On economics, I would be wary when getting the opinions of academic economists (as opposed to those actually working in the private sector). Macroeconomics (inflation, unemployment, interest rates, GDP) is currently in crisis, as the standard models do not fit the facts, much less predict them. See economists like John Cochrane and Scott Sumner.
Microeconomics (individual markets, businesses, consumers) is in much better shape. But its practitioners still manage to estimate firms' price-cost margins without any data on either prices or costs. Nevertheless they find (in the U.S.) that margins are increasing, the basis for a widespread and questionable belief that competition (in the U.S.) is declining. (I'll spare you the details.).
In Canada, we have the problem that, in many sectors, government actively limits competition by placing constraints on companies. We can point to airlines, telecommunications and financial services, where there are obstacles to new entry by non-Canadian firms. There is supply management, the main reason why Jen's bill for cheese is so obscenely high. Often, new entry by small players is made difficult by regulations more easily borne by the big than by the small. And there are barriers to inter-provincial trade that make it hard for new entrants to reach economies of scale.
If the general public only knew how the feds operated their utter Cornucopia of "small business programs" which no living person knows the details of every single one, they would be livid. Many are designed I'm convinced to never actually be used, on purpose. Easy to announce a feel good program for the 100 IQ mean public when you don't have to actually spend anything on it, lol.
If the public only actually understood how PSPC procurement for one small example, actually works against SME's to disqualify them, and then push them around, and how the Ottawa establishment makes their money sorting through the mess they both create, and clean up for their well heeled large clients, they would be livid. Yes, it's worse in Canada than in the US by the way. Now add up everything from labeling laws to CRTC directives to even making it hard to open a car wash and it adds up to an economy on the lower end of the OECD.
What is astonishing is how far "Canadian nice" allows this to continue. Some countries have fallen apart for less.
All of this and let's not forget the massive subsidizing of favoured actors in pursuit of nakedly political goals. We do not have a functioning free enterprise system in this country and PP is not coming to change that. He may save us from Junior's sickening woke shenanigans (obviously much-needed!!) but unless and until he smashes supply management he is not to be taken seriously on the economic front. We desperately need a Canadian version of Javier Milei and at this point there is no reason to believe that PP is that person.
Why do you say that PP isn’t going to change things? This feels like the same old biases that permeates the country where Conservatives are bad and Liberals/NDP are good.
We know this for certain. The current government and by extension of the NDP strongly believe in top down government. Voting for the same is going to give you the same. The Conservatives are the change party and if they aren’t they will last 4 years.
To be clear, I fully expect PP to change some things. And there is no doubt that he will be a far, far better steward of the economy than Junior could ever be (not to mention far less authoritarian).
I just don't think he will make the big changes that are necessary to transform this into a functioning free enterprise system. We are, to use a formal term Jen would approve of, royally fucked in this Country. Major fundamental changes are required and those changes only BEGIN with dismantling supply management. Doing that is only a necessary, and not sufficient condition to meaningfully transform this country. And I see no reason to believe that PP will do it. Maybe I'm wrong and despite him having never (to my knowledge - correct me if I am wrong) publicly verbalized a desire to touch supply management he will dismantle it upon ascending to PM. In that case I would be thrilled and tip my hat to him.
Only Bernier wanted to touch supply management. That didn't end well for him. Canadians love supporting supply management and often tout the idea that without it we'd be forced to drink BGH-infused dairy from--gasp--the USA. Then they go drive across the line to shop for dairy. Hypocrisy and sanctimony are a lethal combination.
I'd posit that the main reason that didn't end well for Bernier is because Andrew Scherr was de facto bought off by the cartels. But running for the party leadership is much different than running in a general election.
And I don't accept the assertion that "Canadians love supporting supply management". In my experience, I'd bet that 75% of the population would look at you with a blank stare if you asked them what supply management even is. And to your point, many Canadians currently shop for dairy in the USA. So the assertion is begging for evidentiary support - to my eyes there is none.
Yes, all the political parties support it. This is merely (further) evidence of a corrupt/ossified political structure. And I don't even accept that there would be negative political ramifications for any party who came for the cartels. I don't have time to make a career out of this issue but per the Agriculture Canada website there are roughly 9,500 dairy farms in Canada (4,400 in Quebec, 3,300 in Ontario and fewer than 500 in every other Province). There are 29,000 jobs in the dairy manufacturing sector and 17,000 jobs in dairy farm ops. This small number of people is going to swing an election in Canada when over 17 million ballots were cast in the last election? I am skeptical - although open to hearing the counter argument. We don't have an Electoral College where 50,000 strategically located voters can so easily determine the outcome.
Furthermore, if the impacts of these cartels were actually explained to the population I think that advocating for their abolition would prove wildly popular to literally millions of voters (again, your point about Canadians currently shopping in the USA). For every voter employed in the dairy industry who, due to their apparent employment interest, switches a vote that would have otherwise gone to PP (and remember, it won't be ALL of them) I'd bet there would be many, many more voters who would change their vote in the opposite direction. Again, I am open to having my mind changed but based on the evidence available to me I think the policy would be a winner with the electorate overall.
Hypocrisy and sanctimony are a Canadian specialty. Also, the endless tolerance of hypocrisy is a Canadian specialty. I am saying so because I am so tired of observing it all the time. And for that quietly cussing out my esteemed fellow citizens.
When is English Canada going to stop being the sucker of Confederation?
The French Canadian establishment sees English Canada, particularly Ontario where they care the most about "the French fact" (and Canada, but I digress) as something to be taken advantage of, while they still can. They can't believe English Canada establishment still falls for their line.
