Shard

It's a resource based economy. Bring your hard hat!

Automation will seep into everything, especially service based industries like finance, insurance, law.

Aren't you at least going to stay in Japan for the Olympics?

DigitalGhost

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Canada

Last time I was there I don't remember seeing a single hard hat unless a guy working on one of the office buildings I was working in was wearing it.

And if I didn't bother with the London Olympics I'm not sure why I would bother with the Tokyo ones either tbh.

Shard

I imagine a lot of the people working in your office building were in resource companies. Wood, oil, water, minerals, that kind of thing. You don't literally have to wear a hard hat to be in the industry! Canada has a different economic basis than UK or Japan.

DigitalGhost

Not in my building they weren't but I'm sure those people exist.

Shard

Who is the guy in your avatar?

DigitalGhost

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bae_Yong-joon

Don't ask why, it's a bit of a long story.

Shard

First I thought it was you He kind of looks like an Asian Mike Myers

DigitalGhost

He's very popular with the middle aged Japanese soap watching housewife crowd.

Steve_

Water is politics. The whole reason Calgary is such a large municipality is because of the water allocation from the Bow River, so it grows and annexes the smaller towns because that's the only way growth can occur as the smaller towns don't have the water. Chestermere managed to figure out a way of getting enough water to stop that from happening and Okotoks had a development limit for a long time but somehow managed to wangle more water, can't remember how.

The main sources of water are the Athabasca River, the Saskatchewan River, the Red Deer River, the Bow and Elbow Rivers and the Oldman River - and guess what, that's where all the major towns in Alberta are.

Last time I checked, I seem to recall the maximum population limit for Alberta was estimated at 6 million based on the availability of potable water.

Steve_

So if you theoretically could fit 3 million more people into the Fraser Valley, if they all moved there, the valley would be full in less than a decade.

Like I said, it's a myth that there is ample space. There isn't enough water and arable land. Most of Canada is a very hostile environment and not just because its cold.

And do we really want very high population densities in a handful of locations?

340,000 in a year is bonkers.

Personally I think that will be the end of it because the Democrats will win in the US in 2020 and I think it's painfully obviously one of the first things they'll do is reform the immigration system for the same reason the Liberals did it, i.e. more Democratic voters, so that will severely impact Canadian immigration.

Really the only figure that matters is net migration, like I said, all the indications are that immigrants are spending less time in Canada as more are admitted.

When I immigrated into Canada the standards were much higher. Then they let in you lot.

Vulcanoid

Canada has the 7th largest amount of arable land in the world (about 43,606,000 hectares - UN Food & Ag Organization FAOSTAT).

We're 38th for population. 7th is Pakistan, with 190m.

You can say many things about the landscape, but the idea there's a 'shortage' of arable land is risible. It would just mean selling the food produced locally instead of exporting it (and while we're on that topic, why is Canadian flour cheaper in Sainsbury's than Superstore?).

DaveLovesDee

How many of the 300,000 actually head for B.C.?

bats

But you can't use it year round can you? The arable land that is. Covered in snow and when it isn't there's a short growing season.

BristolUK

What I'd like to know is how a bit of cold weather damages production of spuds in the UK but worse weather has no such effect in, say, PEI.

bats

Do they grow spuds in the winter then? How does that work what with the frozen soil and suchlike?