SpankyMcFarland

We will need to look to the rights of citizens rather than workers, and the power of the oligarchs will have to be curtailed.

Here's one article that mentions the difference between US and UK which would apply to Canada too: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25190034 Here is another one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23692335 PubMed is a good place to look. I will look for better references. Here's a scary article that relates max prescription dose to risk of death: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21467284 We certainly have a prescription opioid crisis in Canada: http://healthydebate.ca/2014/01/topic/politics-of-health-care/prescription-opioid-crisis-canada http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-juurlink/opioid-addiction-epidemic_b_8691624.html One of the problems is that we have been very slow to gather data nationally on this problem and usually compare ourselves to the world's worst performer, the US.

It's not the only time (heart attack, renal colic etc.) but you've got to be very careful using opioids for CHRONIC non-cancer pain. In Britain, for example, physicians are much more cautious about this and their death rates prove it. I've quoted two examples where physicians were not stopped by their medical boards. In one of those cases the physician WAS disciplined but was allowed to return to practice and went straight back to doing what he was doing before until the police stepped in years later. It's a little hard to believe these are the only examples.

There are a lot of people in the world who would love to sue the US. Doesn't this set a precedent?

Their use for cancer pain is widely accepted across the world. What distinguishes North America is their use in many other situations where they are both less effective and more liable to cause addiction. This has created a cohort of young addicts. In Atlantic Canada, we have seen a massive in opioid use that we are only now getting to grips with. Relatively few doctors have actually been disciplined. Some of the criminal cases were previously neglected by the regulatory bodies.

A story that hit the headlines in NL last week: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/hollohan-drug-arrest-1.3783772 This is the same clinic as that used by Dr. Sean Buckingham, an extraordinary coincidence? What strikes me is that the local medical board (CPSNL) has not been involved in disciplining many doctors for prescribing offences. In both these cases, it was left to the police to make the bust and, in Buckingham's case, the whole story was widely known long before anything happened. Canada has a very serious problem with opioid abuse and some doctors must be crossing the line but our regulators down here don't seem to be very pro-active.

Do you really think Cruz was less qualified to be President than Trump?

No example from Britain? Start with Walpole and work forward. Berlusconi is widely despised in Italy as a corrupter of the system and an utterly despicable person. There are people as awful as Trump in other countries but that seems a rather poor reason to vote for him.

A person of good character, yes, to a lying jackass and serial fraudster.

Not necessarily. I'm sure it also deters some excellent candidates.

He's on the TV every night with some new car crash revelation. Pretty hard to avoid. Your process has become ridiculously long.

OK take the example of UK PMs. Which one of these people was as poorly informed as Trump on what their job entailed? Which one of them had his swarm of scandals BEFORE taking office?

Thanks but Canada only matters in a teeny tiny way like a lot of other countries, as your strained examples illustrate.One I will say in our defence. How any American can call our election process boring is a mystery given the years you take to choose a leader. Your elections never end down there.

So you really think Trumpf is fit for the office of President? He would encounter hostility, ridicule and contempt in any European country he dared to visit, apart from Belarus maybe. He has betrayed US allies on the frontline with Russia. The man is a walking disgrace and all you can come up with is whataboutery on somebody else. Last time I looked Bill Clinton is not running this time. Are you not willing to defend your candidate?

There is a world of difference between private misdeeds and public vulgarity. Hypocrisy is the essential political virtue.Most candidates have a few skeletons to explain; with Trump, you'd need a cemetery to accommodate them. Each week, some new, weird story appears.

So the American is arguing Canada matters. We all know it doesn't. Compare your examples with, say, nuclear war.

There is no comparison. Trump is an unstable, vulgar goon who would disgrace the office. That's why so many Republicans have repudiated him.

No I don't because it won't affect them. The consequences for Americans of any Canadian choice in this regard are very small. That's kind of obvious. BTW this is a discussion site and we are talking about US politics.

OK on the public discussion of matters pornographic at 3 am, can you see any of those guys being stupid enough to do that in the middle an election campaign? It's pathetically vindictive and immature.

There are many scenarios far worse for a country than gradual decline. Trump could cause all sorts of catastrophes.

But on the temperament issue, would you really equate Obama (or Romney or McCain etc.) with Trump? Can you see any of these guys tweeting at 3 am about porn tapes? He is grotesquely unfit for the job he seeks. Usually, the US result does not affect us much - they're mostly good guys and gals - but Trump would represent a paradigm shift and not in a good way. Anybody who praises a sickening thug like Putin has to be of concern to the whole world.The Iraq war divided Canada and the US but we got over it. Friends differ on these things.

Trump's peculiar success points to a deep malaise within America but he is certainly not the cure. It's like getting somebody to operate on you who talks like a surgeon and even has some legitimate criticisms of surgical practice but is not actually a doctor. Politics is complicated - it requires a lot of knowledge and Trump lacks that.

Yes, indeedy. Trump, Newt and Rudy are a very unlikely trio to lecture anyone on fidelity.

The Lewinsky etc. angle wil not endear a candidate like Trump to women (believe me). First problem, he's not running against Bill. Second problem...

Two quotes from the interview I referenced above: