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The next time someone asks why they should have to be taxed to pay for the education of someone else's child, show them this post, and ask if they want their child to be outvoted by people with this level of understanding.

none of that was by choice Canada was born of the fear of American invasion, America is the enemy at the gates the whole point of Canada was to be a British NATO against the Americans the problem was simply that the British Empire impaled itself on the Somme, and then proceeded to collapse so Canada was forced to render unto American Caesar to survive without the British Empire to prop Canada up

I won’t go point by point, but a few main issues: Indigenous policing on reserves is already prevalent. You can’t have a different set of criminal laws on reserves unless it becomes illegal to leave reserves. A two-tier justice system is a recipe for disaster. We could have a whole conversation about the additional fishing, hunting, and other liberties Indigenous enjoy. A lot of looking the other way happens on smuggling through cross-border reserves. If you allow reserves to veto all resource and national or provincial infrastructure projects, many if not most national and provincial rail, highway, energy, mineral, and environmental protection projects won’t happen. There are good reasons why interprovincial projects are subject to federal approval rather than provincial and band council, because otherwise the “Not in my backyard” contingent would make it impossible to have viable trade routes, resource development, manufacturing, and employment. It would basically turn Canada into a completely uncompetitive backwater. We saw quite successful attempts to do this over LNG and other pipelines in B.C. Canada struggles to utilize her own resources and distribute the benefits to her own peoples, Indigenous included. Again, you have said unceded many times but haven’t identified who has the right or legal title to cede the lands. In most cases surveyors and settlers entered and settled territories because there were no apparent claimants. I agree that where a legitimate land claim can be made, it’s the prerogative of the claimant to take their evidence to court, but you seem to assume that there are homeless people sitting on sidelines waiting to get their territory back. Establishing title that far back is hard to prove and becomes more dubious the more claimants come forward and the farther back in time one has to reach for evidence.

First and foremost, it should be Canadian choices made to support more independence from the American hegemon. This means less NAFTA and more diversified export nations...less dependency on the U.S. economy. It means maintaining a viable military to have a "seat at the table". It means more east-west infrastructure projects like pipelines and refineries instead of going south, and it means fewer trade barriers between provinces. It means more R&D investment and higher worker productivity. The cultural, media, and political dynamics all follow a more independent path capable of independent policy decisions. Years ago, MP Carolyn Parrish famously said, "Damn Americans ... I hate those bastards." There was more wisdom in this politically fatal quip than some Canadians want to admit. That's the whole point...Canada has painted itself into an economic and military corner that makes it nearly impossible to the "tell the yanks to F right off..." It is unwise to keep digging the hole but expecting different results. Nation states don't have friends...they have interests...the two should not be confused. Just the other side of the same historical coin. Canada stayed with Great Britain until the American bastards supplanted the British after WW1/WW2. Canada does not cry tears for those who have fallen in such conflicts....Canada exports more APCs to Saudi Arabia instead.

Must be one hell of a friendship, one where we can take advantage at every turn... maybe step brother would be a better description, a relationship forged out of survival and necessity, rather than love or friendship .. Your chioce of the word bully to describe the US is interesting, seems to be very Canadian to describe our closet allied and trading partner. I also find it puzzling that most US adventures or as you put it killing millions of civilian's across the decades, Canada for the most part has been a willing participant in some form or way.. and no mention of our own adventures that have resulted in dead civilians...yes i am talking about Canada... you know what they say about glass houses..... As for resources, it's not like we can exploit our resources, can't even build a pipe line, or solve soft wood lumber...and sovereignty we gave that up long ago...we just think we run things here... I would say best way to remain on the good side of things with the US is to pay our own way to start with, on things that matter to the US, such as NATO, NORAD, 5 eyes, USUKCANNZAUS pact, our allied know we have little to offer, I'm not sure why they even let us at the table....what do we bring to the table, beside great beer, hockey, and a love for the cold...

