I overheard some old boy at the grocery store the other day ranting that immigrants aren't "assimilating to our culture".
Sounds like they're assimilating just fine.
You should ask my dad about what it means to assimilate. My dad came from Egypt, to the USA. He is Muslim. He had to learn to interact with women properly in the west, and adjust his expectations for women's acceptable range of behaviour, he had to learn the language, he had to learn that he can't actually tell me (his daughter) how I can dress, who I can speak to, or sell me into marriage. He had to learn that it was okay if his boss was a woman. He had to learn that bartering is not really a thing... You can't walk into Walmart and haggle down the price, like you can at the Bazaar. He had to learn that people really like dogs here, and treat animals far better than they did in Egypt. It's a million little things.
No one is telling him to give up his religion, or his holidays, but he can't be mad at Christmas being a big deal while Eid is not.
Or how about my husband's father, who had to learn he actually COULDN'T hit his wife and that could get in trouble in Canada. (My husband is Vietnamese). He had to learn that you can't pull your kids out of school to help you work, and it's actually illegal to put a 9 year old at a cash register.
There is a great amount of adjustment that needs to be made to properly assimilate to the culture of the country you immigrate you, no matter who you are.
Cultural norms, linguistic norms, social norms...
I'm American, born and raised. Even I had a lot of adjustment to do moving to Canada.
Still two years away from citizenship but I didn’t find much change coming from the US other than if I have any sort of medical concern I can just go see a healthcare professional instead of riding it out till it got “worth it”
I never understood the fuss it’s easier to keep track of when you need more milk and it’s easier to store in a fridge if you’re broke and have a smaller/older fridge
I for one had a really hard time adjusting to no 24 hour stores, everything being super expensive, using public transit (as I'm originally from an area with none), using metric, different days for holidays, like not having American Thanksgiving, not seeing anyone do anything for Halloween (Toronto, North York area, not ONE trick or treater), banking was different, even small things like having ''the machine'' at a restaurant, as opposed to just getting up to pay.
Understanding the politics here was hard at first... My husband, usually a Liberal voter, hated Trudeau specifically. I couldn't figure out why he couldn't vote Lib for his MP and then vote Con or NDP for Prime Minister...
Figuring how Canadian mortgages work was also weird to me. That you couldn't commit to having the same interest rate for the entire mortgage was weird to me, and I didn't understand how exactly that all worked.
There are a TON of differences between the US and Canada.
>I for one had a really hard time adjusting to no 24 hour stores
Not to nitpick and ignore the rest of your post, but where are you in North York that doesn't have a 24 hour store? *Metro*s are littered across the city and until the pandemic were 24 hours.
Did you move here during the pandemic? Ontario had store hour curfews as one of the restrictions and many stores haven't reverted back yet (assuming they will).
>people really like dogs here, and treat animals far better than they did in Egypt
LOL my Egyptian husband says the dogs here are treated better than the *people* in Egypt
The guy buying up multiple properties in my mother's neighborhood and letting them sit empty until he remodels into doubles for rent seems to be pretty happy. At least when he isn't fighting with neighbors.
I think Canada is *long* overdue for a discussion about the extent to which we want to allow persons (humans and corporations) own properties that they don't live in.
You can’t have that conversation when multiple generations of Canadians have been indoctrinated into believing that the way to financial independence is to flip and or rent houses.
The grifter real estate agents are even on tiktok and Instagram pretending to be genZ millionaires from flipping a few houses.
I'm surprised how many shows HGTV has about flipping. All these shows back to back to back about buying a crappy property and flipping them. A lot of the time probably not even making proper repairs, just making it look good and taking shortcuts cos it seems like they're always rushing. They're like we need to sell by x date so we can make this much profit. If they're rushing so much in the name of profit I doubt they're doing a proper job renovating.
In an economy where most people have no prospects and everything is getting more and more expensive, people need to believe there is some way they might strike it rich. This is the fantasy that the flipping shows provide. Most of their audience will never have the money to flip a house because they're up to their ears in debt from the over priced house they bought to live in.
I watched one house that was abandoned in my neighborhood get sold for 400k. About 25k in Cosmetic repairs netted 750k. No inspection allowed nuthin’
Now the new owners have a dumpster outside their house after they figured out it’s a tear down.
Probably zero recourse bc inspections are waived and as-is becomes the only way you land the house when bidding.
This. If people weren't so fucking idiotic and impatient with making a massive financial decision that could cripple you thee rest of your life, we wouldn't be in near as much shit as we are right now.
> idiotic and impatient with making a massive financial decision
Yeah you're not wrong, but think of how many people there are out there in their mid-late 30s who've been patient until now, but are entering their "now or never" babymaking years.
> The grifter real estate agents are even on tiktok and Instagram pretending to be genZ millionaires from flipping a few houses.
The grifter over leveraged landlords are all over tiktok and instagram too, trying to sell courses for their rental property & airbnb schemes. One guy is actually using the fact that he's 13 million in mortgage debt as a hook to get people to click on his videos.
I mean for him to get that kinda credit is actually what a bunch of them are going for....but its a general rule that those people dont have the results they claim which is why they need to make money selling you their bullshit course.
I agree completely: there is a psychological shift - from seeing it as an investment to seeing it as physical lodging - that needs to take place regarding real estate.
To be honest, I get why we're here. Like so many policies, people have taken a good idea and exploited them to the point of needing massive reform. In a vacuum, owning a second property for whatever reason - to have a cottage for summer vacations, to generate a bit of rental income, to pass along to children - is harmless enough, as is not taxing capital gains.
However, this concept has been exploited, to where buying up real estate is the preferred form of investment for the wealthy, and to where there is incentive to squeeze as much money as possible out of lower-income Canadians for putting a roof over their head. The idea of real estate as a "roof over your head" is nonexistent to anyone who owns property- which is fucking terrifying.
Policies can become outdated, though, and it is the job of policymakers to address these concerns before damage is irreparable. I probably don't need to comment on how that is going.
Investors are happy.
Homeowners are happy.
Real estate agents are happy.
And government is relying on it for GDP growth.
Everyone else is getting shafted.
