Nexii

Lower cost for spending, but not working for a few years is a significant loss of economic activity and tax revenue. I'm sure the net still works out cheaper but conscription is still expensive in developed countries. We probably couldn't have conscription without Quebec separating though, to be realistic

Yea the best societies combine both emotion (left) and reason (right). It used to be that education wasn't so specialized that you went purely down one path (arts) or the other (STEM). When the two sides stop working together as they are right now in Canada, it makes things worse for all. There was a good show on this viewpoint that I can't find now. It was basically saying that most of humanity's golden ages were when both sides worked together. Like the Renaissance for example, there were technological advancements alongside remarkable artistic works.

Judging our military based on spending as a % of GDP or gross amount is deceptive, because salaries are such a big part of it. Russia spends 3x what we do yet they have 20x the troops. We should look at our number of troops, planes, ships etc per capita vis a vis other allies and rivals. And yea the other issue as noted is that spending doesn't equal effectiveness if you are wasteful...

Oil demand is only going to keep increasing as the world population grows and Africa industrializes. Fossil fuels will only be obsoleted by fusion power which is probably ~30 years out.

Yes but building new refineries is not cheap or quick either. 10 billion or so for a medium sized refinery like Sturgeon these days and it took 10 years to complete. Again if oil prices stay high I could see us pushing more refining capacity. But it's a gamble. If oil crashes we take a huge loss due to the high cost just to get bitumen out of the ground.

Shipping cost goes: pipeline > boat > rail > truck. And it's significantly more at each step Though environmentalists don't care about cost, it'd be more about which is safest. I'd argue on the whole pipeline is still the best, spills at sea are terrible and rail is more prone to accidents. Truck is just too costly to consider in mass anyways

The only reason we import any at all is that pipelines don't exist to all our refineries. Cheaper to bring it in by boat than over land I assume

We are a net exporter of oil. The only way we aren't independent is that we consume slightly more oil (2.2bb/d) than we can refine (2.0bb/d). The USA refines a lot of Canadian oil for us. I get the sentiment, we should be self-sufficient for other essentials. But oil/gas isn't really one of them

The amount of oil we produce lately has had more to do with global oil prices. As Alberta oil has a high base cost to get out of the ground and refine. I think it's only about break-even at $50 a barrel. If oil stays at $100 a barrel production will naturally pick back up.

Very little of our imported oil comes from Russia or the Middle East. Some from Saudi but they are a close USA ally, not a major concern IMO

I think the knives will be out inside the Liberal and NDP caucuses now. They'll be too low in popularity to call an election soon but I can't see them just waiting to be wiped out Kim Campbell style.

Yea same. Expected the courts to do something first. Listening to Senator Don Plett's speech on the EA now, it's really good

National Post's coverage of the Freedom Convoy & Emergency Act wasn't so bad

It's from 6 days ago. Had to be a more recent internal poll, or the Senate

For Warcraft nerds

The cost to occupy and quell Ukraine would be immense on Russia. It's a country the size of Afghanistan and we know how that turned out. Russia will take destabilizing actions instead

Probably. Though it is curious how few polls have been released in February by polling companies compared to previous months

Makes me wonder. Was it his own caucus in revolt, that Senate that was going to vote it down, bad polls, or lawsuits? Maybe all of them to some degree

Yea this is why the arguments for FPTP are so weak. Dumb candidates still get in even if it's regionalised instead of a party list.

Yea though that's just the cost of democracy. Same with holding elections. When you compare it against the cost of corruption, it's not that much.

We're not doing trials before jailing people and freezing their bank accounts, seems like wasted effort

Why not just go down there and shoot them all

The bar for the Emergencies Act is too low. Should be 3/4 of Parliament and 9/10 of provinces or so. Passing such a powerful legislation should require more than a bare majority.

1) Yes but in practice the Employment Equity Act is horribly outdated and not enforceable anyways. 2) I would say we should encourage it but tax foreign ownership at higher rates. We can use the money. 3) The world is becoming more globalized whether we like it or not, this is kind of a losing battle.

This is one thing that I'd like to comment on as a trans. An issue that riles the right that the left also has not gotten right in all their time in power. Biological sex and self-identified gender are two very different things that get conflated into one thing currently. Our archaic system asks only biological sex on documents such as birth certificate, driver's licence, and Canadian passport. Yet a requirement to have one's sex marker changed is to have a professional agree that your self-identified gender is different than your biological sex. If that's the case then why do those documents state sex and not gender? Trans female is neither the same biological sex as born female nor is it the same as born male. Once you put estrogen into your body and testosterone blockers, you're most of the way there. But it's not the same, even post surgeries. Part of transitioning is coming to terms with that. For example, my birth certificate has to read female as a requirement to get female listed as my sex on my driver's licence and passport. Yet this doesn't make any logical sense. I was born biologically male with a different name, why erase my past? Well, the historical reason for that was discrimination. Transgenders had to erase their past and hope that no one found out to get a job or even be a part of society. This is why I am sympathetic to the truckers, if you've ever felt that feeling of being an 'other' it sticks with you forever. I could go on. Anyways, either both markers should just be done away with or documents should have to state both biological sex and self-identified gender. I haven't thought deeply about which is preferable. It's complicated as this issue affects those born intersex and non-binary identifiers also.