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Jordan Petersen is one of those people who are pushing back. The leftist social justice warrior progressive liberals despise this guy because Petersen makes them all look stupid. They deserve to be noted as stupid. My opinion.

An interesting story in the Post today in that it encapsulates all that most of us despise about so-called progressives. A Quebec environmental bureaucrat wrote a letter to his federal counterpart on upcoming legislation. The letter, sent last month from a Quebec environment official to one of his federal counterparts, does not seem all that inflammatory. The Quebec official notes that proposed federal legislation requiring that traditional Indigenous knowledge be taken into account when assessing environmental impacts permits a “very broad” definition of such knowledge. And, he adds, the bill should be clearer about how traditional knowledge is to be weighed against scientific data when deciding whether a project should proceed. How could anyone be upset about this? Clearly it's simply warning that science, and not the undefined term 'indigenous knowledge' should guide environmental assessment. Yet two cabinet ministers had to apologize amid the 'outrage' over the disrespect to natives. I think this just goes to show how lost to reality progressives are in their fanaticism at appeasing and pandering to every single minority identity group. You can't question the 'wisdom' of indigenous people, despite the fact they had zero knowledge of science and were basically a bunch of tribal hunters restricted to small geographic areas. Even suggesting we should promote science instead an endanger your career as the hysterical progressives start calling you names. And yes, of course, the progressives have already started crying racism. It's what they do, after all. http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-deputy-minister-gets-pushback-after-questioning-place-of-indigenous-traditional-knowledge#comments-area

While Sikhs are about 2% of India's population, they are about 40% of all Indian immigration to Canada. Like dairy farmers, Sikhs are a well-organised minority.

Not to worry. She's not done promising. Now it's high speed rail. Premier Kathleen Wynne was at Info-Tech in London today to highlight Ontario's historic investment to build a high speed rail line along the Toronto-Windsor corridor that will connect communities and create jobs and economic growth across Southwestern Ontario. As announced in the 2018 Budget, the government will make an initial investment of more than $11 billion to support construction of Phase One of the project between Toronto and London. https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2018/04/ontario-commits-over-11-billion-to-build-first-phase-of-high-speed-rail.html

He said, it not in those exact words “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” Trudeau said, concluding that he sees Canada as “the first post-national state.” If Canada has no core identity or mainstream then it has no culture. Mind you, I'm sure he was only referring to English Canada. He would certainly never make that claim about his Canada - you know, Quebec. https://www.truenorthinitiative.com/candice_malcolm_trudeau_says_canada_has_no_core_identity

Around 2015. That's when the latest wave of increased... "sensitivity"... started. That's when everyone started to be worried about "cultural appropriation", "microaggressions", "being an ally", "intersectional disadvantage", "cisgender privilege", etc. But, this is the first wave of this bs that is having some real pushback from reasonable middle-ground people (i.e. the increasing number of university professors who are starting to speak out against the atmosphere now found at many universities), who previously just kind of took the increasingly stifling anti-free-speech inclinations of the modern left as an annoyance to be ignored. Haha, I wouldn't question the wisdom of "ingenious" people either.

Climate Barbie and the wonderful sunny days team want to codify "indigenous knowledge:?????????????? Yeah, when the Vikings, then French and finally English got here, they found all of these universities, libraries, technological centers, etc. - this vast store of "indigenous knowledge". The aboriginal population has given so much knowledge to the world. Next thing you know Ralph Goodale will be proposing a bill to recognize that Plato, Euclid, Pythagoras, Davinci, Tessla, Einstein and Hawking will be officially declared Swamp Cree.

