I guess it depends on province but I heard you have high inflation over there. How is it affecting the average person over there?
I’m fortunate that my career went well and I’m a DINK during this and it could be weathered, but it’s a bit rough. In Ontario, rent control was removed and it seemed to lead to the building of a bunch of “luxury” apartments and very little development under that tier which seemed to drive up average pricing even more. The kind of apartment I was paying $1500 for before the pandemic could be $2500 now. Things like meats and cheeses seem to be increasing in price weekly, anywhere from 30-50% more than it was a few months ago.
It didn’t hurt me hard, our household was already putting 50+% into savings given no kids, no car, and very little recreation outside of the apartment; however, I see lots more of my students working through school than I did previously, friends in the lower income range that lived a little outside their means have had to make some pretty big lifestyle cuts to afford rent. Everyone I know living in rent-controlled buildings (in Ontario, those built before 2018 when the regulations changed) are pretty afraid to move and have had contentious relationships with landlords looking to ride inflation to bigger profits.
It’s just a shame it’s happening simultaneously with (or in part because of) the Ontario government working to cut many social services and privatize health care.
You no longer have public health care?
Oh no, we certainly do, but the provincial government is taking steps to try and introduce/bolster a private healthcare market that threatens to reduce access to the public healthcare sector. Lots of cutbacks and legislation has been slowly depleting the publicly funded healthcare in the province, reducing faith in the system, and that’s being used as a means to push a private sector to fix the broken system. It certainly wasn’t perfect before, but it’s pretty transparent what the current provincial government is doing as they have a lot of industry interests.
This is a unified attack too. I live in Alberta, and they are doing the exact same thing here.
The cost of living in Canada is high but so is the standard of living, one of the highest in the world. We pay high taxes but we get a lot of services from the government. Housing is very expensive. Groceries are expensive.
I was born and raised in Canada… and have lived outside of Canada (because of work) for 25 years. I returned to Canada in 2018. My standard of living has dropped significantly. The quality of housing is much worse in Canada. The quality of the food is noticeably lower in Canada.Yes the standard of living is high, but gaaaah… it’s not as great as people think :-(
I’m Australian and lived in the UK for many years (white “western” immigrant bias). But this sentiment, I share it. It’s because most native Canadians only really compare to the USA. Im not at the lower end of the income scale and not as affected (just spend more and it’s better), but holy crap there are better places to be if you are.
