I am Groot

Yes, this, absolutely. It is mind-boggling that Canadians who trained as doctors and nurses in the US, who have been working in that capacity in the US, can't come to Canada and work without an enormous amount of time-consuming paperwork, testing, and mandatory training. Doctors can't even more between provinces and set up shop! And the people in the way are all doctors. It is the doctors associations, the CMA and provincial medical licensing groups that are steadfast in demanding processes that take years and years before foreign-trained doctors can work here. Even if they're from the US, UK, or other 1st world countries. And it's not much easier for nurses. Maybe set up one national licensing group for doctors as a privately operated organization but operating under federal government guidelines and oversight to license a doctor to practice anywhere in Canada. How many provinces will object to such doctors practicing in their province? It isn't the provincial governments right now that license doctors and nurses, after all. It's their own associations but backed by law. I don't think Ontario, for one, would object, and would probably amend their law to allow for such people to practice. medicine there.

The solution for our healthcare crisis has to start with more doctors, nurses and other medical personnel. Nothing else, no changes to how the system functions will work well with the existing shortage. And that shortage is created by government. There are far more qualified applicants for medical and nursing schools than those schools can accommodate. The number of nursing/medical school spaces was frozen by governments for decades. They were only recently increased in Ontario. But from what I have read they can only be increased so fast so far due to the lack of instructors, classrooms, and then on the far end, the number of supervising doctors and nurses for the mandatory hands-on coop period for nurses and residency periods at hospitals for doctors. I don't know if the number of spaces has been increased in other provinces. I would suggest the numbers be increased nationwide as fast and far as possible. To this end they should be actively recruiting RNs and doctors who have retired or left the profession to help as instructors. The lack of family physicians can be remedied by increasing their fees or lowering tuition for those who elect to take family medicine or both. Doctors should not be forced to be businessmen. It's a waste of time which could be devoted to seeing patients. Family doctors prefer to work in team setting where there are colleagues in both family medicine and varied specialties to consult with. More of these organizations should be set up.

You again reduce your options to those that are the most pessimistic. There is the option to be strong, and for NATO to be strong. Which would deter a war just as it did in the cold war.

They would have crushed Ukraine a year and a half ago were it not for Western countries feeding hundreds of billions in cash and armaments to Ukraine. And many countries, like Canada, have depleted their supplies of missiles and artillery shells and will need years to replenish them. The US has depleted its own supply of missiles, as well, and is trying to increase production so it doesn't have to wait years to replenish. Russia can increase its arms production much faster than Western countries because they have fewer lawyers.

Upper management is EXTREMELY risk-averse. I've said it before, but if it costs $100 to monitor how spending is being done in order to avoid $1 being misspent senior management will approve that in an instant. In addition, to avoid ever being blamed for anything, any new project of whatever size has to have massive buy-in from as many 'clients and interested groups within the public service as possible. This requires innumerable reports, documentation, meetings, and time-consuming changes and alterations before anything sees the light of day. All of which is designed to shield management from blame, not to make sure the eventual project works. Witness Phoenix, which is a disaster and has been for years. No one was ever disciplined for it either.

Assuming the Americans didn't stay home. The Russians are not the Soviets. But they are led by a man who said the greatest catastrophe of the 20th Century was the breakup o the Soviet Union. Note, not WW2 or WW1, but the breakup of the Soviet Union. He wants to put it back together again. And while Russia is not as powerful as it was then NATO is far less powerful than it used to be. The state of the German military is almost worse than Canada's, for example. The British military is in deplorable state. And Russia is rapidly expanding its arms manufacturing while countries like Germany are still busy fighting lawsuits about the contracts to build up their arms manufacturing. They devoted billions to it years ago and none has yet even been spent.

