Michael Hardner

Uh... 🤔 NATO was founded with 12 countries, now includes 32 I think? https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_52044.htm

Well. Yes and no. We need someone with a large business background to restructure. All Harris did was hold things back until later.

1. Management, from the lowest supervisor to the Deputy Minister is charged with solving problems. There are plenty of unionized places that don't have these problems. Maybe some of this is informed by me dealing with said management, and knowing some people on the inside. It seems like a horrible environment for all involved. 2. Well Poilievre would be the guy to change things but ... war with the union isn't very creative and probably won't change things much in the long term. I do appreciate that leadership of management and union sometimes take a war footing. But the cost to both workers and management of perpetual stasis is great IMO.

I thought they were talking about Margie Novera ? I dated her briefly in 8th grade but she broke up with me when I put gum in her hair.

1. Yes, All of this is part of the culture. 2. Well, it you are thinking I'm blaming individuals then I agree with you. But it's all management culture. 3. Good points. I think there's an opportunity to change all that, for leadership with imagination.

1. I don't know that I did that. I did blame the culture though. 2. Really not too much controversy in what you posted there. What did you mean? Responsibility flows up? You mean that the deputy ministers... People who have never generally worked in a real organization, who have massive amounts of power and are unknown to the public May be an issue?

1. Picture doesn't prove anything. 2. What's the issue with that VPN?

I should have said middle management. I meant that there's a lack of customer focus. And it's the overall culture that has to be changed....

1. Cite? 2. How so?

1. The Government not the people. 2. So dismiss it then. Dismiss their methodology and their effort. It's pretty easy for you to do so in the 15 seconds it takes to write a post. Others are working to solve problems.

A national licensing group - that would do it. I'm hoping Poilievre can think outside the box on such things.

Yes. I find the idea that 'classrooms' is a limit, and Ford's subsequent plan to create a new building to be mind boggling. There are empty offices everywhere ... get some solutions people. Following up on my previous post, the other group of know-nothings I had to deal with in management were doctors' committees. As stakeholders in any problem, the senior groups refused to move with any urgency whatsoever and would throw roadblocks to progress on anything. I found the same problem with other non-profits such as academic groups, and charities. Say what you want about capitalism, and putting a dollar sign on everything but it moves things forward at least. When you add that the biggest problems are with family doctors, who can be provided with the least training and lowest costs it absolutely boggles my mind even more. Bring in family doctors from overseas who have been certified at the best schools, and get them working NOW. Hire doctors who have set up clinics and pay them well to set up publicly funded walk-ins NOW. Then foster a culture where these vital facilities are created/supported. What Agile management in IT taught us is that excessive planning is a cancer. The costs are lost lives, despite the intuitive strangeness of the idea. Taking too long to test a new drug means the successful drugs aren't saving lives now. Not testing means lives are lost needlessly. Finding the balance requires intelligent discussion. Fail fast No, it's a question of culture. If you want me to single out one group that needs to change it would be the public. They have to start imagining a new model. Maybe populism is the start of that.

More argument via image. Iran wants you to think their citizens hate Israel and the US. But is it so ? This poll says not. https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/GAMAAN-IR-Survey-English-Report-Final.pdf

I worked on the initial stages of a few government initiatives in the past. I can verify that I witnessed what you are talking about. The preventative measures to waste end up wasting far more than the problem they're designing to solve. When I worked for the civil service, I saw a massive internal effort put into effect because a Globe and Mail article detected a somewhat minor error. It doesn't matter that nobody cares, they can't have the risk of a perception of something going wrong. Question Period is the symptom: Poilievre finds out about a guy whose truck was stolen, and detected that it was on an outbound ship. The layman thinks " if that were my truck, I should be able to just go down there, show my ownership and get the dock master to give me my truck" ... ah well.... We had initial meetings only because they would invite so many people to meetings and ask for revisions to our proposal over and over again... new people would attend the next meeting and insist more changes. We figured out that this would be unworkable, so we insisted our proposal limit the structure and number of revisions to the product as well as timliness. Well, guess what... that didn't work because only the Deputy Minister could have final say and he wouldn't have the time to meet with us with any kind of predictability. We saw where this was going and told them we weren't going to work with them anymore. I'm not sure if they recognized what was happening, or whether they they just thought we weren't flexible enough. Anyway I got very curious over how the companies that dealt with this operated. I guess the unbelievable ArriveCan costs explained it.

1. If it costs the Russians a lot of money, it could do them damage. Every escalation has a price for sure. And high oil prices would cost Biden the election at some point. Side issue - @August1991 might enjoy this meta observation - have international politics ever impacted all of us so directly as these days ? It's like we're in a small room with the walls closing in 1 inch an hour.

I get it. I don't blame you for being emotional either... Believe me I get emotional about policy too. But I come here to listen and share ideas. Maybe I get resentful having to read the emotional outbursts of folks I disagree with politically. I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't and maybe I do. But I do try to see the value in other opinions, and try to love the chuds. This is an example where the chuds are on the left side of the social spectrum btw. Which is why 'chud' doesn't apply solely to populists or conservatives like me.

1. The decision makers might not change but the discussion around what is happening, priorities, etc. likely would. 2. Is the public a committee of millions then ? I don't have a problem with you using such a word but I don't see how it's different than a public. 3. Yes, I wouldn't blame the public service. Indeed I think they would be emancipated by such a system. My understanding is that there was an internal web discussion forum for the public services at some point, perhaps years ago, and there were great ideas and solutions that were put forward. 4. Well... maybe that's a quibble. After all it's the bosses that set the rules, and more importantly form the culture. I worked for the public service 40 years ago. I was young so I didn't understand the problems at play the way I do today. 5. I also have ideas and criticisms... and suggestions. They should care. There was a revolution in customer care in the 1980s, in marketing, and in the 2000s - in IT - a new revolution behind the scenes, flattening management and making direct links between the consumer and the provider. It's actually more natural and understandable than the rubric of mirrors that our bureaucracy is, in practice. Looking for blame is a distraction from fixing it. It's a "culture" and we all own it, to varying degrees.

1. Service levels, all right wait times, costs... If we don't care then the politicians who go stateside for services won't carry either. 2. Democracy is not a committee, it's a voice of the people. Town Hall meetings are not a committee, it's the public voicing ideas and questioning those who make the decisions. But these things are not anonymous. That's one thing I would do differently. 3. And the feedback cycle for that is about.. what 10 years? Too slow

Okay, but they could still be following the Hippocratic oath and just be wrong. This topic is infused with so much emotion on both sides, and that's the problem. It also explains why parents lose their minds and allow this to happen. Parents would have approved this. Parental choice is something that everyone agrees with. In fact, it's the cornerstone of the Alberta legislation recently. Remember? So you have a lot of emotion, which is leading to situations where doctors and parents are making bad choices. And then you get regret, people who thought it was a good idea. Realize that It wasn't. Put the discussion out of the emotional realm and give it back to doctors and caregivers. But stop demonizing people, based on assumptions. Regrettable decisions, sad results... All of these things come out of any system Kids and parents get breast implants to look sexier also. We never heard about that, even with levels of regret. It's all emotion... And it's leading to looking for scapegoats and scheming monsters. Sometimes systems just fail. Peace.

1. From what I've read, they are such a game changer that Biden has asked Ukraine to stop doing them. 2. 0k. I agree it will be a long time. 3. 4. 5. Generally, I agree with what you've written here, although I do think the economy is getting slightly better.

Indeed, the French system works this way to a degree. I don't have enough confidence that our Healthcare public is mature enough to monitor the system. Continued suggestion for me is to create online Public groups, busy bodies, to monitor and discuss delivery of service and costs. And above all, we have to instigate a revolution of management in Canada's Public services. Management today is beholden primarily to their bosses, not the public.

Yes, and I have done this finally. I asked it to write. Put together some short stories on topics, themes and with characters I specified. It created a convincing, if bland, wallpaper prose for me. Cute, but it's just a mechanical extension of what has been happening to intellectualism in the human world. The real breakthrough will be when people learn to tell the difference between imitators and the real deal in that world. In the meantime, I will refer to AI as adept imitation.

1. Are you really asking why specific types of jurisdictions are attracted to one party or the other? Would you say it's possibly a conspiracy that Alberta never votes? Liberal? Of course not. There are always specific geographic areas where the people feel that a party does not speak to them, and the vote goes elsewhere. 2. Curious, I looked up whether Canada has mail-in ballots. It seems that we do. https://www.elections.ca/Voting-by-mail 3. The systems are different, however the US system has audits and oversight by both parties. Parties. How could it ever have worked that one party tricked the other into an advantage in 50 cases in 50 states. Example: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2021/02/12/michigan-election-audit-presidential-results/6738200002/

Why?

@Nationalist over to you... Unless you feel unable to discuss things with me...