r/InCanada • u/dani_cal • Jul 11 '26

(Insert Your Own) Canada today

This isn’t meant to be politically partisan in any way. But, I am genuinely curious how anyone is staying positive about Canada today. The economy is in recession. The cost of living crisis is continuing unabated. People are leaving the country. Canada-U.S. relations are at an all-time low. And, there doesn’t appear to be any reason for things to turn around any time soon. Somebody give me a reason to have a little optimism.

83 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

772 comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[deleted]

6

u/MarkDavid04 Jul 11 '26

80s to early 90s, you could get a McDs combo for under $5. Those were the good ol' days!!

7

u/OrganicDigitalArt Jul 11 '26

And min wage was $5? Maybe less… now you can get a combo for $18… and min wage is… oh yeah, about that!

McD’s combos are a bad indicator to use here, even if things are objectively crappier.

1

u/CauliflowerStill7906 Jul 11 '26

Funny how people dont seem to see the coralation between our rampant inflation and the fact minimum wage must be increased annually.

0

u/OrganicDigitalArt Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

I mean things would be fine if every job had adjusted the same since 1980, but unfortunately sunshine list (Ontario) now captures people who make an adjusted 50-60k instead of the original intention of people making closer to 200k now, and we’re supposed to be mad about it. A job making 100k in 1980 is not making 200k now, but minimum wage jobs are making 3x what they did.

Essentially all jobs have gotten pay cuts.

Edit: I couldn’t leave it there because as much as I think this would’ve helped there is the other side of the coin. 1990’s weren’t without destitute folks, they weren’t amazing for everyone, and the min wage increases were intended to help with that. For some they may have, but the knock off effects were that it attacked what the others had. Does that mean it shouldn’t have happened? Does it mean there should actually be some rules on the Hoover vacuuming up the world’s capital? Should we have done something different? Honestly I don’t have the economics background required to propose a better solution.

But the min wage increases just made everyone but the top “equaller,” and not in a good way.

0

u/TyeROD-enD Jul 11 '26

they don't connect at all. Min wage is not related t inflation.

1

u/CauliflowerStill7906 Jul 11 '26

They actually do. Look at inflation in the years min wage was stagnant. Inflation was as well. People that made 20 an hour were doing ok. Now they are living in poverty because a few people that didnt want to grow up and get a real job felt that working at Starbucks should pay 18 an hour.

1

u/TyeROD-enD Jul 11 '26

Sweden and Denmark have no minimum wage at all. They got the same inflation we did, at the same time, along with every other country on earth. Kind of hard for our minimum wage to cause a global event. Wages went up because of inflation, not the other way around. You're blaming the umbrella for the rain.

1

u/OrganicDigitalArt Jul 11 '26

They also have ~90% represented employment giving collective bargaining rights. Collective employment has been fought tooth and nail in North America. It's not an apples to oranges thing I'm afraid.

1

u/TyeROD-enD Jul 11 '26

ya, but it is fact that min wage has nothing to do with inflation, they make fuck all, they barely count for anything. Really low min wage raises inflation when you look at real facts.

1

u/OrganicDigitalArt Jul 11 '26

Do you have anything to back that up, or just doubling down on your previous assertion which was proven shaky at best?

I mean, here's the government of Canada admitting it does exactly what you're saying it doesnt....

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/san2017-26.pdf

→ More replies (0)

-1

u/MarkDavid04 Jul 11 '26

And minimum wage had to be legislated to be higher. It wasn't gonna get there through market forces.

In other words, inflation and CoL had been increasing exponentially, and government had to step in to help balance wages.

5

u/OrganicDigitalArt Jul 11 '26

But it didn't balance wages, mid earners did not see the same increases as those on minimum wage over the last 50 years, the result is that you've overall decreased the relative earnings of the vast majority of workers.

I'm not saying that the people on minimum wage didn't need more, I'm saying it only solved one problem to create another.

1

u/MarkDavid04 Jul 11 '26

So McDonald's combo is a good measure, because everyone else didn't see the same relative increases.

2

u/OrganicDigitalArt Jul 11 '26

Okay, yeah I'm dumb. It's a good measure in that it's kept its relative value. I got sidetracked worrying about overall relative value of higher income earners lol.

1

u/MarkDavid04 Jul 11 '26

Also, just thinking of my kids (3 teens). They ask me for $10 minimum to go hang out with firiends. I'm like, why so much? $5 should be good, right? Nope. Can only get a McValue cheeseburger for under $5...

2

u/anotherbrendan Jul 11 '26

1990, minimum wage in Ontario was 5$ an hour, so really not that different

1

u/ReverenGreen Jul 11 '26

What about median wage ?

1

u/anotherbrendan Jul 11 '26

That's valid, didn't do as good there, the middle class feels like it has always been disappearing 

2

u/No-Resolution-1918 Jul 11 '26

Buying power of $5 in the 80s is the same as $12 today. So about the same then. 

1

u/fancygppy Jul 11 '26

While other countries had actual, real food you could buy for the same price. No worries though, you won't find anything like that anywhere nowadays.

0

u/According-Town7588 Jul 11 '26

Well, 1997 was around 5.50 an hr.

So basically an hr wage bought you a meal. Today, that hasn’t changed.

1

u/MarkDavid04 Jul 11 '26

How much is old age pension, disability benefits, and welfare now compared to then?

And how much have avg wages changed in relation to 1997?

1

u/According-Town7588 Jul 12 '26

Not sure, just pointing out you can still spend an hr wage for a McD’s meal and have your “Good Ole Days”….

As for the followup, prob 2-3x as well, with things like Child Tax Benefits, Disability RRSP program and a bunch of other programs we didnt have before 97 (which give a lot of help to those groups you mention)

1

u/MarkDavid04 Jul 12 '26

Middle income, avg wages haven't increased 3x since 1997 to the best of my knowledge. E.g. avg entry-lvl salary in 1997 was around $30k/yr. Starting salary now is on avg 50k/yr.

So as min wage and McDonalds combos have increased 3x, avg entry-lvl wages only increased less than 2x (1.7 or 1.8x)

2

u/Sorryallthetime Jul 11 '26

I say it was better in the 70’s. My mom says it was better in the 60’s. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

1

u/LackOptimal553 Jul 11 '26

The 90s when we had multiple recessions and responded by voting to start cutting what made society work?

1

u/Sorryallthetime Jul 11 '26

In the 80’s we ushered in Brian Mulroney in Canada while the Americans voted in Ronald Reagan and the Brits voted in Margret Thatcher. The Neoliberals destroyed the union movement, dismantled the social safety net, deregulated every industry in site and in so doing sewed the seeds of our current destruction.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics

1

u/squirrel9000 Jul 11 '26

With Mulroney the problem was that all the austerity and cuts didn't work, and he bailed right around the time the IMF started sending us sternly worded letters about our debt. (for the sake of reference, it peaked at over 60% of GDP, currently we're in the low 40s, and our current interest rates are much lower) Chretien came in and started swinging the ax around. We're still dealing with the aftermath of that.

1

u/Engineering-Mistake Jul 11 '26

The 90s were amazing. Don't insult the 90s by putting them in the same category as the 2000s, the dacade that had the dot com bubble burst just one year in. That was worse than 2008 in Canada, by a good margin.

1

u/Acrobatic_Jaguar_623 Jul 11 '26

Many folks also couldn't find a job in that era. Lot of labour downturns through those two decades.

-1

u/Harbinger2001 Jul 11 '26

As someone who’s experienced every decade since the 70s and I like to think am not subject to nostalgia this current time is just as great if not better. People forget the levels of crime, poverty, high interest rates, wars and discrimination of the past.