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I never said or insinuated that this was a victory for the status quo. Personally, I like that the typical stale parties received less votes and lost more power. The PPFD and the Social Democrats are a lot like the Clinton Democrats in the United States. They're mainstream fence sitters and even though they have held onto power, they've also lost a lot seats. Which gives away to the true leftist parties whose priority is the environment.

They'd lose their Canadian citizenship and be deported to whichever country they were born in. An extremely stupid policy.

To all my Dutch friends: Thank you Dutch election exit polls: Mark Rutte's VVD party on track to win most seats after support for Geert Wilders drops off http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/15/dutch-election-results-geert-wilders-andmark-rutte-vie-power/ Well....If there's any consolation after the Trump election it is the sanity that finally prevails the Dutch election. Au revoir, Auf wiedesehen, good bye, Tchau Mr Geert Wilders....Good riddance! Guess after rhetorics of "America first" the Dutch decided enough is enough with this nonesense of "Holland second"... Dutch general election results 2017 | Parliament seats per party VVD PvdA PVV SP CDAD66 Other 31 9 19 14 19 19 16

Part of that is because people respond really well to fear mongerers. For example lots of people support Trumps "muslim immigration ban" or whatever they are calling it now, because Trump has successful pitched Muslims as a threat to the safety of Americans. But if you look at the actually data the opposite is true. Muslims are statistically LESS likely to kill Americans than other Americans. That means that every time a Muslim immigrates to the US Americans are actually statistically a bit safer. So the entire thing is based on an easily demonstrable false premise. But people don't care because firebrand rhetoric is fun, but data and statistics are boring. Same thing In Canada where a large segment of the population supports this moronic "Canadian Values" test. A solution is being proposed before it has even been demonstrated that there is a statistically significant problem. Same thing goes for the war on terror where the west has spent about 6 trillion dollars combating a threat that is 1/7th as likely to kill them as being struck by lightening. We don't live in an evidence based reality anymore.

You don't automatically become a Canadian citizen just because you marry one though. Nor do any immigrants/refugees become citizens as soon as hey move here.

The example that was used in this thread is of someone who came to Canada as a 13 year old kid. What do we do with terrorists born and raised in rural Ontario?

The non-Muslim persons which you call with a wrong term as "Radical Muslim", who claims of being Muslims but performs anti-Islamic (called as Mushrik in Quran) acts are only a number %0.0001 of total Muslim population. I am sure you can find more person in the World who claims that 2X2 is 5 and it does not mean its 5. Another fact is almost all of these persons use "stories" to justify their actions, despite even stories does not justify their actions as I gave examples about women issue a few posts ago.

You know that's not what I said. You sound just like some run of the mill politician who pretends they heard something else so they can avoid what was really said. You might want to consider how much this ridiculous way of approaching an issue has likely contributed to so many people being duped into taking up arms.

The thermite, actually, superthermite or nanothermite that was found in WTC dust can account for the molten and vaporized steel, while the US official conspiracy theory cannot. In fact, the US official conspiracy theory absolutely denies the existence of these molten metals. What kind of fools are they that they deny reality. 9/11 Experiments: The Great Thermate Debate

But why are we saying that they have Canadian citizenship when it's not equal to those who were born here?

Not very compassionate if new Canadians are treated as second class citizens compared to those who happened to be born here.

He may have improved over the last number of months, but I found Scheer struggled in interviews when he first entered the leadership. The night he entered I watched him be interviewed by Rosie Barton, she never asked him any questions that should have come as a surprise but it was like he was caught off guard and didn't know how to answer. He was also using uhhh.. and umm... a lot. He didn't seem to have that issue with the debates though. O'Toole I've found to be impressive since first becoming a parliamentary secretary several years ago. On political panels at that time he always communicated effectively and didn't come off as a hardcore partisan toeing the party line, like many others. O'Toole and Raitt's resumes are definitely the strongest, although his might be a bit more interesting and diverse. Scheer's resume is my biggest issue with his candidacy, and I won't rank him high on my ballot partly because of it. Conservatives spent years criticizing Trudeau's weak resume and now we're going to put someone in as leader who has really only ever worked in politics and been an MP? Had he spent time as a minister - or even a parliamentary secretary - I'd be more comfortable with him. While it's important to pick someone who will be a good party leader, we also need someone who would make a good Prime Minister.

