Canuckistani

Jealous of what?

From what I know of you so far, this response is beneath you. Maybe cities are bad at planning. But certainly stuffing more and more people into the same space, no matter how well planned isn't a good idea. Do we really all want to live in high rises or an hour's drive away from work. High housing prices are certainly a bad thing. Look at what happens when the bubble bursts, for one thing. Look at the US, Japan, Spain... Also, Vancouver has a median wage lower than the national average, yet very high housing prices - what does that do to people who want to buy and can't afford it, or are hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and any interest rise, unemployment rise and they're done. Housing should be used for a place to live, not to speculate. This is another area where we create a division in society, between the haves (those that have the money or just got in early) and the have nots. Never mind all the other environmental factors from overcrowding.

good points. Harper wants a trade agreement with Europe. Not much sense in that if there is no Europe to trade with.

Yep we have a points based system. May be better than some alternatives, but we still get a huge mismatch between immigrants and jobs available. For instance the points system gives points to doctors, but when they get here they find they aren't accepted by the provincial medical association to practice. The association will have very few spots available for the training and testing they require for foreign trained doctors to be licensed, so many wind up driving cabs. Also, our point system is supposed to award points for language ability, but there are so many immigrants here who do net have adequate language abilities for the jobs they want - or any language ability at all. We also allow in large numbers of relatives of the immigrants, many of whom are just a drain on the system without ever having paid into it. Since the 1980's when our primary immigration source became Asia, our immigrants have not done well - they do poorer than native born Canadians economically, whereas previously European immigrants outperformed native born Canadians. That does neither Canada nor the immigrants any good. One estimate is that each immigrant costs Canada $6000 more a year in govt services than they pay in taxes. It's estimated that figure comes to 20 billion a year, although this is hotly disputed. The govt is trying to improve the system by doing a better job of matching immigrants to a specific job before they ever come here. That's a start, but I think they should be reducing immigration overall, as well. But that's a hot potato, and the govt would be called racist. Just as somebody on this forum is likely to throw the race card at me. It's not about the race of the immigrants, but about what's best for the average Canadian, not corporate Canada. I think we need to stop looking at getting more and more people for us to have a prosperous nation. The planet is overpopulated, we need to find an economic system that doesn't depend on every increasing consumption to function.

They shouldn't. I believe even now, the company bringing in the temp worker has to pay at least the average wage for that job. This would have to be maintained. But matching prospective immigrants with jobs before they get here ensures both their and Canada's benefit. The idea of temp workers is to fill jobs that we currently don't have people for - because of training shortages say. We should be addressing those shortages, but don't want to hamstring companies in the mean time. The other reason for temp workers that I can see is seasonal work - although I'd be happier if we found a way to get Canadians to take that work instead. Overall, I'm for a drastic reduction of immigration, including temp workers. We are straining at the seams and I don't think bringing in this flood of people is a benefit for Canada.

One way to deal with immigration would be to make being a temp worker the only path to immigrant status. That way you are matched up with a job when you get here. If things work out for say 4 years, you would be given a fast track to get pr status. But none of it makes any sense unless we better develop our training and retraining systems so that Canadians have the best shot at getting the jobs available. It makes no sense to import people while Canadians languish in un and under employment.

"Don't truth me," said Boaz in his thoughts, "and I won't truth you."

Correction. We know that we think we exist.

This teacher actually gave kids a chance to make up the assignment before giving the 0. I agree with his approach.

And nations with very little immigration have also seen their GDP/capaita rise. Correlation is not causation. Do you think the infrastructure stesses of our big cities are efficient? The very high housing prices? The fact that smaller centers could use some of those immigrants but don't get them? Why, if immigration is such an unmitigated boon to Canada. Doesn't the govt want to grow our GDP/capita?

Well with the massive immigration we've had for the last 3 decades, we should have no unemployment at all then. Immigration creates economic activity, raises the GDP. So does a good natural disaster. But what does it do to GDP per capita? If what you say is true, we should vastly increase our immigration, since it would be a net benefit to Canada. And many people are waiting to come here, so we would have no problem taking them. We could build cities for them in the north - lots of economic activity from that.

So you would be the "custodiet ipsos custodes?"

How? People can't handle the truth - they'll always vote for somebody who promises them something for nothing. Doesn't matter if that's left or right.

We are insane to even have the immigration levels we have now: 250,000 a year plus 250,000 temp workers a year, while we have so many unemployed and underemployed Canadians and our infrastructure is way over stressed. If we were settling the new comers in the empty parts of Canada, that would be one thing, but then there's nothing for them to do up there and nowhere to live. We should drastically scale back immigration. We should drastically upscale training spaces for Canadians to get the qualifications for jobs we need done. I can see bringing in temp workers for some seasonal work, or to fill gaps while we train Canadians to do those jobs, but that's about it.

Wouldn't want to go thru what they went thru. And if I look, all three still have rich and poor, and did have even during their communist periods. The poor and middle class have the tools to change things without revolution in many countries - called the vote, yet they never seem to do so.

Example?

So they have enough brain power to know this with certainty?

Except that never seems to happen. It's the poor and middle class that seems to get hammered.

I don't think the global elite he identifies is correct. Of course elites have always tried to shape events to go their way, and often they are very successful. I don't think there is one vast conspiracy tho. Elites often have conflicting ideas and in fight among themselves. But we do seem to be moving toward an elite of the top 20% that will have the resources and power while most people become serfs to them.

As we've seen, a lot of it isn't right out in the open. But it's not one giant conspiracy either. Many of the groups you speak of pull in different directions.

I'm not going anywhere near Icke. But we are certainly creating a global elite and many technoserfs. And they'll be much harder to dislodge because they are global. As far as conspiracies go, I'm sure they're out there, but probably not as effective as is made out, and not one grand conspiracy. And none of them are aliens.

Sometimes cultural issues arise too. There was that woman that was not comfortable treating Lesbians, doctors who in their home country are used to deference by patients being accused of arrogance, etc. But none of that really matter that much. What matters in my mind is that we should be training Canadians for the jobs we need, give the people here a chance at a good life. And of course they will have the training and cultural attitudes that work best for Canada.

To invalidate the results in a certain riding would take a trial with Elections Canada presenting evidence that what happened skewed results sufficiently to make a diff. I doubt they'll be able to do that, especially since the main riding involved, Guelph went to a Liberal. I have no question in my mind that the Conservatives were behind this. The problem is that Elections Canada investigations move at a glacial pace. The investigation may not be over in time for the next election. Even if it is, and there is no real explosive proof of massive collusion, the Conservatives will just claim vindication and that will be it. Just as with the in and out scandal.

You got it.