turningrite

In my opinion, the situation you point to illustrates the degree to which many on both sides of the ideological divide fall into the trap of what's called "bias confirmation," whereby they seek examples to justify their own pre-existing perceptions and views. Interestingly, this has become a particular specialty of the left in recent years. I suspect that in the U.S. proportionately more blacks than whites are shot by police. Part of the reason is, no doubt, racial bias. But another aspect, often ignored on one side of the debate, is that blacks are more likely to come into conflict with law enforcement officers. There are many reasons, including economic circumstances, to explain this, but activists tend to cherry-pick incidents to justify the validity of their chosen beliefs. This approach can backfire, however, as was the case in the hysterically reported attack on a young school girl's hijab in Toronto several months ago. It turned out, as the police later confirmed, that no such attack had occurred even though it garnered national and international attention and inspired calls at the highest levels for a further crackdown on the largely supposed menace of "Islamophobia," an effort that mainly seems to focus on placing increasing restrictions on free speech. Agendas too often overtake facts in much of this.

In general, I agree with you. However, immigration and refugee policy are inextricably linked in this country, not the least of which by a government that seems wedded to a program of extreme social engineering. For most of us, the biggest impacts are practical, including, for instance, the financial (i.e. taxation) costs entailed, higher housing costs and constrained access to vital services like health care. I believe the Fraser Institute has concluded that net social program costs (i.e. public benefits costs minus taxes paid) for the most recent generation of newcomers amount to over 30 billion dollars annually. This is roughly 60% of the amount being paid to support the old age security program, yet over the past couple decades we've been fed the rationale that large-scale immigration (including refugee intake) is necessary to fund an aging population. How's this working out for us? Is the government engaging in rational analysis on this issue? I believe an Australian government study concluded that from the perspective of demographics (an argument often raised in support of Canadian policies), large scale immigration is essentially a Ponzi scheme, whereby ever increasing numbers are required to have any significant demographic impact given that by the end of the second generation immigrants often reflect a demographic profile and fertility trends typical of the general population. I believe the current refugee debacle serves the government's agenda in that it is part of a broader policy approach.

What, exactly, would they speak up about? I live in central Toronto. There are a lot of members of the LGBTQ community living in my area. I can't imagine how they are a threat to anybody. They seem to be law abiding middle class folk who face the same problems and have many of the same concerns as most others. Ford's PCs have catered to the SoCons by promising to scrap Wynne's sex-ed curriculum. But surely they'll have to replace it with something to address issues like online bullying, exploitation and luring, one would think. There was no internet in the 1950s, after all. I don't equate the SoCon agenda with rational economic conservatism. I don't think it serves a particularly useful purpose where promoting rational economic and/or social policies are concerned. People can believe whatever they wish to believe, but the state's role should not be to impose the social or religious beliefs of any particular faction on everybody else. Hasn't one of the big criticisms of Lib-style politics over the past two decades been that it seeks to impose its own idealized and politically correct view of society on everybody else? Let's give this approach a rest.

A big part of the problem is that many Canadians, and particularly those living outside of the Toronto and Vancouver regions, significantly underestimate the extent and impacts of large-scale immigration. Studies have demonstrated this to be the case. When those who underestimate the numbers are made aware of the the actual immigration intake level, support for current immigration policies drops significantly. Equally, I suspect most Canadians are also generally unaware of the social program costs associated with large-scale immigration. My guess is that the federal government doesn't want the general public to know the extent of the problem.

I too thought this was odd. These summits are supposed to offer leaders face time, where presumably they can be frank with one another. Trudeau's approach seems oriented to photo-ops and sound bites, which doesn't seem compatible with such a summit. I found Trump's reaction to be over-the-top. His focus was apparently on this week's summit in Singapore. Maybe he felt Trudeau was trying to upstage him. In today's Star, a writer said it's likely Trump is chest thumping and bullying Trudeau in order to set the stage for the Singapore meeting. I think Trudeau could have been more judicious, even if what he said seemed uncontroversial to most Canadians. Trump, who reportedly would rather not have been in Quebec, was playing nice and I think the Americans expected the same from other leaders in return. Trudeau didn't seem to heed the adage that there's a time and a place for most things and this was apparently neither where airing our dirty (trade) laundry in public was concerned.

There clearly appear to be differing narratives emerging from the American and Canadian administrations. Trump has to keep his base convinced that he's being tough on America's trading partners and Trudeau needs to have Canadians believe that his government is aggressively representing Canadian interests. As often as Trudeau's ministers have tried to reassure us on the progress of the NAFTA negotiations, their American counterparts have made it equally clear that there's a wide gulf between the two sides. Trump's basic premise, which is that the globalized trading regime has been rigged against the interests of ordinary workers, is quite accurate. What he doesn't seem willing to acknowledge is that workers in other developed countries, including Canada, have been negatively impacted. Trudeau, who's mesmerized by globalist ideology and thinks things just need to be tweaked a bit, seems oblivious. But what should we expect from somebody who's never had to endure and survive the vicissitudes of the real economy? Further, we give Trump and the Americans lots of ammunition. Why we continue to support supply management in some agricultural sectors, other than to appease powerful domestic constituencies, remains a mystery to me. It undermines our credibility when we argue for free trade. Further, our openness to foreign investment from some countries may in fact generate security concerns, although this is an inconvenient reality for Trudeau. And Trump's desired sunset clause, while perhaps offering too short a period for meaningful assessment, isn't entirely unreasonable. Revisiting these arrangements is the only way to promote accountability and make necessary adjustments. Trudeau and Trump are talking past each other. But I think Trump has the stronger hand.

"The culture of the talking-heads, in media, academia and the arts - the people with the megaphones as he says - , is completely different from that of regular people." Argus: I believe the form of "managed" democracy that's emerged in this country will eventually bring its own downfall. As today's Star article 'Three lessons that need to be learned from Ford's victory' notes, Wynne's coterie became obsessed "...with backdrops, and colour and guest diversity over content and meaning." Voters actually want content and meaning in government, particularly where their own concrete interests are concerned. Ford's victory, like that of so many populist parties and leaders in the West, is a result of the fact that ordinary people feel their governments have too often ignored broader and very real needs over the past few decades rather than it being the result of some kind of atavistic yearning to reimpose a supposed "white patriarchy", as so many on the left imagine to be the case. It would be more productive if our leaders, media and creative classes could recognize that ordinary people aren't always wrong.

Trudeau likes to present reality according to the things he chooses to see. Trump presents reality according to what he chooses to see. The main difference between the two is that Trump has a lot more power. Trudeau can live within his sunny world of unicorns and rainbows without the rest of the world taking a whole lot of notice. Trump's world view, on the other hand, is more consequential. I mainly ignore Trudeau's (often bizarre) musings. But nobody can ignore Trump's.

Throughout modern history, religion has served as a mechanism of social and political control. Even within mainly Christian societies, religion has served to support the aims of ruling classes and to suppress others. In diverse democratic societies, where there is no official religion even if one is dominant in the population, separation of church and state is crucial. The tendency of the large monotheistic religions is to promote sectarian chauvinism. Whether religion itself is right or wrong in its moral teachings is immaterial. From a practical point of view, religion has no productive role to play in the functioning of the modern democratic state. The separation of church and state is not an expression of atheism but rather is the foundation of religious tolerance and actual freedom.

I'm not sure a complete moratorium is practical or necessary. However, I believe the immigration intake level could comfortably be cut in half, with strong preference given to highly-skilled candidates and their immediate family members (i.e. spouses and children). We need to make sure that immigrants are almost immediately productive. What good does it do us if the best immigrants struggle and in many cases leave the country for greener pastures? There is too great a focus on family class immigrants and recently on refugees and self-selecting border-crossing migrants, many of whom receive, or will receive, public subsidies for years. The Fraser Institute has determined that economically marginal immigration is costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year, a situation that's bound to get worse if current policies and practices remain intact. If we're going to maintain high immigration levels, I believe we're going to have to restrict access to social benefits based on residency qualifications and/or financial contributions to the system, as we currently do with OAS and the Canada Pension.

I'm not sure what caused Wynne's delay on election night, but didn't she give her concession speech days earlier? Maybe she thought she didn't have to give another one? LOL. Another article in today's Star pointed to the proliferation of young and inexperienced political advisors (hundreds, reportedly) operating within Wynne's regime, including within her communications team. Maybe it's time for some experience and substance at Queen's Park. I'm not sure what style Ford's regime will feature, but the bar hasn't been set very high.

