These 'feel good' pieces are fun to read. They are in a weird way reassuring -- sure we have problems, but a few common sense changes and they could easily be solved. But, the reality is often much more difficult.
Let's take the remote work point. Studies have shown that people can work in remote teams effectively if they have already built up a trusting relationship. But, if the default is remote (which is what a lot of companies are attempting) that can be really challenging. Let's see how this experiment plays out before we assume the future of cities is doomed. My purely anecdotal take is that grouping people together creates "happy accidents" -- informal conversations that occasionally inspire new directions or new ideas. At the industry level, that's why people in certain industries tend to cluster. At the individual level, you make connections across the industry that helps you build your career. At the industry level, you attract talent and the kind of supporting infrastructure needed to thrive. There's a reason cities exist. Remote work may change things, but to me the whole -- "everyone can work from anywhere" really undersells the importance of these networks.
But a lot of the other points -- high speed rail from Peterborough, chip manufacturing in Thunder Bay, all-season port in Churchill, reshored manufacturing of all kinds of goods -- all would appear to require government intervention to happen. Canada is a very small market, with relatively eductated and high wage workers. There isn't a great business case for a lot of the things proposed unless the government is willing to heavily subsidize and plan them.
High-speed trains from Peterborough? Have you seen how long it has taken just to get all-day GO service to places like Kitchener-Waterloo (hint -- it still isn't complete)? Chip manufacturing in Thunder Bay? If there was a business case, it would have happened. Given it hasn't, we're going to have to make it really, really attractive (think government "investments"). An all-year port in Churchill has been looked at for decades. It'll be expensive -- not only the port, but the required transporation infrastructure to the port. Guess who is paying for that? And, if Canada thinks that our trade partners are going to pay a premium for commodities like fossil fuels or grain because we're more ethical than Russia or Saudi Arabia, then explain to me how that happens. What's more realistic (and what's happening) is that those industries may have increasing opportunities in the global market, but require investment to get there (everything from carbon capture to transportation infrastucture). Guess what -- they want us (the taxpayer) to pay for those investments or at least heavily subsidize them as they know the global price for those commodities is determined within the global market -- there is no 'we're nice' premium.
So, let's call these what they are: calls for government subsidies that favour certain kinds of industries/work.
There is a school of thought that the only way a small market like Canada can thrive is through some kind of government intervention and, if we are going to do that, we need a strategic industrial policy instead of just focusing on creating an attractive business climate. I'm still mulling if I agree with that as government's ability to pick 'winners and losers' is not fantastic. But, the alternative as kind of spelled out here is to continue to favour existing industries that have the ability to lobby governement for effective subsidies without expecting anything at all in return.
A long comment (as usual for me) to point out that while this piece feels good to read (even to me!) making it happen would either require significant government (taxpayer) investment favouring specific industries and not require those industries to do anything in return. That's more of what we're already doing and I'm not convinced it's the best way forward.
And to be clear, the GO service from Kitchener and "high speed" should not be used in the same sentence. Worse, the GO service from London to Toronto that Doug was so proud of takes 4 hours. When I worked for CN in the 1980's, we did it in 3:15.
I'm not sure Churchill would ever work as a port because the melting permafrost may make the current railroad very difficult, if not impossible to operate without massive infusions of cash.
Doesn't matter about thousands of years. The last 100 since the line was built are what matters. It still isn't strong enough to support the current 140-ton hoppers that the railroads now use, and it would cost billions to upgrade it. That's not Trudeau's fault either, as that line has never been seriously considered for that. It is still a significantly load-restricted piece of railroad for hundreds of miles. . The railroads like taking it to Thunder Bay and Vancouver to put on boats which are even cheaper. All you need for comparison is to look at the challenges of building the CPR across the muskeg in the 1880's, Millions and millions of tons of fill to make it usable. And there is no shortage of capacity in either of those 2 ports to justify adding a third (and Montreal is also available in winter)port....as nice as it might be economically for Churchill.
The debt hasn't doubled in 7 years. It was $700 billion when he got the job, and is $1.1 trillion that had a COVID to deal with. Both numbers are absurd and are the equal responsibility of both parties, and the voters who elected them.
I have a policy of not voting for PM's from Quebec for that reason, although Toronto is also a parking lot disguised as a construction site.
Pandemics will do that. Pretty much every other country did the exact same thing. I guess I'm wondering how you think things would look if the government hadn't thrown money at that crisis? It's a once in 100 years event that clarified just how stupid the last 50 years of deficit financing have been.
The prairies had a terrible crop last year. Who knows what this years will be. Is it worth putting $20 billion...totally wild guess, but you're rebuilding the entire line from Canora to Churchill, adding elevators there, and then possibly have nothing to move on sporadic years? While I would love to see it happen for the benefit of people on the route, and in Churchill, I don't think that's where money should be being thrown. IMHO, since we can't build pipelines, I'd rather see investment in the current trackage we have to move oil to the east coast for refining and shipping.
