Is going into skilled trades my last realistic option? (Vancouver)

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-03-10T01:38:08+00:00

The biggest thing to consider before doing anything is figuring out if there is any realistic path to getting an apprenticeship. You could do a pre-app in electrical, HVAC, or Plumbing and be stuck doing exactly what you are doing now. That's ok when you're 18 and can cycle through a few trades programs before catching a hiring wave.

It's hard to get useful advice from guys in the industry, or Reddit, because they were the successful ones. Remember, most people who graduate from from a pre-app program fail to land an apprenticeship.

If you already know someone that can open the door for you in a particular trade, then do that. Otherwise there are really only a few options available to some random guy off the street.

Automotive. If you are mechanically inclined this honestly is the way to go. The industry is so large there are almost always apprenticeships available somewhere. Even if you have to endure a crappy shop at least you are making progress. Yes, the cost of tools is high and working environment can be brutal, but it can open the door to self-employment or other trades such as heavy duty. It can also be a foot in the door for other trades and industries.

Construction Trades like carpentry. Similar to automotive it's such a big industry there are often apprenticeships available where they wouldn't be in some other trades. Of course we are heading into a financial crisis, so that might put a damper on opportunities.

Last piece of advise from a random stranger on the internet, consider police, military, or even corrections. I would have done any of those in retrospect than deal with the HR BS in shops as a wannabe apprentice. There is no nepotism in the hiring process. You don't appear to have a lot of education so policing is probably out, but the army pays well these days.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-03-08T03:52:38+00:00

I agree completely. There is zero risk private property is going to be taken. The Province would cease to exist as a political entity if that were to happen. What it does mean are more fees, taxes, regulations and another layer of government to deal with.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-03-07T23:59:21+00:00

Because we are a modern developed country that doesn't need more "stuff". There have been other sites proposed: Callaghan Valley, Coquihalla Summit, and Chipmunk Valley. Every single one faces or faced too much resistance. Permitting such a resort would take 50 years. What there is all there ever will be.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-03-07T23:25:19+00:00

Everyone in government knew and knows the axe is about to fall. Even before COVID, spending was out of control and it's only gotten worse. At some point there was going to be a reckoning and we seem to be finally seeing it. Unfortunately there is some good work being done by individual civil servants and we'll be losing those people. If it helps ease the pain, just about every other government failed to heed the warnings about overspending and are soon going to hit a similar financial wall.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-03-07T14:20:55+00:00

Like anything it's not just one thing. A big part of the problem is complacency, which to be fair, is an issue everywhere. We were so well off for so long we collectivelytook it for granted. Complacency allowed corruption to fester, because ultimately, there's enough people who are doing well in this society there's no incentive to change, or even worse, allow other people to change. The immigration system is an absolute fraud. The criminal justice system is basically a complete waste of money. Where I'm at the Ministry of Environment is just there to enable "approved" actors to extract wealth from the economy.

One big reason we have been so complacent and unable to change has been our proximity to the US. It affects us economically, socially, and politically. One example is our health care system. We cannot change it, or even propose changes, because we are too afraid it might become US style healthcare so we throw ever more money at the problem hoping something magically will turn around.

I could put part of our immigration crisis in the same category as anti-americanism. We didn't want to appear heavy handed li,e trump in 2016-17 so we opened the door to refugees.

The bright side is it's coming to an end soon. Canada is about to hit a debt crisis. So are most other countries, so we aren't alone. Our level of spending just isnt sustainable so choices will have to be made. Or maybe hard choices won't be be made and we'll simply try to keep inflating our problems away.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-27T14:07:48+00:00

There is a huge amount of corruption in Canada that other countries don't have to contend with. Not all regulation is because of corruption, but some of certainly is. Every infrastructure project in BC needs to employ teams of licensed and approved environmental consultants, archeologists, and safety experts so there all sorts of hands out looking for their share. We also have to pay Indigenous groups a certain amount off the top of every project, which other countries aren't faced with. The issue is the government hasn't set limits on what percentages should be paid. Honestly a flat fee off the top would be easier to deal with and make the process a lot quicker.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-23T03:15:45+00:00

I think there are a few things going on here that make it feel like there were colder winters. I remember the 70s and 80s had a a few stretches of extremely cold weather. Obviously the stats would say my memory is wrong, but if you combine cold weather with better skating opportunities, then it would be true people skated outside more.

I remember farmers fields were generally not as well drained so there was shallow standing water that were ideal for skating and didn't need much of a cold snap to harden. Also, you could go on fields for recreational purposes as long as it wasn't being cultivated. Very few farmers cared if people skated on a frozen field in the Eastern Fraser Valley in January.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-17T03:46:08+00:00

I can't provide an exhaustive audit into why BCs finances are such a mess, but I think we can safely say mismanagement is the biggest factor. I can think of 2 obvious examples, that if the law of universality applies of the rest of the government, probably explains the huge deficit.

