I've heard Shoppers described as "surge pricing for Loblaws". It has corner store/gas station prices for grocery items. Don't shop there.
"Canada has some pretty deep need for skilled tradespeople and health-care workers,” Holden explained. “If you have a two-year nursing diploma or two-year trade certificate, you’re going to get fewer points than somebody who has a master’s degree in liberal arts even if the earning potential of the skilled tradesperson is much higher.”
I worry about what this means for home construction in general. With interest rates relatively high, a shortage of building supplies, and a shortage of construction workers, I suspect developers are gonna stop developing.
If governments aren't willing to pick up the slack, that means we won't come anywhere near the 3+ million homes we need to get prices back to something reasonable.
All of the federal and provincial policies I've seen for home construction have been mArKeT iNcEnTiVeEs that rely on the private sector.
Is there a sixth? And please don't say alt alt journalists, because that would be very disappointing.
I emailed it to one of the producers at Canadaland and if the Globe has an ombudsperson, I'll send it to them too.
Thanks for posting this. This article is great reporting. I signed up as a Breach annual supporter because of it.
Exactly this. We have a handful of colleges dictating policy in Canada, with little or no evidence that the policy works.
I've had really disappointing experiences with doctors. I would like to be disappointed by NPs with smaller workloads, who spend more time with me (optional), better working conditions (required), and lower cost. Hell, if there's a possibility they'd do a better job, that'd be great too.
Broadening the pool of people in healthcare could solve many of the problems we're currently facing.
My work benefits include a service where I can video chat with a NP any time and I don't have to wait as long for an appointment
Mine doesn't. I believe we need to try different models of care delivery, but I'm really leary of privately funded healthcare.
My publicly funded NP has done day-of calls, and usually books urgent appointments promptly.
That sounds like a great start to a campaign. Props to the DM.
There are lots of people who want to get into healthcare. We don't have enough spots in post secondary education to train them all.
We refuse to hire some trained healthcare providers, like the nurse practitioners described in the article, and folks with credentials from elsewhere.
We have the people. We don't have the will to employ them properly.
More than 6.5 million Canadians are without a family doctor. Some would like to see nurse practitioners step in to ease the crisis in primary care
> Nurse practitioners could help fill the void, advocates for the profession say, if more provinces would adopt policies to integrate them into primary care and pay them fairly for their work. Some physicians’ organizations have pushed back against that approach, arguing that NPs don’t have as much training or education as family doctors and therefore should only be funded publicly when they’re embedded in interdisciplinary teams with MDs.
Aren't these the same organizations that have been dragging their feet on recognizing foreign credentials?
I've been seeing a nurse practitioner for the last couple of years. So far, she's provided the same level of care I'm used to from family doctors: prescriptions, forwarding me to specialists when appropriate, providing the usual advice during checkups. It's fine.
https://archive.is/PkAdd
Edit: took out my grumbly summary, since our healthcare spending seems to be middle of the pack, compared to peer countries.
I don't know what more efficient means here. The CO2 is stored sorta permanently underground, whereas trees release their CO2 when they rot or burn.
Trees are kind of better because they grow on their own, and don't require massive amounts of green energy to scrub the atmosphere.
I don't think there's a lot of oil around volcanos. Iceland isn't known for it, at least.
fuck that would be awful
Yeeeeees. They join together in nonviolent opposition to the hegemonic power, forming their own non-hierarchical anarchostate.
that's the last thing the centurion will see when the moor starts speaking pictish
Canada boasts one of the world’s highest assisted-death rates, supposedly enabling the terminally ill to die with dignity. However, this suicide program increasingly resembles a dystopian replacement for care services, exchanging social welfare for euthanasia.
> In 2022, Global News said the quiet part out loud: poverty is driving disabled Canadians to consider MAiD. Those “some” who are driven to assisted death because of poverty or an inability to access adequate care deserve to live with dignity and with the resources they need to live as they wish. They should never, ever feel the pressure to choose to die because our social welfare institutions are starved and our health care system has been vandalized through years of austerity and poor management. > > Given the way our institutions and economic and political elite create and perpetuate poverty in Canada, particularly among disabled people, we should be particularly sensitive to the implications of the country’s MaiD regime for those who are often ignored when warning about the dangers of the law.