If you look at most of the populist policies she has been promoting since September they're things she never spoke of before. Until September she was known to be a very red-Tory. When she realized her campaign was going nowhere after 5 months in the race she decided to bring up screening immigrants and tourists to Canada for anti-Canadian values, which she couldn't even define. She didn't promote the policy until her campaign manager did polling saying it could work for her. She needed headlines because she was at ~1% in the polls so she started promoting controversial policies that would get her headlines and win support with small factions of the party.

He's commenting on an alternative dimension that exists under his bed. It's probably LSD and such, not geography.

Typical conservative horse-shit around responsibility....hold Islam responsible for stuff that happened well over a thousand years ago and a big what-me-worry for anything our culture did just a few hundred years ago. 4000 year old land claim by Jews, no problem... couple hundred year old native land claims in North America...get over it. That's right wing conservatism for you, the most ethically and morally challenged people on the planet bar none.

Yah know them both. So you understand Shwarz's, real bagels, real pastrami and the religious significance of Grecian hair formula . Its hard to explain it to the pagans on this forum. I mean they these people in Toronto named a hockey team after something Adam used to hide his pee pee. Weird people. Speaking about beavers, I have nothing against beavers, really I don't but as the national animal compared to a bald eagle, well, I would have preferred toe Canada Lynxx, the Cougar, the wolf, the wolverine, even the Snowy Owl, but a beaver? Fat, buck-toothed, and a rodent? I would have even gone with the Moose, but I know Taxme has a thing about big nostrils and big noses so I guess it worked out.

Yet you'll support Leitch who discarded her ethics for news headlines?

Sadly...Nevertheless good outcome!

I disagree completely. We still have that "look at me!" mentality, and are constantly seeking the Sally Fields (You like me, you really like me) affect. Anything said about Canada by anyone or any group or organization that is international is lapped up by Canadian media and regurgitated with breathless glee. Look at where Mister Selfie is now. That silly play someone wrote about how Newfoundlanders welcomed American passengers on 9/11 (and who but Canadians would make a play about such a thing?) is now on Broadway. Mr. Selfie went down there to bask in the glow of appreciation, to bow and smile and tell everyone how much he appreciates them realizing how nice he and Canada is. This is an unfortunate constant in Canada's culture, that we care so much about what others say or think of us.

Rue, that was incredibly insightful. Nice! That is certainly what I was looking for. Objective and analytical, with any criticism certainly constructive, vs. one of the other members' mention of "acting like jerkoffs". Maybe not 100% correct (but then again I could be wrong...not everyone views their own culture accurately because they live inside that particular box) though it was a thoughtful and accurate view in most respects. Americans will talk of the "tyranny of the majority" quite often. A poli sci professor of mine explained to a foreign student once, we were founded not on majority rule but individual liberty (the two do sometimes conflict). Your collectivity vs. individual liberty hit the nail on the head for sure. I think that the government often does influence society and vice-versa. Your mention of the military-like aspect of American society: we're not all about the military, I think. What you're seeing now (patriotism that looks almost like jingoism to some people, though I know you didn't say that, just saying it seems that way sometimes) is the realization that we made a HUGE mistake following Vietnam; not just about going to war in the first place but what we did to the military when they returned to the States. My father has often remarked that any Vietnam vet will tell you, the biggest betrayal of the war came, not from Johnson, not from Nixon, not from our generals in charge of prosecuting that war, but from the American People. My father was actually spit on by a well-dressed, conservative-looking woman at the airport. She shouted "baby burner" as she did it. This was 1971 of course, but that's a taste of exactly how cruel we were to our own people. So, what you're seeing is essentially that we're trying (trying mind you!) not to repeat that mistake and treat our veterans better. This sometimes comes off as a militant-looking stance, but it isn't. We're still not there (we could certainly give our veterans much better treatment via the V.A. and its health system!!!!) but we've realized that, when you don't agree with a war, get pissed off at the politicians---not the vets returning from a war they very well may not have wanted to fight in the first place. We wave the flag a lot but that's more for their benefit than looking badass. But I don't want to get too off-topic about that one. It was however, a good point to raise. ?impact: Trump isn't so much a product of the electoral college (yes, I know Hillary won the popular vote and the "winner" didn't) as the skewed, dysfunction primary system that produced, as Lewis Black put it, two bowls of dogs*** to chose from when we went into the voting booth. More people might have voted for Gary Johnson if he wasn't so....gosh how do I describe him? Plenty of 4-letter words to choose from that I would equally use on the GOP or Democratic nominee. A general election for president is something of a conjuring trick: pick any card, you must always choose between the two cards the magician chose for you. But that's a topic for another thread, I think....

