
Can payments persuade Canadian residents to move away from dying villages? - breitling
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-09-21/why-canadians-are-being-offered-cash-to-abandon-their-homes
======
guessmyname
TL;DR — Fishing villages [...] sent into a tailspin by a fishery collapse,
oil-price slump and mounting debt that left it with Canada’s most severe
fiscal and demographic crisis. The provincial government now is pushing to
close places like Little Bay Islands altogether rather than service them,
offering [...] at least C$250,000 ($189,000) each to leave—and spurring a
bitter, three-year fight over whether to cash out or endure.

 _(Actually, the article is not that long, but the title is clickbait)_

I thought the reason was going to be related to the increment of sea levels,
as villages near the coasts will surely be affected sooner than later by the
constant floods in the coming years. Anyway, I agree with the sentiment of the
people mentioned in the article, it is not clear when the Canadian government
will pay that money, some people with houses near the coast are retired, they
just want to live a peaceful life near the sea, they don't want to relocate,
so it is logical to think that this strategy of the government to offer money
to leave the place will not work, at least not very well.

~~~
dmix
> some people with houses near the coast are retired, they just want to live a
> peaceful life near the sea, they don't want to relocate,

What about social services? We have public health care in Canada and seniors
are the most expensive. Plus, with no industry where are they going to get
medication and food? And it's not all seniors, the person in the article isn't
leaving because he scared he won't be able to find work elsewhere.

So they also have a bunch of non-seniors they have to support as well. And no
industry for them to participate in, whereas elsewhere in the province they
could contribute to the economy and pay taxes. Instead of just being an
economic drain on the state.

There is a reason the province decided it would be more economical to offer
them money to leave than paying for the services for them to stay.

~~~
mason240
>What about social services?

This a pretty strong argument against social services. These people who have
paid their share into society are now being to forced to move because it's
convenient for the government.

~~~
sandworm101
Canada isn't the typical country when it comes to social services. While much
of the population is concentrated in cities the rest of the country is vast,
Mongolia or Siberia vast. Some areas, while not vast, are extremely rugged.
The west coast of BC is thousands of islands and tiny inlets.

For perspective, draw a line between Vancouver BC and Alaska. 800km and you
cross 2 connected roads, one of which being the highway to Whistler. Note all
the unconnected little towns along the way. Those are the areas at issue.

[https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8144629,-123.3765517,7z](https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8144629,-123.3765517,7z)

Regardless of funding, there are practical limitations. Nobody could ever
deliver something like 10-minute ambulance services to every resident. There
probably aren't enough ambulances on the planet to station one within ten
minutes of every Canadian. And a good number of those would have to be
airborne. Roads are not the norm for much of the north.

------
patmcguire
The US still can't get the last people to leave Centralia, PA. Centralia has
been on fire since 1962. So I think the answer is no.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania)

~~~
FrancoDiaz
I've always been fascinated by these decades-long coal mine fires. Too bad
they can't harness that energy somehow.

------
ryandrake
> After appeals were settled, a total of 95 residents received ballots. Ninety
> percent of them needed to approve the move for it to pass. That’s 86 votes.
> They got 85.

Seems kind of daft to make it all-or-nothing AND set such a high bar. Why
weren't the 85 residents who wanted to leave allowed to participate on their
own, taking the money and leaving those 10 trolls behind to enjoy living in
Nowheresville?

~~~
philh
If the point of the scheme is that the government wants to stop providing
services to Nowheresville, then they basically have four options:

1\. status quo

2\. pay 85 people to relocate, keep paying to provide services for 10 people

3\. pay 95 people to relocate; 10 of them really strongly do not want to
relocate, but force them to do so anyway

4\. pay 85 people to relocate, leave ten people to the wolves

None of these are very appealing.