He's right. And those of us who live out in rural Canada have known this for years. Unfortunately we live in a city centric country where policy is driven by people who didn't know any of this until the pandemic hit. Check out the colours on the electoral map for a clue. Now that city folks have been enlightened, perhaps they will start voting accordingly. I write this as I work from my home in the middle of 50 acres of bush a short distance from the shore of Lake Huron. And yes, I have 30up/5 down fiber optic internet provided by (one of) the local independent service providers at half the cost of Bell or Rogers. I know the tech support guy by name and wave when his truck drives by. I know the name of the guy who farms the beef I eat, and the lady whose eggs I buy at the end of her driveway. But I pay a premium for electrical delivery despite the fact I can see over 120 useless wind turbines from the end of my lane. I supply my own water from a well and treat my own waste with a self contained septic system. And I heat and cool with geothermal. So yes, let's not return to "normal". Let's start using some common sense. You will find a lot of that outside of the city.
Some interesting ideas, but some removed from reality. And this “boomer” tried to get her children interested in the trades - didn’t work. Stay away from labels, okay?
People live in citites because they are hotbeds of culture and entertainment and close to things like sports teams and airports.
Even if you can do your job remotely, it's harder to advance in your career when you are not in the city.
The manufacturing supply chain for most goods isn't based in Canada because it's not profitable due to the effects of globalization. A knock on effect of Canada enjoying a high standard of living is that Canada has very high labour costs.
But if you want to try founding a chip company in T-Bay, have at it. Best of luck. I'd be happy to buy Canadian, if the option was available at a comparable level of price and quality.
As a (non-extreme) prepper, I think a lot about resilience and self-sufficiency, and how long irreplaceable supplies would last. A guy who provides his own food and heating fuel clearly has issues with depending on people 10,000km away for important resources (it is creepy). But we've been dependent on other countries for centuries: we don't grow rubber, and whole cruel empires were built to get it.
For a little stress on how humans tend to clump, search the below-quoted phrases on YouTube, for nice little video lectures on "Why 70% of Spain is Empty" and "Why 1/3rd of France is Almost Empty".
I agree but at the same time what were once small towns have become bigger cities. And as much as every country now depends on specific things from other countries, there is still room for us to be more self sufficient and far more creative IMO.
It can take a generation, or two - and with houses, a "generation" is about 60 years(!) - for changed circumstance to change designs. I mention "houses" because central heating, instead of fireplaces, meant that you no longer needed small rooms enclosed, each with a fireplace, for heating. But we continued chopping up our houses into little rooms for decades, before the "great room" and "open plan" and so on, took hold.
Telecommuting has been looming for a decade, but the pandemic really smacked us in the face with it. Nonetheless, I wearily project a whole generation of bosses, now in their twenties, will have to take over as CEOs, before workplace changes really sink in.
Technological change seems to be coming at an accelerating pace (does Moore’s law figure here?), and state regulation almost always lags as does state awareness of implications. It seems there will always be bright types like Elon and Bezos and Zuckerberg, readily able to game the system (as opposed to outright criminal actors).
But a common human trait is to resist change until the pain of staying the same is finally greater than the pain of changing. You see it here in the form of old CEO’s being only eventually replaced by young...and I see that that pace will doom us to truly devastate our environment because the greatest impacts of our actions will come well after acting (my 30-year bowling ball analogy).
You likely already know about what I posted above. I heard that one step in the microchip production process is only done in the city of Odessa Ukraine! What can negatively affect a great idea is the weakest link in the process. We see this over and over again.
I think the concern is the supply of Neon. Ukraine is the main export of the inert gas which is used to manufactrure laser with are in turn used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor manufacturing. This will impact the ability of new chip fabs to come online.
I was going to write that Canada needs an Elon Musk type person. However the reality is that between environmental activists and indigenous activists and progressives in power you can’t really get anything done in Canada. If Elon was born here he would have just left. We really are coasting on previous generations achievements.
The reality you miss in your complaint about the landscape of activists, is that failure to peak oil this year will likely guarantee the collapse of civilization within a decade.
That’s not what the collapse of civilization means, although there will certainly be some very nasty “The Road” dynamics for a while. But if I have a toothache I go to a dentist. Likewise when scientists tell us that ignoring the warnings they’ve been issuing for decades does not result in deadline extension but instead means we have LESS time, I don’t decide to take the advice of a capitalist or a politician instead. Peter Kalmus (@climatehuman) is NASA’s top environmental scientist. He’s not a hack. He’s not a wingnut. He does understand his field, and he’s f*cking terrified.
Peak oil now. Demand all politicians view all issues first through the lens of the climate emergency, because anything else is alternative facts at best.
I read Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ when it came out in 1962. I was 20. It made an impression on me. Apparently not on the political establishment, and for good reason, since the job of politicians is to maintain the status quo, but also, I expect, because people in that line of work are very often lawyers.
The population in this country has suffered (actually) from poor science education. How many schools, even now, have properly funded science education resources? How many teachers, teaching science, have appropriate degrees? You only have to read readers’ comments on any media reports about science to see the distrust and ignorance of the subject. If you suffered through high school science, and did not do well, then it’s understandable.
We knew back in the 60's that government was not to be trusted. "A politician's first and foremost job is to be reelected" or something like that.
Silent Spring was so important but she also had to suffer fools and PR flacks, insecticide developers, the industrial establishment, federal agricultural officials and even the military. Their "children" still thrive among us. Still, her book is still being printed.
Have you read Atwood's "The Year of the Flood"? St. Rachel.
There are lots of qualified people who disagree with climate alarmism - but their views are not amplified in the press. Even the views of IPCC - you know The Science - are routinely misrepresented by politicians and activists. For example the IPCC does not support the idea that extreme weather events are due to climate change.
No. There aren’t a significant number of qualified people who disagree. If you take your car to the mechanic and your toothache to the dentist, then stop looking for alternatives to scientists.
You have not read any of the reports from the IPCC. But blame the MSM, politicians, activists (who must be green but not "bitcoin") for that which you refuse to understand. Of course it's all those scientists from all over the world who are just messing with you, and Pat.
Absolutely true re the IPCC. They have NEVER said the world will be coming to an end due to climate change. More people will be migrating, but then man has been migrating for millions of years. Everyone living today came from a single mother and father from Africa. DNA genetic research has proven this. I think it's a lovely fact. Unfortunately we forget we are all distantly related.
Nature has no morality, it just is. The planet will be here. We are stressing our civilization such that it won’t. The IPCC WG reports are political documents. Read the actual science, the prepublication (pre-massaging and spin-doctoring by 190 nations each with vested interests), leaked last year by the actual scientists.
Africa no longer has a bearing on our migration patterns. No more lovely little hunter gatherer families standing upright in the veldt.
Instead think of a large portion of 8 billion people moving as fast as possible after shrinking reserves of water and serious food shortages. And where are they going to go?
So you’re suggesting that NASA hires lunatics and lets them propagate their insanity unchecked. Sure they do.
OTOH maybe (as suggested elsewhere) you are not qualified to weigh in. Would you really consult a fry cook to deal with your toothache? Of course not. So when science speaks, who are you to deny it? You and your attitude are literally killing us.
Yes I do. But his now famous model mother was born in Canada, and he got Canadian citizenship through her. He went to university here for a while before going to the US.
I think Elon's mother is from here and he has Cdn citizenship unless he has gotten rid of it. I think he lived here before going to the USA for better opportunities.
Elon calls the democrats divisive, conveniently forgetting trump made the most divisive comment in US history when he said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and not lose any supporters.
Pat, you present here as a close minded conservative crank, quick with the ad hominem and the sneer. I won’t waste any more time on you. Cheers.
Good article for the most part, but this threw me for a loop: "Even if we had factories, the Boomers had convinced everyone that trades and resource extraction were for losers and dirty, so we have orphaned entire generations without useful skills for needed and well-paying jobs." Really? What's the source for this. It's the second time a perfectly good Line piece has been tainted by anti-Boomer bigotry. It doesn't help your argument but rather makes me question the validity of all the other arguments made.
Great article but would even be better if the vitriol aimed at the mayor and landlords was absent. I think it is so important to remain respectful and to avoid generalized comments that simply tar a whole group with the same brush. It only adds to your credibility when you rise about the fray.
I've been working from home for over 40 years, and living in the suburbs for longer. And all the time asking anyone who will listen, why don't we use our abundant resources and energy to build stuff here?
And I'm a boomer. Please don't tar us all with the same brush. Still a good column. Now let's get to work!
The signature Boomer song, Woodstock, ends with "we've got to get ourselves back to the garden"; hippies were all about "dropping out" of the rat race and forming farm communes.
It was understood that this was a very poor, subsistence-level 'business model', but that was OK because they'd be non-consumerist, happy to have only subsistence. For 95%, that mentality lasted until kids came, basically.
In the larger sense, too, if our author wants to live in a society with airplanes to jump out of, and defended by F35s, then very, very few people can live a subsistence existence, most must make as much money as possible, pay taxes on it. Somebody has to pay for new hospitals at a billion each. And the 'business model' that can pay for those involves 80% of the population living in cities, just like nearly-empty Australia.
Just because I lived in suburbia and telecommuted does not imply I did not work. I spent most of that time as a software engineer and although I did not jump out of airplanes, I did fly them.
...everybody wants to live in low density, if they can afford it. It's not a 'North American disease', Asians and Europeans love single-family detached, if they can get it(!) But lots of people can't live that way.
...particularly the people who made our software-engineer careers possible by building the hardware.