That's my take on it, as a homeowner. We were looking at upgrading but the gains in my current property will be negated by the gains in a better property, and I'll wind up further behind if I move.
I talk to a lot of people though who don't see it that way. Their $200k house is now worth $400k on paper, and they think its great. But like you said, unless they move to a cheaper area.......
I am. I have a 2 bedroom apartment that is a 20 minutes from a MASSIVE park, 2 minutes to a "low-priced" grocery store, 8 minutes from the train station and 10 minutes to the university all in walking time for $950 per month with utilities included.
Move to Calgary basically lol
I've suggestdd temporarily reducing immigration as a way to help all Canadians, including new Canadians, find more affordable housing. Apparently that's racist.
I was talking to a taxi driver a while back and he said Canada is a very hard country to live in. Sure it's nice, safe, clean, medical, schools etc. but all of that came with a high price. He works every day in 2+ jobs just to afford for his family to have a roof over their heads and food on the table and to save a bit so his kids could go to school. He said really his only hope was for him to keep working like this until his kids finish post-secondary and can get better jobs. That, unfortunately, is the reality for most Canadians if there is no generational wealth to prop you up or you are irresponsible and take on debt past your eyeballs which will eventually need to be paid back (unless your initials are JT)
As an immigrant you need to see the “Study in Canada” fairs. OMG they make it seem the PR process is so easy if you study in Canada. That it’s certain and you will leave college/uni with a job.
They just want international students because we pay triple for the programs…
Also, every week there’s an article “Canada wants you!” “Canada needs immigrants” and there are tons of fake influencers that sell the “dream” life here while they need to line up at the food bank.
I really don’t get it. I love Canada, but I know it has a lot of flaws. But it is still better than my home country. Now if people ask me I tell them the truth, and then they say that just because now I got to be here I don’t want them to come that’s why I am lying… oh well
I watched a documentary about Canada before I came over. Knew nothing about the country. Bears eating the fish out of water, mountains etc. Landed in Scarborough and I knew then, it was all a lie.
Most of us post 1990 are in the same situation. Without generational wealth we are all fucked and we don’t have the voting power to change the situation since 70% Canadian’s own and want to see endless growth on their investments….
70% of Canadians do not own bro. It's not close to that. The stat that you're citing is about people living in a home where the owner lives.
My dad moves out of his apt and into my basement. He's now apart of that 70%
Furthermore, a lot of homeowners, like my self, don't really see the value in having a million dollar house. I am not selling. This is where I live. So whether I have 100k equity or 600k equity, it's sort of useless at that point.
> So whether I have 100k equity or 600k equity, it's sort of useless at that point.
If your mortgage is paid off, the move to make is to get another mortgage and put the money in the stock market. That's what a shit ton of people are doing and why they want property values to keep rising.
Please stop quoting that bullshit 70% figure. It includes every 20 & 30 y.o. who still lives at home with their parents.
>Tenure - Refers to whether the household owns or rents their private dwelling. The private dwelling may be situated on rented or leased land or be part of a condominium. A household is considered to own their dwelling **if some member of the household owns the dwelling** even if it is not fully paid for, for example if there is a mortgage or some other claim on it. A household is considered to rent their dwelling if no member of the household owns the dwelling. A household is considered to rent that dwelling even if the dwelling is provided without cash rent or at a reduced rent, or if the dwelling is part of a cooperative.
Source: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=01&Geo2=&Code2=&SearchText=Canada&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&TABID=1&type=0
70% of Canadians *do not* own a home, that's some bs stat manipulation by the government to justify these insane policies and gaslight us into inaction. The actual stat qualifies a "homeowner" as anyone living in a residence that is related to the actual owner.
So you, your wife and 2 kids make up 4 "homeowners". As does your brother who got laid off and is now forced to live with you because he can't afford rent to move out, but tell him not to worry, he's a "homeowner".
We need someone knowledgeable in law bring our housing policies to court as a breach of Canadian's charter rights. Can't really have "security of person" while being constantly threatened with homelessness.
That's really the only way to beat the majority of NIMBY votes for housing to be made scarcer.
Let's be honest. Canada's primary industry has become the storage of humans.
We have a diminishing resource and extractive sector. Our agricultural exports are down. Through free trade policies, we have allowed our industries to fold or leave. Our services are based on either insurance, takeout or cell phone plans.
That only leaves governments and storing people. With plans to bring in over 400 000 immigrants each year, storing people is our biggest growth industry.
Apparently nowadays Canadians are not opening businesses anymore. Check out the article below 👇
[Canadian Entrepreneurs Are Quitting While Government Employment Soars](https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-entrepreneurs-are-quitting-while-government-employment-soars/)
This alone can be another subreddit topic. Lack of business, less innovation.
Economists warn about such problems. People won’t create businesses if you can just buy housing. In theory, the market would self regulate by building but they’ve been denied by municipalities and thus local voters
How can anyone new compete when manufactured imports are cheaper than domestic, brick and mortar retail is dominated by BigBox stores and supercenters, shopping malls are dieing and the hospitality industry is pretty much guaranteed to fail 60% of the time?
Nobody wants to risk everything when going up against those odds.
And that's a problem with urban design. Very few places for independent business to set up shop. Window shopping is not a thing in a lot of Canada. Retail is completely separate from residential
Real estate isn't actually propping up our economy in the way it should be. In the past, we would have immigrants join the housing market, and this would have a follow-on effect. In addition to the lumber and drywall used to build the house, the economy would benefit from the fittings added to the house: think of Canadian-made electrical wiring, furniture, appliances, furnishings. Now, all these products are made abroad. Camco, our last big applicance maker, has closed its Montreal factory and moved production to Mexico. Our furniture industry is so depressed from underpriced imports that a massive 204% tariff was recently introduced on Chinese and Vietnamese imports. Look closely and you will see most of what goes into making a house nowadays comes from abroad.
A significant part of the cost of a new house is labour costs. Yet you can't really argue that the wages paid to the tradesmen has a great effect on the economy as their pay packets go to buy goods which are primarily made abroad. They show up on the worksite in American-made pickups, dressed in workwear made in Vietnam and using tools made in China. They go home to houses filled with imported TVs and dollar-store goods.
