turningrite

To compare Canada's situation with New Zealand's or Australia's is essentially ludicrous. Those two countries are effectively isolated Western outposts. An increasingly aggressive China clearly poses a security risk to both. The big difference between them and Canada, as in real estate, amounts to 'location, location, location'. As I've stated elsewhere, Canada has only one natural enemy, the U.S., which for the past century or more has also been its natural ally. No other foreign country is in a position to pose a serious challenge to Canadian security interests, other perhaps than Russia on the issue of Arctic sovereignty. (BTW, the U.S. doesn't respect Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, either.) So, Canada should allocate its resources to best address its real security needs rather than try to ameliorate phantom risks.

First of all, Canada has no such thing as a green card system. A foreign student enters the country and attends school on a student visa. If a foreign student chooses to stay here to work following graduation they can apply for an express entry visa, which is essentially a prioritized permanent resident application. One of the reasons, I raised the NAFTA implications, in addition to pointing out that Canadian graduates are often highly regarded by U.S. employers, is to note that, if the deal is cancelled and it becomes more difficult for Canadian citizens to find work or even remain in the U.S. (educated Canadians don't need to obtain green cards to work in the U.S. under the NAFTA system), access to available and already limited job opportunities in Canada could become much more competitive. I believe the original post in this string raised cost and climate considerations but didn't address ultimate work location. (I didn't respond on climate because one can easily research that on Wikipedia.) It may well be true that he wants to work in the U.S., but it might equally be the case that he's interested in working in, say, Dubai. In any case, there's been surge in foreign student enrollment at Canadian universities. The number of Americans who attend our universities has reportedly grown by about 300% over the course of a decade, with much of the increase likely being attributable to cost. Also, it's my understanding that Canadian admissions processes and standards are often more straightforward, with greater emphasis on academic achievement and less on alumni connections and/or affirmative action.

LOL. Many of the grads from top Canadian universities get scooped up by big American employers. This could change if NAFTA is cancelled, which could impact access to Canadian grads for U.S. firms. Schools like U of Toronto, McGill and UBC as well as Waterloo (in engineering and tech) are highly ranked globally. And I believe they feature lower tuition fees than do most highly rated private U.S. universities. I've read that it's now estimated there are over a quarter million Canadians living and working in Silicon Valley alone. It's true that employment prospects are limited in Canada, however, as the country features a second tier, increasingly services-oriented, low productivity economy. Many foreign students choose to leave Canada after earning their degrees here.

To your first point, really? What about countries like Switzerland and Sweden, which are both neutral and are among the world's wealthiest and most stable nations? And the most successful and stable country in Central America is Costa Rica, which long ago disbanded its military. The U.S. should be so lucky as to have all its Latin American neighbors be as stable as Costa Rica. How many of the migrants flowing across the U.S.-Mexico border are fleeing Costa Rica, after all? To your second point, if we don't need the military hardware, why waste money making or buying it? Germany, which spends a smaller percentage of its GDP on its military than does Canada, seems to be doing very well. Why does Canada need stealth fighters, for instance? Unless a country has military ambitions, which Canada doesn't, what's the point of sinking massive amounts of money into military investment? The U.S. clearly has military ambitions, a reality that hasn't always served it well. It's up to American voters and politicians to decide on American military objectives and spending. It's not up to American voters and politicians to decide these things for other countries. And don't give me a line about the U.S. providing defense for Canada. That myth was blown apart last year when an American official confirmed that current U.S. policy doesn't afford Canada any protection from a missile attack (see link, below) even while we remain in an continental defense alliance (NORAD) with the U.S.! So, why bother? Let's be honest. We're on our own anyway. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/policy-says-us-wont-defend-canada-from-missile-attack-norad-general/article36258719/

Perhaps you didn't fully read my post. Rich parents, unlike poor ones, aren't incentived to have large families. It may, however, be the one class in society where social and cultural changes have had significant impact because economic concerns don't apply to the rich to nearly same degree. Wealthy parents once had large families in an era when large families were generally commonplace. There is a theory which holds that in the West wealthier parents have transitioned from an "r-selection" model to a "K-selection" model. In the first case, parents have lots of kids but invest little in them individually whereas in the second they have fewer children and invest a lot in them individually. A big change that may have contributed to this is that a lot more children, particularly in the West but also elsewhere, now survive childhood than was the case in the past.