The whole Quebec separatism movement is a scam. They never intended to leave, it's one big bluff, call them out on it for once.
The French/English relationship is like a bad marriage, with all the dysfunction, in this case including cuckolding.
When will English Canada, particularly the Laurentian Elite, grow a spine and tell Quebec "take it or leave it?" You'll never get that from the Ottawa Valley/West Island regional party now in power though. I'm suspecting it will be immigrants who call out Quebec's bluff and not the old stock who see this scam as part of what makes them different than Americans (and therefore sacred)
Oh don’t make the mistake of thinking the thing we want is therefore the reality. The separatists weren’t bluffing. They wanted to leave.
And let’s not foolishly try to bluff on this.
If you say “take it or leave it”, we had be prepared for them to leave…. recognizing that that would cut our country in half and that non-contiguous countries rarely stay together for long.
And also recognizing how incredibly badly that reduction in our size, population and economy would harm the already weak power we have in any negotiation with the United States. And that’s before we even consider the Americans new ability to play one country to their north against the other to grind both of them down.
I would take that risk, tbh. The rest of North America wouldn't give in so easily to Quebec's shenanigans. They'd have to change a lot of things if they wanted to be a successful country.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the US is on our side. The United States is on the side of the United States. A separated Quebec means a weaker Canada which means an easier target to exploit for the United States.
This isn't because the United States is some terrible evil. It's just a normal country and like all normal countries it looks after its own interests and the interests of its citizens. And Canada is not the United States and we are not Americans.
On other thing... if "successful country" was always the metric used, Brexit would not have happened. But that's not the metric. "Masters in our own house" is the metric a LOT of people use and I think it's clear it's the metric that separatists use.
I don't disagree that the Bloc is treating Canada like a vending machine. It is. The rest of North America separatists know it. I don't like it, but reality doesn't care about my feelings.
Incidentally, to the Albertans who seem to think getting rid of Quebec would be great, I want to know how their influence would be stronger in a new poorer country with 58% of my new country living in Ontario.
I’m not sure what made you think I thought the US is on our side. They aren’t, and they have no reason to be. But they aren’t on Quebec’s side, either. They aren’t going to buy into bilingual packaging, and they aren’t going to cater to the metric system. They won’t give a hoot about their so-called distinct society. It would be fascinating to watch.
Alberta would probably become part of the US somehow, there is just too much oil and now rare earth minerals to ignore. Plus, the culture is just too similar and there are too many US citizens there already.
I fail to see how Quebec leaving Canada hurts Alberta. It hurts the Maritimes the most.
If Quebec left I haven't seen any data showing that Canada's provinces would be any worse off. In fact, using other seperation events in the world, a "velvet divorce" would probably be most advantageous for both Quebec and ROC. Now, it would be more advantageous for some provinces over others, and don't kid yourself, the US would be all over Western Canada, especially Alberta. There are 5 million reasons why.
* I think an amicable departure is **highly** unlikely to say the least.
* If anyone thinks we have barriers to interprovincial trade now, then just wait until we're cut in half or into three
* If anyone thinks we get a raw deal from the US now, just wait until we're in a weaker position.
* On Alberta... the US has more fossil fuels than it needs and is an exporter of energy. It does not need Alberta. If it thinks it can use Alberta, the model to think of is pre-Castro Cuba... so.... pretty great for the USA.
This reminds me very much of Brexit actually. The Brexiteers thought they would be making great trade deals with the US. When it came time to talk, the Americans gave them almost humiliating terms and so they still don't have a trade deal with the UK. They thought the US needed the UK and they were very wrong. The US wasn't being evil. The Brits just didn't realize how weak their hand was and they still haven't come to terms with that.
Jen, the economics rant in the middle of the podcast was all time. It went on for so long and just slowly built. By the end of it I felt like I was in a Southern Church screaming preach! Unreal. You hit on all the things. I swear to god most of our politicians don’t know this stuff. Like no clue. Matt (and Jen)- the basic supply and demand and the deconstruction of why it’s not working in housing. Boom! Next question. That was super cathartic. Thank you
Feds and media attacked Albertans when they asked to entertain taking control of their cpp. The Liberals and federal bureaucrats have been robbing the people blind for 9 years and we should trust these elite pxxxxs. Top that off with the bloc, ndp, and liberal rich kids are playing politics while the citizen's are dying and broke. And you wonder why we are so Fuxxxxx angry. Pierre and the conservatives must keep up the chaos because it relates to exactly how the lower and middle class feel. It's much better than us storming parliament. Justin just fuxxxxx stop and retire. You lost you arrogant prxxx. I feel better
To be fair, the Alberta government wants control of pension money so they can create their own little version of Quebec Inc. No thanks without also an option to opt out and take your portion of the fund and be able to put it in your RRSP to manage. Heck, require the purchase of an annuity when it is converted to a RRIF at 65 if you must.
Canada should allow the option for superannuated pension like Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong have. The CPP made sense in an era of 2.5% MER mutual funds and $100 per trade equity transactions. It makes no sense to have it mandatory anymore in an era where index funds have 0.06% fees and where Vanguard and iShares are multiples larger, more powerful and cheaper than the CPP. It's our money, no?