We can start with cutting their salaries. These are jobs which are in high demand and always have been. Fifty years ago young men lined up for the opportunity to apply to the fire and police services. They were blue collar jobs then but were seen as good solid professions for young men without a lot of education or family connections. They do not require any exceptional set of skills which are hard to find and don't require a lot of training. The training for a police officer or firefighter takes less time than for a hairdresser. Despite perceptions, they are not really that dangerous either. There is no reason to pay them $100,000 a year plus benefits. These high pay rates are bankrupting municipalities and taking money away from infrastructure and social services. I don't recommend amalgamation so much to save money as to make more efficient use of the resources we have. As you say, we have to have the fire coverage. We can't have fire halls twenty minutes away from fires. Every minute counts. But the competition to get into the fire service is so heavy that almost all applicants get paramedic certification. We have a shortage of paramedics and EMTs while qualified firefighters are washing their trucks and scrubbing the floors of their fire halls. Or sleeping. The 24 hour shift is incredibly wasteful. We pay firefighters while they're sleeping, showering, making breakfast, lunch and dinner, and eating them. Put paramedic vans and ambulances in larger firehalls. Put paramedic motorcycle in firehalls! You'd be able to respond quickly to health emergencies with people trained, authorized and equipped to do the job instead of sending out big fire trucks with five guys to do little more than give oxygen until the paramedics arrive. *even though they have paramedic training regular firefighters are not authorized to use all paramedic equipment nor do their trucks come equipped with it. Do you not find it ridiculous that in many places ambulances take a long time to get to the scene, because of a shortage, while firefighters are sleeping? Thorold is a middle-class town of 18,500 in southwestern Ontario. It has maybe 10 or 15 fires a year, the mayor figures. But although its 18 firefighters don’t have much to do, they make big-city money. An arbitrator recently awarded them a retroactive 9.2 per cent raise that bumped their pay to $92,119. Similar settlements have been awarded throughout the province. Most of the people who make these towns’ Sunshine List (because their compensation is over $100,000) are cops and firefighters. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-firefighters-are-underworked-and-overpaid/article24459593/

Cutting the salary of the elected politicians are a drop in the bucket, just a feel good measure. Want to talk about cops? Sure. For the most part they're just tax collectors that look for reasons to justify their income by striking fear in the public. No one sees a cop and thinks, oh good they're there to protect me. They're wondering what they've done wrong. Sure they have a role in fighting crime, but thats more to deal with the situation once a crime has happened. I feel this way about just about every public servant. BUT Emergency services are portrayed as sacrosanct because they can hide under the protection of public safety. A great deal of their job has nothing to do with public safety, it's mostly about justifying their income.

No. In fact firemen are expected to work for free in most small towns.In a day and age when the moral imperative and pressure on people to produce and pay their own way in the world is so strong volunteerism is almost unconscionable. Ironically the pressure people feel to produce more for less is increasing. No surprise people are wondering why big city firemen shouldn't take a cut in pay when they compare them to their small town cousins.

I bolded this in the OP on purpose. The insurance industry is regulated. Governments don't need to ensure a rigid response just cuz. Plenty of communities get by on a volunteer fire service. Paramedics have better training than Firefighters but their Union isn't as strong. Ambulance services should be merged with Fire services (in Ontario however one is a municipal service and the other is provincial). That would save a huge amount of money and ensure that fire trucks show up followed by an ambulance. How much of a waste is that?

A quick response to a fire is imperative. They grow horrifyingly fast. At the same time, only about 10% of fire department calls are now about fires The equipment and trained people need to be readily available, but the resources are badly misused. Firefighters often work only a half dozen 24hr shifts in a month, and much of their shifts are taken up by eating, showering, sleeping, and doing janitorial and equipment maintenance duties around the firehouse. For this their annual salaries are approaching $100,000. Sending out a big truck with 5 guys on it to every little accident, stroke and heart attack call is a waste of resources. They'e sent because they're available and they're not doing anything else important. Amalgamating paramedic, ambulance and fire services as is done in a number of US cities, would ensure that those galumphing big fire trucks are not racing around the city to get to scenes where only 2 guys in a four by four can do the job. Almost all firefighters are cross-trained as paramedics anyway, and why are we hiring separate people to drive ambulances (also well paid) while $100,000 a year firefighters are busily washing floors and trucks and cleaning toilet bowls back at the firehall? Wouldn't it make more sense to hire a janitor for their halls if needed and have them driving ambulances?

It will induce people to think before emitting.