hitops

Put me down for a 'who cares' vote on losing door-to-door delivery. The sick and the old are a red herring. Let them keep the service. The other 99.9% don't need it. They just want it. Let them pay a monthly fee to have it. No reason the taxpayer should support that. Right now I don't even check my mail more than twice a week. It's 2014, things come through magic digital pipes right into your house!

Private insurance purchased yourself or got through your work, can cover the 10-20% as well, just like like in France. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_France See the chart for an idea of how this works.

Must be why we had to bail them out, and why the US has had to bail them out 3 or 4 times. You realize there is no necessary connection between productive and profitable right? The domestic auto industry keeps going bankrupt. Whether they are full of productive workers or not, they are obviously paid too high for those plants to compete.

Great. Doesn't change the fact that when parents tried to import safe milk, they were banned from doing so by the Chinese government. Please spend a little time findings out what a class action settlement means. It means the plaintiffs accepted the settlement. They didn't have to accept it, they could have gone to trial, but they chose to accept. http://www.newstatesman.com/global-issues/2014/03/china’s-billionaire-politicians-quadruple-their-wealth There you go. Being a politician was even better for wealth generation than being one of China's wealthiest people (quandrupled in last 8 years, vs only tripled)

Any fully or largely government funded entity should be completely transparent to the taxpayer. The books for every government agency and native reservation (other than those that do not accept government funds if any) should be online at all times for anyone to see.

Unions accomplish very little of worth in today's economy. Their prime role today is to prevent businesses from adapting and changing, and eventually putting them out of business. At my workplace, the best nurses hate the union, and the worst, laziest ones love it. The biggest relevant examples of union effect is the biggest of them all - the autoworkers. This is an industry that over the last 30 years has been largely non-competitive and only exists with the help of bailouts 3-4 times, at the expense of the taxpayer. Unions don't improve things for workers, they transfer wealth from taxpayers to union employees and management.

A more sensible system would just be national insurance where everyone pays 10% of health care, 20% of drugs and dental or something like that. Caps for each of $1000, $500 and $500 or something.

I've never been to a protest. And that is totally irrelevant, the point is I can attend one if I want to, about anything, saying any anti-government slogans I want. And I can post here against the government 24/7 and they can't do a thing about it. No so in China. Free to join the party means you do what the party tells you, you are NOT free to voice your own opinion against the party. All candidates are approved by the party, there is no free vote. The fact that you would suggest 'freedom' to join the party is an example of how they are free, is almost laughably ignorant. Hey I know, maybe you should be 'free' to join the CPC....ONLY the CPC. You can vote for Baird, Kenny or Mckay. Look at your freedom! lol Citizens have no rights against corporations in China. Corporations can poison people, and remain in business and not only that, but the government forces you to buy from them rather than import safer products. Judicial system treats 'everyone fairly'. AYFKM? China's justice system has a 99% conviction rate. It's a laughable farce. Basically if you go to trial, you're guilty. Does that sound like a justice system to you? The only politicians that do jail time in China, are those who get on the wrong side of more powerful politicians. Every once in awhile they throw a mid-level guy on the chopping block for public consumption, meanwhile the biggest thieves are the top politicians. The net worth's of China ruling body is probably 100x that of the average western nation's entire parliament, meanwhile the net worth of the average Chinese is a small fraction of the average north american or european. There are NO foreigners who live in China who live there, do to wanting to escape poor conditions or political oppression in Canada. There are millions of Chinese who do that to come here, and we both know it. China is an autocratic, utterly corrupt, pollution-ravaged industrial sewer where party goals are first, and people come second. If the people had a say, it would not be that way, but they don't. I do believe that over time this will improve.