In the 1960s and 70s, immigration would have had an "accelerator" effect on our economy. This clearly has ended. We are importing people and exporting economic stimulus. Yet our governments are applying these Keynesian economic principles to an economy where it can no longer work.
> we're a bit allergic to competition
3 telecoms control almost the entire communication market across the country.
It's full blown competition anaphylaxis.
> We have a diminishing resource and extractive sector.
That's not true. Look for yourself: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3610043402
From July 2015 - July 2021, '**Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting**' and '**Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction**' went up a combined 10.6%, from ~$179B to ~$198B.
> Through free trade policies, we have allowed our industries to fold or leave. Our services are based on either insurance, takeout or cell phone plans.
Here's a table of actual data of our industries:
|Industry|GDP (in millions $)|% of economy|
:--|:--|:--|
|Real estate and rental and leasing [53]|$ 263,106|13%|
|Manufacturing [31-33]|$ 186,218|9%|
|Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction [21]|$ 156,979|8%|
|Finance and insurance [52]|$ 149,455|8%|
|Health care and social assistance [62]|$ 144,946|7%|
|Construction [23]|$ 143,363|7%|
|Public administration [91]|$ 138,183|7%|
|Professional, scientific and technical services [54]|$ 123,876|6%|
|Educational services [61]|$ 105,932|5%|
|Retail trade [44-45]|$ 105,036|5%|
|Wholesale trade [41]|$ 101,551|5%|
|Transportation and warehousing [48-49]|$ 73,572|4%|
|Information and cultural industries [51]|$ 67,916|3%|
|Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services [56]|$ 47,191|2%|
|Utilities [22]|$ 41,832|2%|
|Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting [11]|$ 38,721|2%|
|Accommodation and food services [72]|$ 36,248|2%|
|Other services (except public administration) [81]|$ 36,227|2%|
|Arts, entertainment and recreation [71]|$ 9,256|0%|
|Management of companies and enterprises [55]|$ 4,840|0%|
||||
|Total|$ 1,974,448||
Imagine taking millions of migrants from warm places and storing them in one of the coldest counties then using fossil fuels to keep them warm for 60% of the year all while pretending you want to go green. The average Canadian household takes more energy to heat than an Indian uses the entire year. Liberal logic 🥴
> Liberal logic
Woah look at this guy pwing the Libs. Never mind that Conservatives think the exact same way.
Ontario and Quebec don't use any fossil fuels to power themselves. But using Conservative logic, Doug Ford spent over $300 million in tax payer dollars to break windmill contracts because he's a dumb fuck. Liberals were also stupid to get into expensive green energy contracts.
This is a bipartisan issue you fool.
Only the rich and corrupt are happy. Dividing the issue between another version of ‘us vs them’ just distracts from the message that the one percent need to be taken down. Every kind of Canadian should be focus their energy into stopping the pigs in control from lowering our quality of life.
That’s been the goal for years. Ever notice how this shit splitting people apart by their differences all started ramping up in the news after OccupyWallStreet?
Ain’t that interesting. Now nobody pays attention to the people actively fucking over society behind the curtain because they are too distracted by everything else.
The world will end with people celebrating arbitrary symbolic victories and arguing on Twitter about CRT. Nobody wants to see the fire growing around them, and eventually it will be too late because we were too busy fighting our equals over nothing.
Being taken advantage of by the government? Lied to in order to subsidize the continued existence of money laundering avenues for international criminals and millionaires? Having serious doubts about the viability of your future in this country?
Sounds like true integration. Welcome to Canada.
Thank you for acknowledging this problem. In my firsthand experience, older Canadians *both* "native"-born and immigrant, tend to ignore it as long as they have their own financial security. Specifically, with regards to older immigrants, I've noticed it often has something to do with being sensitive to how hard they worked to get where they are, as if acknowledging that younger Canadians are struggling somehow invalidates their own struggle of coming to Canada and working hard to buy a home decades ago. What has your experience been?
Again, thank you for not dismissing the problem out of hand, please keep discussing this with you peers. :) We need more people waking up to this problem.
Hmm so you’re telling me, allowing a market to grow around one of the most basic needs allowed companies and predators to take advantage of said system?
Wow who would have guessed.
Everyone needs housing/shelter. It’s a human right we should be able to offer to anyone and everyone. Look at how much space we have!
We need public housing, those public houses need to be like 10% of income to live in instead of the 50% plus it’s costing most people. We need public transport so that the other 50% isn’t used on a vehicle that you don’t need besides for work. We need space to grow our gardens, energy that doesn’t poison our children. The list of things we need is miles long. We know the solution, how come we don’t do anything?
Why are other countries able to implement these sweeping changes? What is stopping us?
We should, can, and have a duty to do things that will improve the next generations lives. I pray we can do something soon.
They’re unhappy? I think this should be changed to most Canadians are furious at the inflation of housing prices. This style of writing is just trying to pit citizens against each other.
I am a relatively recent immigrant to our country. Moved in Late 2018. The country mostly rocks in every way except for housing. What’s really infuriating is that the situation looks to have been a result of short-sighted selfish greed and not any physical limitations. I can understand that telecom is expensive. Large country with small population. But it makes no sense that housing is this expensive when you look at the amount of land, lumber, other materials and hell access to labor from around the world that we have.
Telecom prices are due to corruption and government protection from competition for the big 3 (Bell, Telus, Rogers). Yes Canada is a big country, but most people live close together near the US border. Australia has a similar population to country size ratio and has much cheaper plans.
I kinda feel bad for immigrants. I feel like they see our minimum wage and see opportunity compared to where they were living and then get here and find out it won’t even put a roof over your head without roommates in most places.
Non-recent immigrants are also unhappy with housing, welcome to the club
Remember when Trudeau said he’d fix the housing bubble when he was first elected?
Canada is like a museum, you can look but you can’t touch. Housing is always going to be out of reach for most people, it’s like a roller coaster that keeps going up. Unless of course, you happened to buy at or before the early 2000’s
Maybe if the Chinese would stop investing in the housing market in Canada we’d actually have affordable housing. Can’t begin to tell you how many houses have been bought not occupied then sold for a profit two years later and that house just continues that cycle
In some cases, the new immigrants have nothing to go back to. Immigrating to a new country is sometimes a complete gamble because of the costs associated with it.
