SpankyMcFarland

CBC Radio and CBC Newsworld contribute considerably to Canada. Look at what passes for news reporting and analysis on the other Canadian channnels - pitiful stuff. Anglophone Canada is in danger of being obliterated completely by US TV.

The criteria used here to define what constitutes an adequately argued OP will be forever beyond my understanding.

I don't want to sound like a booster for China here. It IS a bit mystifying that we can't be tougher. China's record on human rights is terrible but it won't listen to us, and no two countries have the same approach to human rights. The consumer goods from China are not 'crappy' - they are amazingly inexpensive and of impressive quality for the price. No other country can compete with them. If we cut them out, we would see a significant increase in prices for consumer goods and serious disruption of our retail sector. A full-on trade war, with generalised Chinese divestment from Canada, would have serious implications across our economy and potentially public order issues in BC. I don't see the BC govt or the oil sector welcoming that.

There could be negative consequences for both parties. As to how they can hurt us, do we want a trade war? Are we ready for such unpleasantness? Ask the govts and realtors of BC and Ontario. How keen would we be to burst the property bubble now? It might be good in the long-term but there would be pain. They are a major economy and we are a minor one. Whatever happens with us is peripheral to their concerns. Any inconvenience we could cause them would be temporary while all the stuff we buy in Walmart could take a sudden hike in price. We have had a Faustian bargain going with the Chinese for decades - they've kept inflation low and we've sent them our jobs. This being Canada, I suspect we also have a fairly sketchy idea of how deeply they have compromised our govt computer systems and who works for them. A lot of mistakes have already been made. We can get tougher with China - but quietly. The success of Trump suggests that we'll be fighting more of our own battles from now on with less backing from Uncle Sam.

We are in a tough spot with the Chinese government. Any sudden deterioration of relations would hurt us a lot more than them. I would advise passive aggression - friendly public statements from the PM, steering clear of human rights as much as possible, but a cautious approach to any changes that would further increase their influence in our country. How many operatives do they already have here?

I wish the TV channels would keep one just for Olympic track and field. I missed both 10k finals which would never have happened on Brit TV. By mistake, I ended up recording hours of Olympic golf, the penultimate abomination, despite Bell promising lots of other sports (although I would not count anything even I can do well, like golf, as a sport). The ultimate horror figured later - baseball (ugh) which figured in one TSN 'Olympic' spot I recorded. I hope I never have to see A-Rod crying again in the years left to me.

I think the title should be 'In Memoriam'. Can it be corrected?

Raitt and O'Toole are calming figures. Rempel is more strident. On her 'Power and Politics' appearances she was overly fond of starting sentences with 'I find it curious' accompanied by a sarcastic smirk. She may be the sort of woman who might rile some female voters. On the plus side, she's a good debater.

This was one of the cases that encouraged the change in Ireland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_v_Home_Secretary

Ireland did until 2004: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

We are in for a long story here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/09/norway-may-block-uk-return-to-european-free-trade-association

Any bilingual country that has English as one of its languages will struggle to keep the other alive these days.

My best friend immigrated to Canada from Ireland and sent his four kids through the French system (not immersion) in Burlington, Ontario. Three are completely bilingual adults now and two speak French at work. It can be done.

There is a downside to that for other Anglophone countries. Their own cultural products struggle to be seen even at home as their markets are flooded with US material. On Bell TV, we don't even get the world edition of CNN news but are given the US version. For the 'younger people' there is a means of escape from this on the Net if they would only choose to use it. Monolingualism isn't as limiting as it used to be but people like myself stuck with one language do tend to see the world from one angle. It was one of Christopher Hitchens' regrets and David Cameron's too. Even the news in French looks like it is covering a different planet sometimes.

The pol who most impressed me with his bilingualism was Jean Charest - I didn't realize he wasn't a native English speaker at first - but apparently his mother was an Anglophone.

Anglophones have a general problem with learning other languages because they can get by without another language. It's basically laziness. Many Northern Europeans are tri-lingual and their English is prefect. Even I can tell that the French of most Anglophone politicians in Canada is awful, far worse than the English of Francophone pols. What were they doing in school?

That is difficult to assess. British intelligence was utterly humiliated after the war by communist spies who kept on popping up - I suspect we don't know all their names yet - whereas the French were more effective in that particular area. The IRA was always a small group, centred in a small region and with limited aims. The French are facing something much larger.

Wolf Blitzer asked the question and either Manafort or Miller (the speechwriter who looks like he popped off a Mad Man episode) answered it. These days when your surrogates repeat something it's not as truthy as you doing it, apparently. Amazing to see Trump feuding with Cruz again today, completely off message as Pence looked on, well, pensively. You could imagine him seeking to settle a lot of scores as President.

Yes it's still there e.g. he's still going to build a wall but no mention of Mexico paying for it.

Fluent speech by Trump with some of the wilder rhetoric trimmed off. Now for him the tough part begins of staying on message.

Demanding the extradition of Gulen is good for Erdogan either way and may be even better if the US keeps him. A show trial could be divisive at home but railing against foreigners who refuse to hand over evil-doers will play very well with the base.

The time to get tough was during the campaign. Instead, Cruz initially let others do the hard lifting against Trump while he drafted along in his slipstream. He was the most talented candidate in the field but I think there will be even less of a market next time round for what he is selling.

I'd say he's moving towards an Erdoganist state.

Giuliani is still an excellent speaker: