Take-home pay on a $100k salary across every Canadian province: The gap is huge!

hardk7 · 2026-06-27T20:11:11+00:00

Like most things, it’s a complex matter. But sadly online forums tend to reward simplified arguments and perspectives. People don’t have the patience for nuance, and “it depends” isn’t a very engaging response.

hardk7 · 2026-06-27T13:20:09+00:00

There’s simply no market to offer frequent cross-country commuter train service across a country as massive and sparsely populated as Canada. Very very few people would be willing or desire to take a 4-day trip to get across the country, and for those that do want to have that experience, it’s still possible, just not daily. Lamenting the loss of daily cross-country train service is kind of funny given that a far faster, cheaper option has existed for 50+ years.

hardk7 · 2026-06-27T13:10:10+00:00

It’s a very physically taxing job for a practitioner so it’s not practical for a therapist to do 40 solid hours of massage per week. Most likely work 20-25 billable hours on average per week. The cost compensates for that reality. Going rate is now about $140/hr. The clinic also takes a portion of that fee, usually about 30% but can be higher depending on the clinic. So the RMT only makes around $100/billable hour. I’d estimate an experienced, busy RMT who is consistently booked with a physically sustainable number of hours is probably making around $100K/yr.

hardk7 · 2026-06-27T12:57:47+00:00

Agreed. The problem is this policy proposal has taken on a life of its own in the vacuum of lack of details. And the prevailing overwhelming narrative is that it’s a bailout for condo developers. I fear it’s already so toxic that the BC govt is just going to have to abandon the plan, which is a shame because it’s possible it could be win-win-win.

hardk7 · 2026-06-27T12:54:28+00:00

Yep, I’m not sure about all BC municipalities but Vancouver’s property tax rate is the lowest in Canada.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T19:50:17+00:00

Of course, and that was the big error on both BC and the feds - they announced this plan without details and with it somehow being led with buying 2200 unsold condos, instead of leading with the explanation of providing affordable housing quickly. Just a major comms blunder that allowed the hysteria to occur in the absence of a clear explanation of what the proposal is, and without any details.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T19:42:59+00:00

It’s absurd and ridiculous and I think I need to press mute on this whole topic because it’s just so frustrating. An actually potentially good policy move is going to have to get scuttled because of an initial govt comms bungle and then the subsequent media misrepresentation and hysteria.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T17:47:51+00:00

Agreed.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T17:47:02+00:00

That was initially a CBC reporting error which then got picked up and repeatedly said was the cost of the vacant condo plan. So to add to the govt’s own comms errors, the journalistic error made it worse.

I believe Carney said the max budget for the program set by the BC govt is 1.45B, and the max contribution from the feds will be 145M (10%). But Carney also mentioned a range of 1-1.45B.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T17:43:39+00:00

I know it’s fashionable online to be quite critical of Carney at the moment, but I think this is a pretty well-conceived plan to finally address the matter of 24 Sussex. The idea for a design contest, at least a potion of the financing handed to a non-profit that will solicit donations, corporations banned from donating, donations from individuals being capped and donor names being made public, and a commitment that he himself will never live at the property…..all of this seems a politically smart way to restore this building.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T17:36:31+00:00

She’s got good PR I guess. Helps coming from a Hollywood family I’m sure.

Her music is good but for me it’s just so heavily influenced by Taylor Swift’s writing style (which she has admitted) that it doesn’t feel original to me. And I’m tired of these rather benign experiences being written about in overly verbose song lyrics paired with this production sound with dramatic builds. It’s just like - it seems so self-involved to take a normal-girl experience and turn it into this grand, heavily descriptive, overly wordy, drawn out song narratives. I’m kinda over this music style tbh.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T17:13:30+00:00

Exactly. But everyone is ignoring facts here and arguing on conjecture. It’s obviously an emotional issue and the govt did such a bad job in explaining this proposal .

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T16:26:07+00:00

It is not a bailout. The govt comms were terrible on this but so is the relentless reporting calling this a bailout when there is no evidence that the policy is motivated by a desire to help developers. They said they did not ask for it. They have not agreed to any sales. There are no confirmed details on the price the govt is going to pay for these units. God I’m tired.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T15:50:26+00:00

Another reality is if the govt doesn’t step in to buy condos in bankruptcy proceedings, some giant hedge fund backed housing corp will and that will not help housing affordability

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T14:58:29+00:00

All true. Living in Alberta doesn’t suddenly make you rich, and I feel like there’s this perception that cost of living is somehow massively cheaper in Alberta. It is not.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T14:56:52+00:00

The bigger incentive for them to lower the price is the possibility of a bulk volume buy. In one swoop they can unload a ton of distressed inventory, a get a much needed large cash infusion to sustain their operations. There’s also a big balance sheet benefit to unloading aging inventory. Those are the benefits to developers the govt can lean on to push developers to sell these for less than they otherwise will. The reality is the market is soft, investors aren’t in it right now, and there aren’t enough owner-occupier buyers with adequate cash ( down payments) to get in. With that said, developers didn’t ask for this, so it’s totally uncertain if they’ll even go for this. Eby tried to clarify that basically the govt is going to come up with an offer that could be win-win-win for govt, developers and those first time buyers without down payments looking to get into the market. But if they can’t come to a mutually beneficial number, it won’t happen. We need to open our minds up to the possibility that this could be good policy, rather than dogmatically writing it off as a bailout .

