[How do we force immigrants to assimilate?]

8 minutes ago, eyeball said:

An Earthling like everyone else.

I trace my roots back to New France, yet I doubt that I meet Argus' standard of what it means to be a 'Canadian.'

[How do we force immigrants to assimilate?]

16 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Over the weekend, I saw some Mennonite women and girls in their modest dresses and caps.  They, the Amish, the Hutterites, etc. practice a lifestyle that does not accord equality to women, and where abuse and pedophilia are hidden away, the perpetrators protected and victims punished.  They reject Canadian society to the extent that their children are warned away from us (the English) and they refuse to live in our neighborhoods and cities.  Clearly these folks are not Canadian and do not want to be Canadian.  What is your solution to that?

And what is Canadian? I work in English and French, speak mostly Chinese in the home and at the local shops, address my parents and extended family in either English or French and my wife's in Mandarin, read litererature in equal proportions in English, French, and Esperanto and to a lesser extent in Chinese Pinyin (children's literature), watch films in English and Chinese equally, and listen to songs in English and Chinese equally and sometimes in Esperanto and more rarely French. Yet I trace my roots back to New France on one parent's side and the UK on the other's. Religiously, there are at least three religions that different members of my family profess.

As for food, I was raised on hunting and typical English and French Canadian fare, later learnt to cook Indian vegan, and then learnt to cook Chinese vegan and now eat mostly Chinese.

So, what is a Canadian?

[Why is this so prevalent these days on TV.]

On 10/4/2017 at 9:20 PM, taxme said:

A ways to go alright, and it would appear as though they are not in too much of a hurry. So much for diversity and multiculturalism, eh?

How else are they to reproduce?

[How do we force immigrants to assimilate?]

I suppose an alternative to assimilation is integration. Though around 40% of Indonesians speak Javanese and an absolute maximum of 30% (some suspect maybe around 10%) speak Indonesian as a first language, Indonesia chose Indonesian as the official language just because it was easier to learn and already widespread as a lingua franca that around 99% of Indonesians know to varying degrees. Neither English nor French are particularly easy to learn and so they probably pose the main barrier to integration, whether of indigenous Canadians, foreign born, and even Canadians moving to and from Quebec.

[How do we force immigrants to assimilate?]

23 hours ago, Argus said:

Canadians are not satisfied with the way immigrants are assimilating. It's been showing up in the polls more often of late.

Environics just did a large poll which showed two thirds of Canadians are unhappy at the rate immigrants are assimilating. And lest you immediately start screaming racism - the unhappiness about assimilation did not change markedly between those who have been here for multiple generations, and those who are first generation Canadians.

Notably, this sentiment held true across both first generation Canadians and third plus generation Canadians, with the 63% of the former and 68% of the latter agreeing that immigrants were not doing enough to adopt Canadian values.

This is somewhat similar to another poll, by EKOS, announced a couple of weeks ago which said 40% of Canadians felt too many non-white immigrants were coming into Canada. In that poll, visible minorities were more likely than white Canadians to feel too many visible minorities were coming to Canada. It seems newcomers are growing alarmed that the place they came to is changing to the kind of places they left, and don't like it.

So how do we force more assimilation? In places like Switzerland and France, immigrants are required to demonstrate how they have assimilated or they can't get citizenship. They need to show how they've blended into their communities, how they have improved their language skills, gotten local friends, joined local clubs, etc. In one case in Switzerland, a family was denied citizenship because their daughters refused to swim with boys at the school's swimming lessons. Another family was denied because their sons would not shake hands with their female teachers. Their few is if you want to become Swiss, you need to BECOME Swiss. I agree with them.

How do we force assimilation? Well, let's take examples from history.

1. Favour British immigration.

2. Hand out smallpox-infected blankets. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics#Frequency_and_efficacy_of_biological_weapon_usage)

3. Force the natives into residential schools. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system).

Favouring British immigration and establishing the Indian Residential School system helped English overtake Chinuk Jargon as the dominant language in BC betwee 1898 and 1900. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_Jargon#Overview_and_history)

Of course to ensure that English continued on track, the Government had to stay firm even once English gained the upper hand:

Duncan Campbell Scott in 1910  described the goal of the Department of Indian Affairs in dealing with the Indian Problem.

“It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habitating so closely in these schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is being geared towards the final solution of our Indian Problem." 

