turningrite

You can't have a rational discussion or debate with him. (I'm assuming gender here because the poster doesn't identify one.) He refuses to even acknowledge your argument about reciprocity, nor China's approach to intellectual property. He just argues emotion and insinuates racist motives and counters that the Chinese are wonderful immigrants and property owners, as if this has anything to do with the topic at hand, which is the current diplomatic dispute between Canada and China.

The only legal basis for the suit was the tort that was ostensibly established by the SCC rulings. That's what the whole thing was about. Unfortunately for Canadians, the process did not wend its way through the courts. If it had, we would have had a much better idea of the Charter implications relating to such matters. My guess is that Trudeau's Libs settled for political reasons, including the fact that they didn't want to face the risk of a further public backlash relating to the federal government's role in bringing the Khadr family to Canada in the first place as well, I suspect, as wanting to avoid having to address the broader issue of the existence of extremist feelings, beliefs and sympathies among some Muslim immigrants. Also, they likely didn't want the case in court in the run-up to or during the 2019 federal election, and, finally, they didn't want to further undermine the Charter's reputation, which surely would have been the case if the courts awarded Khadr anything near the amount he was claiming. They wanted to pay him off and see the issue go away quietly, although even though they sure tried they didn't quite manage to achieve this.

1. & 2.) I don't believe the SCC rulings on Khadr's rights directly addressed this matter at all. It's not as if Canadian law has any jurisdictional impact on how the Americans conduct their affairs. I don't believe the SCC rendered any judgement or opinion relating to what you call "war crimes" or other violations of international law by the Americans, nor should it have. The SCC ruled that the Canadian government wrongly participated in the Gitmo interrogation process, thus rendering it liable for Charter violations, and erred in making inadequate efforts to bring Khadr back to Canada and thereby remove him from the extrajudicial environment in which the Americans were holding him, thus compounding the Charter violations. The first aspect of this is particularly chilling and problematic because it implies that when Canadians are held abroad it might now be in the government's and taxpayers' interest to simply ignore their plight. The second aspect is also problematic in that it validates the existence of vicarious liability on the part of the Canadian government in relation to the treatment of Canadians who get into trouble outside of the country, something that could be very difficult to limit in relation to the unfortunate impacts of events that are very often beyond the control of Canadian government. 3.) The matter should have been settled in court. If damages were to be applied, we'd have to understand the extent to which an actual court might have deemed the government financially liable. Some believe the SCC rulings were satisfied upon Khadr's return to Canada. There are also, potentially, issues of contributory liability relevant to this matter that were never considered by a court because, well, the Trudeau government didn't permit them to be considered. Perhaps the Trudeau government was skittish about how the penalty phase of an open trial might work out, but it shouldn't have been. As it is now, the settlement establishes an atrocious extralegal precedent that promotes moral hazard. If people can get themselves into trouble elsewhere, even in pursuit of activities that are contrary to our national interest, knowing that the Canadian government and Canadian taxpayers are on the hook to bail them out, the settlement has in this aspect transformed the Charter into a monstrosity - until, eventually the courts weigh in to limit such dangerous nonsense.

Hmmm... let's see, according to the 2017 poll I cited earlier, 64 percent of Canadians opposed selling arms to the Saudis. My guess that number has since risen, possibly by about a dozen points or more, due to the Khashoggi murder. Trudeau's crew can do electoral if not budgetary math. They're experts at slicing and dicing the electorate into voting blocs. If they do get out of the Saudi deal, as it appears they're trying to do, they'll no doubt try to minimize any associated penalties. The Ontario Libs found out the hard way that the penalties incurred in the gas plant cancellation fiasco, for which taxpayers received literally nothing in return, followed them around like a bad smell. They were never able to shake it off, a fact Butts no doubt reminds Trudeau about when the Saudi deal is discussed. The time to have limited damages would have been when the contract was drawn up. If big penalties have to be paid, it will generate the impression that taxpayer interests were simply ignored from the outset.

It's irresponsible, one way or the other. They should have had the good sense to stay home. The fact that Trudeau didn't order Lib MPs to cancel their participation in the trip in fact generates an impression of government consent.

Most likely because reportedly the federal government could incur huge penalties for so doing. Butts, Trudeau's principal adviser, must surely be aware of the political risks entailed in having to pay such penalties. He was, after all, deeply entrenched in provincial Lib politics in Ontario before moving to Ottawa. Most Canadians other than those directly impacted by a cancellation probably wouldn't be too upset if the deal were cancelled. A 2017 poll (See link below.) indicated that almost two-thirds of Canadians oppose arms sales to Saudia Arabia, a percentage that's probably increased in view of the Khashoggi murder. It seems to me that the potential cancellation fee(s) rather than cancellation itself generate the bigger potential political headache for Trudeau. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/most-canadians-oppose-arms-deals-with-saudi-arabia-poll-finds/article36256402/.

