I am Groot

Billions of people do. Should we let all of them? Do they work? Sometimes. Rarely at anything with a high level of skill or high salary, though. Do they pay taxes? Mostly not. They do collect billions in federal subsidies and programs, though. Tim Horton's certainly can, to keep labour costs down. Canada has no need of them.

Did you have to towel off your keyboard after that silly arsed rant? What has any of that got to do with the job situation in Canada?

Dude, if you dummied your ranting down any further, you'd have to do them in crayon.

School board trains staff that the term ‘family’ is harmful, racist Waterloo Region District School Board staff are being trained that the word “family” is a harmful concept rooted in white supremacy. https://www.junonews.com/p/exclusive-school-board-trains-staff

Which is what the same types said about Harper, about Day, about Scheer, about O'Toole... Whoever is the leader of the Conservatives will be demonized by the media and then your liberal friends will get to say "We'd vote Conservative if it weren't for him!" But it's nonsense. They're tribal. They're not voting conservative no matter who is in charge. They'll sit in the pan as the heat gets turned up hotter and hotter and cling to the idea that things aren't really that bad, and anyway, they're worse in Afghanistan so why complain?

Putting brown people in prison for any reason is racism. End of story.

We pay more than ANYBODY. Not just for cell phone service, but for everything from banking and investment fees to internet and cable. Our airlines cost far more than US airlines traveling the same distances, in large part because they have to pay huge airport fees.

And how many of those summer jobs 'added' for the summer are being filled with foreign workers the Liberals continue to import in huge numbers?

More truthfully, our industry has focused mainly on the US because it's close and they speak the same language. Most of what we export, though, is oil, gas, agriculture, and various minerals and ores. Everyone DOES want those. Yes, our industry is not competitive in many ways, probably due to easy access to cheap labour from immigrants and foreign workers, and being constantly backstopped by the government, which doesn't seem to want to let poorly run companies go under. Getting tough on China is something the US should have done years ago. They really are trade cheats. They haven't followed the WTO rules since they joined. They want to export to everyone but import nothing but raw materials. They steal IP all the time, ignore counterfeiting, and have many internal barriers to trade. They stole information on how to make EVs from Tesla and now make better, cheaper ones that are starting to flood the world. They stole information on how to make planes from Boeing and are now starting to export those. The only thing they want from the US is trade secrets and IP - and your money, of course. The situation with Canada is nothing like that. The only reason Canada even has a trade surplus with the US is because of all the oil we ship at sub-world prices. Absent that, and adding in services, the US already had a big trade surplus with Canada. There was no reason to bully and threaten us, except Trump's nature is to bully anyone he sees as smaller and vulnerable.

Cohort life expectancy of those born in 1946 is 72.7 years. Trump is now 79. He will be dead soon. Who will you find to be your hero then?

I might point out that our GDP per capita has flatlined WITH special deals to the US.

A little hard to arrange when we produce 4.7 million barrels of oil a day and only have enough pipeline capacity to ship 790k of it to anywhere but the US.

Everyone wants what we have. The problem is our government doesn't want to sell it. I realize you're a foreigner, but do you not grasp what the word 'nobody' actually means?

It's not supposed to be. But it is. Since the leader has absolute power over everyone in his caucus in Canada the caucus are sheep and do what they're told. One man makes all the decisions. Parliament is basically just a waste of time with a majority. And even now, with his very strong minority, he's bulletproof there. The NDP certainly can't afford another election, and the Tories aren't going to cause one when his popularity from making promises is at an all-time high. Is that like "America, love it or leave it?" You know that it's not so easy to be allowed to stay in most other countries, right? Unlike Canada, they have rules and regulations and can be picky about who they let come in and stay. You don't just get to move to the US or France or Japan, for that matter.