Re. Collectivist journos : “Karl Marx was right. Socialism works. It is just that he had the wrong species in mind.” - Edward O. Wilson, on the fact that Human Beings are not Bugs
I'm not that irked by a 10% raise in OAS. OAS is pretty low and doesn't really increase much with the cost of living. Having people qualify after living in the country for just 10 years is what makes the program costly to administer. We should be phasing in a longer qualifying time, particularly since we dropped the ball on immigration so spectacularly.
That, and seniors who have no business collecting welfare on account of their healthy incomes can collect. As a matter of fact, all assets should be considered to qualify, just like with regular welfare.
The clawback threshold starts at $86,912 this year. That is much higher than what single moms start getting clawed back at for benefits to help raise their kids.
Great podcast on all topics. Some excellent and very interesting discussion between Matt & Jen .
Jen sells herself short - her business analysis is generally spot on, and this podcast is no exception.
Also, I share their admiration for Israel's stunning and novel military operation, though I fear we may (not) all live to regret that they were able to do what they did. We may look back on this week as another world-shifting time as the consequences of these new military targeting tactics play out. If pagers and radios can be hacked and achieve results as surgical yet spectacular as this, imagine what some well placed plastic device could do inside a car or a plane, or a building, or any large gathering of people. Once the terrorists and allied rogue states figure out how Israel pulled this off - well...wow.
Enjoyed Matt's line:
'The Old Boys Club moved in to the Civil Service and became unionized.'
In my own mind, the Old Boys Club has always occupied both corporate boardrooms on the private side and politicians on the public side - two sides of the same corrupt coin - these are the same people. Matt nails it by noting this has moved beyond and into the 'professional civil service', where a significant number of them are also on the take. This occurs provincially and municipally as well. This development coincides with the catastrophic failure by our national police force, federal spooks, the legal profession, and our various levels of judiciary to prosecute and properly deter this trend to the point we are today where it has become, as Matt and Jen note, normalized. Canadians are not even surprised any more. Some of us are still outraged, but no one is surprised any longer.
This obvious rot has certainly been evident here in Alberta for some time. In 2015, when the hopelessly arrogant & corrupted provincial Tories (PC's) were shown the door by Albertans, the somewhat stunned NDP were aided by a right-leaning voting bloc that was split between the PC's and Wildrose (led by a gullible and obviously self-interested M.D. Smith who was hoodwinked by J. Prentice with the promise of a cabinet seat) facilitated the NDP's sudden rise to government under R. Notley. Many Albertans were naively hopeful the NDP would clean up the corruption, and the PC-friendly firms were initially devastated by the change, but instead, predictably, it was simply different private firms that ultimately benefitted from Alberta taxpayer funding and regulatory friendliness, generally reflective of the difference in ideology between the NDP and their PC predecessors. After Wildrose's reverse takeover of the PC's to form the UCP, upon their election in 2019, the benefitting firms changed again (with some overlap of the previous beneficiaries under the old PC's). Those NDP-benefitting firms have been on the outs and grumbling ever since the UCP took power, first under J. Kenney and now under the Lazarus-like MD Smith. Those firms should be patient, as my next paragraph shows that, eventually, help will be on the way when the NDP eventually overcomes the rurally-dominant UCP and returns to governing Alberta.
The current dust-up between the UCP and (most of) Calgary City Council/New NDP Leader & former Calgary Mayor N. Nehshi over the cancelled Green Line appears to be a turf war between their respective ideologically allied firms. Surprise - all the firms on both sides will now win (and taxpayers will lose) because the left-supporting project firms will get lavish taxfunded cancellation fees on evaporated Green LIne contracts ($2 Billion was what I heard this week) while the right-supporting firms will obviously get the new contracts for whatever eventually replaces the Green Line. If the NDP under Nenshi manages to wrest power back from the Smith-led UCP by the next election, this win-win private firm scenario will repeat itself. Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to get nothing-nada-bupkis for the money that has been effectively stolen from them.
What a country we live in. Latin America? Portugal? Is it really any better there? Would love to hear more about why Matt and Jen noted those places as destinations for younger Canadians fed up with our lot here in Canada.
The pagers and radios weren't hacked. They were intercepted and modified. Hacking implies achievement of a tangible effect by remote or IP-based means, which wasn't the case here.
Margaret Thatcher famously said “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” That’s the conundrum for the Trudeau Liberals and other big-spending governments right now, and it explains their greedy glances at pension investments to fund their ambitions for industrial policy and grand infrastructure projects.
The Liberals have been blowing money on industrial policy for their entire mandate for little or no benefit - I suspect the recent huge expenditures on battery manufacturing plants is going to become another enormous boondoggle by either failing to produce at the anticipated levels, or by requiring continuous ongoing investment to upgrade technology in order to avoid obsolescence. After 9 years, they’re still at it, having learned nothing from failure and looking for new ways to fund their schemes now that public finances are a disaster due to previous excessive spending.
It’s been pleasantly surprising that previous Canadian governments actually fixed problems in the CPP to make it sustainable. It’s disturbing that the current one could blow it up again, especially as I suspect they’ll turn their greedy eyes on RRSPs when people who hadn’t otherwise saved for retirement start raging about the CPP shortfall.
The thing about “socialism” and people who supposedly oppose it like Mrs. Thatcher is that what they really mean is that they oppose the socialism they don’t like and support the socialism they do like.
Consider the British National Health Service. Mrs. Thatcher didn’t abolish the NHS. Why not? It’s rather obviously socialist medicine and want she opposed to socialism?
We also have socialist policing instead of private policing. It’s so obvious that we have to have “socialist” policing that we don’t even think of it that way.
Socialism is easily the best way of organizing some things and rather obviously the absolute worst way to organize other things.