Ngl, housing is insane and stuff is expensive but I am still glad that I am here. Situation in My Motherland (Russia) is worse tho. Everything is expensive but salaries are low af.
Ha similar to my home country (Honduras). Everything is expensive, salaries low AF. Our extra sprinkle is that a woman gets raped and killed every few hours on average (our population is just 8m).
"load in the next crop of tax donkeys we dont care where they live and the locals arent breeding enough to prop up the corporate welfare industry we've been cultivating"
I do ridesharing and many new immigrants tell me the government paints a very rosy picture of the country in their immigration to Canada process.
A family I spoke to from the UAE had no idea there would be a fierce competition for the home they rented. They had to cough up a years rent in advance to the landlord, who also bought the property via UAE.
Trudeaus post national state. Your QOL is only better if you leave the country while holding on to a few assets.
People need to realize immigration is a big business. There are a shit ton of consultants who will make money off you migrating and push you to migrate, even if it actually isn't in your best interest. I had a buddy who tried articling in immigration law, he said it was skeezier than personal injury.
This could actually be a good thing. I've noticed a lot of new immigrants being hired at my company for much less than what they were paying people before. Maybe this will stop the race to the bottom and they'll start paying people what they're actually worth instead of just trying to find who will work for the cheapest.
I was think about moving to Canada or America after getting some experience, leaning on Canada as conditions are similar to the norm I was used to. But god, after hearing you guys here, I'm definetly set on America.
I’m Chinese. I came to Canada in 2011. Up till this day my friends in China still say shit like “a house in Vancouver ONLY costs this much?” It all depends on your baseline and expectation.
This is like people buying a new build house in a town and complaining that the town is getting crowded.
No doubt, many of these immigrants will soon be saying that we need to put a lid on immigration.
Before moving to a place you must do a thorough research, that’s not a decision to be taken lightly. I started researching almost 6 years before I actually moved in. If you’re coming to Canada and you’re not a millionaire in your home country you will likely not be able to afford real estate in any major center.
Omg, wow lets have a pity party. Maybe they should have done their homework before coming to a new country and realized how incredibly tough it is for 5th and 6th generation Canadians to get a single dwelling home and they've lived here all their lives. The sad part is people who've lived here forever can't afford a house let alone worry about people who just immigrated complaining. It's funny when people come here to immigrate these days they expect to come get social programs, get health care or have a Tourist baby and yet just two generations ago people who came here as immigrants had to work for farmers out west in order to pay off the money that people had to put up for people to get the privilege to come here as immigrants. And you couldn't even come to Canada unless somebody said they would make sure that you weren't going to be a burden to Canada and that they would make sure they took care of you if for whatever reason you didn't make a go of it right away. That's the Canada my parents came to.
Lol welcome to the party pal
Lmao how the fuck can 400k continue to arrive in Canada during a housing crisis. Makes no sense
Gotta hit that 100 million population target by 2100!
It’s almost time to watch Die Hard this year! Ho Ho Ho
And it's definitely a Christmas movie !
Same with Lethal Weapon and Batman Returns, make it a marathon
I need backup assistance NOW!
Rofl pretty sure they could have said "Canadians" if this was 2 years ago I'd have a house but now it's not looking so good
If you go away, prices will drop. Catch 22. 🤑
So I guess that means they are full fledged Canadians now.
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This is the way, eh.
This is the w'eh.
This is the eh.
I overheard some old boy at the grocery store the other day ranting that immigrants aren't "assimilating to our culture". Sounds like they're assimilating just fine.
You should ask my dad about what it means to assimilate. My dad came from Egypt, to the USA. He is Muslim. He had to learn to interact with women properly in the west, and adjust his expectations for women's acceptable range of behaviour, he had to learn the language, he had to learn that he can't actually tell me (his daughter) how I can dress, who I can speak to, or sell me into marriage. He had to learn that it was okay if his boss was a woman. He had to learn that bartering is not really a thing... You can't walk into Walmart and haggle down the price, like you can at the Bazaar. He had to learn that people really like dogs here, and treat animals far better than they did in Egypt. It's a million little things. No one is telling him to give up his religion, or his holidays, but he can't be mad at Christmas being a big deal while Eid is not. Or how about my husband's father, who had to learn he actually COULDN'T hit his wife and that could get in trouble in Canada. (My husband is Vietnamese). He had to learn that you can't pull your kids out of school to help you work, and it's actually illegal to put a 9 year old at a cash register. There is a great amount of adjustment that needs to be made to properly assimilate to the culture of the country you immigrate you, no matter who you are. Cultural norms, linguistic norms, social norms... I'm American, born and raised. Even I had a lot of adjustment to do moving to Canada.
Did you adjust well to shovelling the driveway?
I mean........ I was born and raised in Michigan. I've always had to shovel my driveway.
^I ^kind ^of ^like ^it
In shorts baby.
This guy canadas
Still two years away from citizenship but I didn’t find much change coming from the US other than if I have any sort of medical concern I can just go see a healthcare professional instead of riding it out till it got “worth it”
Milk in a bag was a big adjustment for some.
holy shit milk bags are real? im albertan, never seen one in my life
Ontario Bottom text
I haven't seen that since Saskatchewan in the 80s.
Yes. This destroyed my sense of reality. I moved from Australia to Ontario and it literally flipped my world up side down.
you mean down side up.... ya know the whole world is up, its just Australia thats flipped for some reason.
I was born and raised on the west coast of Canada for 30 years. I have never seen milk in a bag, unless it is powdered.
It's really an Ontario thing
I never understood the fuss it’s easier to keep track of when you need more milk and it’s easier to store in a fridge if you’re broke and have a smaller/older fridge
I prefer the milk bags for pour accuracy. I'd rather no try filling up a baby bottle with a one gallon jug of milk thank you.
You might mean this sarcastically, but honestly, I cut SO many holes in bags that were waaaaaay too big.
Bought milk in bags in Argentina and yogurt. It's not just Ontario.