I don't think Trump knows anything about imports or industry, or economics. He spouts whatever the last person to see him whispered in his ear. Somebody said something about manufacturing things and mentioned a big chunk of the copper that goes into it comes from abroad. Or maybe someone mentioned something about Canada and the negotiations and someone else suggested a way to put pressure on Carney. They know that threatening imports that come from Western Canada would be meaningless to the Liberals as they don't care about Western Canada. But copper and aluminum come from Quebec. THAT, they care about. So this is a pressure tactic, nothing more. Trump is the greediest man I've ever heard of, and has already made billions from this 'president' gig. But he doesn't give a damn about the US deficit or debt. Any thought otherwise should be eliminated due to the 'big beautiful bill' and the massive increase to the debt it will cause. Trump has to win. In any negotiation, there is a winner and a loser. Compromise is alien to him. Either he wins or he loses. He has to win, so he is bullying and threatening smaller countries in order to win so he can triumphantly show his followers what a great negotiator he is. Getting some small or midling concessions from a country that used to be an ally, and by doing so with threats and bullying turning them into an enemy is immaterial. He doesn't care. He doesn't think the US needs any allies for anything. There are two things in life he cares about. Inflating his ego by counting his money, and 'winning' so he can swagger in front of people, and thus inflate his ego some more. Nothing else matters to the man. He doesn't care. He'll blame it on Biden.

Trump does not like to lose. And to him, if any country has a trade surplus with the US, that means the US is losing. So the only thing left to do is accuse them of cheating and call them names and punish them. This is not helping the US. It's entirely counterproductive. Not only does it increase the input costs for US manufacturers, it angers other nations, many of them US allies or those the US has been hoping to make allies. When the US slaps big tariffs on other countries, they start looking for other trading partners. China is the most obvious. Even Australia has turned to China after the US slapped tariffs on imports from them because... because... just because. Everyone is cheating. Everyone except the US, of course, at least according to the puffy-faced orange man. So punishing them with tariffs is only 'right'. Except those who are 'punished' for doing nothing get angry and resentful. The US is rapidly becoming the most despised country in the world, even among Western countries. Trump slapped 50% tariffs on Brazil the other day because he doesn't like how they've treated a former president. China is already Brazil's top trading partner. Expect that relationship to grow closer. The US has no choice but to buy copper abroad. All this latest idiocy does is increase the costs for US manufacturers. But Trump doesn't understand economics or business, or really much of anything. He's the dumbest man every to set foot in the White House, and that includes the cooks and busboys.

Why do you think we should acknowledge this every single day? Why should every single public gathering begin with a snivilling whine about how we're on someone else's land and don't really belong here? Why is it necessary to 'acknowledge' that we came here from somewhere else (as did the 'indigenous' centuries ago? Why is every holiday an exercise in 'acknowledgement'? This is not correcting history. It is wallowing in white liberal guilt because you're so, so very sad that our ancestors were smarter, stronger, and more sophisticated than theirs.

Like the tariff on lumber, all this does is increase the input cost for American manufacturers. They have no choice but to import copper and lumber. Same for aluminum. They don't produce nearly enough. Nor are there any silent copper mines or smelting resources they can just kickstart into action. Such things take many years and no one is going to do it because they'll assume sanity will return after the ignorant orange is gone.

Since Trudeau first started this 'reconciliation' BS, all I've seen and heard is that there has never been more mutual resentment on the part of both natives and everyone else. When your idea of reconsiliation is to tell one side that they're guilty of some horrible crime and then tell the other side they're nothing but oppressed victims, you're going to create anger in both parties. And that's what's happened. Do you think people like this lead to Canadians wanting reconciliation with natives? The people on the left who have absorbed the worst of the progressive belief in social justice and identity politics have turned guilt-mongering into careers. In some cases, literally. They badger everyone at every opportunity and constantly shift the focus of the discussion towards their preferred victim group and the oppression they imagine they experience. It's tiresome. We didn't sugges their myths are valid evidence in a court before. And you think that the 40% of young Canadians who would gladly have Canada be the 51st state just came out of nowhere?

No, they have not always been this way. Not in my youth and younger days anyway. Things in parliament were considerably more collegial among MPs of all parties. There was more of a sense of dignity to the place and more respect among them. I would say it began to die during the Mulroney rein, brought about by the Liberal "rat pack'. Things have steadily deteriorated since then. Now we're at the point where the NDP seem to have gladly committed political suicide in a desperate effort to avoid the Conservatives getting into power, despite, on a realistic level, them not really being all that much different from the Liberals on 90% of topics. Yet to hear the likes of Singh and others in the NDP AND Liberals talk, if the Tories had gotten in, Canada would have been instantly plunged into a dystopian nightmare.

