suds

The Iranian leadership believes Israel is an illegitimate country that sits on Muslim land and must be destroyed. They believe that while also arbitrarily executing and torturing their own people to keep them in line. They have a good relationship with China who they sell discounted priced oil to, while China commits genocide against their fellow Muslims. The same could be said about the Russians who turned Chechnya into a parking lot. But you figure they'll never nuke Israel for fear of killing fellow Muslims? It just doesn't add up.

The notwithstanding clause can't be applied to mobility rights. The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia was able to overturn the travel ban by using Section 1 of the Charter and deciding the ban was unreasonable and arbitrary. Approve of Section 1 or not, it certainly demonstrates its usefulness in cases such as this.

He's the Pope for goodness sakes, and with all the death and destruction and possible escalation what do you want him to say? Iran is the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism, and allowing them to ever possess nuclear weapons is a big mistake. You can say North Korea is also a state sponsor of terrorism, but in no way is it as ideologically driven or suicidal as the religeous nutjobs who control Iran. The threat of mutual destruction means nothing to them. And what if Iran allows nukes to fall into the hands of those terrorist groups they sponsor? That's when the world as we know it..... ends. The big fear now is (even with a number of other Muslim countries) is the U.S. not finishing the job. Another fear is if Iran gets nukes then it could spark a nuclear escalation/proliferation in the region beginning with the Saudis.

Who the fuk cares what Air Canada thinks? We have to spend hundreds of billions because of Air Canada's bottom line? Jeez, I don't think so.

As far as I know, the US doesn't actually have any true high speed rail. They haven't laid any track in California, and the line between Boston and Washington mainly runs on old rail infrastructure. It's faster than our Via Rail, but that's about it. Anyways, who the fuk cares?

According to the IEA (International Energy Agency) world demand for critical minerals could rise anywhere between 25 -40 times present demand by 2040. You should know that any major transition to clean energy technologies relies heavily on these critical minerals. Do you see where I'm going with this? If you happen to be a country that has to import these minerals, then Canada is usually seen as a stable reliable country to deal with. If we were to start right now with development in the Ring of Fire, we should be well on our way to having mines operational by 2040 and making tremendous profits. The IEA also sees nuclear power as an essential source for low emission energy for the world to achieve net zero by 2050. They figure that nuclear generating capacity will have to increase by at least 2.5 times present capacity. As far as energy goes, the Ontario government seems to have a handle on things with developing the Ring of Fire and increasing nuclear capacity.

When it comes to core duties/responsibilities of government, you seem to be putting high speed rail at the top of the list. That's the only absurdity that I see.

The St. Lawrence Seaway allowed our exporting of materials get to market faster and cheaper not to mention the added hydro electric power the seaway provided. The Confederation Bridge was built mainly because the federal government was tired of paying all of PEI's ferry bills which they had to do by constitutional agreement, and it only cost $1.3 B. Earlier in this thread, you mentioned the 1976 Olympics. In 1973, Montreal's Mayor Jean Drapeau announced...'These games can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby'. It took until December 2006 for the taxpayers of Quebec to pay off the final bill. We're going to have to start getting a little more sensible with our spending don't you think? I agree we need subs, fighter planes, a larger properly equipped military, military bases in the north, doubling our electrical energy capacity by 2050, getting our resources to market, not to mention doctors, housing, hospitals, schools, etc. We don't really need a vanity project like high speed rail.

Alberta is considering (or was) high speed rail travelling at 1000 km/h. With that in mind.....

I don't quite get that part of it either, but it doesn't change my opinion that I should have the right to decide (when the time comes) if I want to die by medical assistance or not. It just seems more humane than being forced into committing suicide on your own.

