cannuck

I would not put the US dead last in sick care, nor health care, but I would certainly put them dead last in cost vs. results. - bang for the buck. What I do find deplorable - and inexcusable - that the most common cause of personal bankruptcy is sick care bills. Back to the root of the problem: not being able to separate business from social services.

The flower childrens' children coming to roost in Ottawa will be a continuation of the Alberta left wing disaster. They will run the economy into the ground overnight, and debt of our grandchildren through the roof learning just how little anyone in Ottawa knows about much of anything except spending money they don't have. You can't run an economy by lifting it up by your bootstraps. It is no different from starting a business: you don't quit your day job until you have your plan B operating successfully. These idiots will never figure that out - and we will get the bill for their ineptitude.

I did not say there were any good excuses for the wait times in Canada - except that our various government monopoly on service delivery provinces screw up pretty much everything they touch when it comes to management, whereas provinces that behave in a more European way (accept public and private mix) score so much better. I added the not-for-profit comments since the buzzwords of the left and unions (i.e. same, same) are that profit is evil. I have to say, though, that when delivering a social service, it actually is. BTW: yes, the costs a Mayo can be relatively high, but the results tend to be extremely good (thinking now of diagnostics).

Rue: Thanks for taking the time and trouble to make such an excellent post. I wish people with your experience, insight and attitude were more involved and respected in policy and education.

It definitely varies from province to province as to just how much Joe Stalin is having his way. I live in SK, the birthplace of government sick care (and socialism) in North America, so pretty much have had a ringside seat to what went right and what went left (not necessarily wrong) in sick care. I am also a US taxpayer and employer, so get to see that side of the equation. To begin with, we need to separate out what we do have that is universal and similar to all other G7 countries with a qualified exception being the US (yes, I am leaving China out of this) - and that is sick care insurance. Regardless of whether there are user fees or not, we all have a tax funded insurance scheme that runs the whole sick care system. This is obviously where the US differs dramatically: they consider sick care a business, where as most of the rest of us at least realize that sick care insurance is a public service - as, IMHO, it should be. The yanks have their head so far up their rectum in this respect, they tend to politicize this issue to the extreme, and just can't wrap their head around (hard to do when it is placed as previously mentioned) the whole concept of how EVERYONE else in the G7 funds sick care. Where I have to disagree with Argus, is that if Joe Stalin were running out sick care DELIVERY system, we would not have any waiting times (as, for instance, you would find in Japan where the legally allowed waiting time is ZERO). Similarly, Cuba is a good example of how a genuinely full function Marxist-Leninist (Marti-ist?) economy treats health care and sick care. It is purely a social service with service delivery by the state. Where we screw up is by adopting the quasi-US stance of making medicine a near-business. BUT: instead of a wide open competitive, free market, we instead grant the very special privilege for medicine to be practiced by cartels, whose rates and procedures are set WITH NO COMPETITION by colleges of physicians and surgeons. By the same token, we stop medicine short of BEING a real business by the state limiting who can provide what services, how, when and where. In Alberta, you can get an MRI any day of the week on short notice - just pay the bill. In SK (or MB) you will wait for an indefinite period of time - in which you might very well deteriorate or die - just because the damned government administered cartel could not organize a piss up at a brewery. Now, if you happen to be a ward of the state in SK, and they want to get diagnostic results (for worker's comp for instance), what do you think they do? Yup, the FLY or bus the patient to AB for a quick MRI!!!!! Talk about que jumping! Of course, back here in the last millenium (as of this year) the public service unions will cry foul about the recent introduction of private MRI services in SK - all focused on the standard politics of fear and envy by citing that same thing (que jumping) with NOBODY having the sense to point out that these are new MRIs to the system, and anyone using their own cash to get an image are FREEING UP their spot in the public screw-up system for everyone else to move up a notch. Why that paragraph? Simple: in most of the rest of the G7 (except obviously USA) public and private service co-exists with very little conflict. Euros especially seem to realize that sick care is a social service, and whether provided by a state employee or a contractor willing to work for the posted fees, who really gives a damn? It should not be an ideological battleground, it should simply be what is practical - and there it is just that. BTW: I have left a lot of the US stuff out of the mix for now, but I will be the first to admit, some of the very best sick care in the world can be bought in the USA - for quite a price. But the VERY best (IMHO) comes from the Mao Clinics - that are, wait for it....A NOT FOR PROFIT COMPANY. Just thought I would throw that out as food for thought.

