Keep in mind things like welfare vary quite a bit state to state as it does province to province, there is no one system for either country.

If your poor in Canada and can't afford food, your at the mercy of charity which varies greatly, some food banks only open 1 or 2 times per month and only typically provide around 2 days of food, often sugary foods and not healthy.

Where the US has food stamp program.

If we say lived in California at our current income level we would qualify for food stamps, where here in Canada we often struggle to afford food.

Not like welfare is great in Canada, in BC a single person on assistance receives a paltry $385 per month and a housing supplement of up to $375 per month, good luck finding housing on that amount, let alone buy food.

They do up to $507.22 with a housing up to $570 for a family of 2

And to qualify you basically have to be destitute, they wont entertain helping until all other resources are fully exhausted and your basically homeless.

A family of 2 in California could get up to $778 US$ per month which isn't too far off once exchange rate is accounted for.

Canadian dollar also has less buying power, and wages on the lower end of the spectrum in Canada tend to be no better than the pay would be in the US and with prices being so much higher for basic food, its hard. $14/hr US in California goes further than $14 CAD in BC.

Cost of living also varies widely, of course.

I read some time ago that Vancouver had finally cracked down on non-resident homeowners buying up the housing stock. I wish the US and the UK would get a bit more serious about that. The housing stock should be primarily reserved for residents, in my opinion, which would go a bit of the way toward addressing the housing affordability issue...

For Canada its pretty simply, people don't have enough babies anymore to sustain the population + boomer generation retiring and entering senior years = need more people.

Elderly benefits is one of the biggest costs to government, 48 billion in 2018, and continues to rise as boomer generation ages, without enough working age people, the government could not sustain itself with organic growth only.

I'd imagine more people in Canada would have children if Canada didn't have such a massively high cost of living, where the cost of living is low there tends to be little employment options.

Then again, I guess it was fortunate that Meng Wanzhou has a place to call her own in lovely Vancouver while her case winds its way through the Canadian courts...

That's true of almost every developed country. I believe Germany's fertility rate is about 1.44 children per woman when last I checked. Even the US has fallen below replacement, I believe. I think Japan actually lost total population in the last couple years...

Babies and children are expensive in developed countries, which creates a bit of a feedback loop. We cannot just keep bringing in large cohorts decade after decade, as they, too, will age and need care. I say, our elderly will just have to tighten their belts. Unfortunately, they vote 😏

There are various things in place to discourage foreign investment in Vancouver real estate, but people just moved onto other regions where the foreign tax and such don't apply raising cost of housing, just moves the problem to another city.

i know this won't be a popular view, but I've always thought that a DUI without accident or injury should be treated as a petty offense. I'm not a fan of how this has become heavily criminalised in recent years...

I find this kind of annoying myself. The last time I entered the UK, on my German passport, the kiosk rejected me and I had to go to the booth. The officer told me it was because I entered my US passport details when booking the flight. I said I was required to (as otherwise I would have to have an ESTA to get on the outbound flight, which I can't get as a citizen anyway).

It all worked out, of course, but it is a bit irritating.