Again, there are priorities on the type of infrastructure that would best achieve that goal. All infrastructure is not equal. Short term stimulus would be putting more money into people's pockets as quickly as possible to have immediate economic effect. Longer term stimulus, would be building or upgrading existing infrastructure to make it easier and less costly for business to get its products to market, or by drastically increasing electrical power generation which would attract new business and investment. But this of course takes considerable more time and effort. And that's where we're failing, because governments are far more willing to spend money if it buys them votes at election time.

Just how many people do you figure 'daily commute' between Toronto and Quebec city? Or for that matter between Ottawa and Quebec city, or Ottawa and Toronto? Would high speed rail make local rapid transit any more efficient? I have looked at the pros and cons and have come across nothing that indicates it would, or certainly nothing to justify the cost. Local rapid transit isn't designed to run at 200 mph due to the number of stops it has to make. In California, their attempt at high speed rail has so far been nothing but a legacy of delays and cost overruns. There's a good chance of it never being completed. In Finland, which I would imagine has similar winters to our own, has it's own problems with the snow and the ice, and rarely ever in the coldest months reaches the speeds it was designed to run at. In my opinion, if you wanted to try high speed rail in this country (with our winters) then start small and learn from your mistakes.

Exactly. The Liberals are just plain better at winning elections. They'll sell their souls to buy votes while the Conservatives (and to their credit, the NDP) are more prone to hold on to their principles.

Via Rail Canada has lines that run from Halifax, through Toronto/Windsor, to Prince Rupert B.C. at speeds up to 160 km/h. Why is it so important for us or our economy that we have trains that run twice as fast? Why is it important for business when we have such basic things as video conferencing? Most people would kill if they were allowed to work from home. And what about AI? Ontario to its credit is on track with its planning for major future nuclear development to ensure we have enough energy to always meet our needs. (you see, somebody gets it) It also plans to develop the ring of fire region in northern Ontario to mine the metals and minerals that are in such world wide demand. (again, another hi 5) For most of us, transportation is more of less restricted to about a 10 or 20 km radius from where we live.

I'm also for getting major projects done, but we have to consider priorities. Our economy demands the building of new infrastructure for getting our resources to market. It also demands we double our electrical generating capacity by the year 2050. Convince me that if money is going to be spent, that building high speed rail to replace an existing line is a better choice than the other two.

We're a country rich in resources that are in demand by our friends and allies that are willing to pay a premium because they consider us to be reliable in a world that's becoming increasingly unreliable. But we can't because the infrastructure to move all of our resources timely and efficiently doesn't exist while we're forced to export most of our oil to the U.S. at a steep discount. This is a problem of our own making because we're stupid. Sorry, but there's no other word for it. So this plan to spend $90B on high speed rail (which will likely double by the time it's completed) to replace an already existing rail line doesn't really surprise me.

I would certainly think so. But the Chinese are like the Godfather who never lets anyone know what they're thinking. I'd say there's a greater possibility of them invading Taiwan while the U.S. is presently bogged down. Why get into a shooting war with the U.S. over regime change in Iran? I doubt they have any more love for the present regime than anyone else. To them it's strictly business. It would be far easier for them to wait until the U.S. eventually declares victory and leaves and then make their move. On a larger scale, I'd like to see both Ukraine and Russia join Nato to offset China's growing dominance in the east. The Russians have good memories and must remember the turn of events when they jumped into the sack with the Nazis at the start of WW2. As far as I'm concerned they should be more concerned about Chinese interest in Eastern Russia than Nato invading anybody.

As for the hospitals, the government does have a monopoly as far as I'm concerned. We seem to be on the same track concerning equal access which btw we don't have now with millions of Canadians without family doctors. You'd think that someone in government would see that coming. But maybe your right about leaving the system alone and just pumping more dollars into it. If the government ever did try and reform our healthcare system they'd probably just fuk it up in any case and make it worse. Anyways, I've got nothing else to contribute. Good-bye for now 🙂

And by the way, f*ck Cuba. The last thing we need is a bunch of Cubans up here telling us how to run our country. again..... JMO from AI.... Cuban doctors earn roughly $40 to $60/month USD while working domestically. Although this is higher than the average salary for many other state-employed sectors, it is significantly less than workers in tourism-related fields (e.g., taxi drivers) who can make more in a day with tips than a doctor makes in a month. nice!

