cannuck

To be fair: Canada was invaded and conquered by both France and England. The Yanks did once in the War of Independence, and tried again in 1812 but had their ass handed to them quickly that time. The Fenians did again but worst of all in 1921 the US had a battle plan the included invading Canada.

And any such discussion is impossible to have without considering the contributing factors - the largest one of which is our shared border, economies, services and culture. Since I have a responsibility to shareholders and employees wherever we do business, it is indeed my responsibility to promote any change for the better. There is one hell of a difference between speculating on what someone else does managing the equities underlying your 401k might do vs. having to be directly responsible for a company and all of its component parts.

I am a Canadian citizen, but 80% of my corporate presence is US domiciled. So it IS "mine" to change as the status of sick care directly impacts our employees and how we conduct business (and how much money we can make). The advanced state of decay of the US economy, the over-regulation and risks and costs of the LLL and incredible risk of serious illness bankrupting employees, employers and small companies means our strategy these days is to move production to safer countries (that include Canada). When opening a business outside of the US, sick care protection for workers is a minor consideration - as extending the care to cover travel and other items is a minor benefit in compensation packages.

What amuses me is how the looney left media screams bloody blue murder of the "democratic" process when what Trump is doing is USING the democratic process as put in place by law to PROTECT legitimate democracy to challenge what may or many not be credible claims of voting fraud. While Trump may be a right proper A-Hole about it, he IS using and respecting the democratic process as it was put in place to do. When the Dems did this, never a peep from the media about "destroying democracy" or any such crap.

You hit the nail on the head: different prioirities. The US "system" panders to the big pharma, big legal, Wall Street and Big Med lobbies to sustain an unsustainable business, whereas Canada virtue signals to the far left but without the foresight and courage to turn away from the "business/gov't" model it has developed stuck between the left and the right. Reality is: if EITHER country made the #1 priority to take care of the health and sickness of it's citizens they would both look pretty much the same - and NOT include most of what drives the most of the US and much of Canada's fumbling exploitation of sick care as a "business".

No, it's not just a reflex, it is reality. Now that the Little Tur...uh, TRUdeau has a kissin' cousin commie on the other side, things will get continue to get worse for both sides of the border. Of course, that could all change if both were to take on the genuine problems that cause this particular problem. Dumping the LLL (Legal Liability Lottery) as a core component of business could not only let sick care go to the SS side, but let things such as the hog tied genav industry go back to world domination. To add to this discussion: HEALTH care (actually preventing illness) is something Canada does a lot better since we to some extent trust government, whereas the lardass profile of much of yankee doodle population is a direct result of not listening to same advice and guidance - i.e. what little of it is offered by government.

I fell a little nauseous about having to defend our admittedly broken sick care system, but in this case, I need to comment. Our costs in comparison with almost every other more successful G7 state are distorted all to hell because we live where we live. Our economy, our culture and our business links to the WORST sick care system on Earth are so close, we get to practice little of the good and almost ALL of the bad in our efforts to keep Canadians alive. To begin with (IMHO of course, but I think I am on pretty good ground with this) health care and sick care (they are different things) are, or at least really SHOULD be recognized as a social service. South of the 49th, it is a business partly funded by social services (medicare, medicaid, GI and government employees) backed by three big, greedy pigs on its back: lawyers, insurers and big pharma. Because of the fuzzy border between us and US, we tend to do a lot of things in the same way, pay insurance for instance, based on US ideas of liability, wages to keep med pros in, do a little prophylactic medicine (they do a LOT to avoid potential liability claims) and so on. We get the public insurance part fairly right, but totally screw up the interface between private and monopolized public delivery. And, as suggested, we also underfund and understaff but a lot of that is due to the overcost of geography - both our location relative to the US and the very large area and small populations we must serve. It is not appropriate to compare SK to SK for instance: "South Korea is approximately 99,720 sq km, while Canada is approximately 9,984,670 sq km, making Canada 9,913% larger than South Korea. Meanwhile, the population of South Korea is ~51.8 million people (14.1 million fewer people live in Canada)." Add to that SK never sees SK's -40C temperatures, and SKorea is a much more productive culture (survives - actually prospers - on very high level of value added vs. our resource extraction model with little value added) and economy, not saddled with costs such as ridiculous immigration, aboriginal and stagnant region dependency costs. Also, I suspect our dependence on both recreational and US-style prescribed addiction to drugs-for-profit is a major factor.