1) I'm not sure what point you're trying to make? I oppose ideological bullying of any sort. I believe productive debate must be based on substance and evidence. 2) Perhaps freedom of movement should be the ideal but for practical purposes it simply doesn't exist. While the EU has achieved a measure of it, the NAFTA arrangement has largely precluded it except for some educated professionals. We have to live within the world as it is. 3) I agree that globalization has been very poorly implemented. Governments initially promised that displaced workers wouldn't be abandoned but then promptly ditched that premise. Here in Canada, as well as in the U.S., there are wide swaths of displaced workers in their 40s, 50s and 60s and yet there are virtually no government programs for unemployed older workers. Instead, immigration integration gets the government's attention, at least in Canada. You have to ask if we really need to import workers when the labour market participation rate remains below levels seen a decade or more ago and we're being told that within the next generation technology could displace up to half of those who are now working? 4) I'm not convinced that climate change will generate mass migration, except perhaps to countries that neighbour places facing actual crises. Much of the migration to Western countries seems to be premised as much on benefits seeking as on flight from crisis. Most of those who are crossing from the U.S. are hardly at risk of much other than being sent back to their relatively poorer homelands. Most of the Syrian refugees Canada has accepted were safely ensconced in UN refugee camps and reportedly getting some of them to relocate to Canada was a hard sell. 5) Again, globalization has been poorly implemented. The jury's out on how climate change might impact migration patterns. And, yes, those who warned of the negative consequences of globalization should have been listened to and heeded. But that didn't happen and we're dealing with the consequences. We should also heed the warnings of the sound voices that warn of the implications of large-scale migration for Western societies. The American economist and Nobel prize winner Milton Friedman has said that "it's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state." Despite the rosy view of those like Trudeau who think we can maintain both, there will be a reckoning. The money will run out and people who paid into the system for years believing they'd have adequate public pensions and health care in retirement will be shocked - and angry. The consequences won't be pleasant when that realization takes hold.

I suspect the public will continue to support funds spent on policing and firefighting, including coverage for generous pensions and benefits. But these groups make up a tiny fraction of the broader public sector in this province. On the other hand, an acquaintance of mine, a former neighbour and a nice guy, is poised to retire at 55 from an administrative provincial public service role in the very near future with an unreduced pension well in excess of the earnings of most ordinary workers and will also have gold-plated benefits for life. He was fortunate to get into the provincial public service when young and despite having no post-secondary education worked his way as far up the union pay scale as he could. I believe the federal public service age cut-off for unreduced pension entitlement is 60 and most retirees must buy their benefits. In an era when most of us are being told to expect less from government, it's difficult to persuade many that the disparity between provincially-governed public sector wages and benefits, in particular, and the conditions faced by most ordinary workers is fair. I think these are the kinds of inequities Ford will have to convince many in his base that his government is prepared to address. But there will be lots of conflict in so doing. It will be a bumpy ride.

It will be interesting to see if Ford's "common man" appeal will hold up. The minimum wage was increased too quickly. It should have gone up in stages to $15/hr over, say, a 5 or 6 year period. Wynne was simply trying to score political points with her rash policy. But there is a much bigger issue at stake here, which is that Ontario is broke. Government programs will have to be trimmed and public service entitlements will have to be shaved. I don't see much choice on this. Ordinary working Ontarians are suffering and our own political Nero, Wynne, seemed too often to fiddle while things burned down around her, often as a result of fires she started. But there are other negative harbingers as well. Rental housing costs in the GTA have increased outrageously in comparison to actual incomes. It's not at all surprising that voters in the core Toronto ridings who are most impacted by this turned their backs on Wynne, who did little to help the situation, and opted for the NDP, the only party that credibly promised some relief from the madness. Can Ford keep the hundred of thousands of renters in the GTA, many of whom (especially in the suburbs) supported him, on side while at the same time keeping the financial class happy? Hmmm.... Overall, I'm not dissatisfied with a Ford government, but it's going to have to walk a tightrope between pleasing its corporate backers on the one hand and on the other maintaining its credibility among the many lower income earners who voted for it. The interests of these constituencies are often incompatible.

