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Well, I do not understand the leftists in English Canada. The left here in Québec is divided. The real progressive left is with the PQ, the other extreme left is with QS. QS called themselve progressives but, I agree with you, there are not progressive a single bit. The majority of leftist people in Québec are with the PQ and taking a position comparable to mine. The minority, around 20%, is supporting that pro religion at all cost approach. Outside Québec, it looks like the opposite. A clear majority of leftists support the pro religion approach and ready to defend the rights of the religion to indoctrinate so much their people that we must allow them to force their subjects to wear whatever religius garmants at any circumstances. Is this right? Am I exagerating or wrongly influenced by the medias? I think that if we want to fight that obscurantism, we need to avoid references to left or right. It's a problem that is far beyond that. It plays to much in the favor of the obscuranists.

I probably don't agree with Benz on the current Quebec government Premier who I support, but I totally agree with his comments on this thread. This is an issue of identification at times and I might add I would at in certain situations occupational health and safety in the work place or safety issues concerning citizens operating machinery privately. Security as an issue is a sub-topic under identity. Not all identity issues are about security. Not all concerns about a full face covering are about questioning Islam. For example in Brampton, Ontario a Siekh asked for an exemption on wearing a helmet due to his turban while riding a motorcycle, and was told no you must wear the helmet. To me if a full face covering males someone more likely to get injured or cause an injury off it goes. That has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with common sense which is I believe the point Benz has been making all along. We don't care for the symbolism the full covering means but that is an individual decision. It crosses over into a state concern if there is a concern as to safety, identity, security, and where a decision maker or public servant's appearance might trigger a real or perceived apprehension of bias. I treat a full face covering with a Muslim woman no different then I would a non Muslim man stepping into a bank or driving a bus or running a day care centre fully masked. I don't think playing the religion card to justify special treatment in specific situations is called for. That's my opinion and I apply that belief to all people equally. This discussion is absurd. If the person was wearing a KKK hood or a Satanic hood or some a baclava what would such tolerant people like Eye say. They'd be the first peeing themselves with indignation and fear if it was not to their liking. I think in the case of countries like France and Denmark although I do not presume to speak for them, they got fed up with semantic debates as to what is and is not an individual freedom in a democracy and have drawn the line passing a limit to apply to all equally not just Muslims. My only bone to pick in Quebec with the National Assembly is it left a cross on the wall in the Assembly. In so doing it contradicts itself everytime it talks about this issue. Its a bad contradictory message. Either religous symbols are allowed or not allowed but leaving one in the assembly sends mixed signals. I personally have no problem with that cross but because I do I can't be contradictory and hold one standard for Christians and one for Muslims. I don't feel that is right. That said I support Christian displays at Christmas so telling a Muslim not to wear whatever they want in public would be contradictory and unfair which is why I argue for specific safety, identity issues fine for just general use, its not for me to go around telling people how to dress. Where it gets tricking is with the legal issue of a person in a position of public trust who might trigger an apprehension of bias, or where the attire triggers immediate negative emotional reaction. Its a difficult concept to enforce. Some women find full face coverings very insulting to their identity. Maybe its as strong as I would feel or someone else about KKK hoods or Nazi uniforms. How do we have a consistent legal standard for such things? How do we define what goes over the line to incite hate as opposed to being just an individual expression of belief. Many argue the full face covering is an individual belief that entails no concepts of hatred. Others argue it symbolizes violent repression of the woman's identity. These are issues in a healthy democracy we are going to need to debate.There is no black and white to these issues. I also think the only difference between Quebec and other provinces on this issue is that traditionally because of Quebec's legal system, it has been always about 5 years ahead in social concepts in law such as family law or freedom of speech because of the differences in Loi Civile in Quebec or its constant experience of testing its identity's limits within a greater Anglo context which causes it to be activist in approach as opposed to reconciliatory-reactive as is the case in the rest of Canada. The pre-existing minority status of Quebec triggers it to question minority issues all the time. I also find Ontario a very strange province since I moved here in 1978 or so. Ontarians always have maintained this polite veneer while underneath where the true sentiment is, its not smiley faced tolerant. The politics of Liberals in Ontario is very elitist, selective, bigoted, and appeals to tribalism and playing to people's perceived common interests based on ethnic stereotypes. Kathleen Wynne is the protype of a bigot posing as a Liberal. She ha s open contempt and disdain for the very people she claims she supports. The ads of her embracing Muslim voters is a joke. When the cameras are off she curses them all out as homophobic sob's. Some of us aren't buying her crap or Trudeau's. I will say it again, the Premier in Quebec right now and Stephen Harper are genuinely far more moderate towards ethnics and seeking compromise then I believe the PQ's current leader would be or Trudeau is. Maybe Quebecers don't like Couillard, I do not know I just think in an impossible job he has genuinely tried to be moderate centre for Quebec. We have few centrist leaders these days. I would like to think the current PC candidate in Ontario is one. The one I liked in the Liberal party for being centralist is Grant Garneau who was my choice not Trudeau. I would also like to think the fed Tories picked their leader based on his ability to balance the right and left of his parties and for that reason I hope it works. I think on most of these issues centralist moderation is the way to go avoiding left and right artificial stereotypes of positions.