~~~
abz10
What about stopping the services as well a stop taxing them? Then if it is
viable they can stay.

~~~
speeder
I wish there was ANY government willing to do that in the entire world.

Most governments won't ever do that, because it effectively means allowing a
independent nation in their lands.

For example: I am from Brazil, and I am most certainly paying in taxes much
more than I get in services, police is unreliable (even simple calls to
emergency number because I saw shady shit, never worked, sometimes it didn't
even connected at all), fire department is also unreliable (more than once
they REFUSED to come, and I had to figure on my own how to handle a fire, once
this resulted in half of the trees in my yard getting killed after some
asshole made a huge debris bonfire on a empty area outside my house), my
family purcahsed our own telephone cables and lines (literally), we purchased
our own asphalt, we rely on private security, I was 100% privately educated,
my health insurance is "private" (it is a private business owned by the Roman
Catholic Church), electricity belongs to a private company, our military suck
(in fact, I wasn't allowed to join the military when I signed up when I was
18, with the official stated reason being: Lack of money to purchase basic
training equipment).

So... what I am paying my taxes for? Taxes in Brazil are about 38% of someone
income, on average (I actually pay more than that, according to my
calculations my family pays about 60% of our income in taxes).

I would gadly move to a place with no public services + no taxes, to me this
would be 100% profit, since right now I have no public services but still pay
taxes.

~~~
abz10
I hear you. Panama and Belize are poor man's tax havens if you can work
remotely with a foreign source of income. I live in Panama. I haven't seen a
homeless person since leaving SF.

~~~
trapperkeeper79
Err .. if you have foreign employment income in the US, you will be taxed at
the source, no?

~~~
abz10
You need to be a contractor, not an employee, then a lawyer can sort it out so
you're all good.

------
stephenboyd
So Newfoundland has been paying to relocate communities since the 1950s.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_(Newfoundland)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_\(Newfoundland\))

I'm looking through the government's publications to try to understand this
better. Does anyone here know if the relocation assistance includes any help
relocating the community intact to a new location, or are they simply being
paid to dissolve the community and leave? It would be interesting to see these
folks all given neighbouring properties in a city so they can hold onto their
social capital together.

[http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/faq/faq_relocation.html](http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/faq/faq_relocation.html)
[http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/publications/relocation/Community%20...](http://www.ma.gov.nl.ca/publications/relocation/Community%20Relocation%20Policy.pdf)

~~~
colomon
My understanding is third hand at best, but certainly the stuff I've read /
heard from the 80s talking about the first wave of resettlement was quite
bitter.

"The Government Game": [http://www.wtv-
zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/02/game.htm](http://www.wtv-
zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/02/game.htm) "The Blow Below The Belt":
[http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/07/blowbelow.htm](http://www.wtv-
zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/07/blowbelow.htm) "West Moon": [http://www.wtv-
zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/01/west.htm](http://www.wtv-
zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/01/west.htm)

"To a place called Placentia, well, some of them went, And in finding a new
home their allowances spent; So for jobs they went lookin' but they looked all
in vain, For the roof had caved in on the government game."

"Now they're scattered like dried leaves from hell to high water..."

------
emilecantin
You see this on a smaller scale elsewhere in Canada, too. The global economy
is changing, and this has a huge effect on small towns across the country. I
know of a few towns that are mostly desert now that their main economic engine
(either a large manufacturing plant or a mine) has closed down.

A few of them are trying to re-center around tourism, but the most successful
ones I know are attracting small tech companies. They offer a lot of support,
and free / cheap office space, and it seems to work quite well.

~~~
Grishnakh
I'm surprised it works much at all. The main draw such places have is lower
cost-of-living, but in my experience and observation, the companies that
locate there pay significantly lower salaries, so you end up not having any
more after-rent pay than living in a metro area. Worse, you're tied to this
job, so if the job doesn't work out for some reason, now you have to pack up
and move. Also, finding places to rent in such towns can be hard, and buying a
house is probably a bad idea because if the town is that much on the brink,
you don't want to buy something that you won't be able to sell if the company
folds and the town implodes.

------
mpatobin
If anybody wants to see some dramatic pictures of past resettlement programs
in Newfoundland check google images
([https://www.google.ca/search?q=newfoundland+resettlement&sou...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=newfoundland+resettlement&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmlvLNzqPPAhVENSYKHYLyB6AQ_AUICCgB&biw=1369&bih=757)).

