SpankyMcFarland

Pakistan is a disaster. By contrast, Bangladesh, once the despised poor relation and basically a country in a river, has greatly prospered without it. Despite the authoritarian tendencies of successive PMs and widespread corruption, it has managed to control both military and mullahs while focusing on exporting goods, educating people, curbing population growth, minimizing deficits and taxing the rich. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/839011-aid-from-bangladesh Arabs do not love Pakistan. One of the more disgusting aspects of Arab societies is the way they treat other Asians, even Muslims, including Pakistanis. The thing is that Israel is part of the Western club. In many ways it’s America’s closest ally. More is expected of countries like the UK and Israel than the likes of KSA and Pakistan.

Sorry, what’s your point? And why so bothered about ‘Canadians who were born here’? I really don’t seek to shut anybody down. All I can give you is my point of view, one formed on an island where Christians of various flavours have been fighting each other for centuries. When trying to understand such feuds, the best policy is not to take any combatant too seriously when they tell you the big man upstairs is on their side.

JT must be pleased the Convoy Commission and Mr. Tory are making news at the moment because this could be very damaging for him. Beyond the partisan hay that will be made we should recognize that the threat from the PRC is enduring and will confront future Canadian governments of any hue as long as the CCP holds sway in Beijing.

The Israelis and Palestinians are locked in a tribal fight of which the world always has many. Naturally, both sides will seek to demonize the other and emphasize the ‘we good, you bad’ narrative. The sensible approach for Canada is to avoid getting too deeply entangled in this mess.

OTOH I guess some would argue that Toronto is Canada.

Why is this item in federal politics? It’s a local matter.

He should stay on long enough to make the transition as smooth as possible. There’s no need for him to leave this week.

Rich people often sue just to harass other people. The outcome is irrelevant as long as the other guy gets large bills he can’t afford. O’Rourke is OK because the missus is loaded but it’s a tactic used to intimidate those of modest means. Here’s a preposterous example from Britain. The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was able to sue a British journalist in Britain for alleging he was…head of the Wagner Group. The case was abandoned a month after Russia invaded Ukraine but the journalist was still left with costs of 70,000 pounds because he was sued personally. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/prigozhin-government-russia-ukraine-hack-libel-slapp/ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/24/uk-government-let-lawyers-bypass-sanctions-to-help-putin-ally-sue-journalist

Funding out the truth and asking about it is what newspapers should be doing. It’s a highly reputable function. These days, many towns don’t have local newspapers any more, to the relief of all the mini-John Torys out there.

Shaking hands was one of the things that put Trump off runnning for public office for years. He was more focused on the germ angle, though.

Here’s another weird thing. Canadian citizens who study medicine abroad (outside Canada and the US) are not treated in the same way in the matching system for residency positions as Canadians who train here. By this I mean they are not always allowed to compete for the same residency positions as grads from Canadian med schools even when their exam performance is superior. It’s surprising to me that such discrimination is legal in Canada. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8463232/ Of course the other issue is that we should have enough residency positions to train every Canadian citizen who passes the required exams. At the moment we don’t.

Great players often don’t make great coaches. Healthcare could benefit from new thinking outside the box, perhaps managers from entirely different industries. With that said, managers new to the game have a steep learning curve and they better master the lingo because they’ll be challenged on it by the health professionals.

The thing is a person in Quebec went a long way beyond mere speech about Muslims. I’m reluctant to restrict speech but when murderous violence takes place we’re dealing with a different ball game.

Any discussion of Islamophobia in Canada should start with that word after the events in Quebec City.

There are a few fences to jump before replacing FPTP in Canada. Who likes FPTP? Well, the biggest party does no matter what its leader may say. FPTP gives it more seats. Conservatives like FPTP. They’d have no chance of winning a majority without it. The entire Canadian political establishment has a fear of what PR would bring - coalitions! There, I said it. What a terrifying prospect. Canadians in general don’t seem to pushed on changing FPTP either. They can barely summon the energy to vote these days and understanding PR would be a major effort for them cutting into valuable TikTok time. So I’m afraid FPTP is probably here to stay.

Quebec is such a strange place. You’d think politicians there would tread carefully on this issue after the Quebec City massacre but they just can’t resist riling up the tribe.

I have every sympathy for police trying to restrain suspects but there are ground rules. You can’t be doing things that clearly threaten a person’s life in the absence of an imminent threat to your own; force must be proportionate.

Mate, if you asphyxiate a person and it’s ruled a homicide, I’m hardly straining credulity by claiming an assault has taken place. Why am I even having this conversation? Read the transcripts and get back to us.

Here’s what your link says: If there were no other factors… Think about this example. A 60 year old man is found dead at home with severe coronary artery disease and no evidence of injury. Death is attributed to coronary disease. But imagine if he had been found with gunshot wounds to the head. In that case, death would be attributed to gunshot wounds. They would kill a healthy person by themselves. If I shot that person and claimed they were already dead from a heart attack five minutes earlier, how far do you think I would get with a jury? The assessment of drug toxicity is complex in regular users. Fortunately in this case, we have actual video of the victim as he died so we can see if any evidence of significant fentanyl toxicity was there. As Dr. Martin Tobin explained at length during the trial, there was no evidence on the video of respiratory depression, a key feature of opioid toxicity. Furthermore, please bear in mind that the assault on Mr. Floyd was severe enough to kill a healthy person. That’s case closed from a legal point of view. The testimony from expert witnesses for the prosecution was intrinsically compelling. You should review it.

I am merely addressing the cause and manner of death here. Floyd showed no clinical evidence of fentanyl toxicity in his final minutes of life. What on earth are you talking about? Perhaps you should read a little more of the evidence presented at trial before posting again.

The claim that fentanyl killed Floyd is a bit of a stretch. The prosecution experts in the trial presented evidence to the contrary. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56670912 Dr. Martin Tobin, an expert on pulmonary medicine, volunteered to testify free of charge after he saw the video.

When I arrived in Calgary many years ago, I couldn’t get over the lack of traffic compared to Europe. Edmonton too. Calgary did get more congested but still seems to be a long way behind the likes of Vancouver and Toronto. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/these-are-the-canadian-cities-where-drivers-spend-the-most-time-stuck-in-traffic-1.4790142?cache=%3FclipId%3D64268%3Fot%3DAjaxLayout

But just because other countries have problems too doesn’t mean we don’t need big changes here.

The language in the Act about feeling guilt is oddly leftist. It’s very difficult to prevent students feeling various emotions when dramatic incidents in history are accurately described. I’d like to see what the textbooks look like that satisfy such requirements and whether they bear any relation to historical reality.

Other countries are experiencing similar problems. For example, the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/01/up-to-500-deaths-a-week-due-to-ae-delays-says-senior-medic And Europe generally: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/14/a-ticking-time-bomb-healthcare-under-threat-across-western-europe