By Pepper Parr
July 13th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
We ran a short piece on comments ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman made on some polling data that had been released to the public. There is a link to articles on that polling data below.
Sharman said: “The irony is that the stop the expansion, stop development sprawl, save the farms, folks would have caused the future density to have been even greater than the province regulations anticipated. Irrespective, massive density and sky high home prices are exactly related to people living longer, low child birth rates, leading to economic collapse without significant immigration increasing and therefore huge demand for new homes, homeless people, at a time when supply is low for whole number of reasons. Governments have not had an adequate future view in the past and now we are paying the price.”
Graham, a frequent commentator on articles we publish responded with:
Sharman really drinks the Koolaid on “Economic Collapse” without massive immigration. Japan has resisted too much immigration for decades and focused on things like automation to replace many jobs requiring humans.
In the 1980’s I spent a lot of time there seeing things like factories that had Robots making Robots.That was 40 years ago!!!!
Sharman wasn’t prepared to let a comment like that stand and responded with:
Paul Sharman commenting at city council.
“Re economic collapse, is a matter of time, clearly not any time soon. But with lack of planning for the future, looking at the 2024 population pyramid, what you see is a banana which becomes worse as the population ages. Older people, surprisingly, do not have children and we now see the resulting reduction in child births:
“United Nations data explains:
-
-
- The current birth rate for Canada in 2024 is 10.006 births per 1000 people, a 0.66% decline from 2023.
- The birth rate for Canada in 2023 was 10.072 births per 1000 people, a 0.75% decline from 2022.
- The birth rate for Canada in 2022 was 10.148 births per 1000 people, a 0.74% decline from 2021.
- The birth rate for Canada in 2021 was 10.224 births per 1000 people, a 0.74% decline from 2020.
-
“This is no cool aid, simple facts and data, not scare tactics and no cool aid. Simply, we are aging out and as you project the numbers, the potential outcome is completely understandable. Question, without immigration, where will the babies come from? Asking Canadian women in childbearing years to volunteer to have 10 babies each going forward may not get a positive response…….”
In Burlington members of Council rarely respond to what their constituents have to say. Kudos to Sharman for being prepared to mix it up a little. Governing is a process that requires the elected and the electors have to engage each other.
Hopefully Graham will add his surname to what we know about him.
Related news stories:
Here, here Caren, how many middle-class Canadians borne here can afford to raise a family. The politicians and media avoid mentioning this elephant in the room like the plague.
Graham is mentioning Japan because in the eighties the Japanese were the gold standard for manufacturing and what is referred to as today’s work-life balance, as a technician in Canada at the time, along with hundreds more we were tasked with upgrading production facilities in regards to automation and emission reductions using the latest technologies available at the time, the costs and effort for such progress were enormous but the budgets kept being approved, in my case by American-owned corporations, we were told that this was just the initial phase, as robotics would be the ultimate goal, it was explained that machines would take over the mundane tasks in a lights-out clean environment where the large corporations would outspend competition and dominate the industry; the task facing governments would be a trialling of a basic income and a future, some would call the ‘Star Trek’ economy; the nineties saw an end to such dreams with the shift in production to Asia, corporations tend to swim in schools just like fish and one by one they left.
Technicians spent the 90s dumbing down ‘human-machine interfaces’ as replacement electronic parts were too expensive, funnily, today I can build and program HMI systems for a fraction of the cost using parts from Amazon, a skill left mainly to hobbyists to enjoy; looking at housing in isolation is a dysfunction that occupies bureaucrats and experts in endless rounds of studies, charts and blame while picking through the dwindling wealth of previous generations.
““Re economic collapse, is a matter of time, clearly not any time soon. ” The WEF also have a take on this prognostication.
https://www.weforum.org/publications/chief-economists-outlook-may-2024/
Interesting that the WEF even has a growth outlook, and its outlook is not dissimilar to any other economic outlook regarding growth; I would have thought the WEF’s goal would be sustainability, can you have both? I did wonder why corporations flocked to Davos.
Perhaps instead of saying Kudos to the Councillor, you might have asked why he & the other Councillors RARELY respond to what their constituents have to say, (as you pointed out yourself!), on important matters like taxes, homelessness, the stupid waste of taxpayer money on non essential items like the Civic Square.
Right Charlie, Paul Sharman is where he is off the backs of Mulkewich and Boich and the public accepted need for our Engagement Charter. A charter he repeatedly sets aside and is now supporting be changed. He also chaired the 2019 meeting and guided newbie members of council to set aside the previously democratically elected Council budget decision to fix the Civic Square safety hazards and comply with access legislation – cost then 1 Mill near enough. Bentivegna opposed the move but now repeatedly blesses what occurred with his vote – all 7 of them should be toast on this issue alone. Cost in 2026 to end the legislation non-compliance 7.6 million due to the 2019 CAO bowing to the will of this Council who hired him after MMW met him for coffee.
What an expensive cup of coffee that turned out to be for residents while the old CAO laughed and still does all the way to the bank. Will the new CAO and his Commissioner of legal services, or whatever his title is now, bow to the will of our strong Mayor and her merry band of self confessed non-decision makers/ followers or do the right thing as he is obliged to do. Tune in on Tuesday to find out. Not a meeting to miss!!!!
The decline in Birth rates in Canada can also be related to our out of control Cost of Living since the pandemic. Few people in their Child Bearing years can afford to raise a family or buy a home.
I notice that the Stats that Paul Sharman has provided only go back to 2020 when the costs of everything went up.
And the massive immigration numbers in Canada the last few years, also has a financial impact.