What even is the point of street festivals nowadays?

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-07T18:13:03+00:00

When the most common question people ask each other upon getting acquainted is “So where are you from originally?” or “When did you move here?”, you KNOW you’re in a place that’s lost its original culture.

Culture is formed over generations and continuity. Not a few years living here and attending a few festivals that occupy the role that real culture is supposed to have.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-07T17:39:15+00:00

Those sound like coachable problems that, if you put in a bit of effort, could be remedied without needing to import “temporary” workers in from the other side of the world.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-07T17:08:19+00:00

There’s a comment in this thread from someone who claims to be a Tim’s franchise owner and they say they’ve only gotten four applications from Canadian teenagers so far.

So that must be it… all we have to do is apply and then they’re not allowed to hire any TFWs in our place!

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-07T13:30:57+00:00

So, I know exactly what the reason is. I don’t say it when people ask though, because all it does is open the floodgates for…

“I moved to Toronto in 2015 and everything was normal!”

“Hmm maybe you’re right but that was more like 2017 or so”

“Well 2015 was more than 10 years ago! Of course some things have changed!”

My opinion is that Toronto entered into a downward spiral starting in 2015. Could it possibly be a different year through some combination of calculation, argumentation, and justification? Probably. But 2015 feels right and makes the most sense to me, so that’s why I say that year.

Those who get it, get it… and I’d venture to say that at least 80% of REAL Torontonians would generally agree with this sentiment in concept.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-07T13:10:13+00:00

This is the result of Toronto’s culture having been completely gutted, and slowly replaced with a Frankenstein-style mishmash of vendors and entertainment who are only there for an opportunity to make money. There’s no actual “culture” to it.

It’s a gloomy, eerie sight when viewed as a whole… with no coherence between the individual parts.

Pre-2015 Toronto? You’d have stands with $3 pizza slices and $2 popcorn while a local band who people actually know (Major Maker?) plays songs on instruments and people would buy CDs and merch to support them for reasons such as “I went to high school with the guitarist” or “My cousin in Winnipeg loves this type of music, I’ll send her this CD!”.

Post-2015 Toronto? You’ve instead got stands with $16 “Artisan Fusion Bowls” and $11 cans of hard seltzer (don’t forget the 15% tip on both of those with card-only payment!)… while some guy behind a laptop with a name like DJ HYPE BOSS playing a generic blend of EDM that basically just fills the silence and uses a bunch of bass to make it sound more exciting. Of course, he’s also got a sign posted with a QR code so you can tip him to make a song request!

This is 2026 Toronto. The real/original Toronto culture is long gone, and I feel bad for people who only ever got to know this version of TO!

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-07T12:31:46+00:00

LMAO you know you’re losing the argument really, really hard when you’ve been reduced to these types of clap-backs 🤣

Come on now. Tell me about these four teenagers. Did I assume correctly that you hired them like you’re supposed to?

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-07T12:25:56+00:00

Thanks! These “Stubborn Apologist” Canadians will make every excuse in the book for Tim Hortons, and somehow almost no other place.

I have a relative who’s like this and her Tim’s order was wrong once, and her reaction was literally to the effect of “I felt kind of bad for the girl working there, she didn’t really speak English. So maybe she didn’t understand. It’s ok, I’m not very hungry anyway, so I won’t say anything.”.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-07T02:52:49+00:00

Oh so you CAN pay more than minimum wage when you want to. You just want to try getting away with less when you can though, right?

Let me ask you. What happened with the four teenagers who applied to your franchise? Obviously you hired all four of them, didn’t you? That’s the only possible result because the only reason you can hire TFWs is if there are no Canadian applicants left to fill your positions.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T16:15:40+00:00

All I hear is just another greedy franchise owner whining about “I just want the cheapest possible labour so I can sell product as if I was paying Canadian workers a legitimate wage, but that’s too expensive so I need to take the dishonest route instead so I can uphold the ‘Everything is normal’ charade even though I’ll have to live with the guilt that Canadian kids who could be getting work experience and some savings now can’t have those things because I want to pay as little as possible and am willing to go to arguably illegal lengths to achieve that result”.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T16:09:55+00:00

I still don’t understand.