I agree that CRA really could care less about the big time tax scams, but I would not blame that on Harper. About 20 years ago, I did some work for a company owned by an FCA in Toronto. He was introduced to a friend of mine by a guy (who worked for government as a contractor) and bought a local business from my friend, to which I gave technical support. After a while, I began to realize that the accountant - and expert on forensics of cheating on partners - was...gee, what a surprise, CHEATING ON HIS PARTNERS. To make a long story short, true to form he put his company in a position where one of his suppliers petitioned it into bankruptcy (while skimming ALL of the cash from it to an offshore account). I was an unsecured creditor, and also had to testify as to the legitimacy of R&D tax claims. I thought we had him by the knackers, as I could prove to Revenue Canada that he had scammed them for big bux, but when push came to shove, they just thanked me for putting the record straight and saving the big payout, instead of doing the only just thing and prosecuting the attempt at fraud (claims were actually submitted). We went after him by filing a formal complaint with Jarvis Street guys (RCMP fraud squad) for tax and cold hard cash theft in the millions, but in the end, they replied that if we were prepared to do the forensic accounting, they might proceed - as to catch an expert forensic at this, one would need another expert forensic accountant and they just did not have the resources - ESPECIALLY since most of the victims were not Canadian citizens. Seems to me I was paying tax to Jean Chretien at that time. Fast forward almost 10 years ago, when my best friend had made a rather large amount of money as a real estate developer. Now, he really doesn't like government very much (I don't blame him), but he really, REALLY does not like to deal with them (I am on the same page there as well), so he had hired a decent size accounting firm to make sure he paid no more, and no less tax than the law and regs allowed. As with most people who have gone from modest income to mega bux almost overnight, he was audited, and CRA found nothing in his returns that did not strictly comply with the law. Well, no offense meant to Argus, but I can imagine the talk around the table inside of tax palaces accross Canada. "We can't have one of these successful people getting away with not breaking the law, so let's show them who actually runs this country!!". He was assessed under the GAR for not filing tax returns that were in the "spirit" of the Act!!!!!!!! And it was for million$$. He was dragged through the knothole for several years with the standard CRA strategy of using their unlimited access to taxpayer's cash to grind down one of those same taxpayers who did nothing other than just obey the law, exactly as it was written. If I remember right, I think there was some guy named Harper in the PM's residence in that entire period. Yes, the really, REALLY big tax scammers seem to get off Scott free (I would like to meet this very free "Scott" guy some day), and that IS in no uncertain terms very, very political. I would also submit that the highest level of genuine tax avoidance and tax cheating is totally non-partisan - as EVERY player will buy off any party that threatens that ride on easy street. But, to go after that, someone in Ottawa would have to have giant kahunas and actually know how the world of finance works - and that is simply not in the cards for anyone so devoid of ambition as to be work for government.

I travel back and fourth between our Western Canadian and New York offices, and that is a comparison I have made often. And, NO, I am not a city guy who has no idea what an aboriginal life on reserve is - I have lived and worked in the bush for many years, and my kids are last generation eligible for a treaty number. Human nature is that you will adjust your opinion of what is "normal" to your surroundings. That is how genocide is pulled off, that is how the 90% unemployed on reserve sit there watching outside contractors repair the damage or build what they destroyed or will destroy next, it is how we end up paying $500k for a $50k non-revenue asset (read, HOME). Life in the ghettos of big city USA is surprisingly similar to life on a remote reserve in Canada. To blend in you become violent to earn credibility, you use drugs because everyone else does, sex and violence are commonplace - as is unplanned parenthood (not much else to do), single mothers, inter-generational poverty, almost total unemployment in "normal" jobs and almost total dependency on the state give almost exactly the same results in both cases.