I'm surprised so few have weighed in on this topic. It was the basis of the lead editorial in Sunday's Toronto Star, 'Don't undercut strong message', which noted that we cannot at present deal with China on a business-as-usual basis. The Star editorial questions the purpose of the parliamentary delegation being in China: "So what on earth is a delegation of Canadian parliamentarians doing jetting off to China prepared to deliver a softly-softly message about how relations between the two countries are really just fine?" These are not normal times and the current dispute with China should prompt the Trudeau government to review its approach to dealing with that country. When the generally pro-Lib Toronto Star has jumped on the issue, you have to wonder why so many Canadians seem blase about the situation. If I were one of the Canadians arbitrarily detained in China I think I'd wish that I held a different passport.

I've long believed that Canada has no fundamental strategic interest other than in maintaining a reasonably harmonious relationship with the U.S., a nation we could never realistically engage in a military conflict. Other than having a requirement to pay a share for continental defense (i.e. NORAD), I think both peacekeeping and our role in NATO should be seriously re-examined.

The issue will have little resonance outside of the London area and could actually help Trudeau elsewhere. His "progressive" base would be thrilled at such an outcome. Ontario will likely vote along predictable lines. Urban "progressives" and immigrant voters in and around Toronto will likely back Trudeau's party and rural and small-town voters will support the CPC. Traditional NDP ridings could well be in play, though, as that party continues to implode. Trudeau's disappointing USMCA deal, which didn't accomplish much and didn't get rid of steel and aluminum tariffs, could come back to haunt him and could make for a few interesting battles.

Well, you certainly don't accord views that conflict with your own even a modicum of respect, even when such conflicting views are entirely reasonable. That's reflective of an antidemocratic mindset. It's an observation that's based on reading your posts on here and therefore amounts to fair comment. Look the concept up.

My guess at this point is that the best the CPC can hope for under Scheer is to hold the Libs to a minority. I believe CPC members will come to realize they made a strategic error in selecting him as their leader. And the situation will be worse for the CPC if the NDP collapses because the Libs will vacuum up NDP voters, a lot of whom would never vote for any party even slightly right of centre. (Why, after all, is Trudeau trying to keep Singh out of Parliament?) Don't get me wrong here: I believe the NDP is a hopeless and internally conflicted mess. But its collapse will become a much bigger problem for the rest of us when the October election results roll in.

Scheer is a compromise candidate who was effectively installed as party leader by special interests. If anything, he's too milquetoast to be taken too seriously, which is why the CPC membership could well be vulnerable to its support being encroached on by Bernier's party.

"Great comeback! The only thing missing in the Conservative agenda that wasn't mentioned is the prerequisite of being pure white too, even though it's hinted throughout that rant.. That requirement is always left hiding in the Conservative's closet. They need to be dragged out of their closets to expresss their exclusionist agenda as belonging to the Cons." Presumably this is your comment (in quotations), although you can correct me if I'm wrong. If it is, good attempt at trying to change the channel to reflect the elitist/"progressive" contempt for ordinary Canadians who express their legitimate concerns about immigration policy. It's unfortunate that you so apparently loathe democracy, which intentionally permits people to hold opposing opinions. Imagine that!

i don't have the time right now to fully engage in this debate, but I think your sociological perspective is quite skewed here. English dominance was rendered inevitable by British colonial rule in places like North America, Australia and New Zealand, just as Spanish linguistic dominance was rendered inevitable in places where Spain's empire once ruled. The pressure to build functional and cohesive societies was no doubt perceived as requiring an interlocutory language in both cases. Who are we to castigate such realities as dominant languages have throughout the history displaced other languages? At one point, multiple languages were spoken in Europe that either no longer exist or have been reduced to near insignificance, largely as a result of the emergence of dominant ethnic nation states like France. There are limits to the functionality and efficacy of ethno-linguistic diversity. These limits haven't been invented by any particular group or for any particularly nefarious reason, other perhaps in the latter instance than where various colonial powers suppressed indigenous languages and traditions.

Re: "...insidious public opinion shaping." I think the more accurate description of the MSM approach is media manipulation. Noam Chomsky has long noted that the political and economic elites employ the media, which they largely control, to direct and shape public opinion and debate. In the much more diverse multi-media environment created by the internet this is becoming more difficult. Thus, I believe, we're witnessing the growing calls for various forms of censorship, including the suppression of free speech. We wouldn't want voters thinking for themselves, would we? As a student of history, I wonder if we're on the cusp of a new Reformation, with elite (i.e. corporate) control over public discourse and opinion being challenged by an increasingly skeptical public? A new technology, the printing press, destroyed Catholic hegemony in Western Europe in the Reformation. Will another technology, the internet, equally undermine elite hegemony in the modern era?

