Canada the Cruel

No life matters:

The decline of family formation is one of the defining social issues of our time, and yet it’s rarely discussed. However, while the piece is right that for a generation of millennial and Gen Z women, having children has too often been treated as something that competes with freedom, ambition, and personal fulfillment rather than being a meaningful part of life — I’d put the roots of this problem a little differently. It’s less about Carrie Bradshaw or Hannah Horvath, and more about a generational pendulum swing. 

Boomer women were the first generation to truly have the option of career and/or family after generations of women who did not. Many understandably raised their daughters with a strong message shaped by a new world of freedom and choice: be financially independent, build a career, don’t rely on a man, and don’t let motherhood limit your options. Pop culture reflected and encouraged that message, but didn’t create it. 

The result was a generation of women handed a powerful vision of independence and career primacy — one that brought real opportunity and freedom, but also came at a cost: motherhood lost status. 

For millennials and Gen Z, what many of us absorbed wasn’t just that we could have careers — it was that in our 20s, we should prioritize education, career, travel, fun, financial security and self-development first, with family to come later — if at all. 

Then our 30s arrived, and many women discovered that the biological clock is real: fertility declines, energy is lower, relationships are more complicated, and trying to “have it all” is far harder than we were led to believe. 

And of course culture isn’t the only factor. Layer on housing costs, affordability pressures and high taxes, an ultra-competitive job market, workplaces still largely built around a one-income/one-full-time-parent model, and a culture that has not prepared enough men for the realities of husbandhood and fatherhood (another equally important issue, rarely discussed), and it’s no surprise so many women feel torn, delayed, and burnt out.

Marland makes an important point: a life ordered entirely around material success is not, for many people, a deeply fulfilling one. 

Personally, no one — not school, university, pop culture, or even my own mother — ever taught me that motherhood might become the most meaningful part of my life. Like many women, I had to discover that myself. Historically, that is a remarkable shift: for most of human history, motherhood and childbearing were understood as central to family and societal continuity. In much of the modern West, by contrast, motherhood is often treated as secondary to other forms of achievement and self-development.  

 

What has replaced the important vocation of motherhood?

This:

Urban women over 65 are most likely to worry over climate change, Statistics Canada said yesterday in a rare psychosocial questionnaire. No reason was given: “Climate-related hazards in Canada and abroad can have a mental health impact with some people experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety.” 

Ugh.

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Three years ago, Kathrin Mentler — a woman in her thirties — went to a Vancouver hospital to seek help for depression and suicidal thoughts. There she was told by a clinician that our health-care system is “broken” and the wait to see a psychiatrist would be long. The clinician asked if she had ever considered euthanasia, as it would be more “comfortable” than suicide by overdose.

Such an outcome was, it turns out, a concern that led Ms. Mentler to visit the hospital that day. As she put it, “I very specifically went there that day because I didn’t want to get into a situation where I would think about taking an overdose of medication.” Ms. Mentler went to hospital to avoid death, only to have death mentioned as something to consider.

This is only one of the many disturbing stories about euthanasia in Canada. This year marks ten years since euthanasia came to this country. At least 76,475 Canadians have died as a result, while some estimates suggest the total has already surpassed 100,000.

Euthanasia started here in 2016 only for those nearing death. A few years later, it was expanded to individuals who were not dying, and whose disability or illness would not cause their death. In 2023, a parliamentary committee recommended allowing euthanasia for minors, and for those who wish to request euthanasia in advance of losing their mental capacity.

Due to stories like that of Kathrin Mentler, we are awakening to the unsettling realities of euthanasia. In June, a parliamentary committee called on the federal government to cancel the forthcoming legalization of euthanasia for mental illness. This form of euthanasia is currently scheduled to become legal in March 2027.

I hope this call represents a turning point. I hope we are, as a society, rediscovering the truth that every person is precious, equally valuable to all other persons, and possesses an inherent worth and dignity that can never be lost. These are fundamental beliefs of the church to which I belong, but these beliefs are also universal truths that sit at the bedrock of any civilized society.

Every human being has a dignity — a priceless worth — that can never be erased. No matter how dire our circumstances may be, this dignity never fades. As human beings, we are not perishable goods that go bad. We are not items with a shelf life. We are not burdens on society. We are not problems to be solved. It is heartbreaking to read the stories of individuals who have contemplated or sought euthanasia because of a perceived loss of dignity, or due to disability, vulnerability, isolation or adversity.

Canadians living with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by euthanasia. Offering euthanasia to Canadians living with disabilities instead of providing them with the support they need puts their lives at risk and discriminates against them. It tells these Canadians they are less valuable than others and that between living with a disability and not being alive, the latter might be better. These lies must be confronted. Lives are at stake.