First of all, I object strenuously to referring to the clusterfrack of sick care we have as "health care". It is not. We actually do have some significant health care initiatives in Canada (the Canada Food Guide, IMHO, topping that list) and some glaring deficiencies (cost of access to fitness facilities, lack of tax deductibility for use of same, etc.). Americans will never get there because by their cultural and political nature, they simply do not trust government. The BIG difference is that the US tries to make everything into a business, and in Canada and the rest of the former G7 states, we realize that sick care is a social service. Where we fall short is simply realizing that ANYONE should be able to deliver those services - in a timely fashion. I will not bore you with the endless horror stories of wait times, but they really are ridiculous and totally un-neccessary. And, the numbers you hear are right: the yanks spend more than twice what we do, and get far poorer results. Biggest reason? The BUSINESS is so subject to ambulance chasers that most of what is practiced is prophylactic medicine to avoid possible liability. Actually dealing with the patient's problems (in most cases) is secondary.

This is disturbing: I find myself in total agreement with Conrad Black!!!! I have to wash my eyes with strong soap and go do some productive work

that is a fair question. I will try (guerrilla posting as we are on a project with deadlines we hope to meet so we can return to Canada for Christmas) to give a fair answer (a full answer would take literally months). Leaving this important question in the hands of those who benefit from exploiting public fear and mis-information is very dangerous. The UN (not just in my opinion, but also according to good friends who have interfaced at the cabinet and top institutional levels) has evolved into a system focused on setting up bureaucracies that are largely ineffective in their stated goals, but tremendously effective at building and funding bureaucracies. This has become the way of the world: we are all so busy trying to earn more money, we have abdicated or collective responsibility to govern and be governed to self-interest groups. If you want another example: we as business and citizens have allowed Casino Capitalists (cronie capitalsist, Wall Street, etc.) take over the entire economy of the world - being convinced that we can survive and prosper on nothing but speculation and speculative gains, "They" liteally own the government and central bank of the largest economy in the world - and we let it happen not "without a wimper" but as active participation (trading equities, commodities, derivatives and real estate for instance). These things happen due to general ignorance. At some point in time, my sincere desire is that educators become much more involved in seeking the truth and teaching it. Our societal failure is that we give great honour to some pseufo-tribal warrior for their prowess on sports fields, but consider anyone dedicated to science as "geeks" to be shunned and berated. Due to our general dis-interest in science, few are able to tell the difference between good science and good scientists and the technically deficient process of how an issue - such as climate change - can play out. In other words: we have to stop making Universities into politically correct degree factories and return to the (I will now be accused of being elitist) academic delivery of universal educations based upon genuine merit. One of my own daughters left academia recently over disgust with teaching undergrads who had no desire to learn the material - just pass the exams - and seeing grad studies invaded by one trick ponies (professional students) with almost zero inter-disciplinary competence or interest. We can not continue to completely ignore the real problem causing such pressure on resources as to make our lifestyle unsustainable. It is simply a matter of overpopulation. We have seven billion and counting (faster by the day) on a nice, 1bn or so planet.. While there is no question there IS an anthropomorphic contribution to climate change - it is probably 10x what it would be with current technologies simply due to population. THIS is where the UN types should be working diligently, but just try to fund a bureaucracy with stated goals to do that. Governments (IMHO) should be in place to regulate and enforce. In those terms, I mean to provide a level playing field for business to address the needs of the economy and consumers. My "free market" friends will be horrified, but I do NOT disagree with carbon taxation - just who gets that tax and how it is spent. You see, there ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS FREE MARKETS, ALL markets exist within some construct of rules and consequences for breaking them. l It is just a matter of who gets to set those rules, and in whose interest do they tilt the playing field. If you want to see a nearly free market, you needed to spend some time in Russia in the '90s. Note how rules came to exist, first by those with the biggest gun and later when they managed to legitimize themselves as business and government. These are really tall orders, and I appreciate that. But since the status quo is such a total failure, we need to get down to the real issues and deal with them - URGENTLY Lots to add, but I am timed out for now.