What is in bad taste is the Liberal party and the Trudeau family in particular making ANY sort of representation of "respect" for the armed forces put in place to protect our freedoms and values they so resolutely attempt to destroy. I do agree, though, that he is appearing as a representative of the state and the people for whom he has no respect whatsoever, but we could give it a rest for one day. Which, of course, is why I responded today, not yesterday.

Toronto is the canker sore in the mouth of Canada, and a lot of that has to do with how immigrants do not blend into Canadian culture. Some worship this diversity (and it has it's moments) but chose to ignore the realities of how some of these ghetto clusters harbour the criminal components imported from the randomly occurring source countries. We call these people "liberals". There IS an upside to immigration...IF one were to be choosing carefully who gets to immigrate: second generations tend to be fairly successful at their chosen profession. Now, when that is medicine, science, manufacturing, etc. that is a good thing, but when it is drug dealing, prostitution, etc. quite the opposite. I am not suggesting we ban immigration or even restrict it to Yurp, just that we pull our collective head from the other end of the alimentary canal and try to use some intelligence and reason in how we do this.

Let's step back and take a little bite of reality: Aboriginal bands (there was no "nation", just a lot of warring tribes) have been clamouring for "self government" for decades. We are talking about a group of people racially qualified to receive the privilege of virtually unlimited funding. Do you know what a small town in rural "Rest of Canada" does when they need water? The drill a well/tap a river, design or pay to have someone design a workable system of treatment, build a plant, operate and maintain that plant, and so on. THAT is what self-government implies. Elect a representative body, plan your infrastructure, execute the plan, maintain the infrastructure with accountability to the taxpayer. Chiefs and councils seem to be able to organize (i.e. beg for) funding to build endless casinos and bars, sell untaxed tobacco, gasoline and booze out the back door, but for the life of them (or their constituents) they seem to miss the intent to provide safe drinking water and just scream at the feds (yes, I realize that reserves are indeed federal land - but when you declare yourself a "sovereign nation" you need to take on some responsibility, not just skim the cash).

I think the Little Tur....er, I mean PRIME MINISTER TRUdeau is talking about preparing to evacuate 300,000+ from Hong Kong. I would for one welcome that particular infulx. People who refuse to knuckle under to Communism (and ironically would be fleeing into creeping socialism).

I have very long experience dealing with China and Chinese people. First thing you must appreciate: China for thousands of years was more of an idea than one single country. The miracle of China's success was that the displaced Chinese from the '30s clung to that idea as it was engrained within their culture. It really only became one big country under Mao. When Deng opened it up, those families that had been off shore from between 50 and a few hundred years simply continued clinging to the idea of China as one big country and did, as their culture dictates, just went right on being Chinese as their ancestors had once dreamed of being. Oh: and they brought back what was billions but had grown into trillions of bux when they just kept on being Chinese. Understanding that leads to realizing what Macao, HK, Tibet, Taiwan mean to China and Chinese. The puzzle must be completed in their minds. I just wish we had leadership that could define Canada and Canadians with that kind of strength and longevity. But: we sure as hell do NOT have that, nor have we ever. Yes, there will be individual exceptions, but my experience (and I think you will find many others who know the country and its culture) is that overall, a Chinese will be Chinese forever. Doesn't stop them from being a welcome, contributing and loyal Canadian.

It's simple enough that even a city slicker such as yourself should be able to figure it out.

Real conservatism is alive and well in Canada, but you are right: it sure as hell is not represented by the Red Torries of the CPC! The story in the US is very much the same as Canada: the drift left is an urban phenomenon. As the world population bloats, it urbanizes to a greater proportion. Urban populations are by definition mostly dependent populations and not very productive, thus the Petri dish of socialism (and crime, as it happens). Rural and most of small town Canada is almost as conservative (but much less fundamentalist than rural USA).