In my view, you've won the award for most reflexively reactionary comment of the day. And it's pretty uninformed as well. We know of course that slinging the "R" word has become a common form of ideological bullying, but my bigger concern here is your apparent lack of awareness of the progressive argument against uncontrolled migration. In particular, it undermines the legitimacy of the legal immigration system. A backlash will no doubt negatively impact prospective immigrants who've complied with the legal process and in many cases have waited in line for years. Secondly, uncontrolled "irregular" migration will cost treasuries billions of dollars that might otherwise be spent on supporting social programs like health care and child care. There's only so much tax money to go around and supporting self-selected migrants for years is a very expensive venture. The British economist and Oxford professor Sir Paul Collier has noted that the net economic benefits of large-scale immigration are marginal and that the benefits that do accrue are largely enjoyed by the wealthy, by increasing aggregate domestic demand and undermining wages, while those lower on the economic ladder, including other recent immigrants, pay the price in terms of increased competition for jobs, housing and social services. Canada now features a relatively declining second-tier derivative economy. According to Stats Can, we lose a significant percentage of the highly-trained, highly-skilled and motivated immigrants who do arrive, presumably because many of them see better economic prospects elsewhere. We need to examine and adjust our immigration policies in the context of acknowledging and adapting to some very inconvenient realities.

In the news today is a report indicating that during the first three months of 2018 there were only 135 removals of failed refugee claimants, presumably many of them from among the thousands who've entered the country "irregularly" since Trump came to power south of the border. According the one news report, a government spokesman (spokesperson?) said that most of the irregulars aren't "removal ready," whatever that means. The fiasco is seriously undermining the legitimacy of Canadian immigration policy and testing the public's patience with the Trudeau government, which has to start to demonstrate backbone on this file. So far, its approach is a total failure.

As I've said previously, don't rely on the polls alone to predict the outcome here. About one-fifth of voters haven't yet decided and yesterday's news of the lawsuit Ford now faces could have an impact. This election will be decided on vote splits in a couple dozen ridings. I haven't put any money on the outcome although prior to yesterday I believed the trends favoured Ford's PCs. Now, I'm not so sure. I think that if the PCs had selected Elliot or Mulroney as their leader, this election would long ago have been decided.

"So, being a rational person I lack 'pride' in any system of government that utilizes 'pride' as a foundational principle." I tend to agree with this assertion. "Pride", whether in the form of mindless nationalism or expressed as some form of tribal superiority or entitlement, is inherently centrifugal. Rather, society and government must operate on broadly shared interests and values. We live in a country where our current PM has dangerously declared that there is no mainstream, which is both sociologically and practically ludicrous. To be fair, he probably had no idea what he was talking about, but we can put that explanation aside for now. One can be proud of one's own accomplishments, or perhaps proud of one's family's accomplishments, but in general unless personally and directly involved in some sort of collective activity, one doesn't own the accomplishments, actions or failings of any group to which one nominally, physically or theoretically belongs.

Young people in their late teens and early 20s often act in such a fashion as to appear to reject the values and priorities of their parents. If that's the case here, it presents Horwath as a pretty conventional parent. When I was a teen and young adult, my parents allowed me have long straggly hair (hey, it was the 70s!) and run around in T-shirts sporting rude slogans. And I still somehow finished university and worked for decades in the real world. Funny how that turned out, eh?

Justin Trudeau will be posing for the cameras to appease his base and appeal to domestic audiences. There will no doubt be cute photo-ops and virtue-signalling sound bites intended to light up smiles among Liberal-friendly "progressives" (presumably minus some environmentalists, who've ditched him) but cause a lot of other Canadians to cringe. He is a marginal figure in world affairs and has rendered Canada's role more meaningless as time passes. Trump, if he's forced to be within reasonable proximity of Trudeau, will put on his best quizzical grin and promptly move on to more important leaders and matters.

I'm not convinced by all the anxiety over the probable demise of the NAFTA arrangement. As has been pointed out by many observers, including economists, much of the impact of regional trading pacts has been diminished by the emergence of a stronger WTO regime. Not that the WTO model is perfect, but it is much less likely to be subject to American dictates as it includes countries that comprise most of the world's large economies. In the NAFTA context, Canada and Mexico are mere minnows in an American economic sea. If the NAFTA dies (or withers away), the already hollowed out Canadian economy will adapt. Currency differentials can compensate for the tariffs permitted under WTO rules. In fact, $100+ oil during the Harper era, which drove the value of the CDN $ up against its U.S. counterpart, probably did more harm than will the collapse of the NAFTA. And what good does the NAFTA do anyway when the U.S. can (and does) blatantly ignore it with the imposition of sectoral tariffs and/or "Buy America" laws, as has regularly been the case - even before Trump?

