Tighclops posted:

Why don't you post more and pull the thread out of it's nosedive then

a primate posted:

CBC Radio Toronto had an interesting piece today about Amazon's new headquarters and the costs of encouraging a tech boom in the city. They had an economist on who argued that tech booms increase inequality and displace the working class. This isn't exactly news but what IS news is the fact that these issues are being covered in light of how much everyone seems invested in the new HQ. Radio One seems indistinguishable from rich liberal Boomer radio most days so I'm glad they had someone addressing issues that will primarily affect young people and lower income earners.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Truth

Feudal isn't a bad way to describe them - good 'ol boys dominate the business and politics there, and use their power so squash anybody who 1) wants change or 2) could build a business to challenge them economically. There is a reason why Canadian tycoons like the Irvings, the Sobeys, the McCains etc all grew out of the Maritimes - because the pols were small enough that they were easy to make minions of. A second aspect (and I suspect this is a Canada thing, not just a Maritime thing) whatever unions that could remain functional, such as public service unions, could defend their members jobs, which surprise surprise mostly involved making time you've been there holy. In addition to this, pols could squeeze public sector jobs (which have good pay and benefits) for patronage, which gave the the pols an interest in the walling off of good jobs to politically connected insiders, too. This walling off was a giant "gently caress you, got mine" to anybody born after 1980

So guess what

All the young people who could, left. Also smart people who didn't feel like having the rug pulled out from under them once some richer thought them slightly annoying also left. So all the people who 1) could have reformed the system to make it better, or 2) was not happy becoming dirt poor or a minion of the wallers also left.

So now

there are no young people to form a tax base for all the olds that remain there. New Brunswick and Newfoundland will probably declare bankruptcy in the next decade: NB has had this coming for a long time, they've been trying to cut their way to prosperity for like 30 years now and the inbred aristocrats running the place just don't get that doesn't fuckin' work. NL has hosed itself over quite theatrically by in a moment of prosperity deciding to bet the farm on a new hydro development that is slowly causing its bankruptcy ever since as it turns out oil isn't going to have permanently high prices forever. If memory serves, Alberta has 10% of its GDP linked directly to oil production, while NL has 39%.

While pigfucking incompetence plays a part, there's also that 1) these are comparatively small provinces, and shittily diversified. So it'd make sense that the economic winds sometimes favor them, and sometimes do not. Paul Krugman talked about the "gambler's ruin" of small cities in America, and I think the Atlantic provinces are similar. NL being the headliner here makes sense, as formerly their economy was based on fishing, which has all the disadvantages of agriculture combined with the disadvantages of relying on poorly understood natural processes to replenish that resource, only having to move onto oil. Oil which is good quality but needs enormous investment from oil companies to extract it, which means you *really* want to be sure the billion or so you spend on that offshore oil platform is going to be worth it

Helsing posted:

Toronto's insane housing and rental prices drive most poor and immigrant communities into the inner suburbs where they have awful transit, poorly maintained apartment stock and terrible community planning. The city government mostly just views these neighborhoods as potential sites of future gentrification. Affluent downtown progressives use the existence of Rob Ford as an excuse to poo poo all over everyone living in these neighborhoods.

The average city councilor has a re-election rate that's about as competitive as a North Korean election and the council is like 85% white and 100% affluent in a city where more than half the population was born outside the country. I don't think it's hard to understand why people outside the core (and plenty of people inside it) don't like the government very much.

vyelkin posted:

Here's a 2014 U of T report on low-income families' housing situation in the city: http://neighbourhoodchange.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Paradis-etal-2014-Risk-of-Homelessness-Toronto-Rental-Buildings-RP231.pdf

Hand Knit posted:

I mean the dude who wrote eight increasingly-syphilitic autobiographies does seem on brand for Professor Peterson.

vyelkin posted:

if you read about the history of nationalism you will find that by far one of the most potent forces for forging a national identity is having an other to define yourself against, it doesn't matter if the things you think about the other are true or not as long as you can stereotype them and say "i know im british because im not one of those loving french people" and this toxic exceptionalism sinks in to your culture and before you know it presto you're a nation mostly defined by reifying whatever it is that sets you apart from the people you hate

there is no better poster child for this than canada

we could be 192/193 on some UN ranking and as long as america was 193rd we would see it as a huge accomplishment

vyelkin posted:

"we the north" is a banal nationalistic slogan that says the most fundamental thing about canadian identity is our geographic location relative to the united states

vyelkin posted:

yeah that's really interesting

another thing I found interesting reading Linda Colley's Britons recently was how she situated British exceptionalism as particularly toxic because Britain was never forced to confront the evils it inflicted on others by losing a war and/or being occupied by a hostile power, whereas almost every other European country faced defeat and occupation at one point or another, whether in whole or in part, and usually in the 20th century, which tended to have a hugely humbling effect on myths of national power and superiority. Even when Britain lost wars, they lost them overseas and never suffered the humiliation or severe civilian casualties and repression of countries that lost land wars on their own territory, which meant they could perpetuate the myth of British exceptional glory and nationalist chauvinism without consequences, leading to continuing present thoughts that Britain can do everything on its own and doesn't need anyone else

she wrote the book in 1992 but the parallels to both Brexit and contemporary American nationalism stunned me while I was reading it

vyelkin posted:

"we the north" is a banal nationalistic slogan that says the most fundamental thing about canadian identity is our geographic location relative to the united states

DariusLikewise posted:

my favourite is when the conservative party frames CPP and EI as a tax and its just big guberment taking your hard earned money to spend on trudeau's socks

Helsing posted:

This is probably the lamest (and laziest) kind of political criticism imaginable but I feel like at this rate Trudeau Jr. is barely going to be remembered in 20 years. The sheer vacuity and banality of his government up to this point is remarkable.

Maybe there will be a defining economic crash or national crisis of some kind that puts him in the history books but I think at the moment we're on track for him to oversee the most banal placeholder government imaginable.

If Trudeau cracked his head in the shower or had a brain aneurysm tomorrow what would be the most memorable thing about his time in office?

Hand Knit posted:

yo dreylad, have you read The Vimy Trap? I'm thinking of picking it up, and also Warrior Nation? Basically want my next block of reading to be about the historiography of Canadian public history and how that has fit into attempts to shape Canada as a (into a) nation.

Stickarts posted:

4 of the 5 goalies who played for your last cup winner are now dead.

Thank God for Gary Smith's 7 GAA that year.

Hand Knit posted:

The Thomas King book? Already read it twice (not counting however many read- and listen-throughs of The Truth About Stories)

infernal machines posted:

In response, BC bans imports of aggressive rednecks, cowboys.

infernal machines posted:

lmao, I was just picturing that

vyelkin posted:

well yeah basically every canlit book ever is "canadian has personal crisis, encounters nature in an unconventional way, returns to civilization rejuvenated" so its only natural that we have a bestselling award-winning book where a woman fucks a bear

Helsing posted:

CLAM DOWN posted:

holy gently caress i hate this loving piece of poo poo, who was the dude in the other thread who supported Jordan Peterson, he should defend this

https://twitter.com/classiclib3ral/status/961461529555210240

a primate posted:

so are we supposed to vote for the ondp and pretend they have their poo poo together or vote for the Libs and pretend they didn't just privatize a provincial utility corp? is this when drawing a dickbutt or voting communist is appropriate

Reince Penis posted:

I sincerely hope Jordan Peterson campaigns with him.

quote:

On a Tuesday night, with the usual throng of young adults outside the Bank of Montreal at the Royal York Plaza