Statistics Canada Reports II

[theman23]

Originally Posted by lio45

Except that it’s the opposite with Toronto nowadays: talented, ambitious young people move away, while the only reason the population isn’t going down is the influx of desperate Indentured Servants (who can tolerate the low wages and poor living conditions.)

From SSP's favourite UWO academic, Mike Moffat:



https://x.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1795838564951027864

This is estimating housing demand and not population, but gives you a sense of who is coming and who is going. The only people moving to Toronto are immigrants, and the majority of those are actually international students. Everyone else is getting out of dodge.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by theman23

The only people moving to Toronto are immigrants, and the majority of those are actually international students. Everyone else is getting out of dodge.

Greater Moncton says "thank you very much"!

We are one of the top four cities for interprovincial immigration in the federation.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by lio45

Except that it’s the opposite with Toronto nowadays: talented, ambitious young people move away, while the only reason the population isn’t going down is the influx of desperate Indentured Servants (who can tolerate the low wages and poor living conditions.)

What's your source on this?

The Mike Moffat visualization theman23 posted doesn't really corroborate this. I wouldn't interpret outward "intraprovincial migration" with "ambitious, young people moving away". It could just as easily be retirees cashing out of Toronto and moving to a cheaper part of the country to be unproductive and use up healthcare resources.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by lio45

Except that it’s the opposite with Toronto nowadays: talented, ambitious young people move away, while the only reason the population isn’t going down is the influx of desperate Indentured Servants (who can tolerate the low wages and poor living conditions.)

Far more young ambitus people move to Toronto than move out every year. the city alone grew by 125K last year.

The next set of major Canadian companies will be coming out of Toronto not Moncton.

[MolsonExport]

Mike Moffat is an interesting guy, but he is a teaching academic. He does not do primary academic research. Mostly a talking head, like Rex Murphy was.

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Mike Moffat is an interesting guy, but he is a teaching academic. He does not do primary academic research. Mostly a talking head, like Rex Murphy was.

Do you have some specific criticism?

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

Do you have some specific criticism?

No, I am merely pointing out that he does not speak from the perspective of someone who conducts primary research, and this perspective is ostensibly why academics are consulted in the first place (however, the distinction between researchers and teaching fellows is often lost on the press). He speaks like someone who has mastered the textbook; sort of like the top person in your MBA class. Surface-level analysis. Akin to an armchair quarterback. Nothing wrong with this per se, but he is not an expert as defined by his own research. Nobody loves the media attention more than MM, except maybe Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad (the latter two are engaged in primary research, however insufferable they may be).

This is most certainly not the record of a scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?...CHgAAAAJ&hl=en

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

No, I am merely pointing out that he does not speak from the perspective of someone who conducts primary research, and this perspective is ostensibly why academics are consulted in the first place (however, the distinction between researchers and teaching fellows is often lost on the press). He speaks like someone who has mastered the textbook; sort of like the top person in your MBA class. Surface-level analysis. Akin to an armchair quarterback. Nothing wrong with this per se, but he is not an expert as defined by his own research. Nobody loves the media attention more than MM, except maybe Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad (the latter two are engaged in primary research, however insufferable they may be).

This is most certainly not the record of a scholar: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?...CHgAAAAJ&hl=en

This just feels like some sort of academic snobbery though?

From what I followed of him he seems to mostly talk about housing and population numbers in Ontario...on twitter. Mostly a boring topic to the average person. So the attention seeking claim just seems bizarre to me. So I'm sort of confused about what he is inherently doing that is wrong or incorrect?

[1overcosc]

You don't need to be an expert academic researcher with a PhD to have opinions on the future of society and to make observations and talk about them. To gatekeep like that is fundamentally antithetical to democratic values.

[MolsonExport]

Let's just say that I have an insiders perspective on how things work in Academia. To be fair, researchers are often to busy to talk to the media 10 times a week. When I was a junior academic, I did a lot of media interviews, but now I only indulge when it is a topic that I am actively doing research upon.

Media find a couple of people that they can ask questions, usually at the very last minute (I speak from much experience here), and interviewees are just giving their top-of-mind impression. Sometimes that is great, but sometimes it amounts to just speaking out of one's ass (see aforementioned Gad Saad)

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Nite

Far more young ambitus people move to Toronto than move out every year. the city alone grew by 125K last year.

The next set of major Canadian companies will be coming out of Toronto not Moncton.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

What's your source on this?

The Mike Moffat visualization theman23 posted doesn't really corroborate this. I wouldn't interpret outward "intraprovincial migration" with "ambitious, young people moving away". It could just as easily be retirees cashing out of Toronto and moving to a cheaper part of the country to be unproductive and use up healthcare resources.

https://mikepmoffatt.medium.com/onta...n-bf5ccf59e364

Moffat has done this analysis by age group too:

TL;DR: In 2019–20, the City of Toronto lost nearly 35,000 residents to the rest of the province. Some of that is older residents “cashing out” and moving to cottage country, though to date that has not been the primary driver. The 10 age categories with the largest net outflows are the ages 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, and 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, with the single largest cohort being children under the age of 1. Provincial out-migration from the City of Toronto is driven primarily by young families, not older residents.

Net migration to Toronto is only positive for people aged 18-24. This is not "ambitious young people" starting careers, this is postsecondary students.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

You don't need to be an expert academic researcher with a PhD to have opinions on the future of society and to make observations and talk about them. To gatekeep like that is fundamentally antithetical to democratic values.