No offence but you have to learn more about these issues. There are extensive laws regarding resource ownership and development on reserves. There are already reservations forces. Nunavut is an ideal Indigenous run territory with title over resource development. Treaties are also highly varied. Land claims must always be assessed on a case by case basis by courts. I don’t hold your lack of information against you. I have more to learn too. It does explain why it’s so easy to manipulate the public when it comes to Indigenous affairs. It’s a complex topic with few easy solutions.

Trudeau’s censorship legislation is the latest example of the drift toward totalitarianism.

it's all part of the larger false idolatry whether you believe in a literal God or not, the Western World was the Christian world but Canada has become Nietzschean, God is dead for all intents & purposes Canadian Confederation related so this paganistic cult of the Woke has quickly entrenched itself in that Canadian spiritual vacuum it's satanic in the sense that it is Anti-Christ and obsessed with imposing degeneracy upon the culture this is merely a symptom, the larger cause is the breakdown of social & family bonds, atomization by internet

Agreed...China is not our grandfather's communist regime...far more sophisticated than before. All it lacks is superpower experience, and there is only one way to get such experience. Canada is feeling the burn.

Not sure what you mean by this...President Trump was impeached..twice...and President Clinton was also impeached. Impeachment is a political process, and is very much alive. Far more likely to get committee hearings, investigations, and special prosecutors in the U.S. (in full public view) than in Canada where ruling party can so easily shut down hearings in Parliament and invoke publication bans. Judiciary is doing fine....this week, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld 4th Amendment rights for unconstitutional gun ownership seizures despite ideological differences on the bench.

...and Canada gets off benefiting from the Americans dropping bombs on people, including defence contracts, military procurements, NATO interventions, mining around the world, oil services contracts, etc. A U.S. demise means that Canada and other nations will no longer have the big stick they have relied on to enforce the "rules based order", and if this is inevitable what Canada should have done may be quite different. It is no longer true and Canada's own government(s) have recognized the erosion of relevance and significance on the world stage. Canada has less influence at the UN and may be paying a price internationally because of the close alignment (our buddy) with American policies and interventions (e.g. Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Haiti, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Saudi/Yemen, etc.). Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and other America's nations are not viewed as so closely aligned with the Americans...recently (and ironically), Canada still hasn't learned that the U.S. is not Canada's buddy where U.S. interests are concerned. Canada is America's closest and oldest...enemy. Risks and threats are assessed from Canada just like any other nation, including post 9/11 risks. Methinks it is Canada that wants and needs the relationship to be more amicable and bilateral than it really is. Canadian governments use words like "harmonizing" and "collaborating" despite the influence and power imbalance tilting mostly the American way. American corporations are already exploiting Canadian resources, and Canada's governments beg them to do it (Foreign Direct Investment). Canada lacks the population size, market size, and domestic capital to exploit resources on a national scale, depending on investment from and exports to the U.S. and other nations. Canada is far more dependent on exports (30% of GDP) than either China (20%) or the United States (13%).

it's like this Bill C-10 Liberal Trotsky is trying to ram through that's the Canadian Iron Curtain trying to keep Canadians locked away from the free world musn't let them see Jordan Peterson, he's Canadian Emmanuel Goldstein

I, on the other hand, don't support home schooling. It results in bad eggs IMO.

You missed my point, which is that Canada isn’t all about any single group. We all compromise a bit because of the multiplier effect and cross-pollination of ideas that comes from the dialogue and combined talents of all individuals and groups. The result, hopefully, is a strong, innovative, generous, and harmonious country that can stand on its own two feet.

A perfect example of our stupified form of governance is how slow it is to respond to a crisis, let alone respond effectively. Doing the same things again and again, expecting different results.

