Seriously, you and @Californiagrown have me thinking that maybe the US is a lot worse than Canada. Unless you are living in the projects in Toronto or on an Indian reserve, things here aren’t really that bad and never were, at least not since the great depression. It sounds like the US is a great place to be rich, but maybe not so great for everyone else. Over here if you make too much money you will end up paying over 50% to taxes.
They still have those people in fact they have more of them. Not every kid is in the regular classroom setting but that should be a goal in more cases than not. Beneficial for that kid and for others who don’t have special needs.
Well maybe old grandpa bill isn’t the best source? I mean we have actual statistics and things. Other than more economic mobility, more options to consumer goods, better schools and health care, maybe things weren’t that different. But Canada ain’t that different than here. All of those things significantly improved in your country just like ours.
One disturbing thing happening in the US is that they (the trump admin specifically devos) are trying to bring in a voucher system. It would allow parents to send their children to private schools if the kids get accepted. The issue is that these private schools do not accept all students. They accept the cheap to educate kids, and the higher needs kids will be left with in the now de funded public school.
Additionally, many of these faith based schools are politically biased (I used to go to one). I would say 80% of my graduating class votes only for one party.
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I could be way off. But also, maybe things weren’t so rosy for your dad growing up. I would imagine money was pretty darn tight if grandpa lost the farm. Or, maybe grandpa made a pretty penny from selling the farm and used that to supplement income and provide for the family.
Or, maybe the cost of living was just that low in that area back then.
I don’t know the precise financial details, but he would have been better off if he could have continued farming. The way it turned out wasn’t terrible though, and I saw the house they lived in after, something like that in Ottawa right now would be a million at least. They were a middle class family. Right now you couldn’t live like that working in an auto plant, that is for sure.
Yeah, plus multiple people weren’t getting shot every week in the spring and summer, and kids weren’t taking heroin and crack.
Another thing I forgot to mention and nobody else has mentioned yet is the cost of daycare, and then summer camp when the kids start school. That is a huge expense. We found a lady running a home daycare who gave us a discount because we paid cash, but it was still a lot. Regular prices a few years ago were about $60 a day and up, there are government subsidies but you have to go to a licensed daycare which is usually more expensive. Then summer camp (and I mean daytime only) is several hundred dollars a week per kid. The fact that stay at home moms were the norm in the past meant that certain huge expenses didn’t even exist for most people.
First google hit says that’s a bunch of shit.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/pastdaily.com/2017/07/01/americas-dope-problem-narcotics-1950s/amp/
Second one but I’m stopping there.
Google also shows the highest murder rate in Canada was the 70’s.
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A million dollar house in Ottawa, or would be if it was in Ottawa? I do agree that housing was likely much more affordable back then.
Housing is more expensive everywhere as all the desireable real estate gets bought up. Back in the day there simply weren’t enough people to buy all the desireable real estate closeish to labor centers. I value time A LOT and sacrifice quite a bit so that I can live close to work. It allows be to gain an hour+ each day for recreation that would have been spent commuting, and when we start s family it will allow me to spend that hour+ with my kid. An extra bedroom or two in my house is not worth the cost of losing out on time, so I am happy to pay more for a smaller house.
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I can’t actually find any statistics from the 70’s, maybe you could share that. But I found this:
National gun-crime numbers show an increase in incidents across the country.
According to Statistics Canada, although firearm-related violent crime declined between 2009 and 2013, where it “reached its lowest point in recent years,” it has been on the incline ever since.
The data shows that between 2013 and 2017, gun crime in Canada went up 42 per cent.
…
Forty-three percent of the national increase can be attributed to more gun-crime victims in Toronto, the same report found.
globalnews.ca/news/5731987/toronto-shooting-statistics-august-weekend/
Toronto went on to have the most shootings and most murders ever in 2019. Also I don’t know about murders in Ottawa in the 70’s, but we definitely didn’t have multiple shootings every week here in the summer until a few years ago.
Your articles on drugs don’t prove anything, yes there were drugs back in the 50’s but how does it compare to now? Were people overdosing every single day? Did pharmacies all carry opioid overdose antidote drugs?
It would be at least that if it were in Ottawa now, maybe more depending on the area.
That’s why I’m not moving to Rockland or North Gower. Plus traffic here is crazy, to drive from the east end to the west end can take close to 2 hours in the middle of the day.
So things were worse back then, got better but have ticked up the last few years is what we’re agreeing on. So you (an average Canadian) are far less likely to die than you used to be. But you’re focusing on just gun deaths for some reason? Knowing that the average kid born in Canada say since 1990 is leaps and bounds more likely to live a long life than those in the 1950’s?
I know what I think could help gun deaths but I already know we won’t agree there. Maybe we need more guns.
I’ll have to look. I’m going to guess that statistically it may have been difficult to determine overdose deaths back then. But if you used you were far more likely to die because not much life saving going on back then.
And no pharmacies carried some types of opioids themselves back in the old days. You didn’t even need to find a dealer!
Because that is one of the main concerns these days. It’s a lot easier to defend yourself against people trying to beat you or stab you to death than it is to defend yourself against gunshots. Also the fact that there are more and more guns in the hands of criminals at least partly explains the increase in murders, shooting people is an easy way to kill someone.
Who knows what the future holds, if you’re 30 or under you aren’t about to die from natural causes and plenty of people have lived to 100+ years.
Well it’s already difficult to legally get guns in Canada, there are a lot of restrictions here and we have no right to bear arms like the US. Nearly all the guns used in crimes are obtained illegally.
Even a few years ago opiod overdoses were rare in Canada, except for British Columbia where heroin has been a problem for some time. Also crack wasn’t a big thing 20+ years ago in Ottawa, around 10-15 years ago we had a bit of a crack epidemic over here. Homeless people used to mostly be alcoholics, then they switched to crack and got crazier than ever.
They still do now, except you need a prescription.
Is it though? I mean statistically the average Canadian person is incredibly unlikely to be murdered. Meanwhile that Canadian kid in the 50’s? Far far far more likely to die early in some way than the ones today. Far more likely to die from a health issue early from work, etc times a million.
You’re right. But you know that Canadian kid died from a shit ton of stuff that wasn’t natural causes. As I mentioned above. Your gun violence has a LONG way to go to make life less likely to be lived. Not to belittle or diminish gun violence but if that’s your evidence of today being worse than olden days I think it’s pretty lacking.
I’m aware. I thought the distinction that one used to be able to buy something right off the counter is different than needing a script.
Thinking that today is better than 50 or 70 years ago doesn’t mean we don’t have plenty of modern problems. Just in my opinion far less than back then when measured by traditional standards of living.
Canadian tax rates are BARELY worse than pre Trump tax plan taxation. When you add in HC costs alone, you’re almost at breakeven, forgetting the other slew of Canadian social programs.
Being rich is great everywhere. Full stop. Taxes can’t change that.
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Maybe I was mistaken about US tax rates, was it significantly lower in the past? That was what I always heard but never actually checked the numbers. However, we also pay provincial taxes. In Ontario in the highest tax bracket you pay another 13.16%, an it goes as high as 25.75% in Quebec over 106.5k.
Do you pay state income taxes as well? I saw something about no state income tax in Texas the other day, I assume it must vary between states.
The other social programs are only for low income people, or it doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. Neither does healthcare in recent years, but it’s better than nothing. But I gave the example of daycare subsidies in another post, you have to go to a more expensive licensed daycare to get it and the net savings would be little if any. Or in Quebec they have a program where daycare is something like $7 or $9 a day, but the waiting list is so long that your kid might start school before you can get in depending on where you live. Quebec is a special case, people joke that it’s on the verge of communism over there.
If the US could stop fighting so many wars they could provide free healthcare at no extra expense. Also prescription drugs are way more expensive in the US than just about anywhere else, a lot of Americans come here for expensive prescriptions.
I’m not really sure where we are going with this discussion, we were talking about breaking cycles of crime, poverty, and unemployment and somehow we ended up here. I will continue this later.
It’s hard to really compare since we weren’t around back then. Different problems for sure, better or worse we can only assume. But with regards to stuff like Jim Crow or the residential schools where they abused all the native kids (did they do that in the US too?) things have definitely improved.
We were talking about the “good old days” vs today. I’m fine wrapping it up or whatever. My point was average Canadian has an incredibly low chance of being shot. And average Canadian in the good old days was way more likely to die from something earlier than today.
The average American only has a slightly higher chance of getting shot, but then you have places where people are getting shot on a regular basis. It might not look like a problem at first, but when it starts coming close to you then you might see it differently.
The only things that are guaranteed are death and taxes.
6 year old shot and killed here yesterday. 9 y.o. critically wounded by same.
Odds of being shot here are astronomically low as well.
Another statistic I find relevant: you’re more likely to die of lightning strike than by police if you’re black. Or by bees😬
Looks like the conclusion of this conversation is take care of yourself and fuck everybody else because they make a bunch of noise about insignificant stuff that rarely happens. Yes I’m being a bit sarcastic, but serious at the same time. Trying to change things requires making people want to change their lifestyle and actions, and if they are happy with going to jail and killing each other then who am I to tell them they are wrong?
Nobody can help them but themselves.
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