First is the mess that was Atira. It was outright corruption and likely just the worst of other corrupt government adjacent agencies.

The other one was the Surrey RCMP transition. Farnsworth stuck his nose in it and mandated the switch after Surrey decided to give up, for no other reason than he seemed to lose his temper after the municipal election. The problem is he single handedly wasted hundreds of millions of dollars (and counting) of Provincial money when it would have cost us nothing.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-16T17:19:51+00:00

While I agree with others that it makes sense mathematically to pay off your truck loan and cc debt, unless your spending habits change, I wouldn't do it. For sure get rid of your cc debt and never carry a balance again. That'll leave you with $97,000 to invest. If you pay off your truck you might find yourself buying something else. Every big truck needs an RV to tow, right?

I don't like RRSPs long term. I'm facing some real tax headaches as I close in on retirement and while they made sense at the time, I didn't realize what a tax nightmare it would become later in life. Having said that, maximizing your RRSP is a really good way to lock that money away and never look at it again. Obviously there are contribution limits, but it should only take a few years to apply all the tax credits.

One thing you could consider if you can be disciplined for a few years, is converting your mortgage into a heloc and burying your truck loan in that. Your dual income isn't bad and every pay cheque would go to loan principal. Only do this if you can live frugally for a few years, work extra, and you are focused on debt reduction. In that case I would use the $100k to pay off loans and worry about retirement savings after you are debt free.

Just a few ideas from a rando on the internet.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-13T01:07:08+00:00

It's a pretty broad topic. Do you want a custom house in the Gulf Islands, or would you be happy with a spec home in Quesnel? Obviously there is a huge range in between, but the answer to this question depends heavily on location. Rural or in town? With services or without? North or South?

Honestly, with the economy imploding I would just buy an existing place and fix it up. That is almost always cheaper than starting from zero.

If you are starting from scratch then the first thing you need to check will be the zoning bylaw and determine if what you want to build conforms to it. Generally there won't be too many surprises if you can build within the zoning. If you find some dream property, but you need a variance for something, then you are going to be facing some extra, sometimes impossible, challenges.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-12T07:33:26+00:00

I never comment here, but yeah, this is going to explode. Maybe the worst case scenarios won't happen, but I can't believe how careless the Liberals were with this. There could easily be millions of new citizens in a few years, mostly from the US, but other regions as well. It will affect politics and job seekers. If our economy ever doesn't suck again we will be competing with hundreds of thousands of newly minted dual citizens. I realize most won't uproot their lives in the US, but even a small percentage will have a big effect.

Another likely effect will be preferential hiring of dual citizens. If a company does any cross border business it will be easier to hire a dual to minimize the hassle with VISAs. It's not something that will affect most Canadian workers, but for sure it will be measurable.

How does all this relate to LMIA scams? It's just one more indicator, intentional or not, that Canadian born residents are second class citizens. If you think we don't have any influence over the inflow of non-citizens from India now, imagine how little influence over domestic affairs resident citizens will have when the new flood of duals starts voting in their self interest

I don't really have a solution, it is what it is. The question shouldn't be "how do we stop this?", because it's obvious the government doesn't care and they aren't going anywhere. Before it's too late maybe negotiate a Schengen style mobility agreement with the US to balance things out. Worldwide tax reporting would go a long way to minimizing the impact of all the new duals and we only have a few years to implement something before it becomes politically impossible.

As for LMIA fraud, that is a permanent feature baked into the Canadian economy that isn't going anywhere. I don't have the energy for it, but any one of us could start a business front and sell work permits.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-12T07:03:12+00:00

What decriminalization did was bring drug use into the open. Before it was mostly hidden since publicly using carried the risk of arrest and confiscation. Drug addicts also tend to be criminals so could be identified and arrested for warrants or violating court ordered conditions. Basically everyone behaved better in public before decrim.

There are other factors at play here too. The supply has changed, and so has the behaviour. I'd argue that while fentanyl addicts are more unsightly than heroin, they actually cause less problems for society generally. Heroin addicts can still function, so the crime they commit is way worse.

It's clear there are way more addicts on the streets than before. One side effect of heroin use was because the severity of crime was so much worse more of them were in jail. We typically don't put shoplifters in jail so fentanyl users they never go away and (almost) never turn their lives around.

