cannuck

ah...but he DID manage to cost the taxpayer more than every war, every depression and every President in the history of the country...COMBINED.

Give them time, they will be dealt with. Now, tell me again: what did Obama do to stand up to Beijing???

https://thestarphoenix.com/news/local-news/heavy-smoke-from-train-derailment-stops-highway-16-traffic I am certain that the average anti-pipeline demonstration is nothing but a mindless, knee-jerk reaction to some media sponsored campaign of taking advantage of their ignorance, but they have once again scored a direct hit on Canada with a major crude derailment. FORTUNATELY, it happened between towns this time. What these idiots do not seem to comprehend is that pipelines have an extremely good record for public safety and environmental impact, and one that with modern technology can be improved even further (acoustic signature monitoring for physical threats and initiation of leakage). Railroads have a terrible safety record, just not something that the media is being bribed to highlight. Following Lac Megantic, Canada upped the standard of design of the former "111" rail tankers to a new level, and they are now somewhat safer, but the people who narrowly missed being roasted in rural SK yesterday probably don't see it as much comfort. What the current version of whatever this "climate change" movement might be, it is totally ignorant of the fact that petroleum in a carbon fuel based society is going to be around for a very long time, and if you block its transport by safe means, it will get transported by less safe means. Rail lines also run THROUGH most towns and cities along their way (since that is why the towns and cities came to exist - as nodes along our transportation networks) whereas pipelines are normally routed around (with obvious feed into cities for natural gas network). When will Canadians pull their collective head out of their ass and THINK for a change (thus, of course, not re-elect complete idiots)??

Which is exactly what the Trump administration is pointing out. The first President of a world power with the balls to stand up to China. But, YES, in a big way Europe could put a hurt on China by joining with the US, but they are far too busy being Euroweenies demonizing carbon and trying to ignore their HUGE immigration screwups. The Brexit slap-in-the-face is the only tiny bit of reality in Looneyville EU.

When you consider that the US administration has spent its effort to make people aware that they have a trade competitor that has severely damaged their economy so they best get to work and overcome and Canada has had 4 years of nothing but virtue signalling, political correctness, racking up stunning debt to do nothing but bring in immigrants (who they expect will some day vote appropriately) and prop up idiotic programmes devised by a genuine idiotic cabinet and supporting criminal organizations (such as SNC) while guarding them from the consequences of rule of law, WTF do you expect? The only thing that JT and the Donald have in common is that they have pissed off just about every world leader - Trump because they are afraid of him and Trudeau because he is just an incredible embarrassment to everyone he encounters.

I wouldn't say correcting you, but giving you some perspective. Once upon a time before only the most incompetent and stupid people, and/or those with an agenda would be involved in politics there was a very bright MP from the Yukon named Erik Nielsen (https://www.yukon-news.com/news/tough-brutally-honest-nielsen-championed-the-yukon/). He was an extremely bright guy, but not really good at Ottawa politics (exposed a LOT of Liberal corruption but hated and was hated by the media). He was brutally honest. He found that there were 1,100 departments and programmes within the Federal government. Near the end of his career, he wanted to fix that obvious bloated problem. To this very day, federal unions speak of being "Nielsenized" - i.e. eliminated. What I encourage you to understand is NOT to fall for the bureaucrats BS of "can do more with more money, less with less money" but simply ask why the hell do we pay most of them in the first place? The answer is, as I think you can appreciate, because we are stupid/ignorant/weak enough to let them (government and the baggage that goes along with more government) in the first place.

The correct option is not there: NONE. For a lot of reasons, some as has been mentioned that it cuts out some people from being able to work, and most of all there is no such thing as one price/wage that fits all situations, all locations, etc. What I CAN support is the elimination of social assistance, unemployment enjoyment and pretty much every other government programme for ABLE BODIED people. Hard to believe that a right winger such as myself can say this: but I believe there should be a GAI paid by the state to EVERY citizen, and it then gets taxed back at a flat rate on every penny of EARNINGS (NOTE: NOT speculative gains of any kind - that need to be taxed at a much, much higher rate). We already have universal sick care, but that should be reduced to just insurance, leaving service delivery open to anyone who can provide (including government as a competitor, not a monopoly). Do these things and all of the squabbling over who gets what is gone: EVERYONE gets it, and EVERYONE pays into with the same rate of taxation. Now, add to that elimination of deficit spending and we will be on a new and much better path. On edit: people with decent incomes could forgo the GAI by simply taking the equivalent as a tax credit, reducing their tax payable dollar for dollar.

The average tax burden in Canada is just over 50%. We don't need more taxation (except for capital gains - THAT needs to be taxed all to shit) we need a hell of a lot less tax spending. IMHO, NO government should be allowed to run a deficit. Back OT: my favourite politician by a country mile is Sir Roger Douglas. He is the one who taught me the difference between good government and bad government. His skill in rescuing New Zealand's economy from the brink of collapse was fantastic. My second favourite is William Z. Neudorf, former Minister of Social Services in SK. His skill at handling bureaucrats, the media and situations is second to none...or was, he died some time ago. Both could get by nicely without resorting to partisanship.

No different from Kalifornication of 50 years ago. EVERY nation develops by exploiting resources and the environment, and China is no exception. The real difference is that things that took decades here happen in a few years there. Their environmental legislation and regulation has come a very long way over the last few years, and actual enforcement is stepping up quite quickly. EVERYONE in Beijing is painfully aware of how serious the problem is (exacerbated by the rapid pace of economic growth that needed energy NOW and was met by burning coal - as it was what was avaialble and cheap at the time...just as we did here.

Clearly they can't see anything wrong, or see much of anything at all or they wouldn't vote liberal

what is?

That depends upon where you live and how wisely you spend your available resources

You are right, I can not claim it to be any worse under Communism that Capitalism, just that I should point out to you that I didn't say it was, just the this is an incredibly corrupt p[lace. If you want to talk numbers, though, the whole 2008/9 SHOULD have been collapse that turned into an extremely dishonest bailout of "too big to fail" pretty much tops anything any Commie country could gain access to pull off. We're not talking Nigerian or Venezuelan billions here, but TRILLION$$ of greenbacks.

and ignorance is bliss.

Our elder daughter was the ONLY student in her department grad school with fluency in English. As a result, she had to vet EVERY paper written by the others. Her duty to the department, but also my understanding is that they greatly appreciated this contribution. My concern is several of these students would be TAs, and not just linguistically challenged, but culturally many only interested in their own situation and specialty.

that's because those other cities are not Toronto

Toronto is the cultural, economic and political center of Ontario, not Canada. The rest of us see it accurately as the rectum of this dysfunctional mess.

Posting on the run, but let me throw a few fast ones over the plate. Ever heard of that social club they call the Mafia? Flourishes in North America. There's another fine group of boys called "Hell's Angels", then there is those pesky drug cartels. But wait: I am sure you agree the cartels are corrupt (and can only exist with some "inside" help) but what about the whole drug industry that teaches quacks to peddle lies for them? Don't think that isn't corruption? Or how about Wall Street? Every piece of legislation passed after 1929 to keep them in check has now been repealed and the Street has set off on a multi TRILLION dollar orgy of greed with derivatives that crashed hard. Repeat of 29? No? Trillions of dollars of bailout? Uh YEAH! That my young friend is corruption at work in the very heart of the capitalist system. Don't even get me started on what happens behind the scenes with US DoD contracts (a topic which I am familiar on a first hand basis). Of course, SNC Lavalin up here is just a nice bunch of engineers who are as honest as the day is long. Quadafi kids were nice guys they just decided to help out of the goodness of their hearts. When politician pork barrel, THAT is corruption - and is what most government spending undergoes - and now in North America we are talking about trillions a year, each year, every year. And on, and on, and ON it goes. I/we also spent years working with illegal farm foreclosures in SK. Yeah, our courts were the scene of that corrupt behaviour - practiced by EVERY chartered bank in Canada. One of our band of merry shit disturbers even managed to penetrate an offshore meeting where a major international energy player was asking him to put a few million into a bank accouint in Kiev for one of our former premiers. I have been there, seen it up close and managed to do my bit put some TINY percentage of the players in jail. But in doing so, I/we have seen first hand the extent of corruption in crown corporations, government agencies, political party backrooms, etc. Involved in a MAJOR case in USA now, and all about corruption ("Deep State" players in current lingo).

Because in the capitalist nations, the skill at hiding corruption is better. But, it is there, in spades.

Exactly my point. It is greed that drives corruption, not political ideology

Murica and a shitload of valuable resources...that we rip out of the ground for pennies and buy back as US/Euro/Chinese crap for hundred$$

This is where you do not seem to see reality standing right in front of you. Liberalism (in this case upper case is appropriate) has drifted a long way left into collective values being far more prominent than individual rights and freedoms. Look at the the LPC here and Democrats in the USA. Both unarguably Liberal/liberal in the extreme. Their stock in trade includes things such as forced association violating freedoms of choice and association (closed shop unions). Take a look at what the champion of the left, PET, produced for a "bill of rights" for Canadians - very much excluding property rights. Our Liberal "free" press cost the taxpayers $2.2 Billion handed out by those who seem to be seeking a lot of influence (successfully) from the so-called "free" press. Those are, one might argue, not only characteristics of fascism, but very much the front page of any liberal playbook. I have been confused about all of this left/right BS for decades, but finally had someone put it all right for me. IMHO, the difference between good and bad government, regardless of what name we put on them, is simply privilege. Governments of a bad nature dispense privilege to whoever for whatever reason. Good government simply would not do that - avoiding ALL of the problems with partisan interpretations of ideology. Do good government, and virtually any ideology can be fully functional.

Then you haven't been listening to the state sponsored drivel pouring out of Canada's "first nations", have you?

So, for example: the Bolivarian revolution of Venezuela is from the left or the right??? SImilarly for China: left or right? How about Russia today: left or right?

I will argue that there is not a single state NOW that is not racist. It is a human trait related to selectivity in any animal. Being politically correct and trying to signal virtue by denying racism is simply not realistic.