I wish I had seen many of these small towns when the fishing industry was
thriving. They are beautiful places but they're just a shell of what they used
to be. So many abandoned homes, businesses, stages. If you've got FU money
there's plenty of cheap oceanview property.

------
agentultra
They tried this in the fifties too with the out-harbour communities in
Newfoundland like Fogo. Many communities disappeared but Fogo and others
stayed and developed something called the _Fogo Process_.

It's sad really. The Marconi Tower is there. Some of the earliest settlements
in North America were founded in Newfoundland. It's one of the most beautiful
places on Earth to boot.

If you visit you can still find traces of the abandoned communities. Most
would just float their houses towards the main island. Some were left behind.
It makes for an interesting hike.

Some people out there love it. Generations going back to the 1700's have made
their life on those islands. I think some portion of the population will
refuse no matter how much is offered.

------
burnt1ce
I actually live in Toronto and I agree real estate here is expensive.

What I don't get is WAY more expensive in places like London, Hong Kong, New
York and San Francisco but I don't hear as many complaints or alarms going off
in those areas. Why? Is this just me being oblivious?

~~~
throw20160915
It's because Toronto is in a state of transition.

No one complains about NY, London, HK real-estate because it's already
understood to be expensive in the mainstream.

But Toronto real-estate being expensive is relatively new such that you have
people who grew up in Toronto not being able to afford it in adulthood.

People are slowly realizing that TO is now just another global city out of
reach to the middle class unless you make heavy comprises. Give it some time,
and soon people will stop complaining about being able to buy a house with a
backyard here as well.

~~~
contingencies
It's so cold there, who needs a backyard? You can only use it 2 weeks a year,
and you'd be better off sailing.

~~~
sidek
Honestly, as a Canadian, this is what I find so dumb about our urban planning.
People demand adequate house spacing, backyard space, etc... Only for it to be
usable for 4 months of the year. Meanwhile, all that dead space makes our
cities unwalkable in the other 8 months. I guess people are just so used to
having to drive everywhere that they don't see how else it could be.

~~~
alanctgardner3
Where do you live in Canada? In southern ontario (where Toronto and most of
the people are) there's no snow for 8 months out of the year. And
backyards/sidewalks are really only impeded for maybe 2 months (if you're
able-bodied). Meanwhile you can totally have a pool, a vegetable garden, a
place for your kids to play, etc. the rest of the time.

I recently moved from an apartment to a house downtown with a tiny backyard,
and it's a huge improvement. We didn't really use it in February/March. But
the rest of the time it's awesome.

------
1024core
What, no Newfie jokes?

On a more serious note: there's a tectonic shift going on in the US too, it's
just not as stark. Young'uns are moving to the cities enmasse, resulting in
skyrocketing rents in places like SF, Seattle. The old American Dream of
having a McMansion out in the 'burbs has largely died out. Now people prefer
the urban areas.

~~~
mhurron
> Now people prefer the urban areas.

That's not new. What also isn't new is that when those same people get married
and have kids, they'll be looking to move out of that urban environment.

And all of that is completely unrelated to what the article is about.

~~~
lmm
I think it is releated. The economic factors that have shifted jobs away from
the land and into the cities are the same ones that attract young people to
the cities.

~~~
mhurron
The article is about the government wanting to close towns because it is too
expensive to provide services that they must to citizens that live there. It's
not about people moving from small towns to cities because they want different
types of jobs.

~~~
lmm
You don't think those phenomena might be related?

~~~
mhurron
No, the issue in Newfoundland is the collapse of the fisheries, not because
more kids went to college. This isn't towns having an issue because more kids
don't want to do fishing, this is because there are no fish to bring in.

~~~
1024core
Somewhere it's the collapse of the fisheries. Somewhere else it's shuttering
of factories. And somewhere else it's consolidation of farming. Basically,
it's the same thing: dwindling opportunities in the rural areas, and growth in
the cities.

------
at-fates-hands
One of my new favorite shows on Vice actually did a show about how abandoned
Newfoundland is. They pointed out the over fishing of the area then the
government banned fishing outright which started the collapse.