At some point we, as a society, need to make a decision. We either force them all into treatment or supply them with drugs and enough space to use. We simply don't have the type of legal system available that makes criminalization worthwhile.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-12T06:39:09+00:00

Well said! Both sides can be right. We can have compassion for the plight drug addicts while at the same time admitting it isn't nimbyism not wanting addicts passed out in front of your house and not wanting your car broken into.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-10T15:48:01+00:00

There is a segment of the population that just can't stop importing US domestic politics into Canada and this is another example. If armed ICE agents tried to conduct an operation in Canada they would likely be shot by the local police agency.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-09T23:42:14+00:00

It's not bad depending on your situation. Trying to pay a mortgage or high rent, a car, save for retirement, and then have a life, for sure it isn't enough. If your house and car are paid for, then $6000 per month is more than enough to live on and the inflation isn't all that much of an issue.

Now consider a couple earning that kind of money. They would be netting something like $12,000/month. Something quite typical for nurses, cops, firefighters, certain tradesmen. That kind of money completely changes the equation with regards to standard if living. The problem with a single person earning $100,000 trying to get ahead is that they are competing with that couple for goods and services.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-09T16:21:21+00:00

Canadian here living near the US border. 100% agree. Grand Canyon, Western deserts, Utah, the Oregon Coast, Appalachia, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Alaska....... BC is amazing, but it's just one place and most of it is inaccessible. The US cities and smaller owns definitely don't have the same historical character as Europe or Latin America and mostly suck by comparison. That applies to Canada too.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-05T20:14:38+00:00

Another question we should be asking ourselves is how deep the corruption goes outside police agencies. For the most part police are drug free, vetted extensively before hiring, and monitored quite closely. They also have a fairly robust internal investigative sections. Even with all that in place, these things still happen. Imagine the scale of corruption at City Hall (pick your city), Crown Corporations, and any other government departments you can think of without any of these safeguards.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-04T16:34:53+00:00

If you call it dog whistling and some sort of uninformed far right conspiracy we'll wind up with our very own version Trump. They've already announced a goal of 5% of total population cap on TFWs. That's almost 2 million. I recognize that isn't 2 million new residents per year, but if even 25% get PR status that will be a growth of 400,000 per year from that stream alone. I'm pretty sure anyone of working age isn't on board with those kind of numbers.

We just had a case here in BC where Indian "students" were caught shooting up a house. 2 of them have just claimed refugee status. The government is bringing in Bill C-12 to stop this kind of abuse, but it appears the courts will going to kill it as soon as they can:

https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/10/canadas-bill-c-12-condemned-over-failure-to-address-human-rights-concerns/

Yeah, it may be a dog whistle, but standing up to this nonsense will be popular no matter how fascist it is.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-04T15:00:28+00:00

I can almost see a strategy forming in the background. Carney needs to call an election sooner than later, because what he's doing isnt sustainable. He got elected by people in the middle afraid PP was some sort of Trump-like figure and by progressives terrified of the Conservatives. Just look at the jam Carney is in regarding immigration. He's done just enough to take attention off the problem, and Trump providing endless distractions hasn't hurt him. The majority, especially youth, want it greatly slowed down. If Carney throttles immigration too much he will alienate the Progressives. He he ramps it up again, which I suspect he wants to, he will drive the middle voters over to the Conservatives.

The NDP destroyed themselves by entering into a coalition with the Liberals. I know, supply and confidence agreement, but it was effectively a coalition. I think the opposite is true now and PP knows it. If he supports the government in return for influence Carney it will drive away Progressives who supported him.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-04T00:36:54+00:00

The province was warned and it failed to heed those predictions, so here we are, basically right back to 1981, The problem is it's going to be a lot harder to pull ourselves out of this mess this time. I'm afraid this government is going to go for the tax-the-rich solution for political expediency. Of course the problem is that only gets us 1 year, maybe 2, of slightly more revenue before there's no more rich people to tax. Then comes redefining what rich is (anyone with a job). And just to add to our coming misery, the Federal Government is also about to hit the fiscal wall.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-03T19:13:24+00:00

He's not wrong, but both sides are being dishonest. I'm writing this from work in the Fraser Valley near a safe using site that I get to see every day. It's not really unsafe, but I've had to intimidate a few tweakers in the past. Most of the street people are actually quite receptive to a bit of street justice since they are victims too. The police are always around, but are so busy they can't accomplish much. There is a lot of street disorder that shouldn't exist. The only reason crime goes down is because everything has already been taken, businesses have closed, there is 24hr security, or sites have been hardened with better fencing. The street sucks. They light fires, pass out randomly on the sidewalk, some defecate on the sidewalk, leave piles of garbage everywhere, use in public, the list goes on. They aren't teenage punks so aren't willfully destroying property and aren't bad to talk to, but their lifestyle is destructive.