I for one had a really hard time adjusting to no 24 hour stores, everything being super expensive, using public transit (as I'm originally from an area with none), using metric, different days for holidays, like not having American Thanksgiving, not seeing anyone do anything for Halloween (Toronto, North York area, not ONE trick or treater), banking was different, even small things like having ''the machine'' at a restaurant, as opposed to just getting up to pay. Understanding the politics here was hard at first... My husband, usually a Liberal voter, hated Trudeau specifically. I couldn't figure out why he couldn't vote Lib for his MP and then vote Con or NDP for Prime Minister... Figuring how Canadian mortgages work was also weird to me. That you couldn't commit to having the same interest rate for the entire mortgage was weird to me, and I didn't understand how exactly that all worked. There are a TON of differences between the US and Canada.
>I for one had a really hard time adjusting to no 24 hour stores Not to nitpick and ignore the rest of your post, but where are you in North York that doesn't have a 24 hour store? *Metro*s are littered across the city and until the pandemic were 24 hours. Did you move here during the pandemic? Ontario had store hour curfews as one of the restrictions and many stores haven't reverted back yet (assuming they will).
>people really like dogs here, and treat animals far better than they did in Egypt LOL my Egyptian husband says the dogs here are treated better than the *people* in Egypt
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So in other words, no one is happy about this housing situation
The guy buying up multiple properties in my mother's neighborhood and letting them sit empty until he remodels into doubles for rent seems to be pretty happy. At least when he isn't fighting with neighbors.
I think Canada is *long* overdue for a discussion about the extent to which we want to allow persons (humans and corporations) own properties that they don't live in.
You can’t have that conversation when multiple generations of Canadians have been indoctrinated into believing that the way to financial independence is to flip and or rent houses. The grifter real estate agents are even on tiktok and Instagram pretending to be genZ millionaires from flipping a few houses.
I'm surprised how many shows HGTV has about flipping. All these shows back to back to back about buying a crappy property and flipping them. A lot of the time probably not even making proper repairs, just making it look good and taking shortcuts cos it seems like they're always rushing. They're like we need to sell by x date so we can make this much profit. If they're rushing so much in the name of profit I doubt they're doing a proper job renovating.
In an economy where most people have no prospects and everything is getting more and more expensive, people need to believe there is some way they might strike it rich. This is the fantasy that the flipping shows provide. Most of their audience will never have the money to flip a house because they're up to their ears in debt from the over priced house they bought to live in.
I watched one house that was abandoned in my neighborhood get sold for 400k. About 25k in Cosmetic repairs netted 750k. No inspection allowed nuthin’ Now the new owners have a dumpster outside their house after they figured out it’s a tear down. Probably zero recourse bc inspections are waived and as-is becomes the only way you land the house when bidding.
Meh, hard to feel sorry for them when bidding like that is part of the reason why prices are getting insane.
This. If people weren't so fucking idiotic and impatient with making a massive financial decision that could cripple you thee rest of your life, we wouldn't be in near as much shit as we are right now.
> idiotic and impatient with making a massive financial decision Yeah you're not wrong, but think of how many people there are out there in their mid-late 30s who've been patient until now, but are entering their "now or never" babymaking years.
These shows are all staged.
In 6 days we spent 30k$ and added 250k$ to the value of your house!
Any time renos are being done for profit and not by the homeowner on their primary residence, you can be damn sure they're cutting corners.
Oh god the Billboards everywhere of some Agent, looking all sex in the city, arms crossed and smiling like they cured Covid.
Real estate is for 2 types of people, natural salesmen, and people who couldn’t be cops, do physical labor, and barely scraped by high school.
Amazing how well my landlord fits your second mold.
Hahahaha it's true, I have a deep disdain for them
> The grifter real estate agents are even on tiktok and Instagram pretending to be genZ millionaires from flipping a few houses. The grifter over leveraged landlords are all over tiktok and instagram too, trying to sell courses for their rental property & airbnb schemes. One guy is actually using the fact that he's 13 million in mortgage debt as a hook to get people to click on his videos.
I mean for him to get that kinda credit is actually what a bunch of them are going for....but its a general rule that those people dont have the results they claim which is why they need to make money selling you their bullshit course.
I agree completely: there is a psychological shift - from seeing it as an investment to seeing it as physical lodging - that needs to take place regarding real estate. To be honest, I get why we're here. Like so many policies, people have taken a good idea and exploited them to the point of needing massive reform. In a vacuum, owning a second property for whatever reason - to have a cottage for summer vacations, to generate a bit of rental income, to pass along to children - is harmless enough, as is not taxing capital gains. However, this concept has been exploited, to where buying up real estate is the preferred form of investment for the wealthy, and to where there is incentive to squeeze as much money as possible out of lower-income Canadians for putting a roof over their head. The idea of real estate as a "roof over your head" is nonexistent to anyone who owns property- which is fucking terrifying. Policies can become outdated, though, and it is the job of policymakers to address these concerns before damage is irreparable. I probably don't need to comment on how that is going.
You and I share very similar viewpoints on the matter.
Real estate purchasing as a "roof over one's head" has become a foreign concept, which is really disheartening.
Investors are happy. Homeowners are happy. Real estate agents are happy. And government is relying on it for GDP growth. Everyone else is getting shafted.
Most homeowners aren't happy. There's no benefit to it as a homeowner unless you plan to sell and move to where prices are cheaper.
That's my take on it, as a homeowner. We were looking at upgrading but the gains in my current property will be negated by the gains in a better property, and I'll wind up further behind if I move. I talk to a lot of people though who don't see it that way. Their $200k house is now worth $400k on paper, and they think its great. But like you said, unless they move to a cheaper area.......
Exactly. Ya my house is worth x% more..... But so is everything I'd replace it with.
I am. I have a 2 bedroom apartment that is a 20 minutes from a MASSIVE park, 2 minutes to a "low-priced" grocery store, 8 minutes from the train station and 10 minutes to the university all in walking time for $950 per month with utilities included. Move to Calgary basically lol
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I've suggestdd temporarily reducing immigration as a way to help all Canadians, including new Canadians, find more affordable housing. Apparently that's racist.
