Economic and moral:
Cabinet’s GST holiday will save the typical Canadian $4.51, the Senate national finance committee was told yesterday. Senators endorsed the measure while commenting it appeared pointless: “I think we all understand it is a political measure.”
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Canadians in federal focus groups are worried over the national debt, says in-house Privy Council research. Taxpayers rated annual deficits a symptom of poor economic management: “A greater focus needed to be placed on maintaining balanced budgets.”
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Canada is losing its best and brightest, many of them to the U.S. A survey by the U.S. Census Bureau this year said the number of people moving from Canada to the U.S. was up 70 percent from a decade ago.
Canada’s economic decline is the big reason for the exodus. In 2022, all 10 Canadian provinces had median per capita incomes lower than the lowest-earning American state. Canada’s per capita GDP growth has also stagnated, with projections placing the country dead last among OECD nations out to 2060. Our productivity is in decline and business investment is moribund, meaning employers in other countries are able to pay more and compete for qualified labour.
The high cost of living, particularly skyrocketing housing costs, is an increasingly large factor pushing skilled Canadians abroad. A recent survey by Angus Reid reported that 28 percent of Canadians are considering leaving their province due to unaffordable housing, with 42 percent of those considering a move outside Canada.
Even immigrants to Canada are losing faith and moving on. A recent report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, entitled The Leaky Bucket, found that “onward” migration had been steadily increasing since the 1980s. A follow-up survey of more than 15,000 immigrants and found that 26% said they are likely to leave Canada within two years, with the proportion rising to over 30% among federally selected economic immigrants—those with the highest scores in the points system.
“While the fairy tale of Canada as a land of opportunity still holds for many newcomers,” wrote Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the ICC, there is undeniably a “burgeoning disillusionment. After giving Canada a try, growing numbers of immigrants are saying ‘no thanks,’ and moving on.”
It’s a particularly stark phenomenon considering that most immigrants have come from much poorer, less developed and often autocratic or unsafe nations; that these people find Canada — for decades considered the ultimate destination among those seeking a better life — to be such a disappointment that the best response is to leave is a damning indictment.
(Sidebar: but the hangers-on will not leave voluntarily.)
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While in-hospital costs such as surgery and chemotherapy are publicly covered, the report reveals the average cancer patient faces nearly $33,000 in costs over their lifetime. These include out-of-pocket expenses like prescribed medications, transportation to hospital and accommodation as well as lost income during treatment and recovery.
The four most commonly diagnosed cancers in Canada — breast, colorectal, lung and prostate — are expected to have a large economic impact on health systems, the report's authors said, based on factors such as incidence, demographics, stage of malignancy at the time of diagnosis and survival time. They expect these four cancers to account for 47 per cent of health system costs, projected at $14.2 billion this year.
On average, individuals paid 20 per cent of the total cost to society, with the rest stemming from direct health system costs, such as surgery, expected to total $30.2 billion, according to the report.
"For people with cancer and their caregivers, their cost was $7.5 billion this year alone," Nicolau said.
Nicolau says some opt to delay or forgo aspects of their treatment, so the squeeze on the pocketbook can contribute to worse health outcomes.
"There are individuals that are at lower income or fixed income individuals and [in] rural and remote locations which can really feel this impact and this burden significantly," she added.
Dr. Christopher Booth, a medical oncologist at Kingston General Hospital and professor at Queen's University, said the strength of the report came from the stories from people with cancer and how financial barriers affected their treatment, care and recovery.
"Probably the most worrisome finding is the proportion of this cost that is directly borne by patients and families," Booth said. "We need to be able to recognize when there's cracks in the system."
But there is always money for unimportant things, right?
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Quebec has expanded the procedure further, as of Oct. 30, to allow patients to give advance requests before their medical conditions render them unable to provide consent, arguing that Ottawa has moved too slow on the issue. This technically puts Quebec’s MAID policy in violation of federal law, given that it goes against the Criminal Code’s definition of murder.
Alberta on Nov. 18 launched an online survey to collect feedback on MAID laws amid concerns that the regime is being expanded without sufficient oversight. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s office in 2023 said it opposed Ottawa’s plan to extend eligibility for MAID to people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness. The province’s online survey, open until Dec. 20, seeks to learn whether there is public support for a new public agency and legislation to oversee MAID and decision-dispute mechanisms for families.
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After nearly a decade of Justin Trudeau holding power supported by the NDP, it is revealed that home ownership in Toronto and Vancouver is now more unaffordable than New York, Miami or L.A.
“Canada’s housing prices have risen faster than any other country in the G7 since Justin Trudeau took office,” said federal Conservatives in a recent statement.
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This:
Canadians are killing Christmas.
We’re killing it in the same self-flagellating manner that we used to bin, sabotage and forsake so much of western culture and its (partly) Judeo-Christian roots. From Canadians tearing down Sir John A. Macdonald statues to burning churches across the country, few things are more in favour today than openly despising our own culture and traditions. Christmas included.
It came as no surprise, then, in November 2023, when the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) published a nonsensical diatribe about how Christmas Day being a statutory holiday is an example of “systemic religious discrimination” in a “colonialist” Canada. No matter that the West was founded on ideals of liberalism and tolerance — including tolerance of other faiths — our own traditions must be denounced by any citizen of moral valour. Christmas, frankly, is icky and, rather than smelling of fresh pine and butter tarts, reeks of racist intolerance and a dusty British Crown.
The CHRC has since attempted to walk its statements back, but its original paper is available for all to see and confirm.
Another longstanding criticism about Christmas is that it is largely, if not wholly, a corporate holiday. This was clearly false, decades ago — but has become the de facto state of things. There’s little left of Canadian Christmas, aside from Amazon deliveries and near-stampedes at the Apple Store. While we are ashamed of our cultural traditions, retailers are certainly not ashamed of milking cash from the desiccated corpse of Santa Claus. And so, by being cynical of a traditional Christmas, we have fashioned Christmas into something we should indeed feel cynical about. ...
Attending midnight mass at a 100-year-old-plus cathedral is intoxicating. Baking cookies with our children and sharing them with friends is a throwback to Christmases of yore. Creating family traditions that don’t involve gifts takes the day back from retailers. Carolling down the block is not advisable for all of us, but I wouldn’t turn you away.
Merry Christmas, Canadians.
Christmas is about a child in a manger, not some maudlin garbage about togetherness.
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