most profitable ventures. The large increase in low-end demand for accommodation will drive rental demand higher. Unfortunately, demand divorced from local economic conditions and expectations now makes the situation for the longer-term locals perilous. Why cater to the locals expecting cheap rent/homes, when one can easily cater to either the hyper-rich, or those who are desperate to have a roof over their heads because they are new to the country, regardless of the number of people crammed into said abode.

If you are a local who owns their home, win for you. If you are a local who aspires to own their home or rents, not so great.

[MonkeyRonin]

Posthaste: Canada's standard of living on track for worst decline in 40 years

Slump in GDP per person threatens to be longest and largest since 1985, says study

Author of the article: Pamela Heaven
Published May 16, 2024 • Last updated 11 hours ago • 5 minute read

Measuring a country’s growth can be contentious.

Measure Canada’s gross domestic product by aggregate and it doesn’t look so bad, but measure it by person or per capita and it’s dismal.

For example, between 2000 and 2023 Canada had the second highest rate of aggregate GDP growth in the G7, but one of the lowest growth rates per person.

When a country has had a population surge as Canada has, economists say measuring by person gives a better picture of its standard of living, and according to a new study by Fraser Institute that standard is headed for its biggest decline in 40 years.

The study by Grady Munro, Jason Clemens, and Milagros Palacios looks at the three worst periods of decline and recovery of real GDP per person in the country since 1985. They are between 1989 and 1994, years that included a recession, between 2008 and 2011, the aftermath of the great financial crisis, and this last that began in 2019.

This latest period is unique because even though GDP per person recovered for one quarter in mid-2022, it immediately began to decline again, and by the end of 2023 was well below where it was in 2019.

“This lack of meaningful recovery suggests that since mid-2019, Canada has experienced one of the longest and deepest declines in real GDP per person since 1985,” said the study’s authors.

Between April of 2019 and the end of 2023, when the last data was available, inflation-adjusted per-person GDP fell 3 per cent from $59,905 to $58,111. That is surpassed only by the declines in 1989 to 1992, when GDP per person fell 5.3 per cent and in the financial crisis, when it fell 5.2 per cent, says the study.

The latest decline has lasted 18 quarters, making it the second longest in the past 40 years. Only the decline of 1989 to 1994, which lasted 21 quarters, was longer.

Key, though, are signs that it is not over yet. GDP per person in the fourth quarter of 2023 was down 0.8 per cent from the quarter before, suggesting it is still on a downward track, said the study.

“The decline in incomes since Q2 2019 is ongoing, and may still exceed the downturn of the late 1980s and early 1990s in length and depth of decline,” said the authors.

“If per-capita GDP does not recover in 2024, this period may be the longest and largest decline in per-person GDP over the last four decades.”

Fraser Institute is not alone in flagging this problem. In a recent article for the Financial Times, Ruchir Sharma, chair of Rockefeller International, identified Canada as one of the countries that has suffered a steep decline in real per-capita income growth and a drop in their share of global GDP.

A leader among the so-called “breakdown nations,” Canada’s GDP per capita has been falling 0.4 per cent a year since 2020, the worst rate among 50 developed economies.

https://financialpost.com/news/canad...cline-40-years

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by thewave46

The CRA historically had employment levels of 40 - 45 thousand in the recent past. Not sure why they need 30% more post 2020, as no great expansion of their mandate has occurred in that time other than one-time COVID programs long ended. Nor has their service or evasion busting ability increased visibly.

Yeah, but now they have the capacity to go after renters to make them pay the taxes their foreign landlords evaded: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real...-after-tenant/

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Should we be against exports as they dump money into Canadian real estate ? This kind of logic doesn't make sense. It's the fake student uber workers who are causing a housing shortage. Rich chinese buying West Vancouver housing renovating and paying taxes is almost all positive for our economy.

Exports “dump” money into the country through workers’ salaries, inputs from other business, etc. as Truenorth said, it is asset inflation and asset inflation does not help the economy. If the rich Chinese person had not bought the asset somebody else would have bought it for slightly less.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Statistically, it is a net benefit.

International students and foreign money flowing into our real estate creates a positive balance of payments as such things are considered exports.........we sell degrees & homes to oversea buyers. It also helps to boost our economic growth which again looks good for the politicians. Of course, for the average Canadian, stats mean squat. All they know is that these students are taking all of our housing units and real estate flippers are pushing our real estate prices into the stratosphere. The GDP numbers go up but not at the rate of population growth so we are in a "per-capita recession".........a bigger pie but divided into smaller pieces meaning we all get less.

Canada needs a year or two of zero population growth to solve our housing crisis and force businesses to invest in technology or their current workforce as opposed to importing more cheap labour. If this mean tossing hundreds of thousands of current students/TFW out of the country then so be it.

Our economy would shrink but conversely our standard of living and quality of life would rise.

A positive balance of payments is not “counted as exports.” If the asset is sold at a higher price and the profits remitted to China it would count as investment income in China and contribute to its GDP.

Unless the asset is used for something productive, such as converting thr house to a bread and breakfast that hired employees then there is no economic growth. The taxes would be paid by any owner, as would any services such as lawn care.