My question is why, beyond a civil defense force and coastal patrol, we need military alliances at all? In fact, we'd probably be a lot better at coastal defense were we to focus on it rather than on participating in alliances. Further, there's literally no relationship between the extent of military spending and a country's prosperity. Germany, easily Europe's strongest economy, spends among the least on its military as a percentage of GDP (1.2% compared to Canada's 1.3%). And if spending as a percentage of GDP were a hallmark of prosperity, Russia (4.3%) would be a very rich country, wealthier on a per capita basis than the U.S. (3.1%) or Germany, which simply isn't the case . It's been argued that Trump's main agenda in promoting increased military spending by U.S. allies is to encourage them to buy American-made military hardware, thus further strengthening America's already massive military-industrial complex.

I'm wary of white nationalism. In general, I'm not a fan of tribalism of any sort, whether it's majority or minority tribalism. To encourage either one is to encourage the other, in my view. But I think I can, at least in part, answer your question. I think that few Canadians outside of the Toronto and Vancouver regions truly understand the extent of the current immigration program. And the federal government reportedly wants to keep it that way. The government is apparently aware of the potential for backlash (see link 1, below) and even academics are now pointing out that the rosy rationale for maintaining high intake numbers doesn't reflect reality, as pointed out in the CBC article published several months ago (see link 2, below). Canada's ability to further absorb large numbers of immigrants is being questioned as is the "demographic" argument that's often raised in support of high immigration levels. Similar debate is apparently also taking place in Australia, where the same demographic rationale for high intake levels that is trotted out in Canada as the reason high immigration levels are needed has not stood up to scrutiny (see link 3, below). Australia's Productivity Commission (Don't you wish we had such a thing!) concluded that “changes in migration levels ... make little difference to the age structure of the population in the future, with any effect being temporary”. We need more of that kind of common sense. At the very least, we should be told the truth. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/immigration-public-support-1.4619762 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-immigration-levels-2018-1.4370681 https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/john-howards-baitandswitch-is-it-time-for-a-debate-on-the-mass-immigration-ponzi-scheme/news-story/163e317be07822ca17641dd98415713f

Wouldn't the Iranians have to go through Iraq to form a land bridge to the Med? Iraq and Iran haven't generally been bosom buddies but the relationship has improved since Saddam Hussein's ouster by the Americans. If the Americans were truly interested in keeping Iran away from the Mediterranean, why on earth wouldn't they have found a way to keep Saddam in power in Iraq?

It's my recollection that you reacted to my statement that Canada should become a militarily neutral country, like Sweden, Switzerland, or, as I've noted in some other posts, Mexico. In a recent column the Toronto Star writer Thomas Walkom discusses the usefulness of NATO in a post-Soviet environment and whether Canada has any legitimate role to play in remaining in the alliance (link 1 below). Otherwise, though, where do Canada's strategic interests rest? No country is likely to invade us due to our proximity to the U.S., whether or not we maintain substantial military capabilities. The U.S., in fact, is the only foreign country ever since Britain defeated France on the Plains of Abraham to invade what we now consider to be Canadian territory, and that was more than 200 years ago. Canada's 1867 Confederation was formed at least in part to thwart the possibility of an American takeover in the aftermath of the Civil War. If Trump wants to bluster and insult, let him do so, but why play into his game? The Europeans are getting fed up and are discussing what amounts to a 'Plan B' alternative to NATO. France's Macron proposes the creation of a new EU security force capable of confronting Russia, although the UK remains, at least for now and perhaps due to the Brexit outcome, more attached to the NATO model, which Macron's model seems intended to replace (see link 2 below). If Trump pushes too hard, he may well see traditional American allies abandon NATO altogether. Where, then, will Canada stand? Better, I think to use abandonment of the American-designed model as leverage while we can. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/07/05/what-is-the-point-of-nato.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41403394

You're certain of your certainty, apparently. I prefer my life and views to be governed by facts and I think we'd all be better off were learning about matters like origins of the universe and species left to qualified teachers. Thank goodness my parents, who were observant Catholics, weren't dogmatic. I learned my cynicism about religion mainly from my father, who resented people who lorded their own version of religiosity over others. He grew up in Orange Order Ontario in the pre-WWII era when discrimination against Catholics (and French-Canadians, like his father) was generally prevalent, particularly in smaller communities. While personally religious, he espoused the view that a secular society was the best model with which to accommodate diversity. As for your assertion that you're free to criticize any ideology (presumably including any religious ideology), I could provide some examples to counter your case, but I don't want to raise any lest I be censored by the site administrators. Most of us have learned to self-censor in today's politically correct environment.