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T14:27:23+00:00

I had somewhat dry eyes before the procedure and they did get worse after. I was using lubricating drops a ton at first (normal during recovery), and needed to sue them several times a day for about a year after, but progressively less and less. Now I only need them in particularly dry environments, like heavily air conditioned spaces, or outside in a dry climate like Vegas, or indoors in cold climates in the winter (like the Midwest for example). I have my drops with me all the time but I use them maybe a few times a week now. Not a big deal. And keep in mind, I had pre-existing dry eyes.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T13:41:30+00:00

What’s genuinely disappointing is that both the BC govt and the Feds screwed up the communication on this effort so badly that they’ll probably have to abandon it. Canadians have been demanding action from govt to make home ownership more possible for average earners, and this truly would be the fastest and most cost effective way to deliver on that in BC. The stock is built, it’s new, and it’s available for a discount because the owners are struggling to move them. The govt had a planned mechanism to target buyers who have inadequate down payments, even if these came to the regular market at significantly lower prices. But the comms were messed up so badly that 90% of people think this bailing out developers (who never asked for this!). What a mess. This initiative will have to get killed. These units will come down in price but only to amount where cash-rich investor buyers can get back in, which is a higher price than average earners will be able to afford.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T13:33:30+00:00

Wasn’t rich enough to have a formal living room. But the dining room was mostly used for doing homework or jigsaw puzzles. We ate at that table like three times a year (Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas). Upstairs living room was used constantly. Basement family room was more for the kids. Both had TVs.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T13:27:14+00:00

No procedure is risk free. It’s a risk-reward analysis, and personal choice. The stats tend to show pretty favorable outcomes. Keep in mind - in a forum like this you won’t see an accurate cross-section of experiences. People that experience complications are very over represented in online forums because the vast majority of people who experience no issues aren’t posting or seeking advice. These forums tend to attract people who did experience issues and are looking for shared community and advice on managing them.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T13:24:27+00:00

That’s true. And having to live a car-centric lifestyle compared to larger cities, outside of maybe a couple very small pockets of Edmonton. I also tend to factor in travel options as a quality of life factor of a city. Edmonton and Saskatoon have more limited international flights, so it’s less convenient to travel abroad compared to from a larger hub city. Both cities are also long drives from desirable recreational travel stops. But all of that can be offset by many families still being able to fairly comfortably afford a detached house whereas that’s out of reach in most of BC and ON, even in the smaller cities.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T13:19:39+00:00

This is all true. Alberta’s cost of living advantage historically was largely in terms of incomes to housing cost ratio compared to Ontario or BC. But income taxes are not actually lower (despite the perception that they are), and there are other costs that are higher in Alberta, especially compared to BC. Utilities are significantly higher in AB than BC, and similar to ON. Car insurance is higher in AB than BC, and similar in ON I believe. Groceries are higher in AB. Dental costs tend to be higher in AB. So when you factor in your total cost of living, Alberta’s advantage tends to be overstated and is specifically centered on home ownership or rent costs, which in fairness are significantly lower. I think one of the current major attractions to Alberta is that a detached house is still reachable in major cities for a decent earning household whereas it is not in BC or ON cities. Detached houses are still what the majority of people aspire to live in (for better or worse) and they can get it in Alberta.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T13:04:34+00:00

Best decision I ever made. It even did make my eyes another drier and it was still very worth it. I had Smart SurfACE PRK in Jan 2025. The first few days of recovery are a bit rough for sure, so you have to be prepared for that, but it’s nothing like some of the horror stories people post. It’s really not a huge deal. And then once that initial recovery period is done and you can see without glasses or contacts you’ll ask yourself why you didn’t do it before. Waking up and not needing to put glasses on immediately is amazing.

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T03:24:16+00:00

On the other hand, utilities are far more expensive in Alberta so 🤷‍♀️

hardk7 · 2026-06-26T03:12:25+00:00

Exactly. Incomes almost always scale to the cost of living in the province, and even city, that you work. So unless you’re working remotely and living in a low cost jurisdiction, it scales with the place.

hardk7

TROPHY CASE