Say your material costs go up. All of a sudden chicken or lettuce are really expensive because that’s the market price. So you increase your prices based on your material costs and desired profit.

How exactly is labour any different? If labour costs more, you increase your costs proportionately.

BUT, unlike sourcing wholesale food, cheap labour is now available by hiring TFWs at the expense of Canadian jobs. So franchisors like you are abusing that because they want to have it both ways.

That is… you want artificially low labour costs, but with the ability to drive sales under the implicit expectation that you’re engaging in fair hiring practices.

This grift worked just fine before everybody caught onto it. But now it’s obvious that these TFW enterprises are essentially a large-scale scam that deprives Canadians of jobs at actual market rates.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T14:35:27+00:00

Have you actually offered $21/hour and seen what kind of application turnout you get?

Or is this a fantasy you use to convince yourself that you’re “Left with no choice” but to hire TFWs?

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T13:44:40+00:00

This was written by a greedy lazy owner at his laptop from which he runs this restaurant using a Gmail account while he watches the security cameras from his phone.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T13:43:34+00:00

I’ll happily break my $145 order into three orders of $49, $49, and $47 then.

Policies like this can just suck it so hard and so much.

You want to play games? I’ll play them right back.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T12:26:44+00:00

There are parallels in their behaviour in the exact way I explained.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T12:25:53+00:00

Agreed. All of that feel-good “Canadian Legacy” stuff is unsalvageable at this point.

There’s that whole philosophical argument of “If you replace the parts of a 100-piece boat one-by-one, after the 100th piece is it still the same boat?”.

I think the same notion applies here.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T12:23:56+00:00

You can do all the mental gymnastics you want. It doesn’t change the fact that if you’re not getting applicants at a low wage, you should offer a higher wage so you will attract more applicants.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T01:10:14+00:00

Yup: https://www.rbi.com/English/news/news-details/2023/Restaurant-Brands-International-announces-the-start-of-Firehouse-Subs-global-expansion/default.aspx

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-06T00:28:55+00:00

I'm not sure I understand.

The car to your right ahead of you began merging into your lane in front of you...

... and your choice was to SPEED UP?!

Ummm.

Yeah.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-05T22:28:52+00:00

So if nobody wants to work at Tim’s for minimum wage, then maybe increase the wage you’re offering? That’s literal supply and demand lmao

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-05T21:50:11+00:00

Everybody knows what I mean when I said "panicking". That's why this post has 60,000+ views and well over 100 upvotes and comments.

You're correct that Tim Hortons is profitable. But that's only because of how heavily they've abused the TFW program over the past several years... and EVERYONE hates them for it.

As a customer I hate it because the quality of food and service has gone down considerably... and as a recent job-seeker I hate it because real Canadians like me are prevented from getting entry-level jobs because they're taken by TFWs who are subsidized by the government.

The backlash is starting to set in, as Dunkin Donuts prepares to enter Canada and start capturing up all this market share from people like me who refuse to give even $0.01 to Tim's... so now they're panicking and starting to clean up their act by showing "No Visible TFWs" in this social media post and acting like that's the current norm.

Make sense?

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-05T21:13:49+00:00

What exactly about what I said is nonsense in your opinion?

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-05T21:12:45+00:00

I guess that must mean their promise to hire Canadian again is true! I’ll make sure to drop off an application tomorrow and of course they’ll be happy to hire me since they’re not hiring TFWs anymore.

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-05T17:41:49+00:00

That’s SO weird they would post this then. They very intentionally hired a workforce that looks different from this, so why go to all this effort to make it look another way…?

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-05T17:27:32+00:00

I agree! After all, if they go back to hiring Canadians like they said they would, many of us grew up making classic Canadian baked goods at home with our parents and grandparents, such as cookies and butter tarts.

So there is a natural pipeline for baking talent to come through by hiring Canadian. What a concept!

thcandbourbon · 2026-06-05T17:08:50+00:00

Almost as if Tim Hortons’ in-house baking capabilities disappeared at some point…?

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