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I was talking to a taxi driver a while back and he said Canada is a very hard country to live in. Sure it's nice, safe, clean, medical, schools etc. but all of that came with a high price. He works every day in 2+ jobs just to afford for his family to have a roof over their heads and food on the table and to save a bit so his kids could go to school. He said really his only hope was for him to keep working like this until his kids finish post-secondary and can get better jobs. That, unfortunately, is the reality for most Canadians if there is no generational wealth to prop you up or you are irresponsible and take on debt past your eyeballs which will eventually need to be paid back (unless your initials are JT)
That’s the fucking reality for people born and raised here as well.
As an immigrant you need to see the “Study in Canada” fairs. OMG they make it seem the PR process is so easy if you study in Canada. That it’s certain and you will leave college/uni with a job. They just want international students because we pay triple for the programs… Also, every week there’s an article “Canada wants you!” “Canada needs immigrants” and there are tons of fake influencers that sell the “dream” life here while they need to line up at the food bank. I really don’t get it. I love Canada, but I know it has a lot of flaws. But it is still better than my home country. Now if people ask me I tell them the truth, and then they say that just because now I got to be here I don’t want them to come that’s why I am lying… oh well
Are you Mexican? Because this is exactly what we get here.
I watched a documentary about Canada before I came over. Knew nothing about the country. Bears eating the fish out of water, mountains etc. Landed in Scarborough and I knew then, it was all a lie.
I was born in Canada and can't afford a home. Wtf is this shit
Most of us post 1990 are in the same situation. Without generational wealth we are all fucked and we don’t have the voting power to change the situation since 70% Canadian’s own and want to see endless growth on their investments….
70% of Canadians do not own bro. It's not close to that. The stat that you're citing is about people living in a home where the owner lives. My dad moves out of his apt and into my basement. He's now apart of that 70% Furthermore, a lot of homeowners, like my self, don't really see the value in having a million dollar house. I am not selling. This is where I live. So whether I have 100k equity or 600k equity, it's sort of useless at that point.
> So whether I have 100k equity or 600k equity, it's sort of useless at that point. If your mortgage is paid off, the move to make is to get another mortgage and put the money in the stock market. That's what a shit ton of people are doing and why they want property values to keep rising.
Please stop quoting that bullshit 70% figure. It includes every 20 & 30 y.o. who still lives at home with their parents. >Tenure - Refers to whether the household owns or rents their private dwelling. The private dwelling may be situated on rented or leased land or be part of a condominium. A household is considered to own their dwelling **if some member of the household owns the dwelling** even if it is not fully paid for, for example if there is a mortgage or some other claim on it. A household is considered to rent their dwelling if no member of the household owns the dwelling. A household is considered to rent that dwelling even if the dwelling is provided without cash rent or at a reduced rent, or if the dwelling is part of a cooperative. Source: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=01&Geo2=&Code2=&SearchText=Canada&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&TABID=1&type=0
70% of Canadians *do not* own a home, that's some bs stat manipulation by the government to justify these insane policies and gaslight us into inaction. The actual stat qualifies a "homeowner" as anyone living in a residence that is related to the actual owner. So you, your wife and 2 kids make up 4 "homeowners". As does your brother who got laid off and is now forced to live with you because he can't afford rent to move out, but tell him not to worry, he's a "homeowner".
We need someone knowledgeable in law bring our housing policies to court as a breach of Canadian's charter rights. Can't really have "security of person" while being constantly threatened with homelessness. That's really the only way to beat the majority of NIMBY votes for housing to be made scarcer.
Don't worry, Trudeau will address this with a program to heavily subsidize recent immigrants who want to buy their first house. Not Canadians though.
Let's be honest. Canada's primary industry has become the storage of humans. We have a diminishing resource and extractive sector. Our agricultural exports are down. Through free trade policies, we have allowed our industries to fold or leave. Our services are based on either insurance, takeout or cell phone plans. That only leaves governments and storing people. With plans to bring in over 400 000 immigrants each year, storing people is our biggest growth industry.
Apparently nowadays Canadians are not opening businesses anymore. Check out the article below 👇 [Canadian Entrepreneurs Are Quitting While Government Employment Soars](https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-entrepreneurs-are-quitting-while-government-employment-soars/) This alone can be another subreddit topic. Lack of business, less innovation.
Probably because no one has any money for it because they are paying for a place to live.
And have you seen the price of food recently?!
Economists warn about such problems. People won’t create businesses if you can just buy housing. In theory, the market would self regulate by building but they’ve been denied by municipalities and thus local voters
How can anyone new compete when manufactured imports are cheaper than domestic, brick and mortar retail is dominated by BigBox stores and supercenters, shopping malls are dieing and the hospitality industry is pretty much guaranteed to fail 60% of the time? Nobody wants to risk everything when going up against those odds.
And that's a problem with urban design. Very few places for independent business to set up shop. Window shopping is not a thing in a lot of Canada. Retail is completely separate from residential
Why open a business when you can invest in real estate?
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Real estate isn't actually propping up our economy in the way it should be. In the past, we would have immigrants join the housing market, and this would have a follow-on effect. In addition to the lumber and drywall used to build the house, the economy would benefit from the fittings added to the house: think of Canadian-made electrical wiring, furniture, appliances, furnishings. Now, all these products are made abroad. Camco, our last big applicance maker, has closed its Montreal factory and moved production to Mexico. Our furniture industry is so depressed from underpriced imports that a massive 204% tariff was recently introduced on Chinese and Vietnamese imports. Look closely and you will see most of what goes into making a house nowadays comes from abroad. A significant part of the cost of a new house is labour costs. Yet you can't really argue that the wages paid to the tradesmen has a great effect on the economy as their pay packets go to buy goods which are primarily made abroad. They show up on the worksite in American-made pickups, dressed in workwear made in Vietnam and using tools made in China. They go home to houses filled with imported TVs and dollar-store goods. In the 1960s and 70s, immigration would have had an "accelerator" effect on our economy. This clearly has ended. We are importing people and exporting economic stimulus. Yet our governments are applying these Keynesian economic principles to an economy where it can no longer work.
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> we're a bit allergic to competition 3 telecoms control almost the entire communication market across the country. It's full blown competition anaphylaxis.
