SpankyMcFarland

For Canadians, a semi-normal speech from Agent Orange is a relief. We should be OK for the next few weeks at least.

They are not called Chelski for nothing.

I don't think French Canadians did lose by picking Canada. Anyway, we are in some ways a nation of losers and we're not the worse for it either. As an immigrant, I like bilingualism. On the issue of my children's future, however, I can be more dogmatic than usual; I have no children.

The two situations are different. Britain faced the prospect of an American invasion and could not afford disunity on the home front. I think Canada has worked out darn well, in the league of Switzerland and Belgium which have not exactly been hell on earth either despite being multilingual. We have choices to make now about how much change we can manage. All is not yet lost by any means.

The British were tolerant of Quebec's language, religion and culture because they had to be. See what they continued to do in Ireland at the same time when they didn't have a land-hungry neighbour next door.

A lot of conservatives started off as progressives so they learned something, good or bad. In France, some on the Left have been ambivalent about immigration for a long time, e.g. Georges Marchais, and I'd say a good few will vote for Le Pen. Many Ukippers and Brexiteers were once solid Labour voters.

We are in a difficult spot as Tony Clement illustrated in his aborted interview. At the very least, we should not be encouraging migrants to walk northward.

How French Canadian is JT though? He's more ethnically British than French and he speaks better English than French apparently.

If there is a massive influx of refugees from the US there will be a reaction from the public. We can learn these things the easy way or the hard way.

I think you will find there will be. Politicians love power above all else. If public opinion turns against him, JT will change his policy.

On immigration, the question is how many can we absorb. We might differ on the number but most of us would agree there is a ceiling.

OK then, that sounds reasonable to me. Still a challenge but less so given the way things are going in Europe.

Let's face it - our Anglophone pols make a poor attempt at speaking French. Even I can hear that. How many can speak French as well as Jean Charest speaks English? The Charest standard has rarely been met. And fair play to Brian for making an eejit of himself in Florida. We'll probably need more of that kind of thing over the long years ahead.

2% is reasonable but the timeline sounds a bit unrealistic for such a politically unpopular move. The fundamental idea is surely to strengthen the alliance, not break it up.

Anti-Muslimism is better, although there is quite a bit of hostility to the religion of Islam as well on the Internet these days. If we want to go down that track, anti-Jewism might be the most accurate neologism to replace anti-Semitism, encompassing 'Jew hatred' and lesser hostility to Jews. Fear and hatred do often do-exist which complicates matters.

The references to God reflect the history of the state. Politicians and lawyers who were atheists or at best bleak agnostics have used them for centuries without suffering any harm.

Altai raises a good point about the sloppiness of English. Anti-Islamism would be more accurate because the prime emotion is hostility, not fear. Anti-Semitism is also imprecise because the hostility is directed against one Semitic group.

Canadians don't seem to care. http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/famous-swiss-bank-whistleblower-wonders-why-canada-gave-up-so-easily-on-1-billion-in-unpaid-taxes In a democracy, each citizen has a vote; in a plutocracy, each dollar has a vote. We are moving from one to the other with a minimum of fuss.

It was extraordinary achievement to sustain the program and keep it fresh year after year. He fought the good fight against the dying or our rural community light. I loved his early interviews with Gzowski as well: a dairy farmer just outside Toronto surrounded by suburbs and still refusing to sell up; an escort and how she invested her money with PWC and Harbourfront apartments; an exquisitely polite bank robber, just out of prison and waiting to use a public phone, describing the excitement of crime ('I can't deny it's a rush - everything seems so clear') and the bewildering colours on Yonge St. after the endless shades of grey inside.

In Canadian political matters, I often ask 'what would JC do?'. I can't imagine Jean would be pursuing quite the same line on the deficit and refugees as JT.

It's a lot of other things too. 'Good' people can end up addicted to drugs.

The lesson is clear: when the FBI pop round for a chat, say nothing.

There is no 'supposedly' and 'if' about it. The nukes are real. It has been reported that there was a debate in the leadership about using them in 1973. Israel's security has not been seriously threatened since. The issue of what constitutes a threat is a complex one. There are explicit threats and implicit ones. Given that Israel has a policy of nuclear ambiguity that may have been agreed with the US, it is unable to issue explicit threats. By the same token, every country but one has shown the same restraint.

So many things to discuss there but let's start with this. Purdue spent a lot of money promoting OxyContin. Many doctors did benefit financially one way or another. A lot of experts are backtracking on the advice they gave to other physicians on the dangers of opioids.