Yes but one read of your contributions and I think its fair to say people take much if not all you have to say with a "pinch of salt" so youhave not demonstrated any difference from you and the Americans you criticize or between me and Americans or that matter although people with me do not take a pinch of salt more like a snort of cocaine. Yah dig? I think the Honourable James Hacker if you read his threads was looking for something a tad more in depth than your personal subjective feelings such as institutional differences in how we enforce laws, cultural differences. He probably reads a bit more than you and wants something a tad more lengthy. For example. I would answer him that the biggest and most obvious cultural difference between Canada and the USA is that Canada was created and is still very much constructed as a collective or collectivist society, whereas the US is constructed as an individual or individualistic society. The US was created to revolt against being collective subjects of the monarchy and an elite sovereign who inherited his/her throne. Canada was created by those loyal to this collectivist monarch concept and who wanted to remain subjects of the monarchy (collective). Canada already was inhabited by a series of collectives or communities or nations or self ruling collections of people. It was then joined by collectives from France and Britain. The collectives in Canada were more decentralized. In Britain and France, the collectives centralized to the point where they were administered by the symbol of the crown in Britain and the symbol of the President replacing the symbol of the Crown in France. The US was created by people rebelling. It was a nation of individuals who saw central authority as something corrupt and not to be trusted while the founders of Canada after the natives felt the exact opposite, they gave blind obedience to the collective head of state and did not question its powers, i.e., taxes. Yankee Doodle Dandies said to hell with taxes and government. Screw that. Its unfair. The country was literally founded by revolution and its people spread out settling the nation not as they did in Canada in the name of a centralized head of state, but as individuals. In Canada the land was defined as CROWN land that we plebians, we surfs, we peons, in fact purchased from her but remained her land Our titles to lnd is subordinate to the Crown's right of that land. In that sense the only person who really owns land unrestricted is the Crown. In the US individual title to property is paramount. The US constitution envisions a decentralized state where each individual state was supposed to be able to rule themselves and only turn to the federal government for its help and role, if it was for the benefit of that state. State governments were envisioned with more constitutional powers and jurisdiction over laws than provinces in Canada. Our entire legal system in Canada reflects the belief that the state itself is bigger than the individual, while in the US its the exact reverse. This is why in Canada in is an inherent and intrinsic value that we embrace medicare or for that matter gun control. These are the two most obvious symbols of our collectivist identity. In the US it is the exact reverse. Medicare and gun control are seen as the enemy of the people, forms of tyranny the nation of the US and its individual states can nto permit. Finally we have another major cultural difference. The US embraces its chauvinistic traditions, i.e., I say that in the pure sense of what the word means named after General Chauvin of France. It embraces itself as a military nation with a history based on war history. Military patriotism is at the pith and substance of American identity. Its inescapable to talk American history without reference to its wars, its military history and traditions. Its monuments, its government symbols, all remain deeply connected to its military traditions. If you want to be an American politician you put the military first and you must praise it and you sure as hell to do not apologize for any violence in its past. In Canada we frown on military displays and unlike the Americans we feel guilty about our indigenous people but like the Americans give them lip service. Our military history very much was subordinated to following the British whether it be the Boer War, WW!, WW2, Korea. Our police did not even use guns until the late 60's whereas to be American, a gun was as essential as a penis for its men. To this day our military sees the British military model as the one to follow and this means no bravado and vet display of technological prowess like the US military but instead a very modest, quiet disciplined approach like the good soldiers we were within the greater British military scheme of things. American culture embraces bragging that it has the biggest penis (best fighter jet, most nuclear weapons, best rocket) while in Canada hey we identify ourselves as a furry beaver.