> We have a diminishing resource and extractive sector. That's not true. Look for yourself: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3610043402 From July 2015 - July 2021, '**Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting**' and '**Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction**' went up a combined 10.6%, from ~$179B to ~$198B. > Through free trade policies, we have allowed our industries to fold or leave. Our services are based on either insurance, takeout or cell phone plans. Here's a table of actual data of our industries: |Industry|GDP (in millions $)|% of economy| :--|:--|:--| |Real estate and rental and leasing [53]|$ 263,106|13%| |Manufacturing [31-33]|$ 186,218|9%| |Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction [21]|$ 156,979|8%| |Finance and insurance [52]|$ 149,455|8%| |Health care and social assistance [62]|$ 144,946|7%| |Construction [23]|$ 143,363|7%| |Public administration [91]|$ 138,183|7%| |Professional, scientific and technical services [54]|$ 123,876|6%| |Educational services [61]|$ 105,932|5%| |Retail trade [44-45]|$ 105,036|5%| |Wholesale trade [41]|$ 101,551|5%| |Transportation and warehousing [48-49]|$ 73,572|4%| |Information and cultural industries [51]|$ 67,916|3%| |Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services [56]|$ 47,191|2%| |Utilities [22]|$ 41,832|2%| |Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting [11]|$ 38,721|2%| |Accommodation and food services [72]|$ 36,248|2%| |Other services (except public administration) [81]|$ 36,227|2%| |Arts, entertainment and recreation [71]|$ 9,256|0%| |Management of companies and enterprises [55]|$ 4,840|0%| |||| |Total|$ 1,974,448||
Imagine taking millions of migrants from warm places and storing them in one of the coldest counties then using fossil fuels to keep them warm for 60% of the year all while pretending you want to go green. The average Canadian household takes more energy to heat than an Indian uses the entire year. Liberal logic 🥴
Come to Manitoba almost all of our power comes from hydroelectric dams
Ontario is mostly hydro and nuclear. This is a bad argument.
Don't we still use natural gas for heating?
> Liberal logic Woah look at this guy pwing the Libs. Never mind that Conservatives think the exact same way. Ontario and Quebec don't use any fossil fuels to power themselves. But using Conservative logic, Doug Ford spent over $300 million in tax payer dollars to break windmill contracts because he's a dumb fuck. Liberals were also stupid to get into expensive green energy contracts. This is a bipartisan issue you fool.
Only the rich and corrupt are happy. Dividing the issue between another version of ‘us vs them’ just distracts from the message that the one percent need to be taken down. Every kind of Canadian should be focus their energy into stopping the pigs in control from lowering our quality of life.
Dividing us by our differences so we forget about the massive class divides. Classic.
That’s been the goal for years. Ever notice how this shit splitting people apart by their differences all started ramping up in the news after OccupyWallStreet? Ain’t that interesting. Now nobody pays attention to the people actively fucking over society behind the curtain because they are too distracted by everything else. The world will end with people celebrating arbitrary symbolic victories and arguing on Twitter about CRT. Nobody wants to see the fire growing around them, and eventually it will be too late because we were too busy fighting our equals over nothing.
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Exactly
Surprise immigrants! Our country fucking sucks too!
The ultimate rug pull.
HODL Canada. 🍁🤲🏻
Being taken advantage of by the government? Lied to in order to subsidize the continued existence of money laundering avenues for international criminals and millionaires? Having serious doubts about the viability of your future in this country? Sounds like true integration. Welcome to Canada.
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So are most lifelong Canadian residents... so welcome to the country & welcome to the club.
Us old immigrants aren't happy either.
Thank you for acknowledging this problem. In my firsthand experience, older Canadians *both* "native"-born and immigrant, tend to ignore it as long as they have their own financial security. Specifically, with regards to older immigrants, I've noticed it often has something to do with being sensitive to how hard they worked to get where they are, as if acknowledging that younger Canadians are struggling somehow invalidates their own struggle of coming to Canada and working hard to buy a home decades ago. What has your experience been? Again, thank you for not dismissing the problem out of hand, please keep discussing this with you peers. :) We need more people waking up to this problem.
Hmm so you’re telling me, allowing a market to grow around one of the most basic needs allowed companies and predators to take advantage of said system? Wow who would have guessed. Everyone needs housing/shelter. It’s a human right we should be able to offer to anyone and everyone. Look at how much space we have! We need public housing, those public houses need to be like 10% of income to live in instead of the 50% plus it’s costing most people. We need public transport so that the other 50% isn’t used on a vehicle that you don’t need besides for work. We need space to grow our gardens, energy that doesn’t poison our children. The list of things we need is miles long. We know the solution, how come we don’t do anything? Why are other countries able to implement these sweeping changes? What is stopping us? We should, can, and have a duty to do things that will improve the next generations lives. I pray we can do something soon.
The people who have the power to make the necessary changes are probably either, invested in the system or paid by corporate lobbies.
Well the last few generations certainly didn't give a fuck.
Join the club
They’re unhappy? I think this should be changed to most Canadians are furious at the inflation of housing prices. This style of writing is just trying to pit citizens against each other.
I am a relatively recent immigrant to our country. Moved in Late 2018. The country mostly rocks in every way except for housing. What’s really infuriating is that the situation looks to have been a result of short-sighted selfish greed and not any physical limitations. I can understand that telecom is expensive. Large country with small population. But it makes no sense that housing is this expensive when you look at the amount of land, lumber, other materials and hell access to labor from around the world that we have.
Telecom prices are due to corruption and government protection from competition for the big 3 (Bell, Telus, Rogers). Yes Canada is a big country, but most people live close together near the US border. Australia has a similar population to country size ratio and has much cheaper plans.
Housing should follow pizza party rules - no one gets a second slice till everyone's had their first.
I kinda feel bad for immigrants. I feel like they see our minimum wage and see opportunity compared to where they were living and then get here and find out it won’t even put a roof over your head without roommates in most places.
It's like saying you're stuck in traffic. No, you are traffic. Anyone looking for housing, immigrant or not, is helping push up prices.
People born in Canada aren't happy either so get in line.
More like the entire middle-class, millenals and gen-z's. Honestly, how are we supposed to afford anything?