I'm just adding a note here relating to the relative increase in living and particularly housing costs. A recent CNBC article (1st link, below) notes that adjusting for inflation the actual cost of renting in the U.S. adjusted for inflation has risen 46% since 1960 while the cost of home ownership has risen 73% over the same period. And a Pew Research Center (2nd link, below) study from 2014 notes that between 1964 and 2014 hourly wages in the U.S. barely budged at all on an inflation adjusted basis. The study bluntly states that "For most U.S. workers, real wages — that is, after inflation is taken into account — have been flat or even falling for decades, regardless of whether the economy has been adding or subtracting jobs." And the situation hasn't been much different in Canada, particularly in large urban centres, like the Toronto and Vancouver regions, where housing cost increases have undoubtedly outstripped those in most American locales while real wages, adjusted for inflation, have effectively stagnated since the 1970s. (See article reporting on Stats Can study, 3rd link below) The two income household has become a necessity for all but the wealthy and the subsidy dependent. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/17/how-much-more-expensive-life-is-today-than-it-was-in-1960.html http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://globalnews.ca/news/3531614/average-hourly-wage-canada-stagnant/

Well, I've provided a link (below) to an article that largely sustains my opinion. The article discusses the clear relationship between economic factors, including economic insecurity, and fertility. It also discusses the changes in fertility rates causes by the increasing participation of women in the workplace over the past few decades and the resulting delay in family formation and childbirth. It's axiomatic that women in poorer countries tend to have more children, but in many of these countries traditional gender roles prevail and living costs remain very low. There is little market-based pressure not to pursue larger families and in fact in many of these places having children (mainly male children) is seen as a form of social security because the state doesn't serve that purpose. But immigrants from these countries who migrate to advanced economies for employment tend to quickly adapt to the economic realities of the countries to which they move and their fertility rates fall more or less in tandem. In other words, social and cultural factors are no match for economic factors where declining fertility and birth rates are concerned. The reason why poor parents (including poor immigrant parents) tend to have more kids than do middle class parents in Canada is that they're insulated to a greater degree than others from the vagaries of the free market economy. In many cases, they're sustained on public subsidies and even incentivized by public policy to have more children. It's an artificial outcome based on income redistribution that actually exacerbates fertility decline among middle class families, who have to pay high taxes, high living costs and high child care costs as well as pay the freight to raise their own children. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/birth-rate-stalls-after-recession-hurting-economic-growth-1.2635048

1) I'm just wondering what point you're trying to make and whether you're actually interested in starting a debate? 2) I don't care whether adults believe the earth is 6,000 years old, or flat, or whether men have never actually walked on the moon (which one of my grandfathers believed to be the case). What bothers me is that we permit children to be taught fantasy as a substitute for facts and justify so doing on grounds of religious belief. My parents, who were both practicing Catholics throughout their lives, taught us that the purpose of religious hagiography and storytelling was to convey ethical messages and parables or lessons on morality rather than facts. We were told to listen to our science teachers and read our school science textbooks to ascertain facts. 3) Are you in Canada, where we're now told that criticism of some religious beliefs and practices is unacceptable? We're free to criticize any ideology or dogma with which we disagree, with the exception, of course, of religion.

I'm not sure what the point here is, as you seem to be having a conversation with... yourself? In any case, it scares me that people of any religion are permitted to substitute religious fantasy in place of objective facts and/or science. At least at amusement parks we know that everything on display is completely artificial and children are usually astute enough to pick up on that and as they get older can ascertain differences between fantasy and reality. But religion is much different in that it becomes ingrained as dogma and often becomes a justification for social control and in some cases war.

