Elections have consequences:
British Columbia’s rampant drug deaths have more than once thrust public health officials into uncharted territory. It became the first province to decriminalize small quantities of hard drugs for personal use in 2022, about two decades after Vancouver opened the first supervised injection site in North America. But as overdoses increase in some British Columbia towns, there is disagreement in one city about how to address it.
In Richmond, one of British Columbia’s largest cities, with 230,000 people, municipal council chambers turned raucous this week as a full public gallery of residents opposed a plan for staff to study whether a safe consumption site for drug users would be viable in the community. The plan was adopted on Tuesday, but the effort is off to a rocky start, with few officials and agencies standing up to defend it.
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Toronto has the lowest median employment income among the 15 largest metropolitan areas in Canada and the United States, a recent study by think tank Fraser Institute shows.
The study, titled “Comparing Employment Income in Toronto and Selected American Metropolitan Areas,” was conducted after several recent studies by the think tank found that a large “prosperity gap” existed between Ontario and nearby U.S. states.
“Workers in Toronto, our largest urban centre, are generally earning less employment income than people in the largest American metro areas,” said study co-author Ben Eisen, a senior fellow at the institute, in a Feb. 15 news release.
The study compared the 2019 median employment income in Toronto with that of the 14 largest American metropolitan areas. Toronto’s median was $37,550, $2,030 less than the lowest-ranking U.S. metropolitan area, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach in Florida, which had a median of $39,580, according to the co-authors, based on data sourced from Statistics Canada and the U.S. Census Bureau.
The gap widened to $32,765 when Toronto was compared with San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley in California, the highest-ranking U.S. metro area, with a median employment income of $70,315.
The calculation took into consideration wages, salaries and commissions from paid and self-employment income before taxes, and government transfers, said the news release.
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Renters across the country faced record low vacancy rates and record high rent increases in 2023, but Statistics Canada says Toronto and Vancouver residents who don't own their homes face the greatest financial and mental pressures.
The agency says survey results over the last few years show renters are more prone to reporting lower quality of life than homeowners, especially in Vancouver and Toronto.
Statistics Canada says young people surveyed in 2023 were less likely to report "high overall life satisfaction" and "excellent or good mental health" compared with older Canadians 55 and up.
People aged 15 to 29 also reported feeling lonely and less "hopeful about the future" than older people from 2016 through 2022.
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Quebec has reached a breaking point in its ability to provide essential services — from education to social assistance — to thousands of asylum seekers arriving in the province, and Ottawa needs to act to take control over the borders, the Legault government said Tuesday.
“People need to be aware of the magnitude of the situation,” Canadian Relations Minister Jean-François Roberge, flanked by three other ministers, told reporters at a news conference where the Legault government upped the pressure on Ottawa to act. “We need the federal government to assume its responsibilities.”
Together they outlined the consequences of the unfettered growth in the number of asylum seekers arriving in Quebec and the effect on demands in services. They said Quebec has had to provide the equivalent of $1 billion in services over the last three years to manage the influx.
Ottawa, they said, is dragging its feet on refunding Quebec the costs. Quebec previously was asking Ottawa for $470 million in costs. If you add the costs of 2023 alone ($576.9 million), the new bill is $1 billion.
Ottawa has paid $140 million to Quebec but it is not enough, the ministers said.
“We are calling on the federal government to rapidly respond to our demands,” said Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette. “This cannot go on. We are asking the federal government to act urgently, and we don’t sense this now. I would qualify the federal government’s attitude in the last year as passive.”
“There is enormous pressure being exerted on the system,” added Social Solidarity Minister Chantal Rouleau, noting the number of asylum seekers on basic social assistance has grown by 44 per cent from 32,016 to 46,357.
You wanted these migrants to do the jobs you won't do, including having the children you won't have, so YOU can pay for them.
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