Leaderboard

So, who is the greatest threat to world peace and security today? Russia, China, Iran, North Korea? NO, not according to most people living outside the US! US is seen as a bigger threat to democracy around the world than Russia or China, new poll finds After four years of Donald Trump and rising political extremism in the United States, America is no longer the beacon of democracy it once was. At least according to a new poll that has found the US is perceived as a bigger threat to democracy than Russia and China. Inequality is believed to be the biggest hindrance to democracy, but in the US, tech companies and their power is also seen as a threat. The poll was commissioned by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation and they gathered data from 50,000 people in 53 countries. The survey shows that democracy still gets high marks, even though people who live in democratic nations are more likely to have negative views of their government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, compared to people who live in countries with less democracy. The outcomes of the poll might prove difficult reading for the G7 nations as they conclude their London talks as they perceive themselves to be the guardians of democratic values and those that fight more authoritarian governments. The survey was conducted between February and April, so the results may have been stained by the reputation left by Mr Trump. The survey did, however, acknowledge that the US’ reputation was improving since Mr Trump left office. The most astonishing takeaway was that 44 per cent of those who took part in the survey view the US as a threat to their country’s democracy. Thirty-eight per cent of respondents fear the same from China, and Russia is at 28 per cent. In a year, the view that the United States is a threat to global democracy rose greatly. The highest increase was in Germany and China. Respondents from Russia and China had the most negative view of the US and the supposed threat they represented, followed by European countries. The poll showed that democracy was still important to people across the world, with 81 per cent saying so. Only 53 per cent of people said their country was democratic regardless over whether the country actually was considered as such. Aside from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, each country polled said that inequality was a greater threat than freedom of speech crackdowns. Chair of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, former Nato chief and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, “This poll shows that democracy is still alive in people’s hearts and minds. We now need to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic by delivering more democracy and freedom to people who want to see their countries become more democratic. “The positive support for an Alliance of Democracies, whether it the UK’s D10 initiative or President Biden’s Summit for Democracy, shows that people want more cooperation to push back against the autocrats. Leaders should take note of these perceptions and act upon them.” https://news.yahoo.com/us-seen-bigger-threat-democracy-175547059.html

Canada has been without a Governor General for four months now and without a head of the Canadian Forces for about three month. This is not a good situation. This is PM Trudeau's making. He appointed Julie Payette and appointed the head of the Canadian forces. Now we have the head of the Supreme Court acting as GG which has some conflict of interest aspects to it, since he now must sign off on laws that he could be required to rule on as to their constitutionality. Also we could be facing an election very soon and if there is a hung parliament, the SC judge must work with the varies political parties to see if they can form a government. This should not be done by SC judge, but should be done by a GG who is not involved with SC rulings. The separation of powers is becoming blurred and could be a problem. Why is PM Trudeau not appointing a new GG and head of the Canadian Forces? Does he see a political advantage in putting these appointments off?

I presume you're speaking of universities here. Might I suggest that were it not for the ballooning ranks of high paid non-teaching positions they could lose the foreign students and still lower tuitions?

That's a lot. In fact, in 2019 there were 642,000 international students in Canada. The 2 largest countries of origin are India and China. Tuition for international students isn't subsidized by the gov, so the schools make a lot of money. It's basically an industry. https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-number-of-chinese-students-in-canada-plunges-by-44-per-cent Is this good for the country? Economic benefits worth it? One of the problems is security from countries like China where students can be involved in Canadian research and be involved in espionage. I would think that's a small minority of the overall students though. Some come to study and then try to get their permanent residence after they graduate, others go back home.

*this comment scrubbed to avoid spreading misinformation. Thanks to Argus for the fact-check*

Well, I shouldn't be the one to get your hopes up, but along with the 22 $Trillion debt bubble Joe is riding and will have to hope interest rates flatline on for the coming years, there is the other problem of Democrat members of the House (including the 'Squad'), is that the self-proclaimed "progressives" have accomplished absolutely nothing on the issues that led a multitude of poor and lower middle class people to fund their grassroots campaigns to get into Congress. A warning bell for the Democrat 'progressives' should be seen in the collapse in donations for the friendly media who have played such a big part in elevating their political campaigns, because most of them like Democracy Now, the TYT network and Majority Report have gotten into the game that the fake left - Jacobin, Intercept and others began with - taking big donor funding that comes with strings attached. And obviously the most important strings are never criticize Democrat leaders who are close friends with the liberal billionaire class! So, AOC & co. may have figured out how to score big campaign donations, but their supporters were expecting them to fight for a $15 minimum wage, Medicare-For-All and an end to state university tuitions. Add in the centrist Dems who don't have much to say besides repeating Trump bad as often as possible and trying to pull up more shards of evidence of some kind of Russian connection that almost certainly now was all fabricated by the Clinton team which extended to allies in the FBI and other government departments. If the Dems can't muster much more than this and the economy tanks once the debt monster becomes recognized by creditors, they will have no way of keeping either the House or the Senate! Like so many other times in history, Washington will turn back to divided government and Republicans coming back into the House as a majority will have their knives out...especially for corrupt, stupid clowns like Hunter! Who left a trail of evidence on a laptop computer he stupidly left at a random computer repair shop when he was on a bender. Once again, US politics may turn interesting again as the next soap opera takes off after the mid-terms!

This disease will become endemic. With a critical level of people getting vaccinated, more people may get the disease and not even know it, experience no symptoms or mild symptoms. The reason COVID-19 is a Global pandemic is that, where it grabs a foothold, we've seen over and over again an appreciable portion of the population get critically sick. It's happening, in a bad way, right now in India. As the vaccine gets to more people we'll see less of this.

Sorry, I don't read Chinese.

I'm not waving pom-poms for immigration here, I'm mostly neutral on the topic, but I don't think that there's a problem with educated people assimilating at all, or any reasonable amount of immigration with proper screening for that matter. Sikhs aren't a small minority where I live and I think that the young generation takes to Canadian culture like ducks to water. There are a lot of them in our local baseball teams, and they even have a Punjabi-speaking hockey broadcast for the Canucks (who I don't cheer for - I bet that they love to get our boy Jujhar Khaira on the Canucks lol. Too bad, so sad.) In fact, if we could swap sikhs for liberals I'd be all over it. (That's not saying much though, I'd swap in some Taliban for liberals.) The people most affected by immigration imo are ones who are scrambling to afford housing. I feel really bad for any nth generation Canadians who don't have their foot in the door of the real estate market because it's getting tougher all the time. With the ridiculous cost of lumber now we might actually need to pause immigration - no one can afford to build at $100 for a sheet of plywood.

The CBC is Canada's expensive joke. Preoccupied with the 5% of the population FN issues combined with the Liberal bias makes it unlistenable to any thinking person. 'Canada's radio station' . . . ? What a joke.

Yes it's true that universities get a lot more money for foreign students tuition. There is a limit to how many foreign students they are allowed to enrol, not sure what though. But you can bet that means they fill it up to maximum that is possible. Tuition fees are high, as are living expenses. Certain things like education should be accessible without barriers like cost, considering how much Candians already pay in their taxes. Too "progressive" an idea, I guess.