As I hope you deduce from my last post, I believe in DOING something, not making really foolish and grandiose schemes aimed at funding the fear-mongers and destroying the economy that must actually produce real results.

Unlike no doubt almost everyone posting on line, and similarly those bureaucrats and politicians who make their money from climate change hysteria, I have actually designed, built, operated equipment and businesses that were sustainable, resource conservation oriented. I will call the higher ground on this issue. The difference between someone who earns my respect vs. ones who earn nothing but my scorn can be defined by them telling me what THEY have actually done in the name of sustainability vs. what they think I should be doing (while cashing their fat paycheque for doing so). . Reality is, if you want to go from Canada to Europe, you are going to do it on an airplane, and that airplane is going to be fossil fueled - for now, and for a very long time to come. Rather than coming up with what I can guarantee you are unworkable (but very profitable for someone) nonsense, a little time spent reflecting on reality has a lot more promise. First of all, if you think China and India are ever going to go along with pretty much anything that could knock them off the path to catching up with the rest of the world, you are naive. EVERY developed nation got to this stage by raping the environment and resources of the world. It is how you get here, and India and China representing fully one half of the entire world will follow our shining example. What we really need to do is continue to lead the way with things that make sense. Fossil fuels will be used until they deplete or become by natural market forces too expensive. If we aren't using them intelligently, they will simply be used more expeditiously by emerging economies. By going down some fanciful path of adopting immature technologies and financial tools that have to be forced by taxpayer money and mandated participation, we will abandon the billions of dollars in investment in things such as internal combustion engine efficiencies and emission that make modern motor vehicles the marvels they are. It also puts us at a severe competitive disadvantage to those who will not bother with rising to and maintaining those same standards. Where we really need to focus is why we use so bloody much personal transportation (and thus carbon emissions) to do what we do. For instance: the idea of living a half hour or hour away from our place of work and commuting alone in an SUV.is ludicrous - but our (North American) cities are all designed around that ridiculous concept. When we get home to that house in Canada, it is most likely to be a monstrous, wood frame energy efficiency disaster that we will tear down every 50 years and build all over again. Not only do we continue with this extremely long list of truly irresponsible use of resources, but we then set a standard to which all developing nations will aspire. BUT: ALL of this pales in comparison with the real reason we are contributing to climate change from our activities: There are far too many people on this planet. Take a look at a population curve, and you can see that IF we are significant in our contribution to atmospheric conditions, the probable amount of our contribution is directly related to the amount of energy and other resources we use to sustain our lives - all seven billion of them. What is reality in this situation is that there is no money in it for the bureaucrats and politicians in dealing with real problems in a practical way. The buzzwords are now climate change and they can scare the public into letting the fund their careers to construct goofy schemes to destroy the economies of the Western world.

I will re-post this, as it seems my original language was a bit too insulting for the mods. I am rolling on the floor laughing over the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I am willing to lay long odds that EVERY attendee from outside of Europe flew there on a jet spewing tonnes of CO2 directly into the troposphere. Not a single one, I wager, used a wind-powered sailing craft - i.e. one of the very resources they believe we should rely on for our electrical utilities. The post was in reply to another reply in my thread, where the respondent was blaming government for much of the hypocracy, and further that the conference was really about the Americans wanting to control this or that. I would remind people that the US is not exactly in love with the UN - whose mandate seems to be to come up with all kinds of new mega bureaucracy and then pass the bill on to the Americans. Sadly, it is not governments themselves but Canadians who are to blame. Albertans and Canadians as a whole both elected socialist governments, so they will both suffer government from their frame of reference for the next four years. At least neither Notley nor Trudeau claimed to be anything other than what they are. This all fits under the old saw: "careful what you wish for".