As for the notion that euthanasia respects autonomy, freedom of choice is often an illusion with euthanasia. When nearly 50 per cent of individuals who seek euthanasia say they perceive themselves as a burden on their families, friends, or caregivers, autonomy is far out of view. The same is true when individuals cite isolation or loneliness as a reason for seeking euthanasia.

Euthanasia invites us to endorse a flawed understanding of autonomy that rests upon harmful messages about our worth and value. Euthanasia suggests we can cease to matter and encourages us to view ourselves and each other based on whether our “best before” date has passed. The legalization of euthanasia imprints these messages in our hearts and minds, often by misguided appeals to compassion, care and love.

Compassion, care and love never translate into terminating a person’s life. These concepts are incompatible with killing. The compassionate, caring and loving response to a person who is suffering is to provide every possible assistance to ease suffering and seek healing.

Euthanasia does not cure illness or provide care; it ends the person. Everyone deserves a dignified death, and to die with dignity is not to hasten death through lethal injection but to be accompanied, comforted and supported until the very last moment of our natural lives.

 

 Countries that embrace death like this don't come back from that brink.

Actual Canadians Need Not Apply

Multi-tiers, people:

Federal agents cannot keep up with deportation of foreign fugitives, according to figures in a Privy Council briefing note. Current targets are thousands short, data showed: “I liken our inventories to a bathtub; we are constantly scooping water out of that bathtub but the bathtub is filling up.”

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Ontario must pay social assistance benefits to a foreign migrant living illegally in Canada a tribunal has ruled in a case revealing that welfare intake workers did not conduct an immigration check of the applicant to avoid jeopardizing his ability to remain in Canada.

The Ontario Social Benefits Tribunal heard an appeal by the man who declared he had come to Canada in 1997 on a temporary work permit. Although his permit expired after four years, he never left.

After he applied for welfare benefits last fall, the administrator of the provincial social assistance program called Ontario Works denied the man’s application because of his lack of immigration status in Canada, despite program staff trying to avoid flagging his immigration problem.

An Ontario Works intake case officer had not conducted an immigration search to ascertain the man’s benefits eligibility, the tribunal found, “to avoid possibly jeopardizing the appellant’s situation in Canada.”

The tribunal accepted the province’s position that the man “has no status in Canada and is here illegally” but heard the applicant’s arguments that the denial of benefits did not comply with provincial regulations.

At issue at the hearing was the specific wording of the Ontario Works Act, the law regulating provincial welfare benefits.

The act outlines the impact of an applicant’s immigration status on benefit eligibility and specifies three exclusionary classes: visitors, tourists and those with a deportation or enforceable removal order against them.

Tribunal adjudicator Eric Brown, based in Waterloo, Ont., heard dictionary definitions and interpretations accepted at previous hearings and ruled that tourists and visitors are people who have entered Canada for a short period of time or for a temporary purpose.

Brown said those definitions show the applicant reasonably fell outside the meaning of both tourist and visitor, “given the sheer length of time and the roots the appellant had established while in Canada.”

No evidence was presented at the tribunal that he had been ordered out of Canada by federal immigration authorities.

 

 

 

It's Just An Economy

It's ALL your money:

Many Canadians aren’t just living paycheque to paycheque anymore — they’ve already spent some or most of their pay before it even arrives, says a survey out today.

The MNP quarterly barometer of Canadians’ household finances found that three in five respondents said at least half of their income is already committed to bills, debt payments and regular expenses before it arrives, a third said most of their paycheque is taken and 16 per cent said all of it has been spent.

“Many Canadians are not just living paycheque-to-paycheque, they are entering each pay period with much of that paycheque already spoken for,” says Grant Bazian, president of insolvency firm MNP LTD.

That means the next paycheque is not a reset point, but has already been assigned to bills, debt payments and regular expenses before it arrives, creating a “rolling shortfall” that leaves households vulnerable to unexpected costs, he said.

In this situation the warning signs may not always look like a missed payment or collection call, said Bazian. A household may appear to managing by cutting back or leaning on credit, all the while moving deeper into a financial hole.

The MNP Consumer Debt Index that measures Canadians’ attitudes toward their finances actually rose from last quarter, suggesting a modest improvement in sentiment, though confidence is still below historical levels.

But financial vulnerability remains, said MNP. Almost half of Canadians said they are $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills, up three points from last quarter, with 28 per cent saying they don’t earn enough to cover their obligations.

These pressures are leading to another trend identified by the survey — “lifestyle shrinkflation.”

More Canadians are scaling back in areas of life they once considered important for social contact and quality of life. More than half are dining out and socializing less and 35 per cent said they are reducing family and personal expenses such as children’s activities and personal care. One in five are cutting back on hosting family and friends.

“Canadians are not just tightening their budgets. Many are shrinking parts of their lifestyle to keep up with the cost of essentials,” said Bazian.