Thanks for the detailed polling questions link. In looking at the responses, I tend to eliminate the neutral ("neither agree nor disagree"") responses in order the ascertain the true state of public opinion. When one does this, the situation becomes even more stark, indicating that of those who have opinions on these matters (i.e. those for whom immigration issues could impact their voting intentions), 82% believe the government is hiding the true costs of immigration, 79% believe immigration has placed too much strain on public services, 73% believe Canada is too welcoming to immigrants, 66% believe there are too many immigrants in Canada, 57% believe immigrants make it more difficult for Canadians to get jobs, and 68% believe that those who have spoken out against immigration are treated unfairly by politicians and the media. I completely agree with you that the elitist spin, which often challenges criticism of immigration with techniques like reverting to economic modelling based on zero immigration, amounts to manipulation. I believe this is a tactic known in rhetorical logic as 'reductio ad absurdum' and is intended to undermine rational criticism and debate. It's similar in approach to the "progressive" argument that those who vote for a leader like Trump favour fascism when in reality many Americans voted for Trump in 2016 because he openly addressed their legitimate concerns, which other politicians had long ignored. In my opinion, Trump's emergence is a sign of the growing disconnect between ordinary Americans and the traditional political elites just as the emergence of anti-immigrantion sentiment is a sign of a growing disconnect between our political, economic and media elites and ordinary citizens. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. I believe our leaders and our elites are responsible for the growing public negativity toward immigration.

I'm sure the mainstream parties and the MSM will try to keep a lid on any kind of election related immigration debate. The question will be whether they can succeed in this. Bernier's party will be the wild card here as Bernier has made it clear he wants to raise immigration issues, which could force the other parties to respond. As a commentator noted on yesterday's Global News coverage of the Ipsos poll, contrary to the elitist argument that's generally put forward on the matter by the mainstream parties there is actually no broad public consensus in Canada on immigration. In fact polling suggests a growing divergence between the elite consensus and public opinion. I believe immigration policy is an issue that warrants intense public debate.

Well, perhaps. Immigration-based societies, like the U.S., Canada and Australia, comprised of peoples of diverse ethnicities, were a rather novel concept in the the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Americans experienced spasms of insecurity about the impacts of immigration, particularly from non-Anglo and, particularly, non-Western societies, as exemplified by the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was enacted by Congress in 1882. Canada followed suit much later, in 1923, by implementing similar legislation. Australia's Parliament passed an Immigration Restriction Act, which formed the genesis of its 'White Australia Policy', in 1901, the year the country became an independent dominion. Interestingly, labour unions were among the strongest supporters of restrictive immigration policies.

A new Ipsos poll done for Global News (link below) indicates increasing public concern about Canada's immigration program. Although it appears the polling didn't specifically gauge whether Canadians feel immigration levels are too high, it did ask respondents whether they feel Canada is too welcoming to immigrants, and 54% percent indicate to one extent or another that they believe we are, in contrast to 20% who believe we are not. The coverage noted that attitudes about immigration appear to be increasingly negative. While the TV news item addressing the polling results suggested that Bernier's views about immigration policy could have a real impact on the upcoming federal election, the written piece on the Global website seems to replicate the kind of pablum we often see in MSM coverage, attributing hardening attitudes to xenophobia, racism and growing right-wing anti-immigration sentiment elsewhere in the West. The written piece also repeats the often argued although highly speculative economic rationale for not decreasing immigration levels. The polling results, however, clearly appear to indicate a link between negative economic impacts of large-scale immigration as perceived by ordinary Canadians, including on employment opportunities, with declining public support for the program. It seems our mainstream politicians and their media acolytes, who apparently continue to strongly support the elite consensus on immigration policy, are increasingly out-of-touch with the views and lived experiences of ordinary Canadians. It will be interesting to see whether our political class can continue to keep the immigration policy genie in the bottle as the year progresses. https://globalnews.ca/news/4794797/canada-negative-immigration-economy-ipsos/

My point is that these groups would have been assimilated in any case, as was the case for most minority communities in Canada until the modern era. Usually, the children of immigrants quickly learned English and after a couple generations immigrant languages often faded into insignificance. In addition to Irish and French ancestry in my family's background, there is also Portuguese ancestry. French has survived in some branches of the family, mainly in Quebec and due to immersion programs has recently re-emerged in Ontario, where when my paternal grandfather was raising his children it was banned in the school system. But I can't think of a single relative who speaks or understands Portuguese.