To be fair, it DOES have "something" to do with anthropomorphic contributions, the real question is "how much". It also has a lot to do with more than just the sun. That is the source of energy, but how we absorb that energy into our planet depends upon not only the geological conditions, but very much the atmospheric conditions that result in a balance between how much solar energy is absorbed and how much is reflected. Those (as per past events) can change dramatically due to geology but much moreso due to celestial events (asteroid collisions, celestial contributions....i.e. comets providing us with all of this water, etc.) As to the US "controlling", they pretty much still control much of the world. Not just because they have the biggest military force, and are (were?) the wealthiest economy, but far more because they are home to the only central bank in the world owned by private banking. Until the rest of the world realizes that Wall Street and the Casino capitalist economy creates near zero wealth and inflates the living crap out of all currencies, we are doomed to relinquish control of just about everything to someone in Manhattan (or Geneva) who outright OWN everyone inside of the Beltway.

I roll on the floor laughing when I see this kind of BS. All of these would-be tree hugger leaders from around the world, jump on a huge fleet of government owned business jets, spew CO2 by the tonne per hour directly into the troposphere, and then profess to tell us how to live our lives to avert anthropologically caused climate disaster. Not a single one of them got onto a sailing vessel and let that same wind power they believe we need to use for our daily energy uses take them with minimal footprint to such an important (to them) summit. BTW: I say this as someone who has acutally designed, built, owned and operated environmentally sustainable equipment and businesses.

Realtors, developers, etc. only manage to skim a bundle out of the economy because we, as buying public, are ignorant and greedy. If we weren't so idiotic as to pay 2x, 3x, 5x, or whatever replacement cost is for housing, there wouldn't BE all that money in the system to pay an army of useless tits. BUT: we THINK our home is some kind of "investment" so we will just keep giving the business so much money it can't help but be rather profitable. Plus, of course, the Jones factor....got to keep up with them.

Here I thought Celine Dion was doing entertainment for money in Las Vegas!

BY GOSH, I think we're onto something here. We need to BE respectful of the traditions that built Canada and do just as our forefathers did and provide a land grant to these refugee immigrants - from aboriginal lands - just as we did before. Just think of the example that hard working, ambitious immigrant populations could set on reserves with 95% unemployment. We can also count on devout Sunnis not doing the booze and drug thing either. Even fits with Federal responsibilities, so no new bureaucracy needed. Talk about win - win !!

IMHO, this is all a clear example of opportunity lost. Once we leave school (and in many cases long before) our thirst for knowledge is largely changed into our thirst for self-gratification. We have the ultimate in communication tools today: dirt cheap television, telephone and internet - and do we use it by and large to learn more about the world? Nah, we use it to distribute porn, commercial exploitation of greed, the mind-numbing BS of "reality TV" (all pretty much devoid of any link whatsoever to reality) and "news" parroted by mindless talking heads with no real idea of ANY of their subject matter. That kind of universal ignorance in a world in tremendous communication techology leaves a vacuum into which many opportunists can pump their vitriol. That is how ISIS, religion, BS politics, commercial exploitation, and a host of others win the empty minds of the masses. Complicate that by sickeningly uneven distribution of wealth and opportunity, and you have the formula for easy racist response to a rather poorly reported news story.

I am OK with that. But, to think I could "guide" my children in their adult life would be a wildly wrong assumption. My theory is you have until the hormones start to rage to make your mark, and after that you really only get to spectate. Believe me, after 20-odd years in academia before striking out into the real world, neither of my children are exactly short on their own opinions.

If it is any great comfort, your reply made no sense either. The subject of the sentence regarding the Balfour Declaration was Palestinians, not Jews. Sorry if you missed that. As to Zionists inventing terrorism: I am not a history student, but I consider the Zealots the predecessors of what is now Zionism. Zealots would wander into crowds of innocent bystanders, pull out large knives and start hacking people to death. The invention of terrorism as we know it today. In only some ways are Jews aboriginals of Israel vs. what currently are considered aboriginal Canadians. Possibly during Roman occupation, and DEFINITELY during Arab occupation, the lands that are now Israel were NOT occupied by organized Jewish governments, only religious Jewish factions. The period in question is closer to 2 millenia, whereas Canadian aboriginals were displaced from most of their ancestral lands only within the last century or three. They have a somewhat legitimate claim on those lands by treaty. Jews had no such claim on Israel until, GEEZ, the same damned SLIMEY LIMEYS declared that Israel should just be carved out of Palestine. If you want to go on another rant, I suggest you and the Palestinians address it to Her Majesty. Nowhere did I suggest the League of Nations nor Jews had rejected the Balfour declaration. The question I DID ask is how long after being absent to any land is such a right precedent to those of the people who have occupied it for centuries in their absence?