The colonial argument is an aside. Naturally, any group in the entire non-European world who has any kind of beef, factors colonialism into it. It's low hanging fruit and non-falsifiable, and has the benefit pf being highly motivating. No ISIS goal is not anti-colonialism, the goal is clear and stated - to form an Islamic caliphate and force everyone into religions conformity within that caliphate. That is exactly what Mohammad and his successors did 1400 years ago, and that kind of ideological purity is highly attractive to an enormous number of Muslims in the world who through a lifetime indoctrinated worldview of victimhood and antagonism towards non-muslims, predictably tend to find themselves on the bottom of the social ladder in most non-muslim nations. Malcontents are always the easy prey for the most extreme. The the very nature of the Islamic belief system, it supplies malcontentedness in abundance, and thus the recruits when the right tune is played. You point about 'no monopoly' is absurd despite being technically correct. But it's correct like saying 'a knife is dangerous, and so is an atomic bomb. Knives don't have a monopoly on devastation'. It's a red herring and you know it. While there is no doubt an individual of every type of belief system somewhere on earth, who commits violence in the name of that belief system, the reality is that nearly EVERY violent extremist group of any size, organization, with any sizable impact or real-time threat to anyone is Islamic. There are NO christian organizations beyond the LRA that commit terrorism today. This group is tiny in both scope and impact compared to even medium-sized Islamic groups, and not a Christian I've ever met even sympathizes with them much less apologizes for or support them. There are no Jewish terrorist groups on earth of any note, nor Buddism or Shinto or atheist. The fact that in the past there was a lot religions violence in Europe, or that atheists holds the #1 and #2 spots in history for mass murder (Stalin, Mao), does not mean they do today. Today, Islam has a virtual monopoly or organized non-state enslavement and terror, and we all know it. And the big difference is that Muslims everywhere, to varying degrees is not openly support them, are at least sympathetic to their cause. If there were not, they would be out of business. Colonial occupations can certainly leave peaceful, stable democracies and obvious examples include: Germany, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States and India. As a matter of fact, those nations alone probably account for at least 1/4 - 1/2 of all world GDP and a huge majority of every modern technology, device and convenience commonly used by all of us. Some legacy of colonial destruction eh?

We should continue to allow natives to get everything free though, as evidence by how decades of completely cost-free (including drugs) services has transformed them into the prosperous and self-sufficient people they are today.

Don't forget Facebook, twitter, instagram, the PC, the tablet, all internet browsers, everything build by Apple, 95% of all forums interfaces such as this one, etc. It's fun to hate the country that creates everything we use and love.

While the tone of the exchanges between both you and Argus is childish on both dies, it is truly confusing and unexplained that you would suggest China has more freedom than us. In no measure do they. They cannot freely protest anywhere in mainland China, and only to a very limited extent in the one area China did not control until recently. They have no elections. They have no independent judicial system. They have no freedom online. There is no freedom of commerce. Every major industry in only allowed to operate under a state-controlled private entity. You cannot openly criticize the government without running into serious problems. Public dissidents are jailed. In Canada is a company produced poisoned food, people would put them out of business by buying elsewhere. In China when that happens, the government acts to stop them from importing safe goods, and forces them into buying the poison food from the Chinese, state-aligned industry. Here the most vocal opponents of the government (NDP and liberals) are the most likely people to get into power. In China they would be the most likely people to get into prison. Nobody runs from Canada to China. Millions run the other way. China is an autocracy, with only the very beginning of democracy creeping in. The word ridiculous is not too strong to describe your assertion that they have more freedom than we do here.

At some point, as China allows trade at all, the value of it's citizens labor will obviously increase as the demand for it increases, and therefore to keep labor your Chinese factory must increase wages so they don't run to another factory. As a result, Chinese standards of living are increasing. This not change the fact that they should be increasing much more but by forcing the RMB low, the Chinese government is in fact stealing 'real' wages right out of the pockets of the factory workers. Why? Because by keeping prices and wages low, and therefore exports high, it's a free though cheating way to pump up government coffers and keep that trade deficit in their favor. In the meantime, top Chinese officials wealth is routinely 100x of times that of top Canadians politicians, for example.

If they did not want free trade, yes that would be the most beneficial approach. Freed trade both ways is of course even more beneficial. Let's say it was only one way, and they had tariffs and we did not. We would suffer from lower exports, but we would also benefit from lower imports. The difference is that with tariffs in place, there is a regulatory cost which goes to no productive activity at all apart from employing those enforcing the regulations.

No, it hurts our citizens in one way (depressed demand from local producers/manufacturers) and benefits them in other ways (lower prices, increased purchasing power). It's Chinese citizens, not western ones that are getting most kicked in the this deal. Over time that will change when Chinese citizens want it bad enough. An no, price fixing does not wipe out industries, full stop. It undermines some industries, and stimulates others. The economy is much more complex than you are seeing.