The only thing inbred for NAFTA is just how much Canada and Mexico depend on trade with a single nation....the United States. ...that is far more "isolationist".

And if someone else was the world's power like russia ,we would all be better off? People don't realize how good we have had living beside america. People have become pampered.

Trump is not in charge. The RINO traitors are. Trump is depending on the media to do their job and go after the real liars and crooks like Hillary and expose those crimes that she has committed. Comey needed to be fired. He pretty much told Trump to go kiss his ass. Not a smart thing to say to ones boss. Trump is upset because all the media does is talk about Trump, and never Hillary. Hillary is the real criminal here, not Trump, and the media should be going after her. They would have plenty to talk about if they did so. But they won't because the media belongs to the deep state, and the deep state is protecting her. What chance does a person have against a lion if they do not have gun? That is what Trump has to face every day. The lions(deep state)have all the guns and Trump has none. Hello out there?

Took him a day to craft this response? Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 43m43 minutes agoore There's audio of Trump saying "George's" name as a foreign policy advisor. He called him an "Excellent Guy". It's hilarious that he wants people to focus on Tax Cuts. . . .but still talk about democratic corruption. But don't talk about MY! corruption. "The Mule" highlighted two ways it can go for people involved in this affair 1) We can charge you with a hefty 13-count indictment that carries several years in jail. Even on stuff unrelated to your relationship to Trump. 2 ) You can co-operate and avoid jail time.

If these people were killed by their torturers (with our government's blessing) we wouldn't be having this discussion, probably wouldn't have made the news. Families without fathers, brothers, sons and no compensation. We may have just signed the death warrant for others in this situation.

Who cares, she lost the election. Trump hasn't locked her up. He lies!

Because I'm conservative, Trump isn't really Conservative. He thought about running against W Bush as a Dem. His policies are anything but fiscally conservative. He's actually just an abusive bullying that appeals to people's racism. I see more Trudeau in Trump with this sense entitlement. Trump hasn't really done anything legleslatively, he just speaks in platitudes, like JT.

What I find odd, is all the attention given to muslim refugees, like the syrians, rohinga, somalia, and how they get first class tickets to the west, but all the christians being butchered by muslims in congo by the millions are ignored by the bias media.

It is becoming clear that Sessions is not on Trump' s side, and that this may be the reason why Hillary is not in jail yet. They say that the deep state may have something on Sessions and this is why he refuses to do anything about Hillary. Hey, you never know. It's hard to get many of the things done that Trump promised to the people because when one is surrounded by a bunch of traitors that alone will make the job a little bit harder for Trump to get most of his programs and agendas thru. Trump MUST drain the swamp now. Trump is a lot better as president than having a well known crook and liar as president.

It's unclear to me whether you're asking what the USA's rationale is versus how I feel about it. If you are trying to point out that countries bullshit each other, their own people, and us, then I will wearily agree with you on that obvious point.

Saudi Arabia gets its pass, because it's multi-generational dictatorship is smart enough to line the pockets of the ruling elites around the world, thus allowing them to hunt down and kill dissenters (aka terrorists), have an appalling human rights record when it comes to women and gays, and forego the pretense of democracy. And it's a fair point that it's not just the US. Europe, Canada and others are just as complicit.

I'd argue the opposite, I think racism is a learned trait. I know I've changed over time, I was quite racist when I was young because of the environment I grew up in. Today I don't care what race you are as long as you treat me with respect. There has always been biases people have against each other, even today, if you think about it race is just one way people discriminate against each other. Gender, social class, intelligence, physical ability are just a few other reasons. Of course this has created a whole new set of problems, it has to be hell for those who's job it is to select people from pools of various races for personnel positions with some pulling the race card as an excuse for not being selected.

Utter drivel. Time and time again we've seen that the motivation for the terrorism is virtually never personal. It's ideological and religious. The guys who tried to derail a train in Ontario weren't doing so because of some damage done to a relative, any more than the guy who killed Nathan Cirillo, any more than the Somali in Edmonton, any more than the guys who stabbed innocent people on a bridge in London or exploded bombs in Spain or drove a bus into Christmas shoppers in Germany. When the "toronto 9" got together to plan terrorist attacks, including perhaps blowing up the CN tower, most were Canadian born. None of their motivation was revenge for relatives harmed. They were gripped by an ideology of hatred for those who were not Muslims and refused to bow to Islam. You, on the other hand, are driven by a simple hatred for the West born out of ignorance.