I think the issue of declining birth rates has a lot to do with economics rather than cultural or social breakdown. My parents raised a large family mainly on my father's income, although my mother worked part-time in some of his business ventures, mainly doing bookkeeping. And, by the way, my father had no post-secondary education or qualifications. My parents bought a house when I was a toddler, the mortgage for which was paid off in ten years, and during my elementary school years they paid cash for a cottage. And we were pretty middle-of-the-road middle class. These days, obtaining such a lifestyle would likely be considered upper middle class. Interestingly, between my siblings and me, four of us completed post-secondary education, but none of us has achieved a standard of living comparable to that my parents had. Few these days can own a house without two full-time incomes and without paying a mortgage for twenty-five years or more. I think it necessary to note that over the past four or five decades, and particularly over the past couple decades, the cost of housing, in particular, has risen substantially in comparison to individual incomes. This, along with transformations in labour markets that have generated increased competition and bid up the length of post-secondary education required for many jobs (i.e. "qualifications inflation"), has served to slow household formation, increased the average age of mothers having children, exponentially increased external child care costs and effectively capped family size, at least in households with working parents of ordinary means. The resulting impacts on income distribution and on asset and wealth accumulation are at the root of declining natural population growth. I believe that the characteristics now labeled as social decline are really symptoms of a deliberate economic transformation with immigration policy being another aspect of this same agenda.

I think it reasonable to expect others to rationally outline and explain their objections to posts on this site. I believe "WTF" to constitute an uncivil and intellectually irrelevant critique, and I think it pretty fair to state that's a fact. If you have something coherent to offer, you're free to do so. Otherwise, you've lost this debate.

I think this quote is particularly apt. Public opinion/support is crucial to maintaining the legitimacy of any important public policy, immigration included. I'm not sure why self-styled "progressives" (or liberals, as they're often described in the U.S., where the term often has a different connotation than here in Canada) believe that immigration should be treated any differently. I suspect many of these people simply don't understand history, including the struggles of ordinary people to put in place and maintain public social security programs, like pensions and health care, to enhance and sustain their own stability. Most people are generally willing to pay relatively high taxes to support this system provided they have some assurance it will benefit them when they need it to. It's the foundation of the modern "social contract" that emerged in one form or another in all Western countries in the 20th century. Over the past few decades the social security systems in many Western countries have been diminished and many feel public resources have been redirected to serve other purposes, including the maintenance of permanent subsidy classes. Prominent economists, including Sir Paul Collier and the late Milton Friedman, among others, have noted that open or large-scale immigration undermines social solidarity and erodes the viability of welfare or social security policies. Maintaining strong borders is crucial to sustaining both wages and social supports. Friedman preferred open borders and was willing to sacrifice the welfare system. But, as he noted, a dual policy of open borders and maintaining strong social supports is irrational and unsustainable. Our political and economic elites scoff at these concerns because they're not greatly impacted by them. But ordinary voters aren't as cavalier. And they have a right to their say as long as our countries continue to function as democracies. Contrary to the prevailing liberal/progressive view, for most voters this is not about racism. It's about maintaining the decent working conditions and social safety nets many have worked long and hard to sustain. Voters will support politicians who reflect and/or share their concerns. It's common sense.

As a retiree myself, who's not eligible to obtain these benefits when I turn 65 in the very near future and lose my already limited work benefits, I understand this sentiment. I believe that when he limited refugee health coverage, Harper noted that those covered by the program shouldn't have better taxpayer-funded benefits than are available to most seniors in this country. It's a matter of fairness, after all.

Libya is another case that's turned into a complete disaster. The Western allies, with Canada tagging along with our NATO allies as usual, pursued regime change for the sake of regime change. It did nothing to boost international security and in fact has had the opposite impact. The comparison with Hitler is artificial. He led a powerful Western state and his regime, which came to power as a result the ridiculously retributional treaty that ended WWI as well as in the wake of the collapse of democratic capitalism, was a threat to Westernism itself. When forcing regime change in non-Western societies we're taking a chance that the cure might and probably will be much worse than the disease. Unfortunately, strong-man regimes develop for reasons that are integral to the circumstances of the countries in which they emerge. Often, the best we can hope for is a softening of the edges in some of these places, as we're seeing to some extent these days in Saudi Arabia. But progress in these cases is often very slow and uneven. The notion that democracy can be exported, as opposed to developing organically, has largely been discredited. As for the military-industrial complex, I suggest you consider Eisenhower's logic, which I believe was well-informed. Nightmares like Bush II's Iraq war are a consequence of ignoring Eisenhower's warning.