When the government declared that making and selling crack was illegal, they chose winners and losers. When the government instituted a minimum wage, there were winners and losers. When the government said you need a degree in order to be a doctor, there were winners and losers. When the government put in common sense environmental regulations, or created income tax, or brought in fishing licenses, or made it legal for wealthy Canadians to incorporate themselves to avoid paying taxes, or set the rules around lobbyists so that the super rich have the ear of our government on a daily basis while the voters have the ear of the government ever four years, they picked winners and losers. Just about everything the government does ends up influencing who gets to be wealthy. For the government to refrain from it entirely, government would have to not exist. If government didn't exist, what would fill the void it left behind? Where are our roads, fire departments, schools, etc going to come from? FWIW, indigenous people don't get benefits because of their skin colour. There are white-passing Status Indians and there are folks who look native but aren't Status. That whole schmozzle is super complicated and doesn't really boil down to "you are X race therefore you get a handout," it's more about "the government has tried to avoid culpability for certain crimes for decades and it's currently arbitrarily giving some people free money because it prefers that outcome to the one where it actually answer for its crimes under its own laws."

I agree with your interpretation, but I'm not sure what else Canada should have done. Given that we can't beat them in a fight, even an unfair, arbitrary "rules based order" is preferable because it gives us an avenue to dispute things such as softwood lumber duties, however ineffectually, without getting thousands of pounds of bombs dropped on us. Americans really get off on dropping bombs on people who can't fight back, it's kind of their thing. Basically, if America is our buddy we are secure from any kind of invasion - America won't allow another military power to exist in the Western Hemisphere if they can help it. This is why we dismantled quite formidable merchant navies after both world wars. If we want to be America's buddy, we have to trade with them at a moderate disadvantage. However, we have a big advantage over much of the rest of the world at figuring out how to navigate their so-called "rules based order" because we have so many cultural similarities, which allows us to try to project "soft power" as mediators on the world stage. Canada loves to see itself as the quiet voice of reason in the room when world leaders gather. Is this actually true? Probably not, but maybe every once in a while, and it makes a useful propaganda point. If America is not our buddy things get a lot dicier. Now we're worried about everything from their Air Force dropping bombs on us to their CIA assassinating our elected officials so that fascistic juntas can be installed, allowing their corporations to exploit our resources for pennies on the dollar, just like happened to many countries in Latin America. I have no trouble believing that the media apparatus that convinced Americans Iraq was behind 9/11 and had WMD, and convinced Americans to bail out the banks that caused the financial crash, and convinced Americans not to hold anyone to account for either of those debacles, would be able to convince Americans that Canada is the enemy. You play ball with America, or they stick the bat up your...

If you had something to say or show then you would have produced it, but you have nothing at all so you dismissed all the facts and fired off your childish insult. As of this moment there's never even been any attempt at all to mount a defence of what Trudeau did. The MSM just let him mischaracterize the whole situation and dropped the story like a hot potato. I plainly stated that Trudeau used We to funnel money into the hands of his family. Can you dispute that claim ron Young? When We was strapped for cash, Trudeau tried to shoot this enormous gob of cash to them. Can you dispute that claim ron Young? The We charity operated like a Hitler Youth camp, creating gag-worthy propaganda for him and pimping his family as royalty. Can you dispute that claim ron Young? Trudeau has a history of giving massive amounts of Canadian taxpayer dollars to the media and We, who create propaganda for him and run cover for him. Can you dispute that claim ron Young? If Trudeau had managed to get We that $900M then the total he gave to the MSM and We would be $2,195,000,000.00. That's $2.2B, and that's just what's on the books. What kind of perks do the MSM members get when they fly around on his jumbo jet to follow his election campaign? How sick is it that the PM can fly media members around to fawn all over him, and then block Rebel News from every pointing a lens at him? We actually was an ethics breach on top of an ethics breach. Do you have some alternative facts that we need to know about ron Young?

Jews attacked on the streets in the USA by mobs...one might think that's a bit of a canary in a coal mine.

Ok - it just seems weird to bring up a problem nobody is talking about. Fair enough.

that's right, I have my own view of things, what of it ?

Nobody is suggesting that, except now you.

Zeitgeist and Gritty have embarked on that rare thing: an interesting, informed and edifying discussion on here. Unfortunately Canada's relationship with its first peoples is barely related to the topic so maybe I can offer something to tie it back. Marxism has this concept called 'reification', which I roughly understand to be the process of turning abstractions into something real. For example, money is an abstraction of exchange between people that has turned into something thought to be 'real'. The tie-in is that the problems you mention could be solved if we do what the 80s corporate types called "thinking out of the box". That is, to realize that legalities, ownership, symbols of power are meaningless contrivances that should be discarded the moment they fail to serve the common good. So, "ceding of land" or even ownership and custodianship are "in the box" ideas that, themselves, could stand in the way of truly creative problem solving. I wish that our public dialogue could foster the imagination and collaboration that you have reflected in your discussion. Instead we have fake "we care about everybody" Liberals and fake "we are smart and pragmatic" Conservatives who are basically the same. They are especially similar in their limited vision.

it's a little early to call China the master of the long game if they can make the transition from an export based economy to an internal consumption based economy and start innovating instead of just coasting off the innovation of others then it starts to make more sense to say that until then, it's premature to say that, just because they had a dead cat bounce after Mao there is no guarantee that they can make that transition Japan couldn't, and people were saying they would overtake America too, jumping the gun in the same way China has bigger problems that could compromise the ability to make that transition than Japan did and the consequences of failure to make that transition for China would be far more dire than they were for Japan

It depends on who is the next POTUS?

RE: The questions raised about legal details: I don't know all the specifics of every treaty in the country. Those are valid questions but I don't know the answer. I did research that three-part argument though, I am not a lawyer but I am reasonable confident that it is correct. Law is hard. I agree that the Indian Act is racist, that the concept of Status is problematic at best, and that much of the money that is allocated to "help" them ends up being too often wasted or embezzled. I confess to being frustrated at the enormous gap between the amount of money spent and the results obtained - normally Canadians are a fairly sensible people. When has Canada ever wasted money on such a scale on anything else? That said, if native people have so much wealth, why don't we see them among the wealthy? A moderately ambitious, capable adult could leverage the benefits you describe into a pretty cushy life, and their kid could leverage more benefit, and so on and so on. They've been in Canada for, what, eight generations? That's a lot of time to force multiply. Surely there ought to be at least one or two big-R Rich families, or some kind of "reserve as corporation" cornering the market on, I don't know, all the fish in X lake or something. Anyways, I do agree that we've wasted a lot of money, and I don't want to throw more good money after bad. Problem is the solution I see is politically impossible. I think we will need to eventually sit down and negotiate some kind of "meech lake accord for FN people." Sweet, salty Christ, what a mess that would be! We'd be negotiating with hundreds of elected Chiefs representing dozens of peoples, hundreds of hereditary Chiefs trying to do the same, all of them with different amounts of leverage, different grievances and demands, and a whole bunch of rivalries with each other. Not to mention public sentiment, elected politicians and the Senate while enduring the meddling of the media and other corporations and foreign governments trying to influence the outcome with an eye to helping or hindering Canada's resource development and geopolitical situation. No reason to think this would end better than the real Meech Lake, and it could end a lot worse. As far as I can tell, the reason Canada continues to waste money the way it does is because it can't think of anything else to do. It's like knowingly doing a bad thing because it's the least bad of the alternatives you believe you have. That said, if this did someday happen here are a few ideas that might be raised: Maybe make it so that instead of needing to know English and French to have an important government job, you should instead need to know English or French and any other officially recognized Canadian language, including non-indigenous ones such as Mandarin (otherwise we're just fighting this battle all over again in fifty years over THEIR language rights). Create a new language department in school. Students may choose to learn any officially recognized language from Cree to Cantonese by zoom teaching, or French in person. Keep federal and provincial flags below native ones on unceded land. Create a new division of Police modelled on New Zealand where there's a regular cop and a Maori working as a pair and train them specifically for on-reserve and inner-city work focused on reducing harm and recidivism instead of punishing offenders. Create a volunteer group of specially trained people (part bouncer, part therapist, part guidance counsellor, part drill sergeant, etc) that will live in prison, bear witness to what goes on, and do their best to advocate for the well-being of prisoners. Allow indigenous groups autonomy over justice on unceded land or on reserves (that's a spicy one) Mandate that the Senate must include an indigenous quota and create a bunch of new MPs of reserves so that indigenous people are electing their own federal politicians. Give on-reserve schools the same per-student funding that the average Canadian gets (this will be the average of all provinces). Give one hour per day off-reserve and three hours per day on-reserve of class time in public schools to an as-yet-nonexistent group of indigenous teachers to teach an as-yet-nonexistent history that fairly tells both sides of the story. No big deal, amirite? Set national standards for child care and elder care and increase funding for both. Accept that Canadian law gives indigenous people on unceded land a veto over any resource development. Anyways, you kind of get the idea. Some of this could be talked about today, some of it would be political suicide to bring up, so even the Greens know not to raise these ideas. There is a way forward that isn't just throwing money onto the fire, but it's going to be a difficult, stressful, expensive mess with an uncontrollable outcome and nobody really believes we'll be able to create a consensus that will make the effort worthwhile, so in the meanwhile we keep shoveling money on the fire. Did you bring some smokies? You should bring smokies. This sucker's gonna be burning for a while. Unless a Wayne Gretzky of politics suddenly shows up and skates to where the justice is going, instead of where the justice is. I guess that could happen. Fingers crossed! Finally, you asked "how far back do you want to go?" My answer is: until the damage has been healed. I don't see a way to achieve justice in my lifetime. Maybe if someone finds a magic wand lying around I guess. Also I was off regarding the extent of unceded lands. If you go to https://imgur.com/Jdby1aM you can see that it is smaller than I said - most of BC and the Yukon are unceded, a bit of the NWT is unceded, a smidge of Ontario and a third of Quebec and nearly all of the Maritimes are unceded. Still, that's a lot of very valuable land. Okay, it's been fun everyone but I gotta go watch the Oilers, who are not about to wet the bed, nor will their goalie drop a big squidgy turd, thank you for asking. If there are any Jets fans here, all the best, and I sure hope I end up being the one saying "better you than me."