You're being pedantic.

Tell me who was tearing down all the statues of the founders of Canada not long ago, and is still furiously changing the names of streets, schools, and anything else that has a 'colonial' legacy? Toronto is broke and they're still spending money to change the names of places that are named after people who MIGHT have been flawed in some way the social justice collective doesn't approve of. If you weren't too intellectually lazy to ever read cites, you'd see the problem is not with rogue teachers but with the curriculum designed by people who want to tear away at the fabric of this country's unity in the name of some grand utopia only they can envision. But I suspect you've got the same utopian vision, that if only we can wipe away all traces of Canada's history and culture, we can substitute something 'inclusive' that loves all people equally. Only, of course, in reality, you're likely to get a nation of strangers, as Kier Starmer put it, who will eventually go to war against each other. There's something vague to you about the media? Do I need to provide a dictionary definition of what an academic is? Does the concept of a 'left wing politician' utterly flummox you to the point you're scratching your head in bewilderment?

AFAIK everyone in the East has already agreed to pipelines, other than Kaybek

Why do you bother sputtering along with nonsense like this? Harper didn't have a sale. Harper didn't do a bloody thing, you lefty loon. Cabinet had to approve sales of companies to foreign companies. That's it. That's all. Chretien approved of many before him. As old as you are, you don't seem to remember much. Harper came into power wanting nothing to do with China. The Liberals, NDP and BQ went bananas, screeching about how we couldn't alienate a huge potential customer and how it was desperately important that we go to China and try to get our businesses through the door. Harper ignored them, despite the united media braying that Canada was missing a glorious opportunity. Then, after the attempted coup by the Lib/dem/bq alliance of socialists and the great recession hit he agreed to at least talk with China. But he didn't offer up anything for them. And he didn't sell his ass to them like Chretien had done before him. The anti-pipeline, anti-development laws were put in place by Chretien. Harper pruned some back, but in his usual timid way, and the Chretien supreme court kept putting up roadblocks. Trudeau greatly increased the legislative roadblocks to building pipelines, developing oil and gas, and other natural resources. The requirements, along with the heavier demands for native bribery due to Trudeau adopting the UNDRIP, and the fanatic opposition from BC meant that the private sector builders were going to walk away from the pipeline. Trudeau had already axed several before that, so for PR purposes, they bought the pipeline. Or maybe it wasn't just for PR purposes, because suddenly the costs exploded. I suspect that was due to jobs going to Liberal backers who pocketed huge profits and probably kicked some back to Trudeau under the table. Nobody is going to bid on an open contract that allows China to bid and goes by the lowest bidder because no one in North America could match their prices. I grasp that you're a guy with no life and no friends who acts like a bloody arsehole on here and then struts around like that's an accomplishment.

Yeah. WE were talking about how your NDP friend rigged the bid to make sure China got it. And you come back with Harper sold oil companies to china for some reason. I thought you said Harper sold this. Now you're just saying the government approved a sale? I thought you were suggesting Harper was involved, like going to China with a briefcase full of leases and eagerly offering them around. But no, it's just a routine approval of a small oil company that is sold to a foreign company. Yeah, the Chinese were buying Canadian oil companies. You know why? Because the legislative changes the Liberals and NDP put in place and their deep hostility to oil and gas development were making it extremely difficult for companies to get investors interested in them or to get loans to expand, and it was either sell or close down. What has this got to do with the Liberals funding the NDP purchase of Chinese ships? Just how deep in China's pocket is Eby and the BC NDP? How much influence do they have with the federal Liberals? Evidently a LOT. And where is that foreign agents law? You mean the trans mountain one to the coast, don't you? Try to keep focused. And to repeat, because apparently you have a lot of trouble following discussions, you plan for tomorrow's production, not what you're putting out today. Also, you plan for what might happen with our neighbors. Ie, it would sure be nice to be able to divert a lot more of our oil to the coast to send to Japan if the Americans refuse to pay world prices. Uhh, sure bud. Whatever. I notice that a lot of people, when they're losing arguments and can't think of anything else to put out there, start accusing the other person of being upset or emotional or something. It's almost an internet cliche. But if that makes you feel all manly, go for it.