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I was quite surprised today to see an announcement from the Ontario Ministry of Health that they will provide free counselling for persons suffering from anxiety and depression. Right now one of 4 Canadians is off work at some time due to anxiety or depression and it costs billions in lost income each year due to work absences. This government has been accused of being harsh, insensitive, etc., but has just done something very progressive and enlightened. Right now if you have depression or anxiety you have to wait months to see a psychiatrist under OHIP. The psychiatrist is usually so over-booked the best he or she does is give you a brief 15 minute interview and sends you back to your your gp who may have to give you anti anxiety or anti depressant medication. The medication itself may or may not help but without adjunct (associated, attached) cognitive therapy the medication in itself may not be as effective as monitoring the medication and also guiding individuals how to identify triggers for negative behaviour. Now for many this will not be noticed but its huge (excuse the Trump word) in terms of implications. It will intercept numerous domestic violence scenarios and prevent them. It will intercept persons who might otherwise act out with violence or driving drunk or skipping work or committing suicide or crimes. In the short term it costs for the counsellors to be funded but in the long term it deals with an actually wide spread issue that costs medical care in the long run more than it will prevent with the short term immediate funding expense. Its something the supposed left wing NDP and Liberals never considered. Very far sighted. Next time someone blasts this government as uncaring it may want to think twice. This government has taken a lot of heat over issues dealing with disability issues particularly the cost of autism programs mainstreaming disabilities in schools that it has not created but is trying to fairly deal with. I applaud this constructive announcement.

Yes that brand of environmentalist is very stupid. It’s neither fair nor environmental to want to stop a pipeline that will reduce distribution emissions as well as emissions from coal burning. What’s more, natural gas is a relatively clean fossil fuel that Canada has in abundance. The majority of people along the pipeline’s route, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, want the pipeline, which will help improve living standards. In your book, a few loud dissenters should be able to flout approvals and drive away business and jobs. It’s stupid. The blockades are also stupid sabotage. You won’t understand because you’re among the privileged who gets to wear an image of “environmental consciousness”, though it’s boutique environmentalism, perfect for pasting on an Instagram page with your favourite latte. The jobs lost won’t touch you or Greta, and the more government can be shamed and blackmailed into bigger concessions and pipeline royalties, the better, right? Yup, it’s about money and image. The green extreme get to pat themselves on the back for saving the planet and helping the Indigenous (who couldn’t possibly manage on their own in your book). It’s a sham.

Yes on some reserves life is difficult, but don't think for a minute that it is this way across the entire country, where we have Chiefs making close to 1 million a year, and the avg chief making 60,000 plus tax free dollars a year, thats not living in poverty I can tell you that... and in a some cases they are making more than the PM, or CEO of major companies. Note these numbers do not include any funds paid for things like land claims , royalties for resource use . https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/salary-tracker-explore-the-earnings-of-first-nations-chiefs-across-canada/article20070005/ https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/267309-tax-free-chief-of-90-member-first-nation-may-be-canadas-highest-paid-politician

Everyone with a cause wants to get people's attention. That doesn't give them all the right to FORCE their attention on me. No, they're actually not. They can move into the cities like millions of people from around the world have done, and get jobs and have good lives. If you live out in the boonies where there are no jobs and all you got is welfare then you have no reason to live and nothing to do but drink, fight and fk.

Well, if he wants to win he won't choose any of the retreads from the race. And certainly not a 'progressive' to balance the ticket. He needs a strong, capable 50ish ex general type. People will want to know whoever the VP is can do the job and isn't some scary crank from the far left like Warren or Sanders or that bozo from Texas. He's from the northeast so needs someone from the West (NOT California) or South. Actually Beto O'Rorke would be an excellent choice if he wasn't such an inexperienced airhead and if Biden weren't 77..

Physical and verbal abuse existed in all schools, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, until tighter restrictions and codes of conduct came into effect over the past half century. Most schools were run by religious orders and churches in the first decades of publicly funded education. The idea of an educational institution is ecclesiastical and the first universities began as religious institutions. The path to free education was through the priesthood. There were no aboriginal schools. The main reason residential schools existed then is for the same reason they exist today (under Indigenous control): If you come from a small remote community, you have to move to a larger centre to attend high school. Depression and substance abuse still exist at Indigenous run schools. This is where we see the problems with the reserve system, which ties people to remote locations that are not self-sustaining and need to be funded with outside support. We see this with water and infrastructure challenges. Were there Indian agents who made Indigenous children attend school? Yes. Mandatory education is still considered progressive. I think it’s too bad that education wasn’t provided in Indigenous languages, but if the education wasn’t provided by Indigenous, what do you expect? The standards of living were much lower on most reserves and a good education was seen as a way out, as it is today.

What does Aboriginal title mean? https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2020/03/03/by-offering-to-recognize-wetsuweten-land-rights-ottawa-is-changing-the-way-canada-is-governed-heres-how.html

Page 13. Table 2. So there's the information that I've been talking about this whole time, right in your own chart. Spanish Flu killing young adults. A few posts back I pasted the info from worldometer showing the death rates for the various age groups, by decade, showing that people 70+ are 16-75x more likely to die than young people. This flu is a nudge for people who are already walking on the edge of their graves.

They should let the students wear the masks people wore during the black plague.

Actually its about the power. Smaller localized jurisdictions with titled sovereignty are a far more powerful means of ensuring local environmental, cultural and social issues will be addressed than can be depended on from distant authorities. As far as pipelines go the more of these that stand between the source of fossil fuels and the ocean the better. And you probably thought environmentalists were stupid or something. That's good, you just keep telling yourselves that.

It’s almost always about the money. The “environment” is a useful tool in this, just as some climate activists are using the trope of the pure unrepresented Indigenous victim of colonialism as the springboard to fight resource development that the majority of impacted Indigenous actually want. It’s manipulation not unlike a pharmaceutical company contributing to an election campaign to win favourable legislation. The public is being duped.

Probable scenario: Five 'hereditary chiefs' stop pipeline, twenty elected chiefs and band members strangely silent, governments drop their pants and shit a mound of tax $$ and give the pipeline to the Indians, Indians have cash-control-jobs . . . . just the way this fiasco was supposed to play out. Indians gear-up for the next 'crisis'. Backed up by the anarchist riff-raff. Trudeau is a traitor . . . . we've been 'played'.

There's a case of the Emperor's New Clothes if there ever was one...heir apparent Joe Biden. Not only wouldn't you leave your kids near this guy, he's going senile right in front of everybody's view screens.