I would certainly agree with you that the Canada of PM Pierre Trudeau's day was a much more relevant and significant contributor to the "rules based order" that today's federal government insists is so necessary. This erosion of relevance and purpose has also manifested itself domestically (e.g. pipelines, "post national state", etc.). Canada doesn't even participate in the defining "peacekeeping" role that was so important just a generation ago, while bemoaning isolationism from the U.S. Defence spending lags behind many other NATO member nations, by choice. Worrying about what the Americans are doing is a great distraction from policy and dialog about things that Canada actually controls within its own border. That's fine, but "allies" also have independent policies and interests that may or may not coincide with Canada's. It is quite clear to me that Canada is uneasy and unprepared for a world without a multilateral "rules based" framework backed up by the hard power of a few other nations....hard power that Canada use to have. Canada should make it's own choices going forward regardless of what the U.S. does or which political party controls the White House and Congress...hoping for a favourable change with the "next" administration that doesn't come. Canadian lobbyists and politicians spending so much time and effort in Washington and state capitals just telegraphs a continuing dependence...not independence.

no, it's the other way round, Trudeau, Biden, etc take their marching orders from the Wokies the Wokies have taken over the all the institutions of big government, the Wokies are running the show now

If these ministers are too afraid of Castro Turdeau then they should not have become ministers or politicians at all or got involved in politics. Politicians are supposed to work for we the people and not their comrade leaders like Castro Trudeau. Canadians can now only expect from their dear comrade political leaders more control and power over them. For a little bit of power and control and money they have sold their souls to the communist globalist devil. such a pathetic bunch indeed. Sadly, it would appear as though Canadians have to many ass kisser minister politicians in Canada. There can be no doubt about it that Canada has well become a communist state today. When we see pastors being put in the gulag for having a church service, like they have done to Pastor Art Pawlowski of Calgary, this is a sign of communism in action because communism and Christianity do not go hand in hand. Covid equals communism. Canadians are being pretty much forced not to be able to go travelling in their own country. We are told to not even travel from one city to another city in their own province. This is an assault on a very freedom to travel. We are being told that we must remain prisoners in our own city and homes for Covid sake. Come on, you bunch of losers out there, wake the hell up before we are told that we cannot even go to our own bedrooms without permission. Hey, in CANADA, one never knows, eh? FREE THE FACE. ABOLISH THE MASK.