I disagree. That is far from certain. The US, UK and France will not nuke Russia if it decides to gulp down the Baltics, for example. That's especially so if Trump becomes President. He's already given strong indications the US wouldn't fight for the Baltics at all. With that done, Russia might decide to gulp down a couple more ex-Russian republics to its south. Then it could officially incorporate Belarus back into the fold and then take back Georgia. Then maybe declare some disputed waters up north to be Russian and start drilling for oil. Those would be waters Canada claims, btw. It really depends on how patient Putin is and how far he goes. He could wait a few years, then have another go at Ukraine - once Trump gives his official blessing to his ownership of the lands Russia already occupies. A slow, incremental move west would not require or cause the response of nuclear weapons. It's not a stalemate if they have such things and you do not.

Only if they already have those defenses. It certainly doesn't give you time to whistle up the construction of warships or tanks or fighter planes or anti-aircraft or anti-armor missiles or, for that matter, trained soldiers, sailors and airmen. If you don't have it then it really doesn't matter that you can see an enemy massing their troops for attack.

How much weight could those women in the air force carry and how far could they carry it?

But anyone can't hump eighty or a hundred pounds of gear for days on end on field operations. And women who can do it when superbly fit are few and far between and face all kinds of physical issues if they try. US Marine Captain Katie Petronio wrote about this a decade ago. There are basic issues with trying to make females infantry, starting with them having less muscle mass, thinner bones, smaller frames, and lower lung capacity. They take physical damage more easily, recover more slowly, and don't have the speed or stamina of men.

That is a terrible tooth to tail ratio.

The fourth option is you have sufficient military strength to make it unpalatable to attack you. The fifth option is you have sufficient military power to contribute to an alliance of like-minded nations which makes it far too dangerous for an enemy to attack any of them. You forgot those options. Belgium and the Netherlands tried the third option after WW1. Didn't do them much good. Didn't do Norway any good either. Switzerland did the same, but armed themselves to the teeth, even to a ridiculous degree, carving all kinds of military redoubts out of mountains. Germany stayed away.

The war in Ukraine would not have happened if Russia had realized how hard it would be. It happened because they thought Ukraine would be a pushover. Just as it had been the last time. Just as Georgia had been. The only reason there isn't war in Taiwan is because China thinks it would be too costly right now. Because the US is determined to defend Taiwan at least until it gets its own chip plants up and operating. Weakness in the face of warlords like Putin and Xi almost invites war. What would be the cost of a properly sized and equipped NATO vs the cost of an invasion by Russia and the war that would follow? Because right now there are only a handful of countries in Europe with decent-sized and equipped militaries. And Canada is certainly not among them. We are freeloaders relying on the Americans. Just as Europe has until very recently. But that American factor that deters the warlords might disappear in another year. And then where will we be? Defenseless. The head of CSIS recently told the inquiry into foreign interference that China does it because there is no cost to it. It faces no opposition from Canada. Its agents are not arrested and there is no bad publicity to worry about. If you make it the same way for the world's warlords to take what they want there will be war everywhere.

We can compare our military strength to our military strength in 1971, when our population was about half what it is now while our military was twice the size of its 'stated' strength now. It was also better equipped. So in context with our present population our military was four times larger.

Just because someone shot at you and missed, that does not suggest you should not shoot back.

Would it not make a helluva lot more sense for the Palestinians to toss Hamas and their Islamist adherents aside and put some kind of rational, moderate group in charge that is willing to respect Israel's right to exist and work toward's eventual nationhood? And don't even mention the Palestinian Authority. They have no support, and in the even of a free election would be swept from office by Hamas.

Ah yes, if only they could be free of Israeli interference and feel the joy of freedom in their own land. The same freedom that people living under Isis had. The same freedom people in Afghanistan feel under the Taliban. An independent Palestine would be an impoverished Islamic state. There would be no freedom there.