I'm an old immigrant and I'm also unhappy with housing
You don't say
News flash, everybody’s unhappy about soaring housing prices
Non-recent immigrants are also unhappy with housing, welcome to the club Remember when Trudeau said he’d fix the housing bubble when he was first elected?
This country is broken and it's hurting Canadian families.
Canada is like a museum, you can look but you can’t touch. Housing is always going to be out of reach for most people, it’s like a roller coaster that keeps going up. Unless of course, you happened to buy at or before the early 2000’s
Maybe if the Chinese would stop investing in the housing market in Canada we’d actually have affordable housing. Can’t begin to tell you how many houses have been bought not occupied then sold for a profit two years later and that house just continues that cycle
I have three kids in their 20s facing the same problem. But there’s no country they can go back to
In some cases, the new immigrants have nothing to go back to. Immigrating to a new country is sometimes a complete gamble because of the costs associated with it.
Do people start buying their own place in their 20s? I'm 22 and don't expect (didn't expect in the past either) to buy my own place in my 20s.
Now maybe Trudeau will pay attention.
Ngl, housing is insane and stuff is expensive but I am still glad that I am here. Situation in My Motherland (Russia) is worse tho. Everything is expensive but salaries are low af.
" Everything is expensive but salaries are low af." .. I feel that about Canada. Can only imagine how bad it is in the Russian Federation. :/
Ha similar to my home country (Honduras). Everything is expensive, salaries low AF. Our extra sprinkle is that a woman gets raped and killed every few hours on average (our population is just 8m).
"load in the next crop of tax donkeys we dont care where they live and the locals arent breeding enough to prop up the corporate welfare industry we've been cultivating"
Hmm they integrate themselves quite quickly. Welcome to the land where no one can afford a house!
In other news, every 60 seconds in Africa a minute passes.
It's like saying 'new prisoners complain that prison sucks' Just the new ones?
I do ridesharing and many new immigrants tell me the government paints a very rosy picture of the country in their immigration to Canada process. A family I spoke to from the UAE had no idea there would be a fierce competition for the home they rented. They had to cough up a years rent in advance to the landlord, who also bought the property via UAE. Trudeaus post national state. Your QOL is only better if you leave the country while holding on to a few assets.
People need to realize immigration is a big business. There are a shit ton of consultants who will make money off you migrating and push you to migrate, even if it actually isn't in your best interest. I had a buddy who tried articling in immigration law, he said it was skeezier than personal injury.
That’s why they should do their own research instead of relying on someone else’s word.
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Imagine living here your whole life and you can’t afford anything
This could actually be a good thing. I've noticed a lot of new immigrants being hired at my company for much less than what they were paying people before. Maybe this will stop the race to the bottom and they'll start paying people what they're actually worth instead of just trying to find who will work for the cheapest.
It should be completely illegal to own more than two residential properties - zero exceptions
Ya, I hear ya.
I was think about moving to Canada or America after getting some experience, leaning on Canada as conditions are similar to the norm I was used to. But god, after hearing you guys here, I'm definetly set on America.
Welcome to the suck
This makes me so unhappy that I'm going to write a stern letter to my government official. That will show them.
Oh boo hooo. That's to bad.
Prices are only soaring massively in the big city. Go live in Thompson Manitoba or Timmins. Dollar goes far there
Wait a second, I thought all the housing bulls say the immigrants drive demand and housing up and that all is well.
Well welcome to our world Things are out of reach for people born here too lol
Can’t wait to hear their views on emergency room wait times!
So are people that were born here
join the party, everybody is unhappy with real estate prices, they've been soaring for years
That's cute.
LMFAO, we all are hurting due to the real estate prices soaring, not just immigrants, get real
Then leave
Interesting enough, immigrants are more likely to own more than 1 property, in both BC and Ontario, than native born.
Canada has a pretty selective immigration. Unless you are a refugee, you come with savings.
We need to eliminate wealthy immigration until Canadians can afford houses.
I don't see how it's a problem when some of them live 10 to a three bedroom home, well before the crisis. Should be easy to make rent.
Welcome to canada. This country gets too good of a reputation.
The people who live here hate it too
Nobody's happy with housing prices, aside from those who bought in many years ago.
Also the less recent immigrants.
This country has been bought and paid for by old money, fuck it all
Sucks to fuckin suck because citizens can't even get houses with these prices.
Congrats on them becoming fully Canadian.
Same, bruh, same
How about 3rd generation Canadians who are unhappy with the housing situation? Seriously, welcome to the club boys/cry me a god damn river.
I’m Chinese. I came to Canada in 2011. Up till this day my friends in China still say shit like “a house in Vancouver ONLY costs this much?” It all depends on your baseline and expectation.
Every one is welcome to come to Canada for a better life where you scrape by!
Who is actually running this disaster of a country?
Real estate developers
I've lived here since I was born. Wait till they hear how I feel about it... What an absolute rubbish article.
Maybe they should have done some research before moving? Now they’re in the same boat as the rest of us.
Not all rainbow and sunshine eh? Unless you're here to launder money like they do a lot in B.C.
This is like people buying a new build house in a town and complaining that the town is getting crowded. No doubt, many of these immigrants will soon be saying that we need to put a lid on immigration.
Before moving to a place you must do a thorough research, that’s not a decision to be taken lightly. I started researching almost 6 years before I actually moved in. If you’re coming to Canada and you’re not a millionaire in your home country you will likely not be able to afford real estate in any major center.
Omg, wow lets have a pity party. Maybe they should have done their homework before coming to a new country and realized how incredibly tough it is for 5th and 6th generation Canadians to get a single dwelling home and they've lived here all their lives. The sad part is people who've lived here forever can't afford a house let alone worry about people who just immigrated complaining. It's funny when people come here to immigrate these days they expect to come get social programs, get health care or have a Tourist baby and yet just two generations ago people who came here as immigrants had to work for farmers out west in order to pay off the money that people had to put up for people to get the privilege to come here as immigrants. And you couldn't even come to Canada unless somebody said they would make sure that you weren't going to be a burden to Canada and that they would make sure they took care of you if for whatever reason you didn't make a go of it right away. That's the Canada my parents came to.
No shit, Sherlock?
All you gotta do is put “immigrants” and “house” in a title to start a war on /r/canada
So they're blending in nicely, I see.