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Real estate signage showing a home that has sold is seen on May 15.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Greater goods
Re “In competition” (Letters, July 6): A letter-writer suggests that competition policy in Canada is modern and fit for an economy one-tenth the size of the United States. Yet we are paying significantly higher air fares, telecom rates and food prices (aided by supply management) than our American neighbours.
This is a result of fewer firms competing in these sectors. If this reflects a modern economy, then I think something’s clearly wrong with the analysis.
Economic efficiency should result in lower prices for consumers. It’s not only about lower costs for producers.
David Enns Cornwall, Ont.
Productivity problems
Re “The shocking collapse in Canadian productivity: in spite of the Liberals’ best efforts, or because of them?” (July 5): This should not be shocking, given that Canada’s most common proxy for the state of our health care system is the number of physicians per capita, where more physicians per capita – my very definition of lower productivity – is often acknowledged as progress.
Edward Sadowski New Westminster, B.C.
I can think of three reasons for the decline in Canadian productivity.
First, a large number of new permanent residents, students and temporary workers tends to decrease output per person.
Second, we Canadians are generally reluctant to pay the price for economic growth. Whether one is trying to build wind farms, pipelines, housing, mines or just about anything else, there are always people who object for a variety of reasons. This attitude manifests itself in the many barriers we put up to development.
Third, there are precious few sizable Canadian companies capable of significant capital investments or the commercialization of research and development. Outside of a few protected industries, most large firms are foreign-owned.
Promising young Canadian companies with valuable intellectual property are usually purchased by foreigners. Without sizable companies of our own capable of growing productivity, we can hardly expect foreign owners to do the job for us.
Jim Paulin Ottawa
Labour and capital should be considered substitutes for each other. Why invest in more capital if there is a never-ending supply of labour that puts downward pressure on wages?
In contrast, if there is a shortage of labour, employers would have no choice but to invest more in capital and innovation, thereby increasing productivity and GDP per capita, and making us all better off.
Rob Ogrodnick Toronto
As a student of international and comparative labour issues, the cause of Canada’s productivity problems seems straightforward enough to me.
Since the early 1980s, organized labour in Canada has been flailing as a result of economic policy, and the failure of governments to follow up on the Supreme Court’s constitutionalization of freedom of association and the rights to unionize and bargain collectively. Over the past four decades, labour has been unable to effectively protect many of the gains it made following the Second World War.
Pension plans and job security withered, and labour’s share of national income shrunk. Most of what was lost went to corporations and their shareholders. The result is that corporations are under little pressure to produce more effectively.
Why bother to invest in innovation when the bucks are rolling in without incurring that expense?
Roy Adams Professor emeritus, human resources and industrial relations, McMaster University Hamilton
There are also bankers who opted to funnel cheap borrowed money into real estate when prices soared across the country. Why pour money into new machinery, robotics and artificial intelligence during a period of ultra-low interest rates, when the return on investment in housing was so lucrative and relatively risk-free?
It is this inefficient allocation of capital that I find at the heart of the productivity problem in Canada.
Alec Lalonde Ottawa
Is anyone home?
Re “Unable to downsize, more seniors are living in larger homes with empty bedrooms” (Report on Business, July 5): The key word is “living.” Instead of pointing the finger at boomers who have the audacity, tenacity and perspicacity to live in and maintain their homes, why not address the issue of vacant homes as a convenient method of sheltering money?
Underoccupied homes? I find far worse are unoccupied, undermaintained homes that languish in living neighbourhoods.
Sandy Blazier Mississauga
I think more can be done to encourage boomers in single-family inner-city homes to relocate, so that rezoning can take place to build multifamily residences.
Perhaps units can be saved for people who give up their homes, so that they can downsize and stay in the same neighbourhood.
Alison Dennis Calgary
These are our homes. This is where we worked our lives to live.
The housing crisis is not ours. Any suggestion of vacating to accommodate government decisions on immigration would be simply wrong.
We will leave when we’re ready, and not a second before.
Dianne Aziz Kingston
Are we really at the stage where people with a spare bedroom are labelled “overhoused,” as Mississauga Mayor Crombie says, and bean counters at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation are concerned with what to do about it?
I am reminded of the old Genesis song Get ‘Em Out By Friday, where Peter Gabriel fictionalized that “Genetic Control” was announcing it had made people shorter in height, so it could fit twice as many of us in the same building size.
Let people live as they want and show that we still respect a free society.
Rob Konduros Cambridge, Ont.
Many seniors, including this letter-writer, are unwilling to downsize, not unable.
Selling and relocating can be expensive owing to legal, moving and real estate fees. A new home leaves one open to unexpected repairs, while a present residence should have no such surprises. Rental accommodations have all the challenges of landlord-tenant relationships.
All in all, it’s a lot of fussing for little if any improvement in lifestyle. Besides, having a guestroom is nice although, sadly, it is not much used.
Peter Hambly Hanover, Ont.
Back to school
Re “COVID, a strong job market and high cost-of-living is making gap years more attractive to students looking to make money” (Report on Business, July 3): My father was in high school during the Depression. He had 32 gap years before he went back to school for higher education to pursue a professional career.
After raising a family, having a successful retail business, buying a house and saving money, he was ready to move on and did. It can be done, even at 50!
Linda Martin Toronto
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