Quite the rant, with many good points. On chip manufacturing, remember government efforts over 20 years ago to attract chip manufacturers to Canada. No bites, and they don't empty that many once they are up and running.
Nortel had a fab in Ottawa on Corkstown Road. It sold to STM is 2000, which in turn shut it down a few years later. Semiconductors are a capital intensive, low margin business which translates into scale being the only way to succeed. Only four companies manufacture significant quantities of semiconductors: TSMC - Taiwan, Samsung - South Korea, Global Foundries - USA and Intel - USA. The chances of a Canadian company reaching the scale to compete is zero. Canada could possibly attract a fab, but would need to provide huge tax incentives as the upfront capital cost would be in the tens of billions.
The big concentrations of semiconductor fabs in the US are in Phoenix and Austin. Both AZ and TX offer diverse sources of electricity generation, including stable baseload from coal, gas and nuclear.
So what? ERCOT still probably offers better grid reliability than IESO, and the Austin is a magnet for fabs. Samsung and TI are building new facilities. IBM, Intel, Micron, NXP/Freescale, Infineon and ADI/Maxim already have fabs in the Austin area.
Arizona benefits from the Palo Verde nuclear station, the largest in the US, which is impressive for operating in a desert with no body of water for cooling. Instead, it relies on treated wastewater. Arizona also figured out how to supply the water intensive chip fabrication process. TSMC and Intel have massive new facilities under construction in the Phoenix area.
Phoenix has also become a hotbed for EV design and manufacturing. Lucid and Nikola are there. Austin is now Tesla's HQ.
Both TX and AZ demonstrate how business friendly government policy can overcome lack of natural advantage in certain industries, perhaps as a lesson to Canada.
We are next to the largest market in the world but we refuse to integrate with them beyond trade in goods and whatever we pick up by osmosis. Canadians I'm convinced are okay with "normal" as this author defines it. The rest of the world wonders why we lack ambition. Ambition is supposedly "Too American."
Mr. Watson, your final two paragraphs, I think, summarize your position in this column:
"... instead of paying people to stay in their parents’ basements, incentivize them to go into the trades and sciences for a better future for all.
Return to “Normal?” Hard No. Let’s be awesome, innovative and visionary instead. Because normal had a lot of problems. And we can do so much better."
You don't like the "normal" that we had. Fine. What should we have? Specifics, please. Be very, very specific.
Oh, and by the way, just so you know, I absolute do have the bias that the most terrifying nine words in the English language are, "We're from the government; we're here to help you." [variously attributed primarily to R.W. Reagan - but don't think that defines my political outlook]
Kindly stop whining, get off your ass and run for public office. Quite frankly, far too many of the current candidates (successful and otherwise) are unsuitable, unsatisfactory and unable, not to mention that they are usually economically illiterate, political panderers and often in it for the pay cheque. Perhaps, you will be different. Or, perhaps not, but stop the whining and try. Therefore, please don't suggest massive government programs that will cost zillions and drive both government debt and inflation massively higher. Be creative. Remember? You wanted creativity, so stop whining and be creative.
You found a way to slam we boomers. That is fair (to the extent that slamming any group for a perceived wrong is "fair" rather than racist/ageist/***ist/blah/blah) but please recognize that some of us discussed with our now adult children the idea of going into the trades, etc.; some of us really did try to accomplish what you seem to want (well, as best I can discern your wants, other than nirvana, of course).
But, but, but, quite your damned whining. You put forth what you perceive as problems and, perhaps, they are but those things (tiny apartments, etc., etc., etc.) occurred for many rational reasons. You may well disagree that the end results (tiny apartments, etc., etc., etc.) are actually rational but you need to look at the WHY of things and what the trade offs were that resulted in the decisions that allowed those things.
So, stop you whining and propose concrete, well thought out solutions. Remember, any policy change will gore SOMEONE'S ox so consider all those oxen to be gored and why it is better for that result as compared to a completely different result and then and only then put forth your "better" alternative. Then think through the second, third, fourth, etc. level of your proposed changes.
Watson's piece is the best analysis of what is fundamentally wrong with Canada right now. The question is how to make any --even one--of his solutions to Canada's malaise happen. I doubt if any candidate running in the recent Ontario election addressed these issues. Silence on the Federal front. Any suggestions?
Hopefully the current inflationary spiral has discredited all vestiges of MMT. Government needs to get back to meaningful measures to boost productivity like building pipelines, expanding ports and building highways. "Stimulus" in all forms has been ineffective and given government a free ride.
These 'feel good' pieces are fun to read. They are in a weird way reassuring -- sure we have problems, but a few common sense changes and they could easily be solved. But, the reality is often much more difficult.
