Canuckistani

We know that since our immigrant stream has shifted from Europe to Asia, immigrants have a much harder time catching up with Canadians. But that's not because of racism, but that they don't have the language skills nor recognized educational background that the Europeans had.

Bravo. Bravo. That applies to helping Indigenous Peoples as well as anybody else. No more racist and sexist programs, just making sure that everybody gets a good shot. A poor white boy growing up faces many more challenges to develop himself than the son of a chief on a reserve or the son of a Chinese millionaire immigrant or the daughter of a white professional couple.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/19/murder-rate-falls-crime-figures

Doubt people like this shooter, who shot himself would be deterred because there might be a cop at the school, The only answer is to equip each staff member with full body armor, automatic assault rifle, side arm and some grenades. At the first hint of trouble, start blasting at any adult or teen who enters the school grounds.

32,000 mv deaths in 2011.

A white rhino is an albino rhino. Albino rhino just trips off the tongue better. These people have too much time on their hands. If anybody's being discriminated against here, it's those rhinos, and I don't hear them complaining.

No competition among insurers and providers in the US? Yet they have far higher costs than we do. I'm not sure I want docs competing who can help me the cheapest, turn it into Jiffy Lube and Medical Service. I have no problem with for profit providers as long as good standards are maintained. For profit insurers I think is just insane.

Nice story.

well, it might reduce the suicide rate among men a bit. But since men kill themselves far more often than women, while making many less attempts, looks like they are more determined and will find another way. I think reducing access to high powered weapons will do more to prevent mass shootings and gang killings vs preventing suicides.

A gun makes killing somebody else easier because they are trying not to be killed and will attempt to get away. For suicide you can jump off a bridge or in front of a bus or slice your wrists just as easily as using a gun. Mass murders are facilitated by guns, especially rapid fire ones with large magazines. Suicides, not so much.

He said 3 times as man He said 3 times as many people die by gun as by drunk driving, and he's exactly right.

You're claiming that there is competition between providers in the US to keep costs down? All our doctors are private providers. I see no competition among them to keep costs down.

Restrictions are not banning. You're restricted in how you use your car, what kind of car you can own, where you can drive it, etc as well. Cars aren't banned in your country, neither are guns. For somebody who doesn't care what we do in Canada, you sure have an awful lot to say about it. I think you're either fooling yourself or trying to fool me.

And nobody is proposing banning guns, neither in your country or mine. Restricting them, just as restricting what you can do with your automobile, is not banning.

Our system is 70 percent public, the US is 50% public (medicare, medicaid, military). Britain has a strong private component to their system as well, so I doubt they are so much different.

We can't have that conversation with the elephant sitting right next door. Too many people, like myself, worry about allowing the nose of the camel in the tent. With our dear leader bleating on about Canada being a second rate socialist country, it doesn't really inspire confidence.

It's far less simple than that. As the discussion further above shows, it depends who's doing the analysis of Canadian data, where they pick the start and end points for the analysis. It's not all about increasing or stable income inequality, but determining a good level. I would guess we're still too high. What I would like to see is just some raw data for each year, instead of somebody putting spin on whether inequality is increasing or holding steady. I see way too many people with very poor incomes, just enough to live hand to mouth - we need to do something about that. Really, you two are playing the same game you are deriding - inequality is higher and growing faster in the US, so why worry.

And people in Canada don't, on the whole. How about requirements that applicants speak Mandarin - is that racism? Just one example. Or the anybody but white males hiring policies? We have strong laws against racism, and many avenues of recourse for those who feel they've been discriminated against. All groups of people are inherently "ist" they all feel their group is all that and others not so much. But in Canada, more so than pretty well any place I can think of, we've taken steps to prevent that inherent "ism" from being acted upon. A lot of these cries of racism are by the racism industry, people who make a good living off it. I'm not saying that no racism exists in Canada. I'm saying that the institutionalized stuff is at a very dull roar, and there's more non-white racism allowed to flourish because of white guilt and the racism that says non-whites can't be held to the same standard.

I'm having you on. I'm against the massive immigration we currently have, and absolutely furious about the Chinese miners we're importing and the 450,000 temp workers we have working in Canada. Lowering ourselves to 3rd world countries' level is no way to help either them or us. Nor is exporting jobs to them.

Can you show me this racist suppression as it applies to Canada? There are people of all races who hold racist ideas, but I don't see some collective action by whites to dominate spheres of power based on race in Canada. Quite the opposite, I see whites having allowed other races into this power sphere, because, yes, at one time whites did keep the power to themselves. It's the same with women's rights - it's white men who decided to vote to allow women to have the vote and full rights. Personally I think it's time to get over the white guilt stuff.

I sure do. It's a good way to help those poor people.

We give tax free status to charities. So Indigenous Peoples are charity cases now? Seems racist to assume that they need a special deal. Why can't they live their lives as the rest of Canadians do?

It should be after tax income, and my understanding is that our tax system does reduce inequality quite a bit. Personally I would like us to do more to reduce poverty, but I've got to admit that Canada seems to be doing pretty well by most measures compared to other countries. Or so I'm told.

Seems to me that income inequality is something that you measure year to year. Then you post a graph showing the trendline. There shouldn't really be so much argument about this measure.

So since we've just had the mother of all recessions, income inequality should have really shot up the last few years.