The trick is knowing which is which.
And sometimes the answer is that some things need a bit of both. (Education would be my go-to example for needing both).
"I suspect they’ll turn their greedy eyes on RRSPs when people who hadn’t otherwise saved for retirement start raging about the CPP shortfall." Do you mean that they'll start taking money from people's RRSPs? When they froze bank accounts of those who contributed to the convey, I too realized that absolutely nothing is safe. They could take everything away from us. I am not rich, but I save to (I hope!) be self-sufficient in my senior years. That will probably not work to my advantage in the end.
It won’t be something like confiscation. Instead, it’ll be a change in tax policy where they increase tax rates on RIF income, or start taxing RRSP assets for unrealized gains as a wealth tax. It’ll be pitched as a tax on the wealthy, just like the recent changes to capital gains where they said “it only affects
1-2% of Canadians in a year” without realizing (or trying to hide) that something like 50% of Canadians would get dinged by it over 10-20 years.
You are correct about how young people view Canada. A friend has two sons in grade 11 and 12 and neither are applying to any Canadian college or university and only applying to out of country. And my friend and his wife hold the federal govt responsibility.
Just a note from economist land, the drop in housing starts per capita since 2022 has been similar in both the US and Canada. The US has struggled more post GCF to approach levels of starts from the 1990s. What has been unique in Canada is the steady drop in single family starts per capita, so that single family house prices would be under more accurate demand pressure
One thing to add to the CPP discussion: the other problem with encouraging more investment in Canada is diversification. CPP has generally done a good job investing, but it's not like they have a crystal ball, and like any good investor, need to diversify and limit country-specific risk. Setting aside what the board thinks of the investment opportunities, significantly over-weighting Canada strikes me as reckless just from a diversification perspective. CPP already holds ~12% assets in Canada, while Canada is only ~3% of the global market.
Two points - one about toxicity and one about serious politicians (or not-so-serious)>
In terms of Mr Singh's reaction to a protestor calling him a corrupted bastard, and to the provocations of Pierre Poilievre this past week, Jen referred to it as toxic masculinity. I don't think that this is a fair assessment. If we are going to solve the problem of toxicity in our politics, I think it starts with a honest analysis, that the majority of the toxic behaviour and toxic words have come from politicians on the right. Not exclusively, but there is much more of it coming from the right, and I say that as a small c conservative. Calling an elected official corrupt because he is not doing what you would like him to do is not appropriate. Calling someone a sellout because he is not doing what you would like him to do is not appropriate. Disagreeing with someone and articulating this disagreement is okay. But running around with gas and then lighting matches - not okay. It needs to be called out by all of us - media and voters alike. And if you as a politician are telling me that Mr. Singh will not vote non-confidence because he is waiting for a fully realized pension, you are telling me that you as a politician are making decisions based on your own personal interests, because if he is, so are you.
As someone, like Jen, who lives in Calgary, the remarks on economics (pensions, using pensions to invest in select interests, subsidizing industry, and so on) there is such a similarity between what the current federal musings are, and the provincial musings. Here in AB, the push from the UCP on a provincial pension is to use it to invest in O&G. The energy minister is urging subsidies for O&G (by asking that they not pay their taxes). Jen wrote an article in the Walrus about how Poilievre might govern in certain aspects, and the point that I took from that is that there is very little if any difference between Poilievre and Trudeau, and I would throw Smith in that as well. And to me, the point here is that as a politician, they are not serious. They don't present a plan on where we are, where we need to go, and how to get there, and the pain we might have to endure to get there. But to me, that is on us as voters - that we support people without asking them to present a plan. It was Chantal Hebert who said on a podcast this week (either at issue or the mansbridge one) that she is looking for a serious politician, and that this search is ongoing. And that, to me, was a mic drop.
Poillievre is eloquent and can think on his feet. I think he would be a good PM. I hate the sloganny shit as well, but look what happened to the last two CPC leaders. They let the opposition define them, and it didn't end well for them. If Poilievre toned down the rhetoric, I doubt the media and Canadians would pay any attention to him. Our system is designed to reward stupid behaviour and silly catchphrases. Trudeau and Singh take the same low road, but the left don't consider it negative because it speaks to their fears. To them Conservatives, regardless of the leader, are the bogeyman and they want everyone to be constantly reminded of that.
I do agree that O'Toole in particular, but perhaps to a lesser extent Scheer got painted as much more extreme than they were. I do still think that being quick on one's feet had much less value than having a well articulated plan, and being able to implement on the plan.
I think Poilievre will stand up for Canada on the international stage. I don’t believe any politician’s pre-election promises, so I don’t care too much about what they say in the months leading up to an election. Lots of bullshit all around.
Can't procure warships? Check.
Can't procure complicated software, like a pay system (Phoenix)? Check.
Can't procure simple software. like a mobile phone app (ArriveCan)? Check.
Can't procure sleeping bags fur the armed forces? Check.
Spend four years and $67 M to buy back newly prohibited rifles, and succeed in buying back exactly zero? Check,
This isn't a government, it's a comedy routine.
A dark comedy routine.
On economics, I would be wary when getting the opinions of academic economists (as opposed to those actually working in the private sector). Macroeconomics (inflation, unemployment, interest rates, GDP) is currently in crisis, as the standard models do not fit the facts, much less predict them. See economists like John Cochrane and Scott Sumner.
Microeconomics (individual markets, businesses, consumers) is in much better shape. But its practitioners still manage to estimate firms' price-cost margins without any data on either prices or costs. Nevertheless they find (in the U.S.) that margins are increasing, the basis for a widespread and questionable belief that competition (in the U.S.) is declining. (I'll spare you the details.).
In Canada, we have the problem that, in many sectors, government actively limits competition by placing constraints on companies. We can point to airlines, telecommunications and financial services, where there are obstacles to new entry by non-Canadian firms. There is supply management, the main reason why Jen's bill for cheese is so obscenely high. Often, new entry by small players is made difficult by regulations more easily borne by the big than by the small. And there are barriers to inter-provincial trade that make it hard for new entrants to reach economies of scale.
If the general public only knew how the feds operated their utter Cornucopia of "small business programs" which no living person knows the details of every single one, they would be livid. Many are designed I'm convinced to never actually be used, on purpose. Easy to announce a feel good program for the 100 IQ mean public when you don't have to actually spend anything on it, lol.
If the public only actually understood how PSPC procurement for one small example, actually works against SME's to disqualify them, and then push them around, and how the Ottawa establishment makes their money sorting through the mess they both create, and clean up for their well heeled large clients, they would be livid. Yes, it's worse in Canada than in the US by the way. Now add up everything from labeling laws to CRTC directives to even making it hard to open a car wash and it adds up to an economy on the lower end of the OECD.
What is astonishing is how far "Canadian nice" allows this to continue. Some countries have fallen apart for less.
All of this and let's not forget the massive subsidizing of favoured actors in pursuit of nakedly political goals. We do not have a functioning free enterprise system in this country and PP is not coming to change that. He may save us from Junior's sickening woke shenanigans (obviously much-needed!!) but unless and until he smashes supply management he is not to be taken seriously on the economic front. We desperately need a Canadian version of Javier Milei and at this point there is no reason to believe that PP is that person.
Why do you say that PP isn’t going to change things? This feels like the same old biases that permeates the country where Conservatives are bad and Liberals/NDP are good.
We know this for certain. The current government and by extension of the NDP strongly believe in top down government. Voting for the same is going to give you the same. The Conservatives are the change party and if they aren’t they will last 4 years.
To be clear, I fully expect PP to change some things. And there is no doubt that he will be a far, far better steward of the economy than Junior could ever be (not to mention far less authoritarian).
I just don't think he will make the big changes that are necessary to transform this into a functioning free enterprise system. We are, to use a formal term Jen would approve of, royally fucked in this Country. Major fundamental changes are required and those changes only BEGIN with dismantling supply management. Doing that is only a necessary, and not sufficient condition to meaningfully transform this country. And I see no reason to believe that PP will do it. Maybe I'm wrong and despite him having never (to my knowledge - correct me if I am wrong) publicly verbalized a desire to touch supply management he will dismantle it upon ascending to PM. In that case I would be thrilled and tip my hat to him.
Only Bernier wanted to touch supply management. That didn't end well for him. Canadians love supporting supply management and often tout the idea that without it we'd be forced to drink BGH-infused dairy from--gasp--the USA. Then they go drive across the line to shop for dairy. Hypocrisy and sanctimony are a lethal combination.
I'd posit that the main reason that didn't end well for Bernier is because Andrew Scherr was de facto bought off by the cartels. But running for the party leadership is much different than running in a general election.
And I don't accept the assertion that "Canadians love supporting supply management". In my experience, I'd bet that 75% of the population would look at you with a blank stare if you asked them what supply management even is. And to your point, many Canadians currently shop for dairy in the USA. So the assertion is begging for evidentiary support - to my eyes there is none.
Yes, all the political parties support it. This is merely (further) evidence of a corrupt/ossified political structure. And I don't even accept that there would be negative political ramifications for any party who came for the cartels. I don't have time to make a career out of this issue but per the Agriculture Canada website there are roughly 9,500 dairy farms in Canada (4,400 in Quebec, 3,300 in Ontario and fewer than 500 in every other Province). There are 29,000 jobs in the dairy manufacturing sector and 17,000 jobs in dairy farm ops. This small number of people is going to swing an election in Canada when over 17 million ballots were cast in the last election? I am skeptical - although open to hearing the counter argument. We don't have an Electoral College where 50,000 strategically located voters can so easily determine the outcome.
Furthermore, if the impacts of these cartels were actually explained to the population I think that advocating for their abolition would prove wildly popular to literally millions of voters (again, your point about Canadians currently shopping in the USA). For every voter employed in the dairy industry who, due to their apparent employment interest, switches a vote that would have otherwise gone to PP (and remember, it won't be ALL of them) I'd bet there would be many, many more voters who would change their vote in the opposite direction. Again, I am open to having my mind changed but based on the evidence available to me I think the policy would be a winner with the electorate overall.
> Only Bernier wanted to touch supply management. That didn't end well for him.
True, but that's hardly the only reason.
Do we need to mention the Hells Angels girlfriend and the classified documents he left at her place?
Yes. Additionally.
Hypocrisy and sanctimony are a Canadian specialty. Also, the endless tolerance of hypocrisy is a Canadian specialty. I am saying so because I am so tired of observing it all the time. And for that quietly cussing out my esteemed fellow citizens.
When is English Canada going to stop being the sucker of Confederation?
The French Canadian establishment sees English Canada, particularly Ontario where they care the most about "the French fact" (and Canada, but I digress) as something to be taken advantage of, while they still can. They can't believe English Canada establishment still falls for their line.
The whole Quebec separatism movement is a scam. They never intended to leave, it's one big bluff, call them out on it for once.
The French/English relationship is like a bad marriage, with all the dysfunction, in this case including cuckolding.
When will English Canada, particularly the Laurentian Elite, grow a spine and tell Quebec "take it or leave it?" You'll never get that from the Ottawa Valley/West Island regional party now in power though. I'm suspecting it will be immigrants who call out Quebec's bluff and not the old stock who see this scam as part of what makes them different than Americans (and therefore sacred)
Oh don’t make the mistake of thinking the thing we want is therefore the reality. The separatists weren’t bluffing. They wanted to leave.
And let’s not foolishly try to bluff on this.
If you say “take it or leave it”, we had be prepared for them to leave…. recognizing that that would cut our country in half and that non-contiguous countries rarely stay together for long.
And also recognizing how incredibly badly that reduction in our size, population and economy would harm the already weak power we have in any negotiation with the United States. And that’s before we even consider the Americans new ability to play one country to their north against the other to grind both of them down.
I would take that risk, tbh. The rest of North America wouldn't give in so easily to Quebec's shenanigans. They'd have to change a lot of things if they wanted to be a successful country.
"The rest of North America".
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the US is on our side. The United States is on the side of the United States. A separated Quebec means a weaker Canada which means an easier target to exploit for the United States.
This isn't because the United States is some terrible evil. It's just a normal country and like all normal countries it looks after its own interests and the interests of its citizens. And Canada is not the United States and we are not Americans.
On other thing... if "successful country" was always the metric used, Brexit would not have happened. But that's not the metric. "Masters in our own house" is the metric a LOT of people use and I think it's clear it's the metric that separatists use.
I don't disagree that the Bloc is treating Canada like a vending machine. It is. The rest of North America separatists know it. I don't like it, but reality doesn't care about my feelings.
Incidentally, to the Albertans who seem to think getting rid of Quebec would be great, I want to know how their influence would be stronger in a new poorer country with 58% of my new country living in Ontario.
I’m not sure what made you think I thought the US is on our side. They aren’t, and they have no reason to be. But they aren’t on Quebec’s side, either. They aren’t going to buy into bilingual packaging, and they aren’t going to cater to the metric system. They won’t give a hoot about their so-called distinct society. It would be fascinating to watch.
I wasn’t sure if you thought that, but fair enough, you do not.
So is your point just that we would ALL be absolutely hosed?
If so, well …. That’s my point too.
One thing though. The metric system isn’t a Quebec thing.
Alberta would probably become part of the US somehow, there is just too much oil and now rare earth minerals to ignore. Plus, the culture is just too similar and there are too many US citizens there already.
I fail to see how Quebec leaving Canada hurts Alberta. It hurts the Maritimes the most.
ROC is hosed anyway 🤷🏼♀️
If Quebec left I haven't seen any data showing that Canada's provinces would be any worse off. In fact, using other seperation events in the world, a "velvet divorce" would probably be most advantageous for both Quebec and ROC. Now, it would be more advantageous for some provinces over others, and don't kid yourself, the US would be all over Western Canada, especially Alberta. There are 5 million reasons why.
A few thoughts.
* I think an amicable departure is **highly** unlikely to say the least.
* If anyone thinks we have barriers to interprovincial trade now, then just wait until we're cut in half or into three
* If anyone thinks we get a raw deal from the US now, just wait until we're in a weaker position.
* On Alberta... the US has more fossil fuels than it needs and is an exporter of energy. It does not need Alberta. If it thinks it can use Alberta, the model to think of is pre-Castro Cuba... so.... pretty great for the USA.
This reminds me very much of Brexit actually. The Brexiteers thought they would be making great trade deals with the US. When it came time to talk, the Americans gave them almost humiliating terms and so they still don't have a trade deal with the UK. They thought the US needed the UK and they were very wrong. The US wasn't being evil. The Brits just didn't realize how weak their hand was and they still haven't come to terms with that.
If Ontario and the West got their act together and worked towards their mutual interest, that would be the end of Quebec pulling the strings.
Ontario is half of English Canada and Ontario is the heart of the current iteration of the idea of Canada.
Jen, the economics rant in the middle of the podcast was all time. It went on for so long and just slowly built. By the end of it I felt like I was in a Southern Church screaming preach! Unreal. You hit on all the things. I swear to god most of our politicians don’t know this stuff. Like no clue. Matt (and Jen)- the basic supply and demand and the deconstruction of why it’s not working in housing. Boom! Next question. That was super cathartic. Thank you
Feds and media attacked Albertans when they asked to entertain taking control of their cpp. The Liberals and federal bureaucrats have been robbing the people blind for 9 years and we should trust these elite pxxxxs. Top that off with the bloc, ndp, and liberal rich kids are playing politics while the citizen's are dying and broke. And you wonder why we are so Fuxxxxx angry. Pierre and the conservatives must keep up the chaos because it relates to exactly how the lower and middle class feel. It's much better than us storming parliament. Justin just fuxxxxx stop and retire. You lost you arrogant prxxx. I feel better
To be fair, the Alberta government wants control of pension money so they can create their own little version of Quebec Inc. No thanks without also an option to opt out and take your portion of the fund and be able to put it in your RRSP to manage. Heck, require the purchase of an annuity when it is converted to a RRIF at 65 if you must.
Canada should allow the option for superannuated pension like Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong have. The CPP made sense in an era of 2.5% MER mutual funds and $100 per trade equity transactions. It makes no sense to have it mandatory anymore in an era where index funds have 0.06% fees and where Vanguard and iShares are multiples larger, more powerful and cheaper than the CPP. It's our money, no?
God I wish
Matt's story about the lady downing a can of beer in the parking lot made my day. What an image!. Thanks for the belly laugh!
Re. Collectivist journos : “Karl Marx was right. Socialism works. It is just that he had the wrong species in mind.” - Edward O. Wilson, on the fact that Human Beings are not Bugs
Made me smile, thanks.
I'm not that irked by a 10% raise in OAS. OAS is pretty low and doesn't really increase much with the cost of living. Having people qualify after living in the country for just 10 years is what makes the program costly to administer. We should be phasing in a longer qualifying time, particularly since we dropped the ball on immigration so spectacularly.
That, and seniors who have no business collecting welfare on account of their healthy incomes can collect. As a matter of fact, all assets should be considered to qualify, just like with regular welfare.
OAS is clawed back at a certain income level.
The clawback threshold starts at $86,912 this year. That is much higher than what single moms start getting clawed back at for benefits to help raise their kids.
Great podcast on all topics. Some excellent and very interesting discussion between Matt & Jen .
Jen sells herself short - her business analysis is generally spot on, and this podcast is no exception.
Also, I share their admiration for Israel's stunning and novel military operation, though I fear we may (not) all live to regret that they were able to do what they did. We may look back on this week as another world-shifting time as the consequences of these new military targeting tactics play out. If pagers and radios can be hacked and achieve results as surgical yet spectacular as this, imagine what some well placed plastic device could do inside a car or a plane, or a building, or any large gathering of people. Once the terrorists and allied rogue states figure out how Israel pulled this off - well...wow.
Enjoyed Matt's line:
'The Old Boys Club moved in to the Civil Service and became unionized.'
In my own mind, the Old Boys Club has always occupied both corporate boardrooms on the private side and politicians on the public side - two sides of the same corrupt coin - these are the same people. Matt nails it by noting this has moved beyond and into the 'professional civil service', where a significant number of them are also on the take. This occurs provincially and municipally as well. This development coincides with the catastrophic failure by our national police force, federal spooks, the legal profession, and our various levels of judiciary to prosecute and properly deter this trend to the point we are today where it has become, as Matt and Jen note, normalized. Canadians are not even surprised any more. Some of us are still outraged, but no one is surprised any longer.
This obvious rot has certainly been evident here in Alberta for some time. In 2015, when the hopelessly arrogant & corrupted provincial Tories (PC's) were shown the door by Albertans, the somewhat stunned NDP were aided by a right-leaning voting bloc that was split between the PC's and Wildrose (led by a gullible and obviously self-interested M.D. Smith who was hoodwinked by J. Prentice with the promise of a cabinet seat) facilitated the NDP's sudden rise to government under R. Notley. Many Albertans were naively hopeful the NDP would clean up the corruption, and the PC-friendly firms were initially devastated by the change, but instead, predictably, it was simply different private firms that ultimately benefitted from Alberta taxpayer funding and regulatory friendliness, generally reflective of the difference in ideology between the NDP and their PC predecessors. After Wildrose's reverse takeover of the PC's to form the UCP, upon their election in 2019, the benefitting firms changed again (with some overlap of the previous beneficiaries under the old PC's). Those NDP-benefitting firms have been on the outs and grumbling ever since the UCP took power, first under J. Kenney and now under the Lazarus-like MD Smith. Those firms should be patient, as my next paragraph shows that, eventually, help will be on the way when the NDP eventually overcomes the rurally-dominant UCP and returns to governing Alberta.
The current dust-up between the UCP and (most of) Calgary City Council/New NDP Leader & former Calgary Mayor N. Nehshi over the cancelled Green Line appears to be a turf war between their respective ideologically allied firms. Surprise - all the firms on both sides will now win (and taxpayers will lose) because the left-supporting project firms will get lavish taxfunded cancellation fees on evaporated Green LIne contracts ($2 Billion was what I heard this week) while the right-supporting firms will obviously get the new contracts for whatever eventually replaces the Green Line. If the NDP under Nenshi manages to wrest power back from the Smith-led UCP by the next election, this win-win private firm scenario will repeat itself. Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to get nothing-nada-bupkis for the money that has been effectively stolen from them.
What a country we live in. Latin America? Portugal? Is it really any better there? Would love to hear more about why Matt and Jen noted those places as destinations for younger Canadians fed up with our lot here in Canada.
The pagers and radios weren't hacked. They were intercepted and modified. Hacking implies achievement of a tangible effect by remote or IP-based means, which wasn't the case here.
Margaret Thatcher famously said “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” That’s the conundrum for the Trudeau Liberals and other big-spending governments right now, and it explains their greedy glances at pension investments to fund their ambitions for industrial policy and grand infrastructure projects.
The Liberals have been blowing money on industrial policy for their entire mandate for little or no benefit - I suspect the recent huge expenditures on battery manufacturing plants is going to become another enormous boondoggle by either failing to produce at the anticipated levels, or by requiring continuous ongoing investment to upgrade technology in order to avoid obsolescence. After 9 years, they’re still at it, having learned nothing from failure and looking for new ways to fund their schemes now that public finances are a disaster due to previous excessive spending.
It’s been pleasantly surprising that previous Canadian governments actually fixed problems in the CPP to make it sustainable. It’s disturbing that the current one could blow it up again, especially as I suspect they’ll turn their greedy eyes on RRSPs when people who hadn’t otherwise saved for retirement start raging about the CPP shortfall.
The thing about “socialism” and people who supposedly oppose it like Mrs. Thatcher is that what they really mean is that they oppose the socialism they don’t like and support the socialism they do like.
Consider the British National Health Service. Mrs. Thatcher didn’t abolish the NHS. Why not? It’s rather obviously socialist medicine and want she opposed to socialism?
We also have socialist policing instead of private policing. It’s so obvious that we have to have “socialist” policing that we don’t even think of it that way.
Socialism is easily the best way of organizing some things and rather obviously the absolute worst way to organize other things.
The trick is knowing which is which.
And sometimes the answer is that some things need a bit of both. (Education would be my go-to example for needing both).
There is a thing called "a public good", in this case the NHS. It seems Mrs. Thatcher opposed the excesses of socialism.
What you point out is a blended economy, and yes if done well it delivers good results. See Scandinavia.
"I suspect they’ll turn their greedy eyes on RRSPs when people who hadn’t otherwise saved for retirement start raging about the CPP shortfall." Do you mean that they'll start taking money from people's RRSPs? When they froze bank accounts of those who contributed to the convey, I too realized that absolutely nothing is safe. They could take everything away from us. I am not rich, but I save to (I hope!) be self-sufficient in my senior years. That will probably not work to my advantage in the end.
It won’t be something like confiscation. Instead, it’ll be a change in tax policy where they increase tax rates on RIF income, or start taxing RRSP assets for unrealized gains as a wealth tax. It’ll be pitched as a tax on the wealthy, just like the recent changes to capital gains where they said “it only affects
1-2% of Canadians in a year” without realizing (or trying to hide) that something like 50% of Canadians would get dinged by it over 10-20 years.
Yes. Theft either way.
Crazy. Kudos to Israel! Well done C. Arbuckle,AB
You are correct about how young people view Canada. A friend has two sons in grade 11 and 12 and neither are applying to any Canadian college or university and only applying to out of country. And my friend and his wife hold the federal govt responsibility.
That was a great podcast. Thankyou.
Just a note from economist land, the drop in housing starts per capita since 2022 has been similar in both the US and Canada. The US has struggled more post GCF to approach levels of starts from the 1990s. What has been unique in Canada is the steady drop in single family starts per capita, so that single family house prices would be under more accurate demand pressure
One thing to add to the CPP discussion: the other problem with encouraging more investment in Canada is diversification. CPP has generally done a good job investing, but it's not like they have a crystal ball, and like any good investor, need to diversify and limit country-specific risk. Setting aside what the board thinks of the investment opportunities, significantly over-weighting Canada strikes me as reckless just from a diversification perspective. CPP already holds ~12% assets in Canada, while Canada is only ~3% of the global market.
Two points - one about toxicity and one about serious politicians (or not-so-serious)>
In terms of Mr Singh's reaction to a protestor calling him a corrupted bastard, and to the provocations of Pierre Poilievre this past week, Jen referred to it as toxic masculinity. I don't think that this is a fair assessment. If we are going to solve the problem of toxicity in our politics, I think it starts with a honest analysis, that the majority of the toxic behaviour and toxic words have come from politicians on the right. Not exclusively, but there is much more of it coming from the right, and I say that as a small c conservative. Calling an elected official corrupt because he is not doing what you would like him to do is not appropriate. Calling someone a sellout because he is not doing what you would like him to do is not appropriate. Disagreeing with someone and articulating this disagreement is okay. But running around with gas and then lighting matches - not okay. It needs to be called out by all of us - media and voters alike. And if you as a politician are telling me that Mr. Singh will not vote non-confidence because he is waiting for a fully realized pension, you are telling me that you as a politician are making decisions based on your own personal interests, because if he is, so are you.
As someone, like Jen, who lives in Calgary, the remarks on economics (pensions, using pensions to invest in select interests, subsidizing industry, and so on) there is such a similarity between what the current federal musings are, and the provincial musings. Here in AB, the push from the UCP on a provincial pension is to use it to invest in O&G. The energy minister is urging subsidies for O&G (by asking that they not pay their taxes). Jen wrote an article in the Walrus about how Poilievre might govern in certain aspects, and the point that I took from that is that there is very little if any difference between Poilievre and Trudeau, and I would throw Smith in that as well. And to me, the point here is that as a politician, they are not serious. They don't present a plan on where we are, where we need to go, and how to get there, and the pain we might have to endure to get there. But to me, that is on us as voters - that we support people without asking them to present a plan. It was Chantal Hebert who said on a podcast this week (either at issue or the mansbridge one) that she is looking for a serious politician, and that this search is ongoing. And that, to me, was a mic drop.
Poillievre is eloquent and can think on his feet. I think he would be a good PM. I hate the sloganny shit as well, but look what happened to the last two CPC leaders. They let the opposition define them, and it didn't end well for them. If Poilievre toned down the rhetoric, I doubt the media and Canadians would pay any attention to him. Our system is designed to reward stupid behaviour and silly catchphrases. Trudeau and Singh take the same low road, but the left don't consider it negative because it speaks to their fears. To them Conservatives, regardless of the leader, are the bogeyman and they want everyone to be constantly reminded of that.
I do agree that O'Toole in particular, but perhaps to a lesser extent Scheer got painted as much more extreme than they were. I do still think that being quick on one's feet had much less value than having a well articulated plan, and being able to implement on the plan.
I think Poilievre will stand up for Canada on the international stage. I don’t believe any politician’s pre-election promises, so I don’t care too much about what they say in the months leading up to an election. Lots of bullshit all around.