....more like double Dutch logic.... dude....just because 13% of the vote went to xenophobes duche bags doesn't make the rest pro-immigration or EU automatically. As for your animal rights analogy this is such a ridiculous comparison to say just because 3% of the vote went to animal rights group the remaining 97% are in favour of animal cruelty...That's such a a lazy and at the same time radical thinking.....

Your comma addition was dandy.

Actually, it is perfectly grammatical.

Are you agreeing with my ungrammatical double does? More on this distinction you are trying to make later.

Would being against South African apartheid have been anti-South African? Another of the way too common illogical conclusions that are made here all the time.

Does this mean that you are in favor of Israel's apartheid policies? ================================= "Apartheid" isn't just a term of insult; it's a word with a very specific legal meaning, as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1973 and ratified by most United Nations member states (Israel and the United States are exceptions, to their shame). According to Article II of that convention, the term applies to acts "committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them." Denying those others the right to life and liberty, subjecting them to arbitrary arrest, expropriating their property, depriving them of the right to leave and return to their country or the right to freedom of movement and of residence, creating separate reserves and ghettos for the members of different racial groups, preventing mixed marriages — these are all examples of the crime of apartheid specifically mentioned in the convention. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-makdisi-israel-apartheid-20140518-story.html

My apologies to any Dutch person. My threads are meant only for discussion not to talk for you. But hey just yesterday I was Irish.

Wilders is a strange man. He will in some speeches sound quite moderate and logical then in other speeches sound like an SS officer. As for Ayaan Hirsi Ali who is no longer in the Dutch Parliament. she was never a bigot like Wilders. She was a very precise woman in language challenging fundamentalist Muslim ideology and in particular how it impacted negatively on minorities and women. Ali is no Wilders or vice versa. In Wilders own party you have extremist neo Nazis but also very moderate people who hate fundamentalism.. There is just no point trying to label Dutch politicians. They say what they feel and it crosses party lines. We have Muslim women in Canada like Ali. They too have faced a lot of backlash from mainstream fundamentalism Islamic clerics.

If there is evil being done in the world, the US is most often, either directly involved or they are having proxies do if for them.

The US has been at war for over 90 percent of the years as a "country". Canada, much much much less.

They both had top notch programs of genocide, but as always the US one was much more brutal.

What would happen to them? Would other countries be obligated to take them in if Canada deports these "ex-citizens"? No. Debating this seems like a moot point.

You did somewhat okay in trying to separate different Muslims in your previous statements, but then you finished with the conclusion above. There is no "Muslim problem" since majority of Muslims have no problems living and assimilating in Europe like they have been for a long time. There are issues, very minimal issues, with a small minority of people from certain parts of the world, sure. But this is not due to them being Muslim, since an overwhelming majority of Muslims do just fine in living in harmony in Europe.

Majority of the Wilders and LePen's voters are racist and xenophobes who are easily moved by the fear mongering of the non-existing 'take-over' by migrants/Muslims. The biggest news in the Dutch elections was how well the left, pro-environment parties did, especially the Green party. The Green party ended up taking votes away from the stale fence sitting centre party. The GreenLeft went from 4 seats to 14 seats and they, combined with the other pro-environmental parties will have a big say in the policies pertaining to the environment and immigration. Most people know what the real threat to the world is. It's not the made-up migrant/Muslim threat. The real threat is climate change and the effects it is having on our planet.

Payback is a bitch, eh ? No more Mr. Nice Guy for Iran...this is war. Ban all Iranian travel to the USA as long as is necessary....so that's forever. Also, give Israel whatever it needs to defend itself from the Evil Iranian Satan. Israelis are welcomed to travel to the USA...not Iranians.

We're not talking about crimes when we say we want screening for compatible values.

