Yes, it seems to be a “made in Canada” economic theory: better to have a regulated domestic oligopoly than a market dominated by foreign competition. Of course the downside is regulatory capture leading to a ratchet effect depressing the economy while extracting more and more rents.

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bbarnett 7 months ago | parent [-]

I wish everyone would pay attention to what the government is doing, instead of finding out from youtube or tiktok.

As all governments, the liberals are imperfect. However, The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) spent several years grilling banks, and some change has happened.

One example?

Prior to now you could escalate issues to first a bank ombudsman, then a provincal one. Such complaints where handled by an "independent" body, which of course the banks sneakily bought controlling interest in.

New legislation now prevents this, with the government instead vetting companies which will then act as an ombudsman.

A response of the perpetually cranky and disillusioned is "oh sure, but..." with a variety of concocted reasons as to why it's all hopeless and corrupt.

Thing is, change in a democratic government takes time, because in a democracy you cannot issue edicts on many things. Oh I know, upcoming sourpuss response, but but but! This guy did that and that guy did that, so edicts happen that's not the point and a whataboutism and exceeding rare that's why it's news.

What the point is, change does happen, and yes for the better (I can hear the disillusioned starting to type already), and we do infact fix things in Canada.

We do have a different market than the US. This is of course a good thing.

We also have the second largest country on the planet, yet with only the population of California. We also have a neighbour to the south who, while good folks, would literally control every aspect of our country via economic means without some balances in place.

This isn't malign, just how it works when an economy 20x your size, with megacorps that can buy companies which are behemoths in Canada, as an afterthought.

So again, things are and must be different unless we intend to allow another country to control how we do business with one another, communicate, interact and so on.

I'm sure some will want to respond here with loads of "who cares", and that's fine. Such folk can live in a world of simple solutions, disregarding consequences, but that's folly.

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chongli 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

Thing is, change in a democratic government takes time, because in a democracy you cannot issue edicts on many things.

When we vote at the ballot box and you vote for a red tie and I vote for a blue tie, one of us gets the tie we want and the other is forced to wear the wrong tie.

When we vote with our wallets I can get a green tie and you can get a yellow tie and someone else can have a purple tie. Everyone gets the tie they want, as long as there’s enough competition in the tie business.

The original point of my complaint was not that I want a better regulator. I want competition so that I can get what I want, at a lower price, and I’m not beholden to the ballot box.

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bbarnett 7 months ago | parent [-]

And mine, was that you should want better regulation, as better competition is an end to our societal control.

If foreign corporations control all aspects of your economy, you become a puppet.

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wubrr 7 months ago | parent [-]

Corporations already control all aspects of our economy. Whether they are foreign or 'benevolent domestic corporations' - as you seem to think they are, doesn't really matter. The insane flood of immigration and TFWs, which destroyed our housing, healthcare, justice systems, and lowered per-capita GDP was 100% at the behest of the benevolent domestic corporations, and all of the negative knock-on effects were known by our government and PM ahead of time, and they went ahead anyway.

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_aavaa_ 7 months ago | parent [-]

Doesn’t this make the case specifically for better government and regulations rather than more “competition”? Won’t all of that competition simply do the same thing vis a vis TFW?

Which by the way seems like a crazy program they got going on up there. It seems like the companies there are using them as scabs for non-unionized jobs.

	▲	wubrr 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		> Doesn’t this make the case specifically for better government and regulations rather than more “competition”? Yes, we need 'better government and regulations', not just 'more regulations'. It's literally the current government's regulation changes which allowed the insane levels of immigration, TFWs, students, etc. > Which by the way seems like a crazy program they got going on up there. It seems like the companies there are using them as scabs for non-unionized jobs. Yup, it's textbook wage suppression.

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voisin 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> So again, things are and must be different unless we intend to allow another country to control how we do business with one another, communicate, interact and so on.

Isn’t the right answer that regulation should rein in what companies do regardless of citizenship of the ownership of the company? And by increasing competition we would eliminate the possibility of American behemoths from simply buying everything (trading the problem we have now for the same problem with different owners). We need more competition American or otherwise.

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WBrentWilliams 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The argument you and the other poster are having has been useful to me. Thank you.

For context, my family and I just returned from a lap around Lake Huron. I invite you and yours to take a similar trip in the US, just to see the differences. Earlier in the year, my family and I went to Wyoming. Once we got off the freeways, we saw what I call The Real America.

What does it look like? It looks like a place that has been repeatedly punched in the face by big corporations for 50 years. The two trips showed quite the contrast: Middle Ontario, while rural, looked quite hopeful in comparison.

Here to your South, simple solutions won again. Mostly because the losing party did not make The Vast Middle feel like their problems were seen and heard.

	▲	voisin 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		> Middle Ontario, while rural, looked quite hopeful in comparison. Except our GDP per capita is somewhere around Louisiana. I think what you are seeing in Middle Ontario is boiled by insane, unsustainable debt levels.

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belval 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not a fan of the liberal party but I agree that it's one of the front where they did actually change things and they should get credit for it.

Same goes for phone bills which are going down across Canada. We are still paying too much but it's much better than ~4-5 years ago by a big margin.

And for anyone who wants to looks at the fundamentals, all large telecom companies (Bell, Telus, Rogers) in Canada have lost >20% of their valuation over the last 2 years. Pretty sure that if they "owned" the government they would have found a way to buoy themselves.

	▲	wubrr 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		> And for anyone who wants to looks at the fundamentals, all large telecom companies (Bell, Telus, Rogers) in Canada have lost >20% of their valuation over the last 2 years. Pretty sure that if they "owned" the government they would have found a way to buoy themselves. They are buoying themselves. If we had proper competition all 3 would be bankrupt by now. https://www.thestar.com/business/rogers-bell-and-telus-colle... https://www.ndp.ca/bell-payback

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wubrr 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

I think if you were confident and believed in what you're saying, you wouldn't have a pre-written complaint about people questioning what you say every other sentence of your comment.

> What the point is, change does happen, and yes for the better (I can hear the disillusioned starting to type already), and we do infact fix things in Canada.

According to most Canadians things are changing for the worse, and that's pretty obvious when you look at housing, healthcare, groceries, general affordability, etc.

> We do have a different market than the US. This is of course a good thing.

We have a far less competitive market, we have much lower wages for the same jobs, higher taxes, higher cost of living.

> We also have the second largest country on the planet, yet with only the population of California.

What does that have to do with anything? We have the richest country on the planet in terms of resources, I don't see how having more land and resources is some kind of excuse for poor performance.

> I'm sure some will want to respond here with loads of "who cares", and that's fine.

We have the worst housing market in history, we have falling per-capita GDP due to completely irresponsible levels of immigration, which is also overflowing our healthcare and justice systems. We have record youth unemployment, record homelessness and food bank usage. We have a nonstop stream of corruption scandals in the federal government. Tell me again how the government is good but good things just take time lmao.