The federal government ordering all public servants back to office to satisfy downtown businesses was sheer proof of this.
The Canadian government serves the purpose to help large businesses and the economy. They serve Canadian citizens as an afterthought.
The idea that commuters somehow owe restaurateurs and commercial leasing outfits anything gets my blood absolutely boiling.
Worse, all they did was redirect who gets the disposable income back to downtown restaurants and landlords. Not like the money wasn’t being spent elsewhere. And they did it at the expense of the environment and everyone else’s time. It literally did no good for the economy, it just helped specific businesses. And how often have we heard that it is not the business of the government to pick winners and losers? Let the downtown cores and commutes die. Businesses elsewhere will thrive, and the core will become something new.
That is the way of things in all capitalist states. The people can win concessions, such as the UKs NIH, or the US minimum wage, but those concessions are just that, concessions, and anything given as a concession can and will be taken away eventually, or watered down so much as to be useless, like the US min wage, which has been at 7.25/hr for about 15 years, and even in the cheapest states isn’t sufficient.