...
> While MAiD may be defensible as a means for individuals to exercise personal choice in how they live and how they die when facing illness and pain, it is plainly indefensible when state-induced austerity and mismanagement leads to people choosing to end their lives that have been made unnecessarily miserable. In short, we are killing people for being poor and disabled, which is horrifying.
Is anyone else boycotting Loblaws? I don't have many alternatives, but I'm doing my best to take my business elsewhere.
U.S. authorities believe the criminal ring laundered US$653-million between 2016 and 2021
US regulators have found evidence that TD's anti-money laundering fraud detection is insufficient
> For months, analysts have predicted a fine in the range of US$500-million to US$1-billion, but that’s now jumped. “We believe cumulative fines could easily hit $2-billion,” Mr. Dechaine wrote.
Meanwhile, in Canada, TD is facing record fines (archive) from Canadian regulators.
https://archive.is/e0SGA
Boy discovers octopus figurine that fell from cargo ship along with 5m other Lego pieces during storm
> The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.
Almost 70 per cent of families enrol their children in the Early French Immersion program.
The Ottawa Carleton District Schoolboard is winding up to drop early French immersion.
wtf
There are lots of third rails in Canadian politics. Since governments won’t dare to go there, Tony Keller will
> Let’s start with one of the highest-voltage [third rails] in federal politics: Old Age Security. > > OAS only begins to be clawed back once a senior’s income exceeds $91,000. And payments aren’t zeroed out until income hits $148,000 – or $154,000 for those 75 and older. Senior couples earning a quarter-million dollars a year, and living mortgage-free, are getting cheques from younger and (much) lower-income taxpayers. > > That has to be fixed. The OAS threshold should be lowered – to, say, $60,000 – and the clawback sharpened, with benefits tapping out at $100,000.
...
> End the capital-gains exemption for principal residences. It’s even more untouchable than OAS. It’s also more economically harmful and inequitable. > > It pumps up housing prices and pushes more and more national wealth into housing. It’s dumb economics, plus the tax break only goes to the two-thirds of families who own a home. And the richer you are, and the more home you own, the bigger the tax break. It adds up to a hyper-regressive policy to make Canada less productive.
...
> Let’s restore the two percentage points of Goods and Services Tax the Harper government cut. Our tax system is too tilted to income taxes, and away from taxes on consumption. And the cut to the GST costs Ottawa about $20-billion a year. > > If the GST were raised, some of the proceeds could beef up the tax credit for low-income Canadians.
There's some good stuff in there.
https://archive.is/GDzQG
The number of workers in Canada’s public sector has soared in recent years, outpacing the private sector, but economists warn the growth of government jobs is not sustainable in the long run
Interesting article on growth in public sector jobs over the past decade. What I got from it: lots of people were hired during the pandemic to handle pandemic-related initiatives; aside from that, lots of people were hired in general; governments appear to hire in times of economic uncertainty (e.g. growth under Harper during 2008+); federal unions argue staffing levels are returning to "normal".
But the killer is the last section where the author tries to figure out if we're getting value for money. The answer is short and sour: Canadians don't think so, and internal targets aren't being met.
> Are Canadians getting bang for their taxpayer buck? > > ... One way to gauge that is through surveys, which doesn’t leave Canada looking good relative to its international peers. The OECD polls residents at its member countries on their satisfaction with public services such as health care and education, and between 2017 and 2022, Canada experienced the largest decline in satisfaction among G7 countries for education (from 73 to 67 per cent) while the drop in health care satisfaction matched that of the United Kingdom, but to the lowest level in the G7 (from 69 to 56 per cent). > > ... The share of respondents who said their provincial government had done a “good” or “very good” job fell overall from close to half in the first quarter of 2019 to 30 per cent at the end of 2023. Both B.C. and Quebec, two provinces that have seen public-sector job growth rise particularly quickly, registered some of the worst declines. > > ... the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) reviewed four years of results reports to see how the government measured up against nearly 3,000 performance targets it had set for itself. The assessments weren’t promising. For fiscal 2021-22, roughly 25 per cent of targets were not met, up from 20 per cent in 2018-19. But that didn’t capture the full scale of the performance shortfall. One-tenth of performance targets included no information on results, while another one-third stated results would be achieved at some point in the future.
Yeah, that mixes provincial services with federal ones.
https://archive.is/m0qtc
What's the next wave of dystopia in popular culture?
I think the classic CRTs, mirrorshades, and black synthleather look of cyberpunk doesn't really work with our expectations in 2024.
In the 70s and 80s, we expected acid rain, ozone holes, and lawlessness to fill our future, as companies took over from (relatively) responsible governments and civility/civilization collapsed. The outfit fit with that: keep the burning rain and sun off, while protecting against looters and raiders. Meanwhile, writers didn't see how technology would shrink and get better.
In 2024 we expect our dystopia to be hot: the world is heating up, so black synthleather is out. Maybe mirrorshades stick around. Corporations aren't taking over any more, governments are becoming corrupt/evil (e.g. Hunger Games). And technology is tinsy tiny, verging on invisible.
I'm thinking of the Hunger Games and Upload. (And the first five episodes of Fallout)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces creation of $1.5-billion rental protection fund to help non-profits buy affordable rental apartments when they go up for sale
It's good to see some kinda/sorta/almost direct spending on affordable housing being announced:
> Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the creation of a $1.5-billion rental protection fund that will provide a combination of loans and grants to help non-profits buy affordable rental apartments when they go up for sale.
It's nowhere near enough, but it's better than the neoliberal tHe FrEe MaRkEt WiLl SaVe Us shoveling that both the Liberals and Conservatives have been pushing.
The article explains how the number of homes affordable to people making $30k annually is crashing across the country (but less so in Quebec).
https://archive.is/ocuud
Introducing the top stocks in sectors with limited competition
Canada: three oligopolies in a trenchcoat.
> Bank service charges and overdraft fees can infuriate consumers, and more choices could lower their temperature. > > From the perspective of investors, though, Canada’s cozy network of oligopolies – in which a few players dominate one sector – can look very different. Slim competition can keep upstarts out and profits in, driving strong shareholder returns and attractive dividends over the long term. > > “We have a handful of oligopolies that are able to fend off new entrants (whether regional or foreign) without needing to destroy profits for an extended period of time, or where we need a government financed solution,” Ian de Verteuil, head of portfolio strategy at CIBC Capital Markets, said in an e-mail.
https://archive.is/1BPVW
There are better ways to improve affordability, such as policies to reduce housing, child care and other major costs of living
> Whenever I hear politicians propose to cut the carbon price, I can’t help but think back to my childhood growing up with divorced parents. > > On the rare occasions my dad took me for weekends, he would offer me candy and let me stay up late. > > “Why can’t you be more like him?” I’d yell after returning home as my mom made me do my homework, eat vegetables and go to bed on time. > > So it is with proponents of Axe the Tax. They offer us candy, when the federal government, like my mom, expects us to live responsibly.
... > But a politician’s promise that pollution can be free is no more realistic than my childish fantasy that I could live on candy alone. > > We are all entangled in an energy system that helps and harms our children. While it enables us to taxi our kids around, and keep them warm, it also poisons the air they breathe, evaporates the water they need to drink and burns the forests in which they play.
... > To preserve summers without smoke, winters when our kids can ski, water they can drink and forests and wildlife with which they can live in awe. > > That’s why we pay for our pollution.
This dude gets it. We need to do so much more, but walking back the carbon tax is a terrible idea.
https://archive.is/kpZQu
The announcement arrives in the midst of an uproar in Newfoundland about the cost of travel nurses, who are hired from out of province by private, for-profit agencies
> Toronto-based Canadian Health Labs, had inked contracts with health authorities in Newfoundland and New Brunswick, and charged rates that in many cases worked out to more than $300 an hour per nurse. That is roughly six times as much as nurses earn in the public health care system.
We've systemically underpaid nurses for decades. We've failed to train enough nurses. Their real pay has shrunk, while their workload has grown. It isn't surprising nurses have left the public system for less shitty jobs.
Canadaland Commons has a great interview with a nurse who has seen the decline.
