Debate is at https://www.ndp.ca/debate
More info on debate and candidates:
- https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ndp-leadership-candidates-debate-preview-9.7096023
- https://www.cp24.com/news/canada/2026/02/19/ndp-leadership-candidates-face-off-aim-for-breakaway-in-key-debate/
Candidate sites:
- Heather McPherson - https://www.heathermcpherson.ca/
- Avi Lewis https://lewisforleader.ca/
- Tanille Johnston - https://www.tanille.ca/
- Rob Ashton - https://robashton.ca/
- Tony McQuail - https://tonymcquailgreenprogressive.ca/
But the Canadian population grew from 14M to 23M between 1950 and 1975, and inflation-adjusted avg income (in 1995 $) more than doubled from 8.6K to 20K in the same period. Why do you think the increase in population did not degrade wages in that period?
Well a productive immigrant raises living standards. Tim Hortons workers who bring their elderly family lowers living standards. Easily observed by how most countries are selective on immigration, and try to limit bringing in the elderly population onto social security.
Well productivity is just GDP produced per hour per worker. An individual workers can’t change productivity significantly. Productivity can only be changed in any significant manner by capital investment. A worker from 150 years ago can never produce as much garments as worker today with the current sowing machines. The sowing machines make the current worker significantly more productive than the one 150 years ago. That sowing machine is the capital investment that makes the modern worker more productive than the old timer. Productivity is different across sectors but that’s a sectoral difference which is also unaffected by individual workers. A Tim Hortons worker would always be less productive than a plumber or a machinist, regardless of who a particular Tim Hortons worker is.
An immigrant Tim Hortons worker bringing their elderly parents would put extra strain on OAS but it wouldn’t have any material difference on Tim Hortons wages if the have the exact same workers’ rights as a Canadian, would it?
A key point here is that the economy doesn’t stay static when new people enter the workforce. Whether it’s Canadian kids or immigrants, new entrants present both extra labour as well as extra demand for goods. As long as there’s natural resources to produce the extra goods demanded by the new entrants and labour to transform those natural resources into the goods demanded, the economy expands. That’s literally how the economy grows - more hands turn more natural resources into more physical things.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/10/canada-and-australia-collapse-into-productivity-sinkhole/
This was based on a report by the banks that argues it leads to less productivity investment by company.
Here’s a far larger presentation with a lot more data about how mass immigration depressed wages and capital investment:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bOXgOLCm54A
I’m not arguing that in the current environment, with TFW cheap labour, etc. immigration has’t had neg effect on productivity, wages, etc.
But that doesn’t answer the question of why things were different in the 1950-75 period. The analysis says we can accept immigration at 0.85% per year at the moment to keep prod stable. In the 2015-2025 period population grew by 1.1% per year. Yet in the 1950-75 period, pop grew by 2.3% per year, prod grew and real wages more than doubled. Something must have been different back then to produce such stark results. What was it?
On a related note, do you believe that growing productivity causes growth in wages?
BTW, thank you for engaging in good faith. I’m doing the same whether we agree or not. 😊
Probably because of the extreme inflation, as it was before we had inflation targeting. Something similar happened historically as to whats happening now, Nixon put Arthur Burns in charge of the Fed, because he was an extreme dove. We and the rest of the world then borrowed a ton at very low interest rates, then Volcker came along, and we inevitably had double digit interest rates and a 12% unemployment rate.
Labor takes a long time to absorb unless you are adding at a slow enough rate for the country to absorb. Infrastructure takes a long time to build, BC is now raising taxes on the lowest tax bracket to fund expansion, as Eby has begged the Feds to stop for years now.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/david-eby-s-views-on-migration-problems-shouldn-t-shock-anyone/ar-AA1MBRyM
Would you agree for there to be enough infrastructure they need to tax citizens to fund expansion, which then takes many years to build, and you are effectively paying it forward till those people can contribute themselves?