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It's ridiculous. There is very little difference between this appeals system and just throwing open the borders to anyone who wants to waltz through. The "anchor babies" need to be dealt with. Partly because many of these "refugees" and "asylum seekers" know they can never be turned away after birthing a child in Canada and partly because when we take in a family with 6 kids already and all they do is continue to reproduce, the chances of anyone in that family ever becoming a contributing member of society gets slimmer and slimmer. And now they're in a rut and a tax-payer burden for generations. I'm thinking of the family in BC who came with 6 kids, had one on the way over and another immediately on arriving, with no signs of stopping. The father is, of course, too busy to work or take language classes - and why should he have to? They're raking in almost $6000/month in child benefits alone - the mother will never work and the kids learn to play the system the same way as the parents. And complaining the whole way that they need more money because they're not living in a nice, new, fancy building. We are suckers.

Wow, I am so sorry that you experienced all that in your life. Truly. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the difficult work you have done to heal - and it is very hard work to recover from such abuse. That you did it, likely without the supports and programs available to women victims, is even more impressive. You very eloquently express how this type of abuse affects both men and women. A male perspective on female abusers is a much needed voice on this topic. You should consider working with survivors. I have volunteered extensively to work with survivors of high-control religious cults and for many, leaving came after suffering abuses like your's. And they were shut down and silenced by the group, as you were by your father. Absolutely - hurt people have a tendency to hurt others. Great topic, thanks for bringing it to the forum. Great reply from Dia, too.

Great OP and question. I think that part of the answer is that our society expects men to be physically and emotionally "strong" - they can be angry and they are expected to be horny. They can't be vulnerable, scared, uncertain, confused, or disinterested in sex. The idea that a woman could force a disinterested man into sex is anathema to this view of a strong man. A woman can "trick" a man into sex, using his pervasive horniness against him, but this still protects the image of a strong male because everyone knows that a "real" man always wants sex and only turns it down in pursuit of higher ideals. A woman who uses "tricks" to subvert a man's efforts to remain chaste or faithful is in the wrong while the man can be forgiven for succumbing to her temptations. Certainly the issue of female sexual, mental and physical abuse of men and boys is not addressed nearly as well as it could be in our society. Men often don't report women who are physically abusive because too often the response is disbelief that he would "let" a mere woman do this to him. Equally, a response that assumes a man always wants\enjoys sex makes reporting sexual assault challenging for a man. His "manly" strength is questioned and in our society male weakness is not acceptable. Edited to add: I posted this before I read the article linked by Goddess, which says something very similar.

If politicaly correct disappeared we'd be better off.

I can only imagine they decided the best defense was a good offense, and that this subject would endear them to the NDP voters they're desperately trying to hold on to. So Trudeau's Somalian immigration minister picked a fight with Ontario's new government over Ontario's demand for the feds to step up and pay more of the $174 million it has cost them so far this year to feed, cloth and shelter the illegal immigrants crossing the border from the US. In fact, Ahmed Hussen seemed to actually be taunting Lisa Macleod when he said her attitude was 'uncanadian' given he was a Somali illegal immigrant himself. Hussen accused Ontario of using false language to describe the migrants as queue jumpers, even though that's exactly what they are, and said it was 'irresponsible, divisive, fearmongering and un-Canadian." It is, of course, none of those things. It is entirely accurate and honest- adjectives he, as a Liberal, has no familiarity with. Early, he had also objected to Ontario calling them illegal immigrants, even though, of course, that is precisely what they are. Hussen lied about Canada's international obligations, lied about them not being illegal, and lied about them not being queue jumpers, and given his previous job was as an immigration lawyer, he knows very well he was lying. In fact, Canada is under no obligation to even allow these people into the country since they are coming from a safe third country, and in fact, the more 'refugee's we accept in a year, the fewer actual honest immigrants we take. Refugees might well be processed in a different line, but the lines join up in the end, and they push in front of those who have waited years following the normal route of applying to come to Canada. Hussen seems to be relying on that time-honored habit of the less qualified, less capable, less intelligent members of ethnic and racial groups to bleat about intolerance and xenophobia any time they don't get their way or anyone disagrees with them. Which is , I suppose, what we would expect from one of Trudeau's affirmative action cabinet ministers. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/immigration-asylum-seekers-hussen-macleod-1.4746622

Our society seems to think that when an attractive woman who sexually abuses a heterosexual boy or who coerces another heterosexual man into sex, he should thank her for it even though evidence shows that these child and even adult male victims often suffer real trauma, depression, and sometimes later addictions and other mental-health problems of their own. Why is it that our culture is so accepting of attractive women sexually abusing heterosexual males on the assumption that the man or boy must necessarily appreciate it and that this violation of their boundaries causes no harm? Worse yet, while it's generally accepted that a girl or woman may experience orgasm as a natural sexual response when being sexually assaulted, we treat a male erection and especially orgasm as the ultimate proof of consent while ignoring that even a man who physically resists can still get an erection or orgasm, that a man can orgasm while asleep, and a man can orgasm even when passed out drunk. We ignore that a man can get an erection even when experiencing a traumatic experience. Our culture seems to accept female coercion as harmless, and that's when it even accepts and acknowledges that women do engage in sexual coercion themselves. What is it in our culture that makes it so acceptable for an attractive woman to sexually abuse straight men and boys?

