this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 57 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Had privatization ever worked out? Like, ever?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I was talking to someone about this very same postal issue, and his example was DHL. "Privatization turned them around! They're now an international company!!!"

Why the fuck does canada post need to be competing internationally? Just deliver the mail and have a gov't presence in small towns to provide other services.

Just spend the money to service canadians... It doesnt have to be profitable nor an international competitor

Also, DHL sucks...

Had privatization ever worked out? Like, ever?

Yes. It works out really nicely for our oligarchs.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I was trying to think of a single example where it made the service better and I legitimately can't?

[–] Glide 29 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Because it is never the service that privatization seeks to make better. Private corporations make more money. That is the only target metric.

[–] Kichae 16 points 6 days ago

Yeah. The rich go from funding it as a service, via their taxes, to making income off of it, via dividends. Everybody wins!

So long as you're only counting the rich.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Depending on the market, providing better service is what makes you more money, and a malaise creeps in about management not caring about that anymore when government ran. Besides, all my packages come by Purolater now, a private company owned by Canada Post that doesn't seem to go on strike. They literally own their own competition and it's profitable.

[–] Glide 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

So, the capitalist brainrot belief is that Adam Smith's invisible hand is going to make sure that money only goes to the people who deserve it, because people obviously will buy the best product at the cheapest prices and everyone else deserves to be pushed out of the market unless they do better.

Except we have consistant evidence that that isn't true. The raw existence of marketing and advertising completely undermines the core concept of what is supposed to make private business good. "We'll just make sure we're the name people know and appeal to their cultural wants" is a complete subversion of how businesses are supposed to function. And then there's the reality that once businesses have reliabily built themselves into the cultural needs of people, they don't need to care anymore: see the process of enshitification in the mass of new business concepts - streaming services, 2nd party food deliver apps, etc. - and this becomes obviously true.

On paper, providing a better service should result in higher income. In reality, there are a million manipulatable factors to undermine this concept, and as we continue to argue that wealth is an inherent virtue, we'll continue to give perceived moral superiority to the private businesses that will pull the plug on your grandmother's life support if it will save them a dollar. Fuck that. The more services we can keep our of the hands of greedy CEOs and venture capitalists, the closer we are to a genuinely just world.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This is a very long winded way to admit the existence of gullible and foolish people

[–] Glide 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So "gullible and foolish people" deserve to be abused by corporate interests? We aren't supposed to build a world that benefits everyone, regardless of how "gullible and foolish" they are?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Dumbasses deserve what they get.

[–] Glide 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Corporations should be allowed to lie and abuse people who aren't knowledgeable or practiced enough to avoid it, because they deserve it?THAT'S your take?

You know, I knew I recognized that name from somewhere. You're that one who was trolling around here pre-election spreading misinformation that I got into an argument about over your completely insane perspective on the Liberals destroying Canadian identity. I'm glad I get to share a message with you post election, so I can point, proudly, to the way Canada happily rallied together under a Liberal banner, sporting a national togetherness that we certainly haven't seen since the selfish, Conservative nutjobs started doing their damnedest to sow division and tear us apart to their benefit before and through the Covid era. I'm not shocked that, in the brief 5 minutes I gave your account to figure out why I recall your name, I saw a majority of your posts filled with vitriol and hatred, while you continuously deny objective reality and dismiss everyone who disagrees with you as being intellectually stunted. Losing the election and watching Canadian's rally together must really be shaking your world view, and since the only real responses are to adapt and grow, or lash out and blame the world, it really is no wonder you're here, spreading hate.

Your completely ethically bankrupt and sociopathic take on the topic at hand here doesn't even deserve a response, but I'm giving you one for the satisfaction of myself and everyone who works to make this world a better place while people with your perspective justify abusive practices and beliefs: fuck you. You should be embarrassed just thinking it, let alone typing it out. Get off social media, stop treating the people you interact with like garbage - if your posts here are any indication of how you speak to people, you are a truly reprehensible piece of shit - get out of your hate-filled bubble, and at least try to experience the world from a perspective other than the one that bred this abhorrent, inexcusable take. Or, just fuck off.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

"Misinformation" doesn't mean things that you don't like to hear, people of your pathetic ilk have ruined the place.