[https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/Newfoundland-
Coast/57bddb...](https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/Newfoundland-
Coast/57bddb99a39540ed4498faee)

~~~
Unman
The way your (brief) sentence is written it sounds as though the government is
given a good deal of credit for imposing the moratorium, whereas there's a
good deal of evidence to suggest that they consistenly mis-managed it. It
looks as though a combination of poor ecological models, concentration on
simple resource production statistics, consulting only with large capital
holders instead of small, local stakeholders led to this avoidable collapse.

Over-fishing in the maritimes was mostly as a result of "free-trade"
liberalisation including transferable/sellable fishing licenses which led to a
decrease in small, family operations and an increase in massive, mortgaged
industrial fishing operations.

The small family business typically engaged in long-lining (single lines with
multiple hooks
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing)
) which did not require great capitalization/debt. These business became non-
viable as larger operations flooded the market with fish caught by dragging --
a method which leads to the destruction of the seabed ecosystems which in turn
decreases the catchable population.

This is one of the good references on the topic, pretty readable (Dean
Bavington, _Managed Annihilation_, 2010 UBC Press):
[http://www.ubcpress.ca/books/pdf/chapters/2010/ManagedAnnihi...](http://www.ubcpress.ca/books/pdf/chapters/2010/ManagedAnnihilation.pdf)

~~~
at-fates-hands
Thanks for the link to the book, it looks like an excellent read. I'll be
digging into that tonight.

Yes, the show points out exactly what you say. There was an increase in large
scale, industrial fishing using huge trawling boats that quickly depleted the
resources.

It seems this is an ongoing theme - as humans we just think natural resources
will never run out.

------
HillaryBriss
> _While she’s optimistic that the country can build a new economic base, she
> said it’ll happen only if Canadians “stop over-relying on the extraction of
> resources or, even worse, selling off our land.”_

This Canadian seems to believe that, in some real or legal sense, the land
_belongs_ to her and Canadians in general.

But "Canadian land" truly belongs to anyone in the global real estate market
with sufficient cash. This is also true in the US.

I think people would be better off if they clearly recognized this reality. It
isn't "your" country. Let that notion go. It's hurting you. There's no "you"
there. Fly. Be free.

~~~
greenleafjacob
Government is the guarantor of property rights. If the current government was
overthrown do you think the new government would necessarily need to honor
your deed?

~~~
hx87
Government guarantees property rights, full stop. It doesn't matter what the
nationality of the owner is.

------
smnplk
And then, there is this [http://www.offgrid-living.com/2016/09/canadian-town-
will-giv...](http://www.offgrid-living.com/2016/09/canadian-town-will-give-
you-lots-of.html?m=1)

------
kazinator
On the opposite end of Canada, in Vancouver, $250K CAD is enough of a down
payment to get a parking spot where you can park a portable kids' play house
from Home Depot or Rona, without having to pay mortgage loan insurance.

However, in the maritime provinces, with $250K CAD you can actually buy
(completely pay for) a fully detached property with a decent house in an urban
location.

I'd take the money and run while it's there for the taking. They are probably
not going to up the offers for those who stubbornly wait it out.

------
ttam
Am I the only one to think "wow, those are some very scenic villages that
would probably be great for tourism" ?

------
overcast
What's with the GIGANTIC title and header fonts on this page. The one on the
bottom even has some bouncing animation associated with it.

~~~
ravenstine
The page probably needed to "pop" more, so the designers added a little more
zazz to it.

~~~
overcast
I could see that being in a management email, with "please advise" at the
bottom.

------
falsestprophet
"but the title is clickbait"

Almost every Bloomberg title is clickbait [1]. Probably Bloomberg should be
flagged for title correction.

Perhaps: "Canadian government offering relocation to homeowners from some
declining villages"

Financial news readers may enjoy Reuters, which has far less irritatingly
misleading titles.

[1] source: Bloomberg.com

~~~
sctb
We've updated the title and detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557290)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
Dylan16807
The problem with doing it like this is that I was an inch away from replying
to the _very top_ comment that still calls the title clickbait. I had to reach
the very bottom of the page to realize that was talking about a different
title.