These days, polling has become a precariously inexact science. It's main role may be to predict trends rather than results. The actual election will probably come down to about two dozen ridings where vote splits will determine the ultimate winner. As polling indicates a slight improvement in Liberal fortunes, Wynne's decent debate performance (she is the best speaker among the three leaders and was less irritating than either Ford or Horwath) and her early concession speech seem to have strengthened Ford's hand in the swing ridings. So, the strategy backfired and now the Liberals seem to be backpedalling, focusing on demonizing Ford in order to get the minority legislature they supposedly prefer. Unless the NDP can siphon about a quarter of the 20% support now held by the Liberals, Ford will probably win a majority. But there are other factors in play, including overall voter turnout and whether younger voters will actually show up to vote. If only 50% of eligible voters cast ballots, Ford's likely the next premier. The trends are on Ford's side. I hope he has a great big thank you to Wynne written into his victory speech.

5) "Distracts from objective analysis" ? I don't see how. It is a starting point to acknowledging a problem, which is a predecessor to analysis. We need to agree on language, or agree to disagree. Michael Hardner: Well, it distracts from objective analysis because it's based on a subjective premise. Actually, asserting the concept of "white privilege" does something worse as it sets an emotional and/or ethical presumption in place to oppose any challenge of its legitimacy, i.e. 'of course there's racism and inequality so the idea "white privilege" MUST be accepted as being legitimate'. While race-based stats do indicate that members of some racial groups face greater difficultly prospering in this country, the notion that this justifies the assumption of white privilege is nonsense. Some minority groups including East Asians and some South Asians, particularly those in the second generation or afterwards following immigration, have little difficultly competing for resources and achieving prosperity in countries like the U.S. and Canada. I recall a conversation I had a few years ago with a black guy, who asserted that the Canadian education system is fundamentally biased and racist. I asked why so many non-whites excel within that system if it's so inherently biased in favour of whites? His response was that East Asians (in particular) have been indoctrinated into complying with white culture - as if they had/have no cultural values of their own upon arriving here. (Hmmm... seemed presumptive to me.) I asked him whether he was aware of the centuries-old value attached to education in Chinese culture, but apparently his mind was made up. His world view was predicated on an assertion of institutional racism and he wasn't changing his mind about it, whatever the evidence. Perhaps he had some justification in holding his opinion based on his own personal circumstances but in applying his opinion broadly I believe he was expressing a received rather than an actual truth. And that's why the concept of "white privilege," which requires acceptance of a received and broadly subjective premise or truth, is so inherently non-objective and, to apply David Brooks' logic, so counterproductively fragmentary and centrifugal.

I believe racism exists, as it does and pretty much always has in most of the world throughout modern (I.e. recorded) history because by nature human beings are tribal. I believe that "white privilege" on the other hand is an academic construct that attempts to draw (often erroneous) conclusions on the basis of conflating current circumstances, which are presented in isolation as outcomes, with a system that's somehow (and even conspiratorially!) designed to allocate benefits on grounds that are related to race. My point is that unequal class structure, entrenched privilege and negative outcomes long predate Canada's current demographic circumstances. In fact, class and economic differences may be less entrenched in this country today than was the case several generations ago. If we allow ourselves to believe that current inequities are predicated primarily on race, the argument for diversity is lost. In a recent NY Times article ("Educated Elite's Failure"), David Brooks discusses what he calls the "misplaced idolization of diversity," noting that "diversity is a midpoint, not an endpoint" and that "diversity for its own sake, without a common telos, is infinitely centrifugal and leads to social fragmentation." The academic stratagem of "white privilege" distracts from objective analysis and, worse, negates the possibility of and prospects for organic social progress.

I think a big assumption held by many is that Trump was actually interested in renegotiating the NAFTA. I suspect he's been biding his time until killing the deal would provide him maximum political currency. With the U.S. midterm elections approaching, that time is probably quickly approaching. Only about one-quarter of Americans believe NAFTA benefits their country and support here isn't much more than paper-thin. More Canadians are afraid of the disruption that will be caused if the pact is terminated than are positive about its actual benefits. Our politicians simply haven't been honest with us about this. I voted against the original FTA proposed by Mulroney in the 1980s, believing it would hollow out Canada's industrial economy, and it and the NAFTA have largely served to do so. What's left of the Canadian economy has adapted to the NAFTA environment, to which many still cling as the only hope for prosperity. But is it? In his articles on the subject published in the Toronto Star, Thomas Walkom has noted that the NAFTA arrangements haven't always been beneficial to Canada and in many aspects will be replaced by WTO rules, which will remain in effect. Personally I won't grieve the demise of the NAFTA.