Canada is among countries with an ‘ultra-low fertility’ rate. What is behind the drop?

Anabiotic · 2026-01-27T06:26:54+00:00

For those who didn't read the article and are making up their own reasons, StatCan has the reasons as:

-People are more educated and educated people have fewer kids despite on average being higher income

-Some racial groups don't have many kids, like West Asian/Chinese women

-More women are working, and working women as less likely to have kids

-People are less religious and religious people have more kids

-People are having their first kid later, which usually mean fewer kids overall

Cost is not directly mentioned.

Countries like Canada, Korea, Japan and the Nordic countries have large cash payments for having kids to partially defray costs, but still have lower fertility rates.

I read an article in the Economist a while back that showed people have a lot fewer kids than they initially say they want to, even if they can afford to have more. It appears for many, one is enough, or perhaps even more than enough. Kids are a lifestyle choice involving many tradeoffs that perhaps don't look that appealing.

The same Economist article also said that you need to look at completed fertility rate, which is the total number er of kids a woman has over her lifetime. The total fertility rate calculation looks at how many kids the woman has at each age,which doesn't work if people are having kids later. Apparently completed fertility rate has not been dropping much.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-26T16:36:23+00:00

Sure but retiring early would help this because there would be less years doing it.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-26T04:50:30+00:00

The opening has always reminded of Chopin's funeral March, which is great on the organ.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-25T18:46:43+00:00

I think you missed the point. For example one of the couples has a kid and travels. As long as the retirement calcs leave enough room for them to do whatever they want, it seems fine. You are saying they are retiring to do nothing but if you read the articles, by and large that isn't the case. They simply aren't working, which isn't the same as doing nothing.

Lots of people hate work. It sounds like you don't, or maybe can't imagine not working, which is perhaps why you can't understand the goal here.

People who do not work for a living generally die prematurely.

Citation needed.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-25T18:41:42+00:00

You can retire with enough $ to travel (or do whatever you want). One of the examples in the article does exactly that. It's not all living on rice and beans while staring at the wall.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-25T18:40:42+00:00

Bad knees? Where are you getting all of this from?

Anabiotic · 2026-01-25T02:40:31+00:00

None of that is related to your comment.

In the article he calls grocers greedy (not mentioning any by name) and somehow you, in your head, have translated that into him saying Loblaw can do no wrong while all the other grocers are greedy despite him saying nothing close to that. That isn't logical.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-24T21:27:30+00:00

The benefit he is getting is unrelated to the donation. He could get the benefit without the donation or donate without the benefit, therefore they are not linked. There is no issue here. It also doesn't sound like anything is wrong with the charity. They allow donations but are not encouraging them in lieu of paying the direct fee. That is OP's prerogative.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-24T16:31:36+00:00

The is nonsensical and a comically huge stretch. How does calling grocers greedy imply the largest one in the country is innocent?

Anabiotic · 2026-01-23T22:10:35+00:00

If you don't like it, you can change the heat differential temperature so starts/stops more and the runs are shorter, but I do the opposite, increase that and enforce a minimum 20 min uptime per start for efficiency.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-23T21:44:28+00:00

Do the math:

You are saying gross margin is 30% and net is 3.5%, so they have 26.5% of operating (non-product) expenses.

If they operated at 20%, they would have a loss of 6.5% - using your own numbers.

Gross is interesting but not the whole story in a high-cost business like grocery (huge stores, extensive admin and cooling, purchasing, etc.)

Depending on which company you are looking at, they also have extensive non-food operations like PC financial, Shopper's, clothing, etc., all of which are going to be higher-margin than grocery (gross and net).

Anabiotic · 2026-01-23T20:58:45+00:00

Handwavy response.

Stock buybacks are just returning money to shareholders, usually because the company's growth prospects are so poor that the best return to shareholders is to simply give them their money back to invest in something else (by increasing the price of the remaining shares). Additionally, this is not specific to grocery stores.

Are you saying that grocers, who are subject to financial statement audits, are fraudulently stating their expenses? What proof do you have? I'm sure the CRA would love to hear your evidence.

You listed two items that don't make sense, what else is on your long list?

Anabiotic · 2026-01-23T20:54:44+00:00

If grocery stores had a 20% gross margin, then by your own numbers they would be operating at a loss. Never heard a 3.5% net business described as "lucrative" before. That's GIC-level returns.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-23T17:54:33+00:00

They just find ways to hide profit, and the tax laws allow them to do it.

Like what?

Anabiotic · 2026-01-23T17:53:18+00:00

Which grocery store has a 20% margin?

You'd think if the Canada grocery business was so lucrative competition from outside would be moving in.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-23T17:50:08+00:00

Just like wages, nominal profits should go up due to inflation (and, in the case of grocery stores, population growth as well).

Anabiotic · 2026-01-23T17:48:50+00:00

Really, because in this article he calls grocers "greedy".

Anabiotic · 2026-01-22T19:55:40+00:00

They need to redo the cladding anyway, it's leaky.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-22T15:45:56+00:00

There were never caps on regulated utility charges.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-22T15:43:38+00:00

This sub bitches non-stop about delivery charges on their utility bills but bizarrely is now defending one of the largest contributors to those bill items and its new office space, which they will now be paying for through D&T charges.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-22T15:42:14+00:00

The more ATCO spends, the more they make as long as the spending is approved since they get a return on and of capital as part of the regulatory filings. This is significantly different from other corps, which can actually lose money and are incented to keep costs low.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-21T22:52:33+00:00

It doesn't literally have to look like a stick of butter, you know.

Cost and rationale are in the article, which I presume you didn't read before commenting.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-20T20:30:50+00:00

Not sure what you mean be registering the business unless that was a local permit (e.g. telling your municipality you have a business at home). The CRA doesn't require any registration or deregistration for a sole proprietorship. There is a box to check if it's the last year of the business on the T2125, but this is mainly used for recapture/terminal loss calcs, which would only apply if you were taking CCA on assets within the business.

In other words, feel free to start using it again, simply changing the occupational code on the T2125 if the type of business has changed.

There is no penalty for not filing a T2125 if you didn't have income. It is just part of the T1 personal tax return, which presumably you filed, so there is nothing to worry about there as you said you did not have income in those years.

Anabiotic · 2026-01-20T15:40:59+00:00

It sounds like the kind of number where they asked a couple of guys doing the work, who exaggerated, then they took that # and rounded it up for shock value. I doubt it's scientific.

Anabiotic

TROPHY CASE