| Jumpin said: From what I understand, the Canadian liberal party (led by Trudeau) was more or less looking for an excuse to tighten border security against the US anyway. |
Trudeau just keeps letting more and more immigrants in. The only border security he's cared about is keeping (black market) guns out of Canada. The Federal Liberals want to increase the pop dramatically and in short time. It's the Conservatives who've wanted to cut back on immigration to more reasonable levels. Only lately has Trudeau decided to start cutting back on immigration and related policies, but that's because the polls show he's going to lose the election next year unless there's a miracle, so he's trying to create that miracle.
Our Federal Conservatives are more like Reagan/2024 Trump. Our Federal Liberals used to be quite moderate like Bill Clinton, but now they're further left than the American Dems. The Federal Conservatives are more responsible overall, but are a little too responsible. The Federal Liberals, again, used to be fairly balanced, but have gotten quite irresponsible.
Ford doesn't have much say because he's the Ontario Premier, and Ontario doesn't have squat for energy, besides some wind, some of which gets exported to States like Pennsylvania, but nothing that's a major concern for the USA. The media is focusing on Doug because he's got a spine and will speak up, but also because Canada basically revolves around Toronto, whether it should or not, so they always look to Ontario for support. It's Smith in Alberta who has most of the say, because they have all the oil, and they don't get along with Trudeau at all, and want to work with Trump. The media doesn't want to focus on her and Alberta much because the media here also has a liberal bias, just not to the extent it does in the USA, and Alberta is Conservative. (Ontario is also Conservative now, but usually votes Liberal more so, but the Liberals screwed up so bad last time that they lost party status when Doug completely destroyed them). We also can't afford to get into a tariff war because it's going to hurt us a lot more than the USA, and things here right now are not going well in Canada.
The anti immigration is partly due to an influx of immigrants since 2015 under Trudeau, and the housing crisis that's gotten out of control, partially due to mass immigration. It's not abnormal if you're calling for some type of help or service, to end up talking to a new Canadian immigrant who can't speak English very well, or who's accent is so strong you can't understand what they're saying. It's not just that though, if you explain the problem and ask to speak to someone else, you either can't, or you'll waste time going through like 4 or 5 new immigrants until you finally get someone you can actually communicate with reasonably well. That's something small but a headache every time you have to deal with it, and it happens way too often nowadays, and with things not going so well overall, Canadians are getting fed up even with the small things.
A much bigger issue is the housing crisis. I had friends casually looking for homes prior to the pandemic, who weren't quite ready to buy for financial reasons, though weren't far off, and were preparing for when they were ready. They're still looking for a home, because while they could easily afford the prices pre pandemic, they still can't afford a place now because the prices just keep skyrocketing. This is in the countryside as well, which isn't anywhere near as bad as the cities. With the prices so high, there are constant bidding wars, and the wealthy buyers often end up being an entity that's going to use it or hold onto it as an investment, not as a home for themselves. Like they'll rent the place out for a ridiculously high price, which works because many can't afford a home, or they'll just hold onto it for a while, then sell for a profit as if it were a market stock. Immigration has just made this far worse. Whether the immigrants are pooling money together and jamming the homes full of people, or through Gov help and affordable housing regulations, it's made buying a home impossible for many.
With the economy being as poor as it's been, for as long as it's been, many people aren't making enough to afford homes even if they were priced somewhat reasonably, and construction companies aren't pushing to build more homes either, at least nowhere near the levels they would if the economy was much better. We also have a major need for tradesman and have for a long time now, and that problem also just keeps getting worse, because trades still aren't seen as cool fun jobs to have, and plenty of those that take the jobs don't want to deal with the inconveniences of the trades. Plus companies haven't exactly been paying all that well, and especially considering the industry need, yet won't, partly out of greed. Then you've got these companies, pushing their own existing employees to the limit because there's an endless amount of work to do and not even close to enough tradesman, so the workers eventually get sick of the pressure put on them and quit. So even if a construction company wanted to build way more homes, they're having a really hard time finding tradesman to do the work.
Canada's problems are so bad that more and more people can't even get a family doctor. All my close family members, some of my extended family, and quite a few of my friends no longer have a family doctor because the replacement rate is terrible. We've all had our doctors retire or move to the USA, some for the same reasons of the tradesman issues, and we haven't gotten a new doctor yet, and it's been years. A few friends got new family doctors somewhat recently, and all 3 were fairly new immigrants coincidentally. We don't even have enough Canadians becoming doctors to just maintain our supposedly spectacular healthcare system, and that's always been our crutch, 'free' good healthcare. Well its never been 'free' and it's not very good anymore.
When your top leadership thinks they're smart because they choose other leaders based on race and sex in the name of equality, instead of based on merit, it's no surprise we're in the mess we're in.
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