[–] Glide 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ruined the place for people like you, maybe. An act I can be quite proud of.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

450,000 thousand immigrants this year, 2 or three million the last 5. You're gonna learn what being this fucking stupid means over the next decade, probably have already, but pride and propaganda and such makes it hard for people who don't understand the sunk cost fallacy to change course.

[–] Glide 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

pride and propaganda and such makes it hard for people who don't understand the sunk cost fallacy to change course.

I mean, I know conservatism is nothing but a series of projections, but this is just impressive. I really don't think I could have said it better myself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

A person honest with themselves would notice that over the last 45 years, it's been under Liberal leadership when the real disasters in governance occur. Worst thing the Conservatives ever did was the switch to the GST, meanwhile the Liberals have literally bankrupted generations.

[–] Glide 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

It just makes me sad that you seem to believe the things you say.

C'mon man, we've been through this song and dance. You are perpetuating lies that have been fed to you by people who realized that it's easier to stoke fear than build unity. Just because you believe it doesn't mean it is anything but misinformation.

I know I tore into you earlier, but watching you continue to lick the boots of the people who are hurting you is just sad.

[–] sugarfoot00 3 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Privatization of liquor in Alberta has worked out amazingly well. Booze is cheaper and there's a liquor store every 100 meters, some open well past midnight. It's an alcoholic's dream.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I mean to an alcoholic in the small scale it sounds like it's working out great.

But Canada's recently done a study that shows the taxation gained from alcohol consumption is far less than the deleterious societal costs.

Effectively the government loses money on every bottle it taxes.

edit: This is known as Canada's alcohol deficit. It was first studied in 2014 which showed a taxation intake of ~11 Billion while the social costs were estimated to be ~15B resulting in a deficit of about ~4B. believe the 2020 study showed the alcohol deficit is up to ~6B a year now. I'm lazy, but here's one link for those who'd like to know more:

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/reports-publications/health-promotion-chronic-disease-prevention-canada-research-policy-practice/vol-40-no-5-6-2020/alcohol-deficit-canadian-government-revenue-societal-costs.html

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

TIL Alberta had state run liquor stores. I'll have to read about those when I get home.

[–] kent_eh 2 points 4 days ago

TIL Alberta had state run liquor stores.

At one point every province did.

[–] TheBloodFarts 3 points 5 days ago

Beer in Alberta is far more expensive than in any other province

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Same with auto insurance, if you're a responsible driver. I've lived in BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan among other places the last 25 years, and Alberta is consistently far cheaper for auto insurance, if you shop around. A lot of people close to the AB border on the sask side do a little light fraud and pretend to live at their brothers house in alberta

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think Quebec has (or at one time had?) the lowest because you're not required to have collision insurance. You can have just liability, but if your car is a piece of shit you're not required to insure it for repair should an accident occur. I could be wrong, and I'd love to know if I am.

[–] Revan343 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

you're not required to have collision insurance. You can have just liability, but if your car is a piece of shit you're not required to insure it for repair should an accident occur

Are there places where this isn't the case?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

In my city you are required to have both liability and collision even if the car is worth a dollar. That is true across all of Canada to my knowledge, with the exception of Quebec.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Absolutely false. You're not required to have collision on your own vehicle anywhere as far as I know. Collision on the other vehicle falls under liability, unless of course you haven't paid your vehicle off yet, but even then, that's a requirement of the bank, not the insurer. I don't know every provinces laws perfectly, but I do know cities don't determine insurance law.

[–] Revan343 1 points 4 days ago

In my city you are required to have both liability and collision even if the car is worth a dollar.

I'd be curious what city, but obviously you don't have to answer that.

That is true across all of Canada to my knowledge, with the exception of Quebec.

Then you would be misinformed, because collision coverage is certainly not mandatory in Alberta, and I doubt it's mandatory anywhere

[–] LostWon 7 points 6 days ago

It works for politicians who do the usual sleight-of-hand around "fiscal responsibility," and for the eventual shareholders.

[–] BlameThePeacock 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There are some examples in places like Russia where things like the privatization of the food system has led to more options for citizens, but it was a rough transition and much of the privatization just ended up in more corrupt systems.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

@BlameThePeacock @shani66 To add to this. The privitization of the Dutch energy market did drive down costs for the consumers.

It worked.

Untill the war in Ukraine. That wiped out any consumer gains and then some as we got hit with the full force of the exploded gasprices.