You raise valid concerns. The carbon issue is much more complex than many "progressives" seem willing to acknowledge. The Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki, among others, has noted the carbon implications of encouraging population growth in northern climates featuring Western living standards. Why progressives don't understand the issue remains a mystery as it seems pretty obvious. Apparently, for many, "diversity" trumps the environment, a bias they should simply admit. But if climate alarmists are correct, progressives will see the planet burn up for the sake of diversity, which seems a bizarre trade-off. As for carbon taxes, there's increasing evidence that they're both socially regressive and economically counterproductive. (See link below.) Sometimes a tax is just a tax and as the intent of taxation in Canada (and other Western countries) is largely focused on economic redistribution (i.e. tax and subsidize) the biggest price being paid is by taxpayers immediately above the subsidy qualification range(s), as is the case with virtually all subsidy programs. Subsidies are not actually equitable. They have to be paid for by somebody and they're received by somebody else and those with the least power to avoid taxation who don't qualify for subsidies are generally the most negatively impacted. Saying that carbon taxes prove that "at least we're doing something" about climate change is worse than doing nothing as it lulls us into believing that we are doing something constructive. The proper response should be to tax emissions at source, both directly in source countries and by tariffs in terms of pricing emissions intensity related to products we import. We're taking the opposite approach, taxing end use consumers, sparing big emitters and encouraging a form of corporate globalization that actually rewards manufacturers and importers, who in the latter case source their product abroad and very often in the developing world, for using low-cost but highly polluting fossil fuels. https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/canadas-phony-debate-about-carbon-taxes/

Much of what you say may be correct from a rational perspective, however it's somewhat beside the point as indigenous Canadians do have legitimate rights that are clearly and explicitly incorporated into the constitution. Would you simply cede your right to, say, your home, without demanding fair market value in return? Indigenous rights, as currently stipulated in law, are essentially immutable and permanent, which gives indigenous Canadians a lot of bargaining power. Some say they want to have their cake and eat it too, and to some extent this may be true, but wouldn't you as well if you were in their shoes? And the treatment accorded them in this country hasn't always been fair or even humane. So, a negotiated balance will have to be found but we're not in a position to unilaterally dictate the terms.

I understand your point about the reserve or reservation system not being economically viable - well, at least in most cases because some reserves are actually economically sustainable. However, indigenous Canadians didn't invent this system. It was essentially imposed on them in the 18th century in return for Britain's assertion of crown sovereignty over indigenous lands. Essentially, it was a sale price in which one party, the British, unilaterally set the terms of sale. The general interpretation is that Royal Proclamation of 1763 stipulates that in return for the assertion of crown sovereignty the British rulers (and their successors) assumed a fiduciary duty to provide for the material needs of the indigenous populations whose lands were, effectively, confiscated as well as an obligation to negotiate treaty rights, including land rights, with indigenous populations. Of course, some aspects of the Proclamation, including that barring colonization west of the American Appalachians, in the Ohio Valley, were fairly swiftly ignored. The issue at stake now is whether a better system can be devised or, instead, how we can more effectively fund and humanely administer what many (often fairly) see as a counterproductive and paternalistic welfare model. Whatever system evolves must emerge with the cooperation and assent of indigenous peoples because indigenous rights as well as the government's fiduciary duties are stipulated in the Canadian constitution, which explicitly subsumes the Proclamation. Essentially, these were, and remain, terms of occupation and sale that can't at this point be unilaterally discarded even though in a historical context we haven't been particularly good at upholding our side of the bargain.

Perhaps. But as a Chinese friend has told me, its society is very nationalistic and views homogeneity and conformity as virtues rather than vices. The preferences for conformity and order are apparently ages old and grounded in Chinese history and tradition, including Confucianism. My friend can't get his head around the Western preference for open political opposition and disruption. He was raised to believe that in times of turmoil one puts one's head down, keeps on working and waits to be told by those in charge what to do.

U.S. military aggression has been problematic in the post-WWII era. As Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom's notes this week in his piece 'Trump is right to pull out of Syria', Trump's policy of foreign military disengagement actually represents a retreat from the recent record of interventionism. But most "progressives" in the West have such a blinkered view of Trump that they can't or won't acknowledge this as progress. The U.S. was for a time, and particularly following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world's single most important military power and was often expected, particularly by other Western countries, to act in a policing role, the consequences of which have sometimes been negative. And its military adventurism, notably the ill-advised and ultimately dishonestly justified second Iraq war, have in some instances been catastrophic. On the other hand, American military power largely served to save the world from Nazi and Japanese hegemony in the 1940s, saved Korea from Communist domination in the early 1950s and saved Western Europe from Soviet aggression throughout the Cold War. Thus, its role hasn't been entirely negative. One good aspect of the U.S. is that it has a healthy capacity for objective introspection, something not necessarily replicated elsewhere. I will always choose to ally with a democracy because it's the only system that provides any kind of realistic check on the temptation of a powerful country to seek hegemony. By the way, what good would it do to align Canada with the BRICS nations, with which we have virtually no strategic interests in common?