As a doc I would say this a terrible idea. We should actually go the other way and start making people pay a small portion of all of their health care costs, just as we do for drugs. This is how it works in France, and they manage to treat at an even lower cost than we do, and have lower waiting lists. The French are able to purchase third-party insurance to cover that portion or get it through work, just as we do for drugs. In contrast, is the UK where they do cover drugs. That system is a complete wreck, as I repeatedly hear from the multiple physicians I work with who came to Canada to get away from it. A recent quote by my colleague, a medical oncologist (chemo doc) "giving chemo in the UK is easy, it's always the same few drugs because nothing is covered". This is the typical, predictable result of trying to provide everything for everyone - everyone gets equal, crap care. The waiting list problem in the UK is worse than ours, as is the lack of timely access. Everything that doesn't work in our system, is even more broken in the NHS. British doctors come here to earn more and work in a more functional system. Canadian docs go to the US for the same reasons. Canadians need to realize that we have can this dream system where everything is free and fast and high-qualify, maybe if we double everyone's taxes. Maybe. Without doing that, it's not going to happen. It takes money to run awesome, high quality services. It takes money to attract qualified personnel. A lot more than we put in now. A lot more than you are willing to pay, most likely. Yes it is, if it degrades the quality of the whole system. 'It's not Somalia', is not an acceptable consolation. There are many examples of how the overall system can be improved. Expanding coverage will without a doubt make it worse.

No Shady's right, it's all a matter of degree. Maybe a the sister's opinion on Israel made somebody so mad they decided to rape her sister as punishment, or to get the infidel, or something etc. It's a long shot, but there are also 7 billion opinions in the world, guaranteed you'll find it in there somewhere.

I do see the sense in doing nothing - because that is the leanest, easiest, cheapest and most effective way to respond. We are not 'under attack'. The world economy is not zero sum. Cheap goods from China allow me to more easily access products that improve my efficiency, making me more locally productive in the Canadian economy. They allow me to achieve a better standard of living and keep more money in my pocket, which means I have more money left over to spend on the services and goods that provide my neighbor's job as well. 'Under attack' is completely based on your perspective. A more accurate, factual description would be that the world is changing. Digging our heels in and trying to make the future the same as the present, simply because it is the present, is short- sighted and foolish. Cars attacked the horse-drawn carriage industry, should we ban cars? The internet has undermined paper books and libraries, should we ban it? The world changes, and you can change with it or become sclerotic and irrelevant. Chinese protectionist policies hurt Chinese citizens more than anyone else. Eventually Chinese citizens will take action and force their government to change. In the meantime we should not respond by hurting our own citizens in a misinformed and counter-productive exercise in tit-for-tat.

'OK' implies a moral quality. This is not a moral question, it's a question of how to respond to the fact that it's happening. Protectionism is bad choice, so when a foreign country does it, how to respond? The answer is not to impose your own protectionism, because you only hurt yourself, just as they hurt themselves doing it in the first place. China the leadership is doing well. China the average person is not. That's the big difference between us an them. By artificially lowering the currency they keep exports high, and export profits high, but effectively steal money from the population by keeping the value of their labor lower than it would naturally be. The dictators in China profit themselves and the national budget at the expense of the standard of living of the average Chinese. China is highly protectionist, no question. But imposing equal protections won't help us, because when you protect an industry, that industry becomes noncompetitive without government. Government = you and me taxpayer. That means you and me taxpayer suffer a lower standard of living, because we are forced to effectively hand over a portion of our income to prop up a non-competitve industry or business. How? Because with the protected market, we cannot access cheaper foreign goods and are rather forced to buy more expensive local goods, leaving us less disposable income. It's no different that saying we should ban dishwashers because that takes work away from a class that should be protected - people who wash dishes.

You must kidding. It's absolutely untrue competition is greater. There a few giant state-alligned companies that control everything and deliver terrible service. It's a monopoly or near-monopoly in every industry. Competition here is far greater in most industries, other than those with heavy government involved which are the worst (Air Canada, telecom). It is far more expensive in Chain to obtain the same quality of goods as here. Recently China banned baby formula imports, stocking a huge black market exchange. Too many people were importing from Australia and Britain because the local Chinese company was directly responsible for dozens of infant deaths due to lead contamination in the formula. As that company started doing poorly because people don't really go much for dying infants, the government stepped in an banned imports. That's the Chinese business model. What about just buying from alternative companies within China?....well 'alternative' is the key word there, I'll leave it to youto figure out the problem with that. That's Chinese 'competitiveness'.