Does the thing tell you at all if you get a down-vote? I'd like to know if I get a down vote, same as for upvotes. The heart's kinda ... there is no appropriate metaphor. Just a thumbs up is fine

Saskatchewan has a separate school system. The Sask (conservative) Party has no intention of changing that. The Catholic system is not a private school. When we pay our school taxes, we check off which system we use. There are no uniforms. Ontario is not the centre of the universe.

Yeah but the christian prayer and bible stories were being forced. You are talking about a time when kids got beat for refusing to pray, even if they were not religious. The muslim stuff is all voluntary and done in the gym on students own extra time. Christians were never asking for prayer after school programs, they were asking for in class religious teachings as part of the curriculum and the government largely caved to them by agreeing to give them publicly funded religious schools like catholic schools and protestant schools, etc. Alot of muslims are asking if the catholics and protestants get my tax dollars to have their own schools, why can't we? Where is the equality? Canada was never found on a strictly secular basis like the USA which has a constitution which specifies seperation of religion and state. Rather, Canada's constitution explicitly guarantees the rights of religious groups and entangles them into public funding. I don't think people should be allowed to cover their face in any government ceremony, I don't think people should be permitted to testify in court behind a shield, I don't think a person's identity should be hidden in any court action except minors. I think it needs to be all in the open. You accuse a man of rape, well you need to show your face too. None of that man's face is lambasted through the media, but no one know who this woman is. We have religious public funded universities, religious publicly funded schools, etc. I don't agree with eliminatingreligion from government.

I can believe it. Just watching the leftist liberal media and the democratic party with their constant attacks against Trump over every little thing he says or does tells me that Obama and Hillary with their buddy Soros are most likely working very hard behind the scenes to try and topple Trump. The problem with these fools is that they have a problem dealing with their loss. They refuse to accept it. Deplorable losers. Their destruction of America has now been put on hold. The people that voted for Trump like and want his policies implemented which will be good for all ordinary Americans even for the fools who are being used by those losers mentioned above to try and convince them that Trump is their enemy, not their friend.

Perhaps Donna Brazile should be #66, when she gave Clinton a list of topics before the town halls or was it the debates, which were going around then. Many reporters ask her about this and she denied it and just came out saying anything that she didn't know or do anything wrong. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donna-brazile-passing-debate-questions-clinton-camp-mistake/story?id=46218677

What about in Alberta where they get full funding, and ONtario where many of them ie catholics and protestants ones get full funding and many of the religious universities are fully funded here in Ontario. I have many friends who went to religious schools, myself partially included, our so called tuition consisted of zero dollars a month right here in ontario. Its not just catholics. Religion already is in government, you already admit that the catholic CHURCH has speciall agreements with government so how the heck can we eliminate it short of constitutional amendment? You are right, government cannot favour one religion over another, not secularism, not catholicism, not athiesm nor islam, so the obvious choice would be to have school choice and permit people to form any kind of charter school within the public system they want so as long as demand exist to support it. Not allowing any religion violates the constitution and violates the principle of tax payer choice and the principle of favouring athiest and secularist over religious groups. Religious people belief that religion is so entangled in life they cannot separate education from religion. As such they formed their own private schools. Eventually, religious people figured wait, why are my property taxes supporting a school system my kids cannot even go to, and they demanded public funding and got it. This is democracy. Tax payers are paying for worship in schools. The religious taxpayers. Why should religious people fund a school system they don't even believe in?

.....Pleasure is all yours from down under mate!....The irony!

I didn't say Bernier has no ethics.

People engage in fake marriages to come over here, and the day after they get their papers they divorce or leave their spouse and face no penalties. In fact, the Liberals made it even easier for them to do so. The Tories had put a delay in to try and dissuade this kind of thing from happening and Trudeau eliminated it.

There's nothing 'automatic' about government, but once you marry and send in the forms and are given landed immigrant status, that's it. You're here for life. If you dump your spouse ten minutes after you arrive it makes no difference whatsoever. However, the sponsor is still responsible for paying for them. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/multimedia/video/marriage-fraud/marriage-fraud.asp

Well maybe you have a point that you just wanted to talk to the mods, I dunno. What I'm saying is, if you post a public topic on these boards you can't expect the public not to possibly reply. I find your non-western perspectives interesting, but I don't respond to threats.

LOL, thanks Erdogan.