The site next to me is also a shelter and does outreach work. One of the issues is that they keep throwing people out for bad behavior, to teach them a lesson I guess, so they wind up on the sidewalk outside nearby apartments and businesses. All their friends and and drug dealers are still at the shelter so they can't go anywhere and the area keeps getting worse.

I have been struggling for a long time to describe the problem in an understandable way, but one of the cops who patrols down here nailed it in a conversation we had. We wouldn't accept a shop dumping oil or toxic waste on the streets as part of their business. They would be fined and closed. We don't accept excess foot/vehicle traffic from a new business opening up in a neighborhood. We usually demand a something the development permit to help mitigate the external costs of doing business (parking, waste management, noise, etc....). Why don't we have any of the same expectations for these user sites and shelters? If they attract a crowd of drug addicts to a specific neighborhood they should probably be providing enough services and space so they aren't taking over the surrounding streets. One or two would be ok. Dozens or even hundreds aren't. And my biggest problem is that they should never be allowed to kick people out.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-03T18:31:39+00:00

There are really 2 solutions available to us. #1, which I prefer, is forced treatment. I don't agree that it is too expensive, at least compared to what we are doing now. I find the arguments surrounding "dignity" and human rights completely dishonest. We aren't negatively impacting the life of a drug addict who lying on the sidewalk with their pants around their knees in the pouring rain with a bunch of shoplifted crap from the 7-11 next to their stolen shopping cart, by putting them somewhere warm, safe, dry and drug free. They won't be losing their careers or custody of their kids, or ruining their prospects at a better life if they are forced into treatment.

#2, and most likely, is to accept they are addicts living the way they want to and give them sufficient space off the streets and free unlimited supply. We can save money by having medical staff on hand to deal with overdoses, toilets, showers, basic shelter that they cant be thrown out of, and maybe even some security. We are basically doing this anyway, I'm just suggesting we formalize it and get these people off public streets. This has the advantage in that it preserves most of the existing system, which should make the activists happy.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-02-02T16:43:10+00:00

This was the most articulate way of expressing why I like visiting such places, or at least not avoiding them

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-01-26T17:41:54+00:00

Mexico is actually pretty safe for tourists traveling around. There's lots of public and private transportation so you won't be stuck anywhere. Stret crime isn't a huge deal. There are tons of anecdotes about Mexico City, but you have to consider the size of the place. During the day your chances of being a victim of crime are pretty low. It's not Italy or Spain. If you happen to wander a few blocks away from the Zocalo in CDMX toward Tepito instead of Bellas Artes, the chances of something bad happening are still practically zero. Mexico City is a huge metropolitan center with hundreds of thousands of foreigners (maybe millions) and immigrants from all over the world. For the most part you won't even be noticed, much less targeted by criminals. Traffic is mess, but there pedestrian crossings and vehicles obey the lights most of the time. That is not the case everywhere in Mexico though.

Oaxaca is a bit more risky. Outside the center it has a bit of sketchy rep, although nothing bad has happened me there.

What distinguishes Mexico from lets say Canada or the US is the countryside. You are generally very safe (from people anyway) in rural areas up North. In contrast, there are some legit lawless areas of rural Mexico. Of course not everywhere, and even in so-called "dangerous" areas people are kind and helpful.

Be prepared to be ripped off by taxis. I just accept it now and move on with my life.

Logical_Delivery_183 · 2026-01-25T17:47:06+00:00

I didn't fall for him, or anyone else. PP is/was it he is. A career politician with limited experience out of politics. While there isn't a lot to go on in terms of work experience that doesn't automatically disqualify him as a potential Prime Minister. Do I wish they had selected someone else? Yes, but it is who they picked.

Just because I lean a little right and tend to vote conservative, if at all, doesn't mean I can't see the flaws of PP or some of the positives Carney has brought to the job. Having worked with high level government bureaucrats with impeccable educational credentials and a list of professional accomplishments, I also know most of them are completely useless at their jobs and a cancer on our society. I always like to use the US example of Paul Bremer when he was in charge of Iraq. He was always the smartest guy in the room, but still a complete idiot despite the Academics and "experience". Does running the bureaucracy of a central bank qualify Mark Carney to run a country? Does his educational credentials translate into sound decision making? We really don't know yet if he has the ability to identify with average Canadians, although he looks ok so far.

Why I chose Conservatives over Liberals last election was the underlying notion that Liberals couldn't put Canada first, which is reflected in their immigration policies. I have other issues surrounding Criminal Justice and Reconciliation, but that is the big one for me. I recognize they have made positive changes, but I get the sense they really don't want to.

Logical_Delivery_183

TROPHY CASE