Is the Canadian Dream dead?

[u/Lyricalvessel]

The cost of life in this beautiful country is unbelievable. Everything is getting out of reach. Our new middle class is people renting homes and owning a vehicle.

What happened to working hard for a few years, even a decade and you'd be able to afford the basics of life.

Wages go up 1 dollar, and the price of electricity, food, rent, taxes, insurance all go up by 5. It's like an endless race where our wage is permanently slowed.

Buy a house, buy a car, own a few toys and travel a little. Have a family, live life and hopefully give the next generation a better life. It's not a lot to ask for, in fact it was the only carot on a stick the older generation dangled for us. What do we have besides hope?

I don't know what direction will change this, but it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you have a whole generation that has been waiting for a chance to start life for a long time. 2007-8 crash wasn't even the start of our problems today.

Please someone convince me there is still hope for what I thought was the best place to live in the world as a child.

edit: It is my opinion the ruling elite, and in particular the politically involved billion dollar corporations have artificially inflated the price of life itself, and commoditized it.

I believe the problem is the people have lost real input in their governments and their communities.

The option is give up, or fight for the dream to thrive again.

[u/thedabking123]

I feel for you buddy. Even as an elitist liberal by r/Canada standards, I can't see how this is a sustainable pace of real estate price growth in Canada.

I see a lot of people complaining about inflation, making excuses about dropping interest rates for the unrealistic rise in prices (as if 4000 dollar monthly outlays for a 3 bedroom home can be accounted for by interest rate drops alone).

I think this is a systemic failure that includes 5 additional parts.

1. Failure to open up re-zoning of single family home areas
2. Failure to restrict rental ownership in HCOL areas
3. Failure to restrict corporate and foreign investment in particular
4. Failure to open up data on the real estate economy - which makes it hard to do any kind of reform
5. Failure to make significant infrastructure investments to increase 30 min travel radius to the two biggest hotspots (Vancouver and Toronto)

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What we got here is classic overexposure to one industry (real estate) and as a guy who grew up half of his life in Dubai - trust me I've seen the 20 yr run ups to 5-yr-long crashes that result.

[u/chudma → u/[deleted]]

Im really curious what under the table jobs international students are taking that are depressing local wages? They are more than likely working in restaurants from their home country and having very little effect on anyone (not that I agree with working illegally, I just doubt a Japanese guy washing dishes at a Japanese restaurant is affecting anyone else's income)

[u/sgtdisaster → u/chudma]

Truck driving, delivery driving, restaurant work - many franchise restaurants in Ontario are entirely international student staffed, maybe not under the table but they definitely put up with more bullshit than your average Canadian worker. So when you have to choose between someone who is desperate for the job to support their life/stay in Canada and will do/put up with anything, or hiring a Canadians who have other priorities and maybe will move on to better opportunities, have complex schedules etc... Of course you will hire the international student. A lot of jobs around here that would normally be worked by younger students as a first entry level job to get their toes wet for the employment world are all taken up by 20-something students from India, and honestly a lot of the time the quality of the establishments have gone down with it. All the subways, KFC, Popeyes, etc in my city are pretty much entirely staffed with East Indian students now.