All universal healthcare means is that everyone has equal access. And I'm sure that would be the case in Europe because I doubt Europeans (or Canadians) would put up with anything less. In the Netherlands everyone is forced to pay mandatory private healthcare insurance and over 99% of the people have doctors. If you can't afford the insurance then it's subsidized by government. Most of the best run healthcare systems have private and publicly run hospitals, and what's best about it is that everyone has choices. As the CD Howe Institute study claims, competition makes for better healthcare. In my opinion, it's a mistake to give government such a monopoly over healthcare, because what we're basically doing is giving them a monopoly over life and death. We pay taxes which goes into general revenues and then what happens to it after that is anybody's guess. That's for both federal and provincial. We know how wasteful and incompetent governments can be, where political considerations are always the first priority and which makes reform of anything almost impossible. Yep, we gotta start looking at the European systems of healthcare because ours has just turned into a giant money pit. JMO

Well obviously we will need more doctors, and nurses, hospital beds, more hospitals, and the list goes on and on. And yet you still maintain that this is strictly the provinces fault, and the federal government can just wash their hands of it. Next you'll be telling me they had nothing to do with the severe housing shortages, the cost of housing, or the cost of food. But in this particular case, why does it have to be a choice between our current healthcare system which isn't working very well (compared to most of our peers), or the U.S. system which in my opinion is great in some respects and absolutely horrible in others. If that's the only alternative being offered to Canadians then I don't blame them for wanting to keep our present system. But that's hardly the case as you well know. User fees aren't going to break us. You pay what you can afford to pay based on one's finances. Private hospitals aren't the worst thing in the world either as they'd clean up a lot of the backlog. Or is there something etched in stone somewhere which demands we can't reform our present system in any way? I'm open to anything that seems to be working successfully in countries similar to our own and that's fair to everyone.

Is it not possible to have a user payer system where what the payer actually pays is based on income, age, or long term ailment/disability? Where those under a certain income pay nothing? Why is this idea that nobody has to pay for anything so important? According to a 2025 study by the CD Howe Institute (comparing Canada's healthcare with international peers), Canada ranked 9 out of 10. There was not one single province that didn't fall below the international average for acceptable healthcare. The only real good thing the study had to say was that once Canadians had access to the system, the quality of care was exceptional. As most of us already know, the main problem is long wait times, finding a doctor, and getting timely access for treatment. It also recommended adopting practices from countries that ran successful healthcare systems. Jeez, who would have thought of that? I would also have to believe that a number of these countries ahead of us (our peers) have aging populations also. What we have right now in this country in terms of healthcare is not what I would consider to be equitable. Nor do I have a clue of what has to be done. What I do understand though is that it's the provinces that do the managing, while it's the Feds who set the agenda and make the rules as I've explained before. Do whatever, just fix it.

That's it exactly! It doesn't matter if something works or it doesn't work. The important thing is that everyone should be treated equally.

We have one Federal government and 10 Provincial governments, and according to you it's the 10 Provincial governments who don't know what the f*ck they're doing. I'd say, highly unlikely. In my first post I asked the question of why not simply emulate some of world's most successful healthcare systems? I believe I've found the answer to my own question. There are some experts who believe that the problem lies with the Canada Health Act, and more importantly, how any sitting federal government interprets the Act. Now, you mentioned the funding part. In order to get healthcare transfer payments from the government, the provinces must abide by the Act. If they don't they could lose some or possibly all of their share of the funding. So basically the way things are set up, the feds can dictate healthcare policy while any kind of reform or innovation by the provinces is killed due to fear of their funding being revoked. Interesting. Your thoughts?