No surely not, but then why does one therefore need to wear the mantle of "Professor at UWO" or whatever? Credentials matter in the eyes of the audience, even though sometimes they actually mean little in the way of the specialized knowledge that the expert is supposed to convey.

To my knowledge, MM does have a PhD but hasn't used it (one would normally publish their dissertation at the very least). One spends five or more years working towards a PhD (a completely theory and research-based degree), on top of their Masters and Undergrad degrees.

[Wigs]

I think Molson is saying the media shouldn't treat him like an expert when this isn't his field of research.

It's fine for anyone to have opinions, particularly when you have some data to back them up.

However society generally puts more trust into people that have dedicated their life's work to a particular discipline and have written numerous research papers over years, decades on a particular subject.

I don't think there's anything wrong with putting these folks on a slightly higher level given the amount of time and effort they've put in to their field.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

This just feels like some sort of academic snobbery though?

Yes there's definitely a risk of that. Talking about someone's background and credentials is a perfectly fine way to explain what would cause them to be wrong once you already determine that they're wrong based purely on their argument or analysis. But it isn't a way to determine that they're wrong. It's considered a type of informal fallacy to conclude that someone is wrong based on who they are or what their experience or credentials are (could be bulverism, appeal to authority, etc. depending on the specifics). My impression was that Molson was simply agreeing with Nite and HD's criticisms and explaining what would have caused MM to have flawed analysis.

[MolsonExport]

^yes (Wigs and Nouvelle Ecosse), that is what I was trying to say.

[MonctonRad]

I've always found there to be a divide between research academics and actual teachers. Some of the best researchers I've known have great difficulty expressing their ideas to a broader audience. They tend to be too focused on the minutia, and, tend to use highly technical language that is difficult for non experts to grasp.

I must admit that I do this myself and sometimes feel chagrined when I have finished dictating a highly detailed and specific MRI report discussing the merits of various pulse sequences, and, generating a comprehensive differential diagnosis including various sundry and arcane rare diagnoses, only to discover that the audience for the report was the patient's referring nurse practitioner. My 15 minute dissertation is essentially of no use to the NP. All they want to know is if the problem is common, or something that requires a referral.

There is a place for science educators out there. Sure, they may occasionally seem to be talking out of their ass (as far as the research academic is concerned), but, in general terms, may be providing useful information to a broader general audience. Sometimes you have to lowbrow the discussion to get across broader concepts. Unfortunately, this occasionally means that you might just be passing on some misinformation too.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

https://mikepmoffatt.medium.com/onta...n-bf5ccf59e364

Moffat has done this analysis by age group too:

Net migration to Toronto is only positive for people aged 18-24. This is not "ambitious young people" starting careers, this is postsecondary students.

I suppose this shouldn't be too surprising since housing affordability issues are the hardest on people who don't own a property yet. So I would intuitively expect owners to be leaving at lower rates, even if they're elderly.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I've always found there to be a divide between research academics and actual teachers. Some of the best researchers I've known have great difficulty expressing their ideas to a broader audience. They tend to be too focused on the minutia, and, tend to use highly technical language that is difficult for non experts to grasp.

I must admit that I do this myself and sometimes feel chagrined when I have finished dictating a highly detailed and specific MRI report discussing the merits of various pulse sequences, and, generating a comprehensive differential diagnosis including various sundry and arcane rare diagnoses, only to discover that the audience for the report was the patient's referring nurse practitioner. My 15 minute dissertation is essentially of no use to the NP. All they want to know is if the problem is common, or something that requires a referral.

There is a place for science educators out there. Sure, they may occasionally seem to be talking out of their ass (as far as the research academic is concerned), but, in general terms, may be providing useful information to a broader general audience. Sometimes you have to lowbrow the discussion to get across broader concepts. Unfortunately, this occasionally means that you might just be passing on some misinformation too.

Mike Moffat serves a useful role: he's bringing attention to the issue of intergenerational [un]fairness in Canadian society, even if he's imprecisely quantifying the problem.

All we know is that there are more 24-45 year-olds leaving the City of Toronto to move to another part of the province (which could be in the same metropolitan region and therefore labour market), than there are people of the same age group moving from other parts of Ontario to Toronto. We haven't controlled for their income, or their education, or their employment, or for more ephemeral things like "ambition" or "business acumen". For all we know, the young people who are leaving Toronto may not be the people that would start businesses that would grow the Canadian economy.

I'm not saying this because I'm trying to be a Toronto booster. I'm saying this because I think we should be more analytical when we're presented with statistics as "facts".

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by Nite

Far more young ambitus people move to Toronto than move out every year. the city alone grew by 125K last year.

Oh, I see what happened now. An uncited claim that blurred the lines between general population growth and specific demographic migration then became a referendum on an economist.

Par for the course on this site.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I'm not saying this because I'm trying to be a Toronto booster. I'm saying this because I think we should be more analytical when we're presented with statistics as "facts".

Well, some of the basic facts are pretty well established (low net wages, high CoL, crazy housing market very unappealing to newcomers, economy that's low-tech and low-innovation) and then you combine those with the fact that 24-40 year olds are leaving the city, and it's a pretty solid hypothesis.

I'll look more into it when I have time (it's not just a Toronto problem, pretty much everywhere in Canada is generally low-tech and low-productivity and low-innovation and is subject to a brain drain.)