We've been pissing off the world and they seem desperate to reach a trade deal with us that we've been plenty fair on. Free, fair reciprocal trade. Sounds like the rest of the world has issues and not america. Our economy is doing stellar, how is everyone else? 25 percent of our economy is the world's economy, let that sink in...

Because despite his faults, he's trying to do something for the deplorables and its showing real results. We have a shortage of labor, our economy is exceeding growth expectation.

Actually, Obama continued many Bush era pre/post recession policies (e.g. "tax cuts", TARP)

Well, if you guys would hurry up and reach the goddamned technological singularity all this would be moot. What's really unsustainable is the notion that everyone will still be held morally responsible for carrying their own economic carcass thru the ages despite automation, robots and competing with some 10 billion other human beings looking for a job. Its ludicrous.

Well said. I feel pride in being Canadian, in the Western ideals of equality and freedom. My skin color seems irrelevant to being Canadian and supporting those ideals.

"Most Canadians seem only vaguely aware they have a military... http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dnd-canadians-military-poll-1.4754083

I suggest the tears of a million leftists might be enough to wash him way.

Actually services are among the most tradeable things. When people think of the "service" sector they think retail cashiers, healthcare, restaurants, etc. But the far larger part of the service sector (by economic output, not necessarily number of employees) are financial, legal, professional (engineering, architecture, consulting, etc) and software services. Western companies excel at providing these services and provide them all around the world. As for advanced automated manufacturing in America... yes, it could in theory be done (and is done on a small scale in many cases). But while labor costs may become (and already are in many cases) a non-issue, the real problem is regulations, particularly environmental ones, legal liability, nimbyism, etc. Building a factory in America is not easy, especially if it handles any kinds of unusual materials, which are all necessary for manufacturing in rapidly growing fields including batteries, solar energy, semiconductors, etc. Moreover, the needed scale of manufacturing requires the construction of entire industrial cities with interlinked infrastructure providing for an entire supply chain to exist in place, everything from the refining and production of raw materials to the production of tooling and equipment to the construction and testing of final products. China and some other countries can do this, America simply can't, it is too mired in gridlock, regulation, and partisanship. Think of how much hype surrounded the Tesla gigafactory, and then realize that a thousand such factories are built in other countries every year.

On the contrary, I think it did. Billions of people across the developing world have entered the global middle class over the last couple decades. These people have fueled the explosive growth of Western (mostly American) tech and finance companies. Facebook has over 2 billion users, and most of them are in developing countries, for example. More traditional industries have also enjoyed massive overseas sales, everything from military contractors (Lockheed, Northrop) to civilian aircraft (Boeing, Airbus) to computer hardware and software (Apple, Microsoft, Intel) to Western engineering and architecture firms designing new infrastructure and buildings in developing countries, among many others. That said, I think this thread is correct, there is an increasing rise of "economic nationalism", primarily in Western countries, where the benefits of globalization are not obvious to a large portion of the lower/working class. What will likely happen is that as Western economies erect new barriers to trade, they will cut themselves off from increasingly prosperous global trade relations among the rest of the world's countries, where the benefits of globalization have been more widespread throughout the entire population. Just as the greatest benefits of globalization will be ready to be harvested, Western countries will cut themselves off from it and not share in the rewards.

I'm not sure what you mean by "white pride"? It's a generic term that seems mainly to imply reference to genetic characteristics like skin and eye color. Personally, I don't see much point in that. I think there is a valid case to be made that we should be proud of the accomplishments of Western civilization, out of which and despite often tumultuous battles, concepts like democracy and individualism have become firmly rooted. The cultural and material accomplishments of Western civilization massively impact the entire globe and likely will continue to do so for quite some time.

Yes, it would seem that Ahmed Hussen's big mouth could be a big political liability for election season. It's good to see the thin veneer of Trudeau's all welcoming policies get shredded by domestic realpolitik. Doug Ford...Making Ontario Great Again.

Why are you a politically correct crybaby?