?Impact

Where were you in 1992? Pat Buchanan made a strong showing against Bush Sr. in the primaries. Although it wasn't enough to get him the nomination, or even win any of the contests, it did show a major break in Republican support for their own President. That was a much bigger factor in Bush losing to Clinton than Perot was (Perot siphoned votes from both Democrats and Republicans).

1. Yes, more than 36 hours notice would be nice. Not however a federal case. 2. Yes, including the date should have been done. Again, not a federal case. 4. As I have pointed out with many of the other activities (Valentines cards, Halloween costumes, Christmas Trees, Menorahs, etc.) our schools have lots of things that would violate section 76 to the game extent this ceremony does. Why did this suddenly become a federal case?

So you cannot go anywhere around BC and speak French without any problems. In much of Montreal you can get by speaking English without a problem, the same is not true about French in any other major city outside of Quebec except Ottawa. b.t.w. the Ontario government is far from bilingual. I have dealt with many of those in the provincial government, and they can't speak a word of French. What you are referring to is that services are for the most part available in both official languages, but the level of those services certainly depends on where you are located. Printing highway signs in either or both official languages is not a big deal, my biggest problem with Quebec was back in the 70's after they had just put up the bilingual seat belt signs they then wasted a bunch of money painting out the English on them - that was just stupid. I have a bunch of issues with the language laws in Quebec in how they relate to private business, but those are different issues.

Well I did learn what cisgender means (assume cigender is just a typo), so at least it was educational.

What does participating mean? Observing is not necessarily participating. You learn more from observing something live than you do from a documentary on television than you do from a lecture then you do from reading a book - in general. They are all just means of communicating. You could even go to a place of worship only to observe, being there does not necessarily make you a [full] participant. When I go to a concert, am I participating? Attending a concert is certainly more memorable than listening to a song on the radio, but that does not make me a member of the band.

Since Confederation, up until the 1970's the domestic growth of our population (ie. births-deaths) was above 1%. Since that time our domestic birth rate has decreased steadily, however our population continues to grow at just over 1% per year because immigration has increased. Current projections put the domestic birth rate to continually decrease to the point in about 20 years we will have a declining population unless there is immigration. Do we need an increasing population to maintain our growth in standard of living, can we accomplish that with a steady or declining population? There is nothing partisan about it. I have yet to hear any party give clear alternatives on population growth, they all have been sticking to the status quo for decades. Yes, some like to spout a bunch of bigoted rhetoric, but non address the fundamental issue about population.

Coding? Who needs that nonsense, let's get back to the three Я's. As above, what should be taught in public schools? Is all culture out? No mention of the NHL either, because that is culture. It would be interesting to record a day at school (work as well), and then see where time was actually spent. Let the efficiency experts in. Time to catch up to China, although we can eliminate both their as well as our political indoctrination from the classroom.

St. Valentine was a martyred Christian priest who was caught marrying couples. Far removed from the current day celebration, yes, but certainly based on religious roots. Thanksgiving has at its roots, the German Erntedankfest which is clearly a Christian festival. Yes, like many North American traditions they have become secularized over the years but the roots are specifically religious. No different than this native ceremony. I didn't suggest there were Thanksgiving parties, but the event is often recognized in the schools; in Ontario for example it is part of the grade 3 social studies curriculum. I haven't been in BC in a few years, and don't remember visiting any public schools (only UVic) while there so I don't know about Christmas trees, menorahs, and Halloween costumes, but they are certainly still part of many schools in Ontario & Quebec still today. When I went to school in the dark ages it was almost exclusively Christian content, and when my children attended in the 90's and early 00's there was more inclusive of cultural practices of other religions as well.

Hear from where? Alex Jones? Sorry, but Infowars is a far right-wing propaganda site, nothing to do with the actual doomsday clock.

So you agree, no Christmas trees, no menorahs, no St. Valentines day cards, no Halloween costumes, no Thanksgiving, etc. These all have some religious origin, yet they seem to squeak by ok.

There are different projections out there. The basis for the one you are citing is the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis out of Austria. The United Nations Population Division however projects that population will continue to climb, reaching 11.2 billion by the turn of the next century. While both models show decreased growth then we have experience over the past century, only the IIASA shows a peak and then decline. Both models are fairly similar in many parts of the world, but they have big discrepancies in Africa (almost 2 billion difference), and in Asia (about 0.5 billion difference). The most interesting factor that appears to lower the fertility rate is the education level attained by women.

You are right, we have a legal system, not a justice system. What however is the point you are trying to make? What is justice? I think you are searching for something that is not attainable. The best we can hope for is a legal system that helps to minimize injustices.