Let's take the remote work point. Studies have shown that people can work in remote teams effectively if they have already built up a trusting relationship. But, if the default is remote (which is what a lot of companies are attempting) that can be really challenging. Let's see how this experiment plays out before we assume the future of cities is doomed. My purely anecdotal take is that grouping people together creates "happy accidents" -- informal conversations that occasionally inspire new directions or new ideas. At the industry level, that's why people in certain industries tend to cluster. At the individual level, you make connections across the industry that helps you build your career. At the industry level, you attract talent and the kind of supporting infrastructure needed to thrive. There's a reason cities exist. Remote work may change things, but to me the whole -- "everyone can work from anywhere" really undersells the importance of these networks.
But a lot of the other points -- high speed rail from Peterborough, chip manufacturing in Thunder Bay, all-season port in Churchill, reshored manufacturing of all kinds of goods -- all would appear to require government intervention to happen. Canada is a very small market, with relatively eductated and high wage workers. There isn't a great business case for a lot of the things proposed unless the government is willing to heavily subsidize and plan them.
High-speed trains from Peterborough? Have you seen how long it has taken just to get all-day GO service to places like Kitchener-Waterloo (hint -- it still isn't complete)? Chip manufacturing in Thunder Bay? If there was a business case, it would have happened. Given it hasn't, we're going to have to make it really, really attractive (think government "investments"). An all-year port in Churchill has been looked at for decades. It'll be expensive -- not only the port, but the required transporation infrastructure to the port. Guess who is paying for that? And, if Canada thinks that our trade partners are going to pay a premium for commodities like fossil fuels or grain because we're more ethical than Russia or Saudi Arabia, then explain to me how that happens. What's more realistic (and what's happening) is that those industries may have increasing opportunities in the global market, but require investment to get there (everything from carbon capture to transportation infrastucture). Guess what -- they want us (the taxpayer) to pay for those investments or at least heavily subsidize them as they know the global price for those commodities is determined within the global market -- there is no 'we're nice' premium.
So, let's call these what they are: calls for government subsidies that favour certain kinds of industries/work.
There is a school of thought that the only way a small market like Canada can thrive is through some kind of government intervention and, if we are going to do that, we need a strategic industrial policy instead of just focusing on creating an attractive business climate. I'm still mulling if I agree with that as government's ability to pick 'winners and losers' is not fantastic. But, the alternative as kind of spelled out here is to continue to favour existing industries that have the ability to lobby governement for effective subsidies without expecting anything at all in return.
A long comment (as usual for me) to point out that while this piece feels good to read (even to me!) making it happen would either require significant government (taxpayer) investment favouring specific industries and not require those industries to do anything in return. That's more of what we're already doing and I'm not convinced it's the best way forward.
And to be clear, the GO service from Kitchener and "high speed" should not be used in the same sentence. Worse, the GO service from London to Toronto that Doug was so proud of takes 4 hours. When I worked for CN in the 1980's, we did it in 3:15.
I'm not sure Churchill would ever work as a port because the melting permafrost may make the current railroad very difficult, if not impossible to operate without massive infusions of cash.
But it was a delight to read.
Doesn't matter about thousands of years. The last 100 since the line was built are what matters. It still isn't strong enough to support the current 140-ton hoppers that the railroads now use, and it would cost billions to upgrade it. That's not Trudeau's fault either, as that line has never been seriously considered for that. It is still a significantly load-restricted piece of railroad for hundreds of miles. . The railroads like taking it to Thunder Bay and Vancouver to put on boats which are even cheaper. All you need for comparison is to look at the challenges of building the CPR across the muskeg in the 1880's, Millions and millions of tons of fill to make it usable. And there is no shortage of capacity in either of those 2 ports to justify adding a third (and Montreal is also available in winter)port....as nice as it might be economically for Churchill.
The debt hasn't doubled in 7 years. It was $700 billion when he got the job, and is $1.1 trillion that had a COVID to deal with. Both numbers are absurd and are the equal responsibility of both parties, and the voters who elected them.
I have a policy of not voting for PM's from Quebec for that reason, although Toronto is also a parking lot disguised as a construction site.
Pandemics will do that. Pretty much every other country did the exact same thing. I guess I'm wondering how you think things would look if the government hadn't thrown money at that crisis? It's a once in 100 years event that clarified just how stupid the last 50 years of deficit financing have been.
The prairies had a terrible crop last year. Who knows what this years will be. Is it worth putting $20 billion...totally wild guess, but you're rebuilding the entire line from Canora to Churchill, adding elevators there, and then possibly have nothing to move on sporadic years? While I would love to see it happen for the benefit of people on the route, and in Churchill, I don't think that's where money should be being thrown. IMHO, since we can't build pipelines, I'd rather see investment in the current trackage we have to move oil to the east coast for refining and shipping.
He's right. And those of us who live out in rural Canada have known this for years. Unfortunately we live in a city centric country where policy is driven by people who didn't know any of this until the pandemic hit. Check out the colours on the electoral map for a clue. Now that city folks have been enlightened, perhaps they will start voting accordingly. I write this as I work from my home in the middle of 50 acres of bush a short distance from the shore of Lake Huron. And yes, I have 30up/5 down fiber optic internet provided by (one of) the local independent service providers at half the cost of Bell or Rogers. I know the tech support guy by name and wave when his truck drives by. I know the name of the guy who farms the beef I eat, and the lady whose eggs I buy at the end of her driveway. But I pay a premium for electrical delivery despite the fact I can see over 120 useless wind turbines from the end of my lane. I supply my own water from a well and treat my own waste with a self contained septic system. And I heat and cool with geothermal. So yes, let's not return to "normal". Let's start using some common sense. You will find a lot of that outside of the city.
Some interesting ideas, but some removed from reality. And this “boomer” tried to get her children interested in the trades - didn’t work. Stay away from labels, okay?
Because reality?
People live in citites because they are hotbeds of culture and entertainment and close to things like sports teams and airports.
Even if you can do your job remotely, it's harder to advance in your career when you are not in the city.
The manufacturing supply chain for most goods isn't based in Canada because it's not profitable due to the effects of globalization. A knock on effect of Canada enjoying a high standard of living is that Canada has very high labour costs.
But if you want to try founding a chip company in T-Bay, have at it. Best of luck. I'd be happy to buy Canadian, if the option was available at a comparable level of price and quality.
Thanks. Saved me some typing.
As a (non-extreme) prepper, I think a lot about resilience and self-sufficiency, and how long irreplaceable supplies would last. A guy who provides his own food and heating fuel clearly has issues with depending on people 10,000km away for important resources (it is creepy). But we've been dependent on other countries for centuries: we don't grow rubber, and whole cruel empires were built to get it.
For a little stress on how humans tend to clump, search the below-quoted phrases on YouTube, for nice little video lectures on "Why 70% of Spain is Empty" and "Why 1/3rd of France is Almost Empty".
I agree but at the same time what were once small towns have become bigger cities. And as much as every country now depends on specific things from other countries, there is still room for us to be more self sufficient and far more creative IMO.
It can take a generation, or two - and with houses, a "generation" is about 60 years(!) - for changed circumstance to change designs. I mention "houses" because central heating, instead of fireplaces, meant that you no longer needed small rooms enclosed, each with a fireplace, for heating. But we continued chopping up our houses into little rooms for decades, before the "great room" and "open plan" and so on, took hold.
Telecommuting has been looming for a decade, but the pandemic really smacked us in the face with it. Nonetheless, I wearily project a whole generation of bosses, now in their twenties, will have to take over as CEOs, before workplace changes really sink in.
Technological change seems to be coming at an accelerating pace (does Moore’s law figure here?), and state regulation almost always lags as does state awareness of implications. It seems there will always be bright types like Elon and Bezos and Zuckerberg, readily able to game the system (as opposed to outright criminal actors).
But a common human trait is to resist change until the pain of staying the same is finally greater than the pain of changing. You see it here in the form of old CEO’s being only eventually replaced by young...and I see that that pace will doom us to truly devastate our environment because the greatest impacts of our actions will come well after acting (my 30-year bowling ball analogy).
You likely already know about what I posted above. I heard that one step in the microchip production process is only done in the city of Odessa Ukraine! What can negatively affect a great idea is the weakest link in the process. We see this over and over again.
I think the concern is the supply of Neon. Ukraine is the main export of the inert gas which is used to manufactrure laser with are in turn used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor manufacturing. This will impact the ability of new chip fabs to come online.
Thanks Doug. I find it interesting and so helpful when other subscribers know detail that others don't.
I was going to write that Canada needs an Elon Musk type person. However the reality is that between environmental activists and indigenous activists and progressives in power you can’t really get anything done in Canada. If Elon was born here he would have just left. We really are coasting on previous generations achievements.
The reality you miss in your complaint about the landscape of activists, is that failure to peak oil this year will likely guarantee the collapse of civilization within a decade.
That’s not what the collapse of civilization means, although there will certainly be some very nasty “The Road” dynamics for a while. But if I have a toothache I go to a dentist. Likewise when scientists tell us that ignoring the warnings they’ve been issuing for decades does not result in deadline extension but instead means we have LESS time, I don’t decide to take the advice of a capitalist or a politician instead. Peter Kalmus (@climatehuman) is NASA’s top environmental scientist. He’s not a hack. He’s not a wingnut. He does understand his field, and he’s f*cking terrified.
Peak oil now. Demand all politicians view all issues first through the lens of the climate emergency, because anything else is alternative facts at best.
I read Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ when it came out in 1962. I was 20. It made an impression on me. Apparently not on the political establishment, and for good reason, since the job of politicians is to maintain the status quo, but also, I expect, because people in that line of work are very often lawyers.
The population in this country has suffered (actually) from poor science education. How many schools, even now, have properly funded science education resources? How many teachers, teaching science, have appropriate degrees? You only have to read readers’ comments on any media reports about science to see the distrust and ignorance of the subject. If you suffered through high school science, and did not do well, then it’s understandable.