Harper the 'tyrant' allows his MP's to vote against the rest of the party. That would never happen with Mulcair, hard to know with Trudeau. The spirit of this motion is good, I'm just not sure how it would really change anything. Nonsense can still easily be delivered, so long as there is some vague tie-in to the question. And it all rests of the speaker's opinion of it.

I'm not saying that same industry adapt, I'm saying the economy as a whole will adapt. This means that some industry might suffer, and other industries might do better. It is not the government's role to protect a business or business sector, nor is there any prosperous or major country on earth who's constitution confers that responsibility on government. Picking winners and losers, or ensuring continued winners is absolutely not the role of government, and only results in net loss for the country as a whole. Free private enterprise is a risk, freedom to fail is a risk. It should remain so. There is no reason you and me taxpayer should be forced to be in any way involved in salvaging anybody else's failing business, no matter the reason it is failing. Because once we do, that opens the floodgates for anyone to get bailout out or be protected. Then we just lose flexibility in the system, become less nimble, less adaptable, and lose competitiveness overall. If a business a Canada does poorly because China gets subsidies through currency manipulation, other businesses in Canada, at the same time, do better due to access to lower cost of goods from China for their business. The economy then adapts by shifting towards doing things that are helped by lower cost of materials or goods from China. We don't simply lose out in one sector, we also gain. Obviously both Canada AND China would gain even more if China removed barriers, but in the reality that they don't, imposing our own only makes the problem worse.

This a misunderstanding that does not see the picture of the world economy as a whole. Everyone is not supposed to build everything. Just as centuries ago, people started specializing and this produces enormous increases in efficiency and dramatically lowers the cost of goods, countries do not all have exactly equal, exactly balanced economies, nor should they. It is true that any new barrier to free trade by either side does indeed make it less free. It is however untrue that reacting to barriers with your own barriers is warranted or in any way useful. You do not protect or support your economy in any way by doing so. You only add increased drag. When an unequal regulatory system exists between countries, the best response is to simply let your economy adapt. You don't lose anything by doing this, the balance of your economy just shifts. Allowing access of foreign companies to your markets does not only have a cost (less business for local competitors), it also has a benefit (low cost of goods for your citizens). The fact that there is a cost, does not mean the benefit just dematerializes from reality. In the end it is a wash, except that to enforce your barriers, there is a bureaucratic cost, meaning a net loss in the end.

Agreed mostly, and also I would add that the 30% results in a 30% decreased purchasing power (standard of living decrease) for the average Chinese compared to what it should be. I don't agree with the tariffs however. Even when another country is imposing tariffs or manipulating things, it's not helpful to impose your own. All you wind up doing is taking money out of some peoples pockets (the people who have to pay more for Chinese goods due to the tariffs) and giving it to other people (those working in industries benefiting by hindering the Chinese competitor with tariffs). It's not like you're taking money from the Chinese and giving it to Canadians. Enforcement of the system requires a bureaucracy and regulatory regime which a cost, and so it's a net loss. You can't control what another country does very easily. If they introduce inefficiencies in their system by government intervention, that results in more loss to drag in the economy. The solution is not to add your own drag, you just end up with twice the drag. The best solution is to simply let your economy adapt to the interventions in the foreign economy. You do not lose by doing this, you simply shift the balance of your economy towards what is most efficient in that environment. Some jobs will be lost, and others gained, just as it always goes.

It seems pretty doubtful that being the primary speaker for the PC's, he would not have had an idea what question was coming and what his answer would be. It also seems doubtful that he was freelancing, it was probably planned. And yes it's likely Harper or somebody high up that told him to say it. Definitely looks bad for them, add it to the list of goofball incidents and clownish behavior. However, when I vote I don't put a lot of weight on the doofus-factor of the politician themselves. I just assume all politicians in major roles are double-speaking, nonsense-peddling, self-aggrandizing caricatures to some extent. I want to know what the government policies are, and if they tend to deliver on them. If they have people riding in military planes to look tough, drinking $16 orange juices, or giving nonsense in question period, that's something to think about but not the main thing. How this the policy of this government affect me and my family, and Canada at large? That's the question at the ballot box, I couldn't care if someone is drinking $1600 orange juice.