This is not just a issue with the right , but both sides have continually done this for as long as i can remember. it is a human nature thing, when we don't like or understand something we make fun or bring out the negative side of things. I can remember the character assignation of Harper, and Scheer the liberals painted them as losers, unable to lead our nation....and how brilliant that campaign was, it did win the liberals both elections, all of it was false, but the people still eat that shit up.... We could talk about climate change all year, and still not come to a solution that would serve both sides. addressing climate change is a huge unknown as far as the economical cost to the nation is going to be, to many uncertainties, to much at risk to be decided by to many guesses. the right tends to be more religious than the left, and we as a nation have not progressed to the point where religion is no longer a factor in anything, like morals and values, one would have to ask has the pope come out and said gays can be married in church, or accepted as a pastor, or preacher, has it happened in any other religion ?, i ask because I honestly thought that western religion was more mordern or updated to todays values...when copared to the others but thats just me not knowing. i think this is a human issue, as i think for the most part we judge what we don't understand.., or find foreign to us... It has been centuries of religious programing that have been the basis of our everyday life, our morals and values, our laws, all have overtones in our religions and it is going to take many years to change all of that. .... Our recent past seems to be opening up everything that was once proven in science and now we threw out the book, to the point it gets a little crazy, like the over 100 different genders we have today, with more being invented everyday... none based on science, and yet it is accepted by the majority to the point we now have laws, saying we have to agree or face our justice system...things are changing way to fast, for people to adjust to, or even study and prove false....

And still, Canada has purposely sought to benefit from American economic and military power as a matter of policy to preserve a "rules based order". Chrystia Freeland explained this obvious reality to Parliament in 2017: Accordingly, Canada is far less prepared for a future world without a "rules based order" and purposeful American isolationism. Unlike depending on the Americans after Britain's decline, there is nobody else to run to...again.

Complete nonsense. You have no right to not die of a plague. If you wish to not risk yourself, stay home. You have no right to have others do the same to keep you safe. Take personal responsibility and keep yourself safe. Regardless, covid is not the plague. The plague killed 40% of Europe’s population. Covid has killed 0.0001%. Learn what rights are. Also, the reason for covid restrictions was to not overwhelm hospitals, not keep everybody “safe”.

American politics can turn on a dime....Canada seems to learn and forget this lesson over and over again. Would be far more practical to assure pipeline independence at home instead of rolling the dice with each foreign (U.S.) administration or state governments. The proposed TransCanada Energy East pipeline could have completed built by now.

I am only one small voice. I have no twitter followers, let alone friends on facebook. If I had 10M followers, and started calling for them to be angry and to quote Barrack Hussein, "make your government feel uncomfortable" during an ongoing riot in the streets, well. doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the potential outcome. They have the right to, but being angry or staying angry shouldn't be encouraged, certainly not by people who have major clout and influence over thousands of dumbfounded dipsticks. "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." - Yoda

On the subject of a proposed schism in the Republican party there's no denying there's something to that. What is it though and how big a problem is it? Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? That's the where the argument lies. Myself I'm kind of leaning towards the suggestion of this seemingly traditional Republican who's frustrated enough to make this argument: The Republican Party Sucks He suggests the problem isn't with those Republicans opposing the current power structure in the Party, wanting to return to the days of Eisenhower and Reagan. The problem is with the liberal/faux Republicans that moved in and hijacked the party during the regime of George W Bush. They're embedded now and there doesn't seem to be any way to extract them.