Israel's current leadership are incompetent fools and will almost certainly be replaced next election. But Oct 7 was not an act of terrorism. It was a small act of genocide. The best Hamas could manage with its current resources. But they've promised to come back and do it again as often as they can. Although, as one reporter pointed out, in WW2, the German soldiers who had to execute civilians had to get drunk because of how unnatural it was. They weren't gleeful and celebratory the way the Palestinians were at murdering unarmed men, women and children. You're trying to defend them on a technicality? You forget that a lot of the soldiers were weekend soldiers, reservists. They were more than a little cautious and trigger happy. Most wound up being withdrawn and replaced by full-time soldiers. Much like Canadian troops bombed by American pilots in Afghanistan. Mistakes happen in wars. Most of the NGOs and media in Gaza ARE Palestinians. The rest mostly hate Israelis and are devoted left wing ideologues, or wouldn't be there. You have no personal knowledge of any 'atrocities'. Your information, all of it, comes from Hamas and their Iranian and Qatari assistants. I prefer to believe the Newsweek article which detailed the lengths the Israelis have gone to to avoid civilian casualties, far above what any other nation has done. And nothing they've done even remotely compares to what others in the region have done. Tell me, can you point to a single post you've made outlining your outrage at the 'atrocities' committed by the Syrians or Russians or Turks or Iranians in the region?

What's that mean in English? Are renewables cheaper than fossil fuels or not?

Reduce foreign students to 100,000 from current 900,000. Focus on those in the most in-demand courses who are likely, on graduation, to want to stay here, and who will earn a salary higher than the national average. Reduce foreign workers from current 1m to 100k. The majority of that number will be in agriculture. Together that frees up 1.8 million spaces. Reduce immigration to 100k from 500k. Ensure anyone who comes in will earn more than the national average. That reduces demand increases. Refuse asylum claims from anyone coming from a safe country like the US, UK, France, Spain, etc. Turn back anyone who arrives without papers. That should further reduce demand by about 100k per year. Problem solved.

We are in an era where warlords are rising around the world. Ruthless men with a lot of power in China, Russia, India, Iran, Turkey and others. In such a world, you have sovereignty over what you can protect. And right now, Canada can't protect Prince Edward Island, much less the rest of the country. We rely on the US to do that. But the US is increasingly distracted by its internal divisions and less interested in foreign adventures. Donald Trump is not the only corrupt, cynical opportunist with power down there. And it's debatable right now about just how much effort he would be willing to put into defending anyone, particularly if he's blackmailed or paid to not do so. In WW2 Canada had a booming economy and one million people in the military. Our population is four times greater and we're told that even as many as 100,000 is far beyond our capabilities. Even properly equipping the roughly 50,000 we have causes grown men to throw up their arms and give up. Not possible, they say. That's utter bullshit. Trudeau has found $54 billion just this year for various things he wants to do, from money to natives to climate change initiatives to new social programs. But properly equipping the military is just not something we can do without bankrupting ourselves. Somehow.

I agree. But he will be the next Liberal leader. They don't have anyone else with a 'name power' draw, and the next leader has to be English by their rules. Of course, the good part is they virtually never actually WIN with an Anglo in charge because Quebecers turn away from them then. One side note. If he becomes leader he will be the first Liberal party leader not from Ontario or Quebec.

My tribe, insofar as I have one, used to claim there was no such thing. I accepted it long ago. There is no doubt that global warming is happening. How much is due to manmade activity, and how much of that is CO2 is debatable, but I'm not going to go against the scientific consensus. Reducing Co2 emissions would be nice. But that's not workable with current technology. It's not going to happen. So let's just stop wasting time and money on it and put both of those into finding a better solution. That means a better, sustainable source of energy that is cheap, plentiful and does not pollute. All we're doing now is impoverishing ourselves and enriching third-world government leaders and ministers who will steal the lion's share of any money we give them. Until there is a better, cheaper form of energy CO2 emissions will continue to climb. So maybe you should try to break with your own tribe, which continues to insist that bankrupting ourselves with all these carbon taxes and spending is going to make any difference.