Actually, our eldest daughter gave us the solution to this dilema over dinner tonight. She suggested that these refugees be distributed within Canada in direct proportion to the percentage of Liberal votes from each constituency. Additionally, each Liberal MP should have to sponsor a family. Finally, a number of such families should take up residence at 22 Sussex. Of course, unlike the armchair warriors around here, she makes those statements as her husband relates battle plan scenarios he is teaching right now, in full awareness that under NATO rules, he may well be back in the field carrying them out once more.

Excellent post. Could not agree more with your assessment.

In four years, Canada will look pretty much like it does now: a totally confused and ignorant population caught between some unclear idea of what Canada is and being a poor cousin Yankee. The only difference is that it will have HELL of a lot more debt after this experiment in deeking left. This is not so much a rural/urban issue, as one of how an economy works. The US and Europe have long ago abandoned the economic system that built their economies (capitalism) and fully embraced Casino Capitalism, just as they did in the '20s. The difference is, the population is so ignorant of fundamentals that nobody even noticed - even with a healthy crash in '08-'09. In a genuinely capitalist system, those who screwed up royally playing financial games would be appropriately punished by losing everything. Instead, they were rewarded with TRILLION$$$$ of handouts, bailouts, free passes, etc. Until we as a population understand the difference between creating wealth and merely re-distributing wealth, we are doomed to simply repeat the idiocy of the last decade or so, just as we repeated then what we should have learned from the '20s and '30s. How it DOES take on a rural/urban identity is that cities are magnets for dependent population and activities. That is where the institutions that re-distribute wealth concentrate, so that is where the free ride crowd will live. We have poverty in Toronto because it is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and people who will never create a penny of wealth in their life go there to claim their rewards. In what sanely organized society, for instance, would you send your welfare masses to the most expensive place to be sustained by the taxpayer???? I can understand why the drug dealers and gangs are there: they are logical extensions of economic behaviour - there are more customers in a city than in the country and they can come to you rather than you having to go to them. The REALLY BIG drain on the economy, though, are the financial institutions - banks, finance companies, private equity funds, insurance funds, pension funds, etc. They are located in big cities. Because we are totally ignorant as a nation and government as to how to run an economy (or country), we grant them the special privilege to take a free ride on our tax dollar and on the vast majority of our earned and spent dollars. Since we have studied "rule-by-special-interest" under the USA, we now simply provide unfettered access to redistribute wealth through almost all financial activities, without the bother of ever having to create any. Now, THAT is why rural people are up the creek. The world of investment SHOULD be provided as a service to put capital in the hands of those who can add value to a resource or deliver a service needed to do so. Try that if you are a rural business. Ain't that easy. Why? Because in the real world, a business is lucky to be able to return 10% dividends on earnings from actually creating wealth, whereas in the fantasy world of Casino Capitalism, one can simply inflate the "value" of a real asset (be it an equity, real estate or derivative) to whatever multiple feels good and cash it in. How are you going to get access to financial resources to work them for a single digit percentage return when you can, for instance, value Microsh...er...MicroSOFT at 1000x its book (real) value???? That is 10,000x better than you can do on the very best of productive investment. And, it is all squarely on our shoulders. We, as a population, have allowed government to become nothing but a distributor of special privilege to those who can spend all of their time to get their attention. We. as a voting population, have happily given a bunch of total idiots the right to beggar our grandchildren with staggering debt - mostly so we expect through some miracle that we will get OUR share of the free ride in one form or another. We, as a voting population, have handed the keys to the economy to financial interests because we are too lazy to bother to learn what the hell it is they actually DO. We, as a voting public have kissed away our health and our children's health by never bothering to learn how to eat (and how it comes to be - yet another rural/urban characteristic). The list just goes on, and on, and on. As inept as Harper government was, and as stunningly ignorant as the Trudeau government seems to be, we elected them so we are stuck with the results. You might have noticed that we just had a 3 month long election campaign, and not a single important issue was discussed.

