SpankyMcFarland

Any Canadian who thinks this is just harmless fun is fooling themselves. Nobody forced the US president to make this highly offensive remark. It’s a display of power. At the very least, it helps normalize the many other transgressions he will commit.

I hope we can all agree that such discussions of sexuality should be age-appropriate. I don’t see any damage resulting from my nephews interacting with gay and trans-identifying kids at school in recent years or from the discussions about them by teachers. In my day, as they say, I was fearful of gays and never heard of transgender people - not a good attitude.

I don’t know any transgender people well so it’s really not an issue I can get worked up about or comment on knowledgeably. In my uneducated opinion, I would like to keep female sport for what they call cis-females. If there are enough trans-male or female athletes at an event then there should be separate categories for them in addition to the traditional two.

OK, these are still just allegations but Smith has been forced to deny them. It sounds like a very stupid way for a government to get into trouble if it did. https://calgary.citynews.ca/2025/02/08/alberta-premier-smith-claims-not-involved-health-contract-allegations/ https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/02/07/Health-Care-Corruption-Allegations-Rock-Smith-Government/ Note Smith did not say there was absolutely nothing to these allegations at all, rather that she was not involved. Good news for Nenshi. He needed a boost.

One major question - when minors should be allowed to make their own decisions regarding gender-affirming care. It’s a tricky one. As with many other decisions, people are going to change their minds.

Like Putin, Trump still believes that power resides in geography - land, resources, canals - rather than technology. China is rapidly catching up with the US in critical areas like AI, batteries and missiles and all he can think of is Greenland and Panama.

Friends are suckers to be taken advantage of. They’re easy to push around. Vietnam had a trade deficit with the US of 123 billion last year, more than twice ours. And why hasn’t Trump gone after them? Because he knows they can always turn to China.

There’s a natural anxiety among parents about their children’s sexuality, how they will identify in terms of gender and whether this could be influenced in any way. On the other hand, many gay and transgender people point out they wouldn’t have chosen their lifestyle if they could have helped it given the stress and outright danger it brought. It’s a curious business because the left is often more associated with ‘nurture’ over ‘nature’ arguments but in this case conservatives seem to believe that exposing their children to such issues too soon, whatever that is in the smartphone era, may affect their ultimate sexual identity. I doubt that argument. The many accounts of gay and transgender people suggests to me that these orientations begin to solidify early in life, before puberty, and are fairly hard-wired.

I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that Canada needs a mixed private and public health care system. The key matter for politicians to understand is that the for-profit sector should not mean profits for them. If they fail to resist temptation and put their little paws in the honeypot they will seriously set back the cause of private care in this country.

Putin isn’t going to last forever. His successor won’t have the same need to hold onto stolen territory.

Carney looks the part, less connected to Trudeau than Freeland and a bigger contrast with Trump than Poilievre.

My spellcheck does that. One typo produces a correctly spelled but nonsensical word.

It certainly isn’t my intention to sound like that. IMO Russia could occupy all of Ukraine and still lose in the end. In foreign wars the invader has a significant motivational deficit. At some point continuing the war will not be possible for them.

Jews started moving to Palestine when it was still part of the Ottoman Empire. The persecution of Jews in Russia after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 created a steady flow of such refugees to many parts of the world, including North America. Balfour blocked their immigration to Britain with the Aliens Act in 1905 and then found a place for them in part of the Ottoman Empire seized by Britain. Under British rule, the numbers immigrating ballooned in the Twenties and Thirties despite vociferous protests from the Arab population.

The reluctance from Jordan and Egypt won’t be cured by money. In both countries leaders who did deals with Israel have been assassinated so there’s a lot at stake. People who think all Arabs are the same should take a look at Jordan. Any more Palestinians there could easily start another civil war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September And then there’s the issue of physical capacity. The Nile Delta with Cairo has sixty million people in an area a quarter the size of the island of Newfoundland. They’re fairly full already.

Trudeau should have immediately convened the premiers to make us less vulnerable to America when he took office. As many have commented on this forum over the years long before I realized it was a problem, we have to sort out barriers to interprovincial trade as an urgent matter. I would favour a free trade group of provinces that keep the old barriers on provinces that don’t join if that can be legally done. On medical portability, we should be able to manage one College licencing doctors for the country instead of thirteen. The Brits do it with a much bigger population and four non-sovereign countries. One downside of doctors grandfathered into the new system - a mad rush by IMGs for Mississauga. And a second problem - I’d much rather somebody from the UK running the new institution than anybody from the Ontario College. That Dickensian body has zero sense of urgency.

One good feature of PR: the national popular vote mirrors the number of seats fairly accurately. Thus regional parties like the BQ have little chance of becoming the Official Opposition which would be an embarrassment we are now less likely to face given the Trump-driven rise in Liberal fortunes. One bad feature (a corollary of the above): wins are not overwhelming. 40% of the vote means 40% of the seats. Canada would need to get over its strange phobia of coalitions to manage this situation.

One distinctive aspect of Alberta health care for me was that they seemed to be constantly changing both the system and key personnel with all the hiring, firing, relocation and general confusion that comes with that. Even when they were fabulously wealthy you never what their plans would mean for particular jobs down the road. The core challenges of health care are obstinate beasts that don’t go away because you start renaming things. Anyway, I was looking at recent upheavals and this caught my eye. It seems to be more significant than the usual deck chair shuffling. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-ousted-health-services-ceo-amid-probe-into-medical-contracts/

If Trump doesn’t hit us with tariffs next month we’ll still have to wait and see what the long-term damage is. The possibility that this could happen at any time in the future draws attention to how flimsy the protections of USMCA are for us compared to what’s provided to smaller states within the EU and may discourage investment.

In Walmart I see a lot more stuff from China than from all those other countries combined and I look for it. I’ve noticed some diversity in the origin of the clothing, including Vietnam, Bangladesh and Nicaragua, but that’s about it.

I doubt whether Trump understands how cars are built in North America these days. Attacking Canada means hurting Michigan immediately.

Let’s see how the US does with its side of the bargain, stemming the flow of illegal weapons, including rocket launchers, to Mexico. Don’t hold your breath, folks.

There are a lot of clever people here, there and everywhere trying to make sense out of a senile sociopath’s ramblings.

Yes but victory for whom? We were recently told by Trump himself that the Mexican government is in cahoots with the cartels - he called it an ‘intolerable alliance’ to be exact. If so, why would the cartels seriously damage their core business?

The leader of our closest ally has just deeply insulted our country and called its very existence into question. Trump isn’t holding forth on a website like this to an audience that might fill a small van. He’s speaking for America.