Higher interest rates are impacting Canadians in every corner of life. Food costs… mortgages… fuel… they all domino and collapse together. The lack of urgency is directly hurting the vulnerable portion of our society. There’s no easy fix. Drop interest rates too fast and you risk pushing inflation back up… don’t drop interest rates fast enough and you risk pushing a significant portion of the population into bankruptcy or homelessness (not just home owners… also renters who are forced to absorb that same interest rate hike in the form of higher rents). Within my circle of friends. several have been forced to close businesses because of the impact of the rapid increase in interest rates. It’s not the base rate itself, so much as the speed with which it was increased which was faster than their businesses could absorb.

As for mortgage renewals themselves… the insanity of the Canadian system of the typical 5-year renewable mortgages is just plain vanilla stupid. It makes everyone incredibly susceptible to microeconomics instead of averaging out the risk on a macro scale like most other countries do.

No urgency

Meanwhile people are facing financial struggles with stupid high food prices and out of budget mortgage renewals.

Let them eat cake…

The whole “run a business” thing is bonkers. No wonder so many family doctors give up and go do something else.

With that change in the CBC article that you linked… there’s hope. My family doctor told us that she’s going to retire this year… hopefully there’s a replacement or 10 at the clinic so people can start getting that initial care they need and relieve the pressure on the ER :-(

I’m in BC, and technically have a family doctor… and it sucks. My doctor is only seeing patients a couple of days per week, so appointments are currently booking out around 4 months. There’s ONE walk-in clinic where I live (Nanaimo), and they take a limited number of patients per day - they put out signs on a Saturday morning like “Only accepting 10 patients today” (I have a photo of this one to prove it). TThe ER is backup up so bad, you could die before they even triage you (18h or longer wait is normal). The staff at the Critical Care unit in the neighboring Parksville yells at you and tells you to go back to Nanaimo (it’s happened to both my wife and I at different times… and we both actually needed medical care). We’ve ended up driving to Port Alberni or Courtenay for medical care… or in my case, I’m travelling for business and have booked a doctor visit in another damn country to get some checkup work done because I can’t get it done locally… OK, I can get it, but the local wait times are so fucking long that I can book a flight, fly overseas and see a doctor, get my results and be back home a month before I’d even start the process with my family doctor.

Talkign with the parents at the local school… many are afraid that their kids will catch something… and thehy won’t be able to see a doctor to get the help they need

So yeah… there’s widespread frustration :-P

You could spend all day without seeing a comment by a real human.

Have you been playing on Reddit again?

Well… to be fair, I lived a good life from my mid-20s to my mid-40s. I traveled the world. I have worked in various parts of North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. I’ve done a solo motorcycle trip from Nairobi to Cape Town… just as one example. The problem is… while I had money during these years, I didn’t save much. What I did save was used up in the in-between-jobs times after I was laid off… and this happened more than once over the years. Before I got married, I had a plan to retire at 50, and I was actually well on my way to achieving it. Then life happened… and kids arrived… and money disappeared faster than it came in.

Now that retirement is closer… and I’m thinking about it, the reality of it not happening. I look at the stupidly broken medical system in Canada… and think “shit, I’m screwed”. I can’t see a doctor for example… just to do some preventative body maintenance and checkups. The local walk-in medical clinics are overwhelmed. I have a family doctor, but she’s retiring this year… and she’s currently booking in-person appointments 3 to 4 months out and every day the gap for appointment availability gets bigger. The only other option is the ER… and if you show up at the ER saying “I am almost 55, I need a physical just to check on things” they show you the door and say “come back when you’re sick”. I’m literally booking a flight to Europe to go see a doctor for a checkup.

So yeah… wheeee…

Can I join your club? I’m in my 50s. I have worked since I was 14 years old… full time since I was 17. I worked most of my adult life outside of Canada, so I do have some state pension saved up outside of Canada, but it’s nowhere near enough to live on in Canada. I moved back to Canada a few years ago with a “seemed like a good idea at the time” decision. In total, I have worked less than 10 years of my life in Canada… so my CPP is basically zero. I look at what Canada has to offer me and think… what the hell am I doing here? It’s fucking expensive to live here… I have nothing to retire on… and only homelessness ad starvation to look forward to.

So… while I’m still employable, fit, and healthy, I’m planning on getting back out… this year actually if all goes to plan.

Every Value Village I’ve been to is either over priced or just picked over junk. There’s never anything worth buying. The overpriced stuff is all originally from Walmart or one of the Dollar stores and always priced well over the new retail price.

The same thing happens at Once Upon a Child. Kids clothes are all George (Walmart brand) and price at least 2x new.

I’ve got this with my Canada Life coverage. I can get prescriptions at any pharmacy at 80%, but if I go to Costco pharmacy it’s 90% covered.

The US Regular Army (RA) was founded in 1775. State militias supported the RA through the various wars fought on what is now US soil (including the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812). In the Civil War, the RA was supported by volunteers and fought on the side that ultimately won. The Confederate Army was similar to the RA at the time. Currently, the RA has been absorbed into the US Army (including Army Reserve and National Guard).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_Army_(United_States) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Army

So… yes there was a federal military, but it was a different thing than the US Army is now. How that would play out if things went bonkers in 2025… who knows. There are a LOT of people around the world watching VERY closely though… and really hoping (not that confidently though) that sanity will prevail.

Yeah I see it (as a not American looking in from outside the country). Every time I visit the USA, the changes in things are more and more visible.

There’s probably not going to be a civil war.

So… there’s still a chance then…

Amazing isn’t it? There are people saying these insane things… and the audience is lapping it up. Agreeing. Begging for more.

I’m not American. I’m looking in with horror, confusion, and sadness.

This is what they are telling each other… technologically advanced mermaids are out to get you: https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1657868909716951041

It’s not any better in Alberta. :-(

In BC you can “play games” with the medical and go to smaller communities and find a Emergency Care Clinic that serves a smaller community.

Family doctors are impossible to get. There are more than a million people on the waiting lists.

To be fair, the government is making some progress on improving things. They’ve made changes to allow more doctors to be certified. They’ve pumped money into training programs (they pay a full salary and all tuition at university for some certifications). It’s not perfect but it is something.

Edit: fixed some words that got mangled on mobile

Nah you’re 100% welcome in Canada. We are glad you’re here.

Try Nanaimo. A city of over 100,000 people… there is ONE walk-in clinic in the city, and they are rarely open. You go there and it’s either closed or there is a sign on the door “Accepting 10 patients today”. So you go to the Nanaimo General ER and IF you’re lucky, you will be seen in about 8 to 10 hours.

Drink bottle water and consume plastic particles… drink tap water and get all the other contaminants (places I travel for work outside of Canada have highly contaminated and unsafe water… so water with bits of plastic are the lesser evil).

Yup. I really regret letting my EU number go when I moved (back) to Canada. My EU number was about 25 Eur per month (a few years ago) including international roaming calls and data in Canada.

I though naaah, I’ll get a local number because it makes sense right? No not really… 98% of the calls I get on my local Canadian number are scam calls (someone threatening me in Chinese with deportation over unpaid taxes etc.) so it’s not like I would have been inconveniencing anyone local calling me… most of the remaining 2% call me on WhatsApp or Signal…

Double-check that you have Nvidia Prime configured/selected. It’s been a while since I’ve used Mint, but… try this…

1. Open the App menu (bottom left, same as in Windows)
2. Type "nvidia’ and this should show you the NVIDIA X Server Settings app. Click on it to launch.
3. Double-check that you see all the drive info, including the driver version. Close out the app of all looks “right”.
4. In the Mint system tray (lower right), click on the Nvidia icon (if you don’t see it, open the app menu, type “startup” and make sure “Support for NVIDIA Prime” is enabled) 5. Set the profile to “Active profile” (it’s hard on battery life in this mode). This forces everything to run on the Nvidia card only…
5. Test your games. Do they work better? If yes, you’ve found the root cause of the performance issue… if not… Hmmm, I’m not sure, then it’s time to try other things.

My experience with this is that Nvidia Prime was not being enabled/selected when I was trying to game. If this (forcing everything to launch on Prime) works and your games are working at a more acceptable performance level, you can leave it in “Active profile” at the expense of battery life… or you can set up the On-Demand profile… or explicitly switch between Intel and Nvidia, using Intel for all non-gaming things and pop it into Nvidia when you want to game… lots of possibilities depending on how you want to use the computer. :-)

BTW, an alternative to the systray method is simply setting the profiles right within the NVIDIA X Server Settings app (the last menu item on the left nav menu within the NVIDIA app). I just find that the systray icon is a quick/easy way, and it’s worth knowing about.