We knew back in the 60's that government was not to be trusted. "A politician's first and foremost job is to be reelected" or something like that.
Silent Spring was so important but she also had to suffer fools and PR flacks, insecticide developers, the industrial establishment, federal agricultural officials and even the military. Their "children" still thrive among us. Still, her book is still being printed.
Have you read Atwood's "The Year of the Flood"? St. Rachel.
Like I said, fools.
There are lots of qualified people who disagree with climate alarmism - but their views are not amplified in the press. Even the views of IPCC - you know The Science - are routinely misrepresented by politicians and activists. For example the IPCC does not support the idea that extreme weather events are due to climate change.
No. There aren’t a significant number of qualified people who disagree. If you take your car to the mechanic and your toothache to the dentist, then stop looking for alternatives to scientists.
You have not read any of the reports from the IPCC. But blame the MSM, politicians, activists (who must be green but not "bitcoin") for that which you refuse to understand. Of course it's all those scientists from all over the world who are just messing with you, and Pat.
Absolutely true re the IPCC. They have NEVER said the world will be coming to an end due to climate change. More people will be migrating, but then man has been migrating for millions of years. Everyone living today came from a single mother and father from Africa. DNA genetic research has proven this. I think it's a lovely fact. Unfortunately we forget we are all distantly related.
Nature has no morality, it just is. The planet will be here. We are stressing our civilization such that it won’t. The IPCC WG reports are political documents. Read the actual science, the prepublication (pre-massaging and spin-doctoring by 190 nations each with vested interests), leaked last year by the actual scientists.
Africa no longer has a bearing on our migration patterns. No more lovely little hunter gatherer families standing upright in the veldt.
Instead think of a large portion of 8 billion people moving as fast as possible after shrinking reserves of water and serious food shortages. And where are they going to go?
The idea of Lucy was lovely. Science is cool.
So you’re suggesting that NASA hires lunatics and lets them propagate their insanity unchecked. Sure they do.
OTOH maybe (as suggested elsewhere) you are not qualified to weigh in. Would you really consult a fry cook to deal with your toothache? Of course not. So when science speaks, who are you to deny it? You and your attitude are literally killing us.
You don't know that Musk was born in South Africa?
Yes I do. But his now famous model mother was born in Canada, and he got Canadian citizenship through her. He went to university here for a while before going to the US.
Yeas, I also knew that but I was questioning Pat, you know, the guy who knows everything.
Musk was 17 when he came to Canada for school. I never heard of his mother until recently. I guess she spent some time in SA, no?
I think Elon's mother is from here and he has Cdn citizenship unless he has gotten rid of it. I think he lived here before going to the USA for better opportunities.
Elon calls the democrats divisive, conveniently forgetting trump made the most divisive comment in US history when he said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and not lose any supporters.
Pat, you present here as a close minded conservative crank, quick with the ad hominem and the sneer. I won’t waste any more time on you. Cheers.
Good article for the most part, but this threw me for a loop: "Even if we had factories, the Boomers had convinced everyone that trades and resource extraction were for losers and dirty, so we have orphaned entire generations without useful skills for needed and well-paying jobs." Really? What's the source for this. It's the second time a perfectly good Line piece has been tainted by anti-Boomer bigotry. It doesn't help your argument but rather makes me question the validity of all the other arguments made.
This was a great article! Thank you Mr. Watson.
Great article but would even be better if the vitriol aimed at the mayor and landlords was absent. I think it is so important to remain respectful and to avoid generalized comments that simply tar a whole group with the same brush. It only adds to your credibility when you rise about the fray.
I've been working from home for over 40 years, and living in the suburbs for longer. And all the time asking anyone who will listen, why don't we use our abundant resources and energy to build stuff here?
And I'm a boomer. Please don't tar us all with the same brush. Still a good column. Now let's get to work!
The signature Boomer song, Woodstock, ends with "we've got to get ourselves back to the garden"; hippies were all about "dropping out" of the rat race and forming farm communes.
It was understood that this was a very poor, subsistence-level 'business model', but that was OK because they'd be non-consumerist, happy to have only subsistence. For 95%, that mentality lasted until kids came, basically.
In the larger sense, too, if our author wants to live in a society with airplanes to jump out of, and defended by F35s, then very, very few people can live a subsistence existence, most must make as much money as possible, pay taxes on it. Somebody has to pay for new hospitals at a billion each. And the 'business model' that can pay for those involves 80% of the population living in cities, just like nearly-empty Australia.
Just because I lived in suburbia and telecommuted does not imply I did not work. I spent most of that time as a software engineer and although I did not jump out of airplanes, I did fly them.
Of course you worked! You had the money to live in low-density, that takes money. If you look up your Witold Rybczinski:
https://slate.com/culture/2007/04/why-do-we-live-in-houses-anyway.html
...everybody wants to live in low density, if they can afford it. It's not a 'North American disease', Asians and Europeans love single-family detached, if they can get it(!) But lots of people can't live that way.