If you exclude the north, Canada still has far more habitable land than India. Much of the land in the northern territories is habitable, but excluding them Canada has well over twice the land area of India. Meanwhile India has over 35 times the population of Canada. Yes, the world has an increasing population problem. I am not suggesting that Canada should increase to world density numbers, but just pointing out that there is a long ways to go for us to get there. How humans deal with the increasing population has been discussed for many decades, but acceptable solutions have not been found.

Yes, our court system does appear to be slow. It would interesting if someone had real empirical data that compared Canada to other similar countries. Not just the average length of criminal & civil trials, but also resources devoted to the system and reasons (real, not assumed) for extended trials or delays. The OECD has some limited studies in this area, but they don't include Canada in the reports I have seen. Statistics Canada does have some information on Canadian cases, but I haven't seen a good comparison to other countries. Some of the interesting statistics I have read on Canadian criminal cases are: 66% conviction rate overall, with cases involving violence lower (50%) than those not Impaired driving is most frequent case, about 11% of all cases The various administration of justice charges (failure to comply with orders, probation violation, etc.) account for about 20% of all cases Males are the offender in over 70% of the cases. 60% of cases are ages 18-35. Median length of process is 123 days (4 months) across the country, with Quebec being highest (240 days), and PEI being the shortest (35 days).

I don't know if the software can be configured to support this feature, but if multiple (say 3) report posts need to be accumulated before a specific post is escalated to the moderators that may help reduce the cases of knee jerk reactions on someone feeling slighted. Personally I never flag/report posts, no matter how offensive they may be, except in the case of obvious spam. I'm not sure if I have ever even used that feature at mapleleafweb, because there seems to be a very low spam content (I think I remember one post a few months back).

Just to put things in perspective. Today Canada has about 80 acres of land per inhabitant. You could put the entire current world population in Canada and be less than 3 persons per acre. Of course there is very uneven distribution of people across the vastness of the country. Anywhere from 1 person having several acres in rural areas, through a dozen or so people per acre in the suburbs to a hundred or more people per acre in high-rise inner city developments. In remote regions, there might be one person to several tens of thousands of acres.

The closest genetic link of north American natives appears to be from central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. So yes I suspect there are closer links with the people of Turkey than Europe.

I see you like to cherry pick verses. I suggest the following: Verily, those who have attained to faith [in this divine writ], as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Christians, and the Sabians – all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds-shall have their reward with their Sustainer; and no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve. (Quran 2:62) O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise (each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). (Quran 49:13) You see there is far more to the Quran than the mindless hate filled drivel you read in your right wing white supremacist websites.

Please explain, note that Islam come from the 7th century, long before the post World War II creation of the Israeli state.

That depends on what diet you feed them, and how wasteful your farming techniques are. Using conventional farming, you could feed over a billion people in the land area of Alberta, the entire current population of the world using hydroponics, and about 5 times that using aeroponics. Of course we wouldn't be eating beef at those densities.

As I already said, exploiting the environment. Not sure where you are getting your information from, but it is obvious not based on reality. I just checked, and 1971 was 121,900. Your recent years are completely out of touch with the possible exception of 1991 which was only about 10% above the real number of 232,802.

I agree with lowering the voting age to 16. Isn't the driving age already 16 in all provinces, at least some sort of graduated license. Some provinces let you be fully licensed at 16, others it is learners permit only (ie. licensed driver in the car with you) and can take up to 2 additional years for full license. I'm not sure I agree with drinking. Yes, teenagers will experiment but not sure why we want to make it wide open at that age. I think the age of joining the armed forces should be raised. Let them have several years to vote first. I suggest vote at 16, and join forces at 21 so they have at least one opportunity to vote in a federal election first. I have no problem with a youth forces where they can train in everything but armed combat.

Curtail what? Having people on the no-fly list being able to purchase as many guns and ammunition they want?

Several of the gulf countries have good economic success, and high quality of life for their citizens (e.g. Qatar). They achieve this by exploiting foreign workers and the environment, no different than western countries are doing. ... I don`t see the total number of annual immigrants doubling every 7-10 years. It increased dramatically in the 80`s, but has remained relatively stable since. Yes there seems to be a effort at the moment to increase that number, but we will have to see what actually happens. Muslims have been increasing in the percentage of immigrants, but there is a ceiling to that increase so making assumptions without taking that into consideration is misleading.

I think the point is Trump went on and on about draining the swamp, when all he is doing is filling it up with alligators.