“When people are cutting back on plans, using credit to maintain activities, or scaling back on the things that help them feel connected and supported, financial pressure can start to affect more than household balance sheets. It can weigh on overall quality of life and emotional well-being.”

 The Bank of Canada decides on its interest rate this week, but Canadians can expect little relief there. Over 60 per cent of those surveyed in the MNP poll said they “desperately” needed rates to come down, but the central bank is widely expected to hold at 2.25 per cent.

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Savings have deteriorated for a majority of Canadians,particularly the bottom 80 per cent of Canadian households, as spending significantly outpace income growth, according to research by Boston Consulting Group.

Consumer spending is up, but that growth isn't coming from income for those outside the top 20 per cent earners. The report said that for the lowest 20 per cent of earners, spending jumped 27 per cent over the past five years, while disposable income just went up three per cent.

Households are filling that gap and covering their spending by dipping more on savings, leaning on rising portfolio values and taking on more debt.

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High-income families in Canada are paying a disproportionately large share of taxes, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute.

The report, which uses data from Statistics Canada’s Social Policy Simulation Database and Model (SPSD/M), shows that the top 20 per cent of income-earning families pay nearly two-thirds (65.3 per cent) of the country’s personal income taxes and more than half (58.3 per cent) of total taxes. This is more than their share of total family income in Canada, which is 49.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, the bottom 20 per cent of income-earning families are estimated to pay 0.7 per cent of all federal and provincial personal income taxes and 1.7 per cent of total taxes in Canada, while earning 4.3 per cent of the total family income.

In other words, the share of total income received by this group is over six times larger than their share of income taxes paid, the report says.

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Carney doesn't believe in pipelines.

No pipeline will be built:

Canada’s greatest energy problem is not that we produce too little oil. It is that we have spent more than a decade making it increasingly difficult to sell it. Ottawa’s decision to support, in principle, a new pipeline to Canada’s Pacific coast is encouraging, but approval alone will not restore investor confidence. Trust, once lost, must be earned back. For years, governments layered Canada’s energy sector with carbon taxes, increasingly complex regulations, emissions caps, tanker restrictions and political uncertainty. Investors responded exactly as rational investors should. They invested elsewhere.

(Sidebar: and that's not all.) 

The evidence is impossible to ignore. Northern Gateway was cancelled after Enbridge had already invested approximately $373 million. Energy East collapsed after TC Energy spent roughly $1 billion pursuing approvals. Kinder Morgan ultimately abandoned the Trans Mountain Expansion, forcing Ottawa to purchase the project for $4.5 billion before its total construction cost climbed from an estimated $5.4 billion to approximately $34 billion.

Boardrooms remember those numbers. That is why no private company has yet stepped forward to champion another Pacific pipeline. This is not a failure of capitalism. It is the predictable consequence of public policy. Yet the greatest cost has not been cancelled projects. It has been the opportunity Canada has surrendered. Nearly 97 per cent of Canada’s crude oil exports still flow to a single customer: the United States. No major energy-producing nation should find itself so dependent on one market for one of its largest exports. Recent trade disputes have demonstrated how strategically vulnerable that dependence has become.

The financial consequences have been enormous. Because Canada lacks sufficient export capacity to reach global markets, Canadian heavy crude has frequently traded at discounts of US$10 to US$20 per barrel below international benchmark prices, and at times considerably more. Across millions of barrels exported every day, those discounts have cost Canadian producers, governments and taxpayers tens of billions of dollars over the past decade.

Those are not merely corporate losses. They are hospitals not built, roads not repaired, defence capabilities not funded, taxes not reduced and public debt not repaid. The true cost of indecision has never appeared in a federal budget, but Canadians have paid it nonetheless. This is why a new pipeline is no longer simply a commercial undertaking. It is a nation-building project. Every additional export route strengthens Canada’s sovereignty, diversifies our economy and reduces our dependence on a single customer. Energy infrastructure has become an essential component of national security.

If Ottawa genuinely believes this project serves Canada’s national interest, it must also acknowledge that government created much of the uncertainty that now discourages private investment. No responsible board of directors can expose shareholders to unlimited political and construction risk after watching three major pipeline projects either collapse entirely or experience extraordinary cost overruns.

 

 But don't worry - the government has its priorities straight:

Cabinet members and political aides received dozens of free passes to attend the FIFA World Cup including four staff and a summer student in the office of Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden (Burlington North-Milton West, Ont.), Secretary of State for Sport. The tournament cost taxpayers $1.07 billion: ‘Memories will last a generation.’

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Canada Post managers last year pocketed nearly $31 million in bonuses even as CEO Doug Ettinger told Parliament the organization was “on the brink.” The disclosures were detailed in financial accounts requested by MPs: “One of the things I lose sleep about is keeping the good people who are with us.”