...particularly the people who made our software-engineer careers possible by building the hardware.
You do know that Joni never actually went to Woodstock?
Quite the rant, with many good points. On chip manufacturing, remember government efforts over 20 years ago to attract chip manufacturers to Canada. No bites, and they don't empty that many once they are up and running.
Nortel had a fab in Ottawa on Corkstown Road. It sold to STM is 2000, which in turn shut it down a few years later. Semiconductors are a capital intensive, low margin business which translates into scale being the only way to succeed. Only four companies manufacture significant quantities of semiconductors: TSMC - Taiwan, Samsung - South Korea, Global Foundries - USA and Intel - USA. The chances of a Canadian company reaching the scale to compete is zero. Canada could possibly attract a fab, but would need to provide huge tax incentives as the upfront capital cost would be in the tens of billions.
Taiwan is building several microchip plants in the USA to distance themselves from China grabbing hold of their industry.
The big concentrations of semiconductor fabs in the US are in Phoenix and Austin. Both AZ and TX offer diverse sources of electricity generation, including stable baseload from coal, gas and nuclear.
So what? ERCOT still probably offers better grid reliability than IESO, and the Austin is a magnet for fabs. Samsung and TI are building new facilities. IBM, Intel, Micron, NXP/Freescale, Infineon and ADI/Maxim already have fabs in the Austin area.
Arizona benefits from the Palo Verde nuclear station, the largest in the US, which is impressive for operating in a desert with no body of water for cooling. Instead, it relies on treated wastewater. Arizona also figured out how to supply the water intensive chip fabrication process. TSMC and Intel have massive new facilities under construction in the Phoenix area.
Phoenix has also become a hotbed for EV design and manufacturing. Lucid and Nikola are there. Austin is now Tesla's HQ.
Both TX and AZ demonstrate how business friendly government policy can overcome lack of natural advantage in certain industries, perhaps as a lesson to Canada.
Love it. Well said.
Hard to argue with any of this.
We are next to the largest market in the world but we refuse to integrate with them beyond trade in goods and whatever we pick up by osmosis. Canadians I'm convinced are okay with "normal" as this author defines it. The rest of the world wonders why we lack ambition. Ambition is supposedly "Too American."
Mr. Watson, your final two paragraphs, I think, summarize your position in this column:
"... instead of paying people to stay in their parents’ basements, incentivize them to go into the trades and sciences for a better future for all.
Return to “Normal?” Hard No. Let’s be awesome, innovative and visionary instead. Because normal had a lot of problems. And we can do so much better."
You don't like the "normal" that we had. Fine. What should we have? Specifics, please. Be very, very specific.
Oh, and by the way, just so you know, I absolute do have the bias that the most terrifying nine words in the English language are, "We're from the government; we're here to help you." [variously attributed primarily to R.W. Reagan - but don't think that defines my political outlook]
Kindly stop whining, get off your ass and run for public office. Quite frankly, far too many of the current candidates (successful and otherwise) are unsuitable, unsatisfactory and unable, not to mention that they are usually economically illiterate, political panderers and often in it for the pay cheque. Perhaps, you will be different. Or, perhaps not, but stop the whining and try. Therefore, please don't suggest massive government programs that will cost zillions and drive both government debt and inflation massively higher. Be creative. Remember? You wanted creativity, so stop whining and be creative.
You found a way to slam we boomers. That is fair (to the extent that slamming any group for a perceived wrong is "fair" rather than racist/ageist/***ist/blah/blah) but please recognize that some of us discussed with our now adult children the idea of going into the trades, etc.; some of us really did try to accomplish what you seem to want (well, as best I can discern your wants, other than nirvana, of course).
But, but, but, quite your damned whining. You put forth what you perceive as problems and, perhaps, they are but those things (tiny apartments, etc., etc., etc.) occurred for many rational reasons. You may well disagree that the end results (tiny apartments, etc., etc., etc.) are actually rational but you need to look at the WHY of things and what the trade offs were that resulted in the decisions that allowed those things.
So, stop you whining and propose concrete, well thought out solutions. Remember, any policy change will gore SOMEONE'S ox so consider all those oxen to be gored and why it is better for that result as compared to a completely different result and then and only then put forth your "better" alternative. Then think through the second, third, fourth, etc. level of your proposed changes.
But stop you damned whining.
Well said Ken!
Watson's piece is the best analysis of what is fundamentally wrong with Canada right now. The question is how to make any --even one--of his solutions to Canada's malaise happen. I doubt if any candidate running in the recent Ontario election addressed these issues. Silence on the Federal front. Any suggestions?
Hopefully the current inflationary spiral has discredited all vestiges of MMT. Government needs to get back to meaningful measures to boost productivity like building pipelines, expanding ports and building highways. "Stimulus" in all forms has been ineffective and given government a free ride.