I smiled when reading this. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and your description is pretty accurate for that period. We were told to be home for dinner and that was about the only restriction on our freedom, other of course than that our homework had to be completed. In the household in which I was raised, my parents were pretty insistent on us maintaining good grades.

And yet, reportedly, Trump was champing at the bit for military action against the Venezuelan regime. The American military budget is reputedly greater than that of the ten next largest military budgets in the world combined. Eisenhower's apparent fear was that a 'use it or lose it' mentality would become prevalent where American military spending was concerned. It is a huge component of the American economy and, unfortunately, psyche. In the eyes of much of the rest of the world, America's military might is not merely a negotiating tool that buys time, as you appear to believe, but is essentially a club used to threaten and bludgeon real and potential enemies and competitors. America's most ignominious recent war, Bush II's illegal Iraq "regime change" adventure, transformed that part of the world and areas far beyond it into more dangerous places by virtue of the ISIS/ISIL threat and the migrant crisis. And all that at a cost of roughly a trillion dollars to the U.S. treasury. And, by the way, what country did Obama invade?

I tend to agree with much of your post. I recall my Russian/Soviet history prof at university, who had spent time studying in Moscow and who admired Russian culture, lamenting the fact that throughout its history Russia was prone to top-down governance that undermined its potential. And that was well prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. He believed that the Soviet Union constituted a weak state beyond Russia proper and felt it was likely to dissolve in the face of a major crisis. He got that right. I wonder what he'd think about Putin's regime? My guess is that he'd be dismayed but not surprised. It's interesting that the Chinese have been able to develop a system that somewhat successfully combines a form of productive capitalism with autocracy, which the Russians haven't been able to emulate.

I suspect you're correct. The bigger question is whether the federal Conservatives will echo the public's discontent in the lead up to and during next's year's election. There has been what amounts to an all-party compact on immigration for the past three decades or so, with only minor policy differences around the edges. To his credit, Harper tried to correct some of the problems with the refugee determination system and reined in some of the benefits refugees were able to able to obtain, although most of this progress has been reversed under Trudeau. I think the federal Libs are starting to realize that immigration and refugee policy could become a massive headache for them going forward but I suspect they're too dug in to change course. The hapless NDP will let them off the hook, but will the federal Conservatives? The big immigrant and refugee receiving provinces, which are now stuck paying the freight, might have to assume the opposition role here.

A government, majority or otherwise, without armed might basically guarantees that we're not in a position to pursue military adventurism. That, however, hasn't meant that we haven't tagged along on the coattails of American adventurism. Governments here have tended to do so mainly to keep the Americans happy. Dwight Eisenhower, himself a decorated military leader prior to entering politics, in 1961 noted the problems generated by America's "military-industrial complex," whereby the size and influence of the U.S. military and the industrial system designed to serve it generates a perpetual incentive to promote military spending and pursue armed conflict. History has demonstrated him to be correct. There is simply no equivalent in this country nor in any other Western country as far as I'm aware.

Reportedly, the Liberals are well aware that Canadians, when fully informed on the matter, aren't actually supportive of Canada's regular immigration intake levels. A Canadian Press report a few months ago indicates that federal bureaucrats and the government are seeking to keep a lid on the statistics in an effort to manage (manipulate?) discussion and minimize opposition. I've copied a link (below) to an article about this matter. Reportedly, Canadians considerably underestimate the extent of the immigration program and become less supportive of it when they're made aware of the actual figures. Go figure. As for the illegal migrant/refugee issue, I too believe the government's approach is irresponsible. We need to bring some clarity and accountability to this program. A good start would be to require the federal government to pick up all costs, including all social costs, associated with these migrants for a period of, say, five years and report the amount on a single annual budget/expenditure line so that Canadian taxpayers understand the burden that's being borne on this issue. Doug Ford was correct when he and his representatives insisted yesterday that the federal government has mismanaged this system and must pay for it. http://brianlilley.com/bureaucrats-to-trudeau-hide-the-immigration-numbers/