Sorry not to be able to check in on my own thread today, but we have some pretty good weather and I had a pile of tasks outside that are a lot easier at +6 than -6. Life gets in the way of some good politics some time. I actually did take the time to read all of the way through, but I think I will paraphrase a bit rather than multi-quoting. To call ISIS part of a "civil war" is IMHO a long way from the truth. In my view, what has been going on is a lot closer to Rwanda than a civil dispute. I am disgusted at how the whole world turned its back on the Tutsis, just as much as I am disturbed on how the whole world (until recently) turned its back on the non-fundamentalist jihadists in Syria and Iraq. Just substitute religious trait for tribal trait and they are about the same thing. It is NOT the citizenry of one country having a bit of a disagreement with their compatriots. I was disgusted with how my country (and so many others) left the Kurdish people hang out to dry after Iraq 1 and once again with the advent of ISIS invasion of their territory (once more, the very definition of NOT a "civil war"). Have the West and some Saudis meddled endlessly in the area and contributed greatly to the situation as it exists? Yes, they have. That, again IMHO, in no way releases any caring nation from the moral imperative to protect innocent victims as much as possible (and that to some extent DOES mean with minimal exposure and risk to Canadian troops). Still, as was pointed out, we have a VOLUNTEER force, and should Canadian forces in ANY capacity participate, it is with the full consent of those who go there. All the arm-chair Generals on this website have to risk is their share of the tax bill. BTW: you will note that our new Minister of National Defense served THREE rotations in Afganistan as a volunteer - so I have no doubt at all that someone sitting at the new cabinet table is 100% aware of a lot more than any of us posting on a political forum what is at stake. And, YES, my concern about 25,000 refugees by the end of the year is that there is no real way to effectively screen them. There will be a significant effort (since this is extremely public information) by economic opportunists to gain access - as this is a pretty darn good...as in pretty much the BEST place in this world to live. It is also as countless countries are very aware, the soft underbelly of the USA. Russia knew that all through the cold war and you can believe that the Taliban, al Queda and ISO are all extremely aware of the unique opportunity to infiltrate via the totally irresponsible political and diplomatic blunder. Am I opposed to refugees? Hell NO, I consider taking GENUINE refugees as important as any other thing we might do as responsible citizens of the world. I would (and HAVE) with great pride and satisfaction worked with and hired Vietnamese refugees when they first came to Canada - and have had the privilege and pleasure of gaining some very good friends from that community. BUT: remember that there was very little reason for "implants" in that crisis to be in any way harmful to Canada (not so for the USA), but, hey, I am Canadian. ISO, on the other hand has made it crystal clear that anyone not fully on board with their "jihad" is on their hit list. NONE of my Muslim friends in Canada are in any way remotely supportive of ISO, so I can easily see ISO as a clearly different thing from Islam (and my reasonably good understanding of Islam from working within KSA and several other Muslin countries). Defering to a very close friend and Islamic/Quranic scholar, I also see Wahabbists on the wrong side of Mohammed's teachings. There there is the NATO thing. Our participation in the underlying treaty is that we will respond to ANY kind of aggression against another signatory - not just a declaration of war or invasion of sovereign territory. WE ARE OBLIGATED to defend France against any kind of aggression, and the ISO attack(S) are just that. More than just embarrassing to withdraw our air support in what constitutes a related coalition that seeks to prevent exactly what happened. And, you can bet your bottom dollar that if we are not fighting ISO on their turf today, we will ultimately be fighting them on ours tomorrow. THAT is why we have a military defense force, and THAT is why they have been doing exactly what they have been doing in Syria and Iraq. Anyone becoming leader of this country that is not fully aware of that is certainly proving to be a political and diplomatic lightweight.