We don’t just need millions of new homes - we need all of the infrastructure to support these houses
It feels like Canadian governments have forgotten how to plan. As the op-ed states, we don't have the sewer/water/road/fire for the 5,800,000 houses we're building by 2030. And politicians aren't budgeting for it's construction.
In the bigger picture, we aren't training enough nurses and doctors to service our current population, let alone what our population is forecast to become. Similarly, we aren't funding post-secondary education beyond overcharging students from abroad.
But I digress. On the housing file:
> The politicians who are promising action to build the 5.8 million new homes Canada needs by 2030 seem to be forgetting that, unlike that log cabin, the millions of homes that are needed can’t even begin to be built without connection to the world around them, to roads, bridges, clean water, electricity and waste management. They don’t seem to be factoring in that those houses will have people in them, millions of people, who need access to hospitals and schools, to civic and recreational facilities, to public transit, to emergency services. In other words, it is not possible to build so many new homes across Canada without considering essential housing-enabling infrastructure. Yet no one is even talking about that part of the equation, let alone announcing funding for it. > > It is a significant oversight. A report by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates that each new housing unit will require $107,000 in public infrastructure investment. This amounts to a total of $620-billion in new public funding needed to produce workable housing, which far outstrips currently projected investments of $245-billion.
https://archive.is/xEIez
A woman is in critical condition in hospital following a police-involved shooting in Ottawa's Westboro neighbourhood. Emergency crews responded to a shooting in the 200 block of Avondale Avenue, near Tweedsmuir Avenue, at 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
> A woman is in critical condition in hospital following a police-involved shooting in Ottawa's Westboro neighbourhood.
> Niyondagara, who is Black, said he was shocked with a stun gun, pinned down, struck in the face and handcuffed before police realized their mistake.
...
> After some discussion about the name [of an alleged murderer], the police officer left the cruiser and soon returned to explain "that there was a misunderstanding," Niyondagara said.
The cops then drove Niyondagara home.
Yellow Dot Studios produces short-form videos to inform with ‘genuine, righteous anger’ and ‘laugh-out-loud comedy’
Yellow Dot studios has been releasing YouTube videos trying to mobilize "populist anger" over the climate crisis.
I'm thinking of running a Cyberpunk RED campaign. My group has played D&D together for about five years now.
Any suggestions or advice on running the game? Are there any game play or mechanics tips that would help people coming from D&D?
> The year is 2094. The month is Compuary, which is a new cyber-month they added just for doing hacker stuff. The bio-scum of Circuit City festers under the iron fist of Consolidated Omnibotics and its army of synthoid enforcers. At the city's peak, under the crystal dome, incredibly wealthy and genetically immortal CEOs call shots and pull strings. And they do sex stuff up there as well. Down here in the Dirt District, the rest of us scrape by swapping garbage and doing crazy future drugs called stuff like NitroNerv and Tums 2. > > My name is Darpa Killblade, and I run with the baddest crew of low-life neurojackers around. There's Fishy Ramirez, fastest hacker on the net. There's Baltimore Airport, lab-grown to be a swimsuit model but programmed to kill. There's Crusty Silverware, biological warfare expert and black-market wizard. And then there's me: the owner of Circuit City's coolest jacket. > > We've just been handed the biggest contract of our lives: Infiltrate the dome and take out Harvard Pubence, the president of cops. Our reward? One thousand bytes, which are our money now because we use computers so much. That's enough to skip this shithole and start somewhere new. > > Tonight, Pubence is guest of honor at the 9th Annual Rich Perverts' Ball. My team is jacked up on Tums 2 and ready to roll the dice. So I've just got one question for you, scum.. …are you in?
Putting your device in a bag of rice ‘could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone’, the company warned
What you should not do: > Experts have for years pointed out that’s a bad idea – and now Apple is officially warning users not to do it. > > “Don’t put your iPhone in a bag of rice. Doing so could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone,” the company says in a recent support note spotted by Macworld. Along with the risk of damage, testing has suggested uncooked rice is not particularly effective at drying the device.
What you should do: > If your phone isn’t functioning at all, turn it off right away and don’t press any buttons. The next steps depend on your specific circumstances, but broadly speaking: dry it with a towel and put it in an airtight container packed with silica packets if you have them. Don’t charge it until you’re sure it’s dry.