Second-class Canadian

The indigenous peoples wanted education the same way the Japanese did. They wanted to learn foreign knowledge but while maintaining their own culture. They never intended for a deliberate act of cultural genocide to be imposed on them.

Canada could grant Quebec's wish that Federal institutions in Quebec that serve only Quebec residents operate monolingually.

Perhaps. But even if we disagree with the details, certainly we can agree with the principle of equality whereby if they don't get an official status in the Constitution, neither should English or French.

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/manitoba/psychic-experiments-conducted-on-brandon-residential-school-kids-1.2898114 http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/thunder-bay/ear-experiments-done-on-kids-at-kenora-residential-school-1.1343992 http://midislandnews.com/canadas-nutrition-experiments-on-first-nations-1942-1952 http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/aboriginal/new-documents-may-shed-light-on-residential-school-deaths-1.2487015 http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com//full-comment/sarah-daitch-exposing-the-dark-legacy-of-residential-schools This is a start.

Just read "They came for the Children", published by the TRC and freely available on its website in PDF form. Much of it is there.

Read the TRC Report.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/afn-asks-ottawa-to-declare-all-aboriginal-languages-official/article25378218/?service=mobile It's an interesting article, and I understand its point. But could we not make these languages more equal in reverse, by abrogating English and French from the Constitution instead? Logically, there are two ways of making them equal, by lowering the high or raising the low.

Likewise when you force tuberculosis-free kids to play with sick kids while being fully cognizant of the consequences beforehand, or conducting nutrition experiments on starving kids (which means they were well aware the kids were being undernourished. And of course it was common for chiefs' daughters to be sterilized without their knowledge as adults. The death rates were also well above the national average as one would expect.

Now I suppose that in the hypothetical scenario of an NDP-Libertarian coalition, combine cap and trade with Libertarian tax cuts but without bloating the military and social programs (I did say hypothetical), then maybe. But even then it might have been wise for the Libertarian Party platform to simply state support for tax reductions in principal and not as a hard election promise. That would allow them to focus on the cuts first and then explore the possibility of reducing revenue with caution. Of course tax shifting could be a reasonable hard promise, but revenue reduction is always a risky promise in uncertain times.

I actually support alliances, but with checks and balances. For instance, an alliance that submits to international law and only engages in legitimately defensive wars for its allies, not being dragged into wars its allies initiate.

The Libertarian Party is promising significant tax reductions, which I disagree with. I'm not convinced we can afford such deep tax cuts. In fact, the NDP's cap and trade might be a valuable source of revenue. That said, I appreciate the Libertarian Party's stance on significantly reducing government expenditure, most of it discriminatory or wasteful in one way or another.

I'm not against paying more towards the national debt, but not bloating the military. That said, I support gun rights.

So you support raising revenue then? Taxes, fines, fees?

And where will the money come from?

Couldn't Greece have avoided the high unemployment by simply legislating a 25% drop on all salaries overnight so as to keep it export competitive to avoid the high unemployment?

Given Canada's febt, how is their military policy ludicrous?

This is only hypothetical, but imagine if Parliament needed a simple majority to increase revenue (e.g. raise taxes, fines, fees, etc.) or reduce expenditure, but a two thirds majority to either reduce revenue or increase expenditure. This would also force parties to limit spending increases to those areas on which they can build a broad concensus. Of course the idea could be tweeted a bit, but good in principle I think.

What about Canada itself? By being autonomous, does it not give different rights than other states? Should we advocate for a unitarian world government with no autonomy for any state in the name of the same rights for everyone?

So the provinces should have less autonomy and all ought to be centralized to give the same rights to everyone?

They actually support national autonomy for First Nations.

They actually support national autonomy for First Nations.

I thought I'd mention it for the benefit of others.

The Prime Minister can choose an MP or a senator from outside his party and in the absolute worst case scenario, Can even choose from outside. There is no law that says that a cabinet minister must necessarily be a sitting MP or senator, just that he won't get to vote on legislation, that's all. A technocratically-minded Prime Minister could be tenoted to do that if he thought it was the best decision.

They also support provincial autonomy, leaving education and health care to the provinces.

Perhaps. But as for their platform, the Party seems to be supporting national autonomy for First Nations which is actually in line with the party's support for national autonomy for Canada, wanting to reduce participation in the UN system.