Don't get out much, do you? I wander all around the prairies and the North, and the invasion of third world into hospitality and service industry is HUGE and very widely spread...even outside of major urban areas. What particularly irks me is that we have a largely unemployed aboriginal population that seldom participates in this entry level into the working economy (unless, of course, they can climb into bed with the Mafia and open a casino). Similarly: the destruction of quality and integrity in engineering in the resource (and other) sectors in Canada has been led by a charge of third world "professionals" who have earned their credentials by privilege, seldom by merit. Of course, one of the biggest players in that respect is the Liberals favourite complicit criminals: SNC Lavalin.

Worse yet, in dealing with government, academia and large business, one is forced to try to work with someone with a poor command of English or French, have their position and/or title due to privilege, not merit and most of all have no concept of the ethics upon which our society, academia and business expect and depend upon. I still think the correct way to settle newcomers who don't come with professional credentials and a sponsoring employer is to send them to reserves. Aboriginals want to be treated as equals, so let's give them a few hundred thousand doses of equality. I suspect after a few hundred immigrants settled in, you would find a few who could design an adequate water system and a bunch more who would get off their ass and install it and a few more who would do what is seldom done and actually monitor and maintain it.

You missed THE most important point: they will mostly vote Liberal, thus the cost to the country is irrelevant. The overarching conservative way of growing an economy is to be more productive and less wasteful, diametrically opposite to what liberals believe.

You can take the boy (or girl) out of China, but you will NEVER take China out of the boy (or girl).

Notice how more than 2 billion in bribe money brings total silence on this matter from the media.

Thanks, Charles.

Argus: did not see your thread so posted the question of what our debt/GDP looks like in "business and economy". I think you can imagine my attitude to piddling away hundreds of billions essentially to try to buy votes as the Libs do in the maritimes and 905.

That's what I was suspecting and afraid of. It should be headline news every day, pointing out who did this and why - not to mention questioning how the hell we (or more to the point or grandchildren, great grands, etc.) are supposed to pay it.

With the Little Tur...um....I meant TRUdeau spending like not a drunken sailor, but an entire drunken navy, I wonder where our Federal debt/GDP is now? Similarly, add in provinces and municipal government debt, and where does that put us? Finally: personal borrowing due to near free money is also over 100% GDP, but during (and later after) the pandemic, wonder where we will be? Amazing that no politician seems to have either the brains or balls to address one of the key problems with the Canadian economy. Gee, it seems they can't address ANY of the problems our economy has. Really shakes your confidence in our elected representatives, doesn't it?

Had to think about what forum this belongs in, but this seems best place I often comment that one of the things very wrong today and with the so-called "green" movement is that we expend vast amounts of resources trying to find better ways to do more of the things we shouldn't be doing at all, instead of looking at the big picture and dealing with the underlying problems. Youngest daughter decided she has had enough of being a landlord, so we have been helping her fix up her 7 year old house for sale. It was a "starter home" she bought when she graduated and was about to enter the workforce that a developer/builder put together near the end of our real estate boom. It was a staggering contrast to what I have experienced with older homes. EVERYTHING is as cheap as possible, much of it from offshore, so pretty much everything has deteriorated significantly. One simple little thing that was an analogy for the whole lot was the electric range switch that had a broken shaft (from my Son-in-law dropping microwave during a replacement for tenants). I went to an appliance repair shop to get a switch, and they had a used one on hand...for $80. So, since I really needed it, I paid the price and noted his comment that after 6 years, the OEM no longer supports that model and parts are nearly impossible to find. We had an interesting discussion that included me remembering my Grandmother's first electric refrigerator (IIRC 1953). It became my Mother's and eventually ours and kept running and otherwise as fully functional and durable for nearly 50 years when we decided it might be best to get something that should be more efficient. If the so-called "green" movement had any sense at all, they would realize that EVERYTHING we do today is designed to be very life limited and the cost of resources to replace EVERYTHING from kitchen appliances to homes, roads and bridges because we worship "newness" and profitability over quality and durability is NOT SUSTAINABLE. It would be so easy to simply make 100 year appliances and 1,000 year buildings with designed in maximum efficiency and durability - yet nobody even has that discussion. Instead we virtue signal doing truly stupid, wasteful things that fit into the profile of wasting even more by perfecting our wasteful lifestyles.