Then we had the pesky Chinese, but the Chinese Exclusion Act helped to bring that problem under control. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Canadians#20th_century)

Then we had those pesky Germans, but we got that problem under control after 1917. (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/german-canadians)

In the 1960's, Commissioner J. B. Rudnyckyj wrote a separate statement challenging his colleagues’ proposals for an exclusively Anglo-French language policy at the B&B Commission. He actually believed that because Ukrainian Canadians had cleared the Prairies, they should count among the 'founding races.' But Laurendeau and Dunton would have none of that. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada#The_perception_of_official_bilingualism_as_an_exclusively_bi-ethnocentric_policy)

Canada's mistake was in believing that it needed draconian measures only to build the country, not to maintain it. Wrong. If the country is built on draconian measures, it must be maintained through draconian measures too. For example, ever since the end of the residential-school era, some indigenous languages are making a comeback in spite of laws favouring English and French. Ukrainian and German Canadians have rebuilt their languages in the Prairies and parts of the Waterloo region. People are changing religions (used to be stricter laws against that in the past). People intermarry, learn foreign languages, raise their children in those languages, etc.

You see. If you want to force assimilation, you'll need some pretty draconian measures to do so. Even closing our borders will not prevent conversion to minority religions or people learning unofficial languages and using them and intermarrying, etc. You'll need some pretty tough measures to stop all of that.

[Money Laundering Endemic throughout Canada]

6 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

FYI: Prostitution is not illegal. I don't think it ever has been.

Buying sex is illegal.

[Money Laundering Endemic throughout Canada]

3 minutes ago, Argus said:

What in the hell are you even talking about? First, the British anti-porn crusade is delusional and idiotic. Second, laws against money laundering are not 'tyranny', and I don't know anyone who thinks otherwise. The problem is that governments in Canada only respond to votes, and there aren't a lot of votes to be had in worrying about money laundering because Canadians are largely ignorant of it, so government's don't bother about it.

Money laundering is a somewhat unique crime in that it generally stems from other crimes. The whole point of it is to hide the source of dirty money. So reduce overall crime rates, and money laundering will decline along with it. Much of that money comes from loansharking, prostitution, and the drug trade; so shut those down to a reasonable degree, and much money laundering will disappear along with it since then there'd be less money to launder in the first place. So introduce effective self exclusion from casinos, and loansharks would lose much money there. Keep criminalizing buying sex, and that cuts off much money there. Now we just need to tighten our grip on narcotics trafficking.

As for porn, there is ever more research showing its harms on society.

[Money Laundering Endemic throughout Canada]

2 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

Crime is not a big deal, among liberals.

It's not only liberals. Even conservatives fear any kind of regulation because it's 'tyranny'. Heck, even some Conservaties would like ot decriminalize prostitution. Some would find it insane to adobt the British online-porn policy requiring a person to opt in with proof of ID as if that would somehow be censorship. The idea of needing to scan ID and fingerprint to enter a casino is treated as fascist as if we have a fundamental right to enter a casino.

And the idea of forcing a person to register a SIM card? Oh my! Seriously, we've gone insanely libertarian as a country.

[Money Laundering Endemic throughout Canada]

It comes with the territory. Let's take Singapore as an example. Singapore has a more effective self-exclusion program from casinos than Canada does, so that helps to curb money-laundering through gambling. Singapore requires SIMs to be registered, so it makes it harder to engage in drug trafficking and human trafficking, etc.

Singapore knows how to deal with drug traffickers. 'Nuff said on that point.

Money laundering is an interesting crime in that pretty much by definition, it stems from another crime which then requires the money to be white-washed into legality. If we can tackle other crimes, then money laundering will dovetail with that. If we want lax laws, that's what we get. We made our bed so we can sleep in it.

 

Maybe the only area where we do slightly better than Singapore is in prostitution. Under the Swedish model, we can greatly diminish rates of prostitution, another major source of tax evasion, and human trafficking, another major source of money laundering.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

3 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

For those who do not understand left vs right in the Western context; right is towards an hereditary monarchy, left is towards public rule.

The British Crown is inherently conservative, classically liberal, minimally interventionist, limited self government.

The Canadian Nanny State, is Bolshevist.

I don't think we need to limit ourselves to the far left and the far right. I'll claim a good idea from whatever source it comes from. I'm not shy about appropriation.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

Welcome to the Information Age Revolution, Canadian lefties, as Jimwd likes to say "your whole world is going to come crashing down around you". 
 

Join us, or perish by Darwinian forces.

I don't see this as a right or left matter. Heck, even Andrew Scheer drank the milk of the Canadian dairy lobby.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

9 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Well, to be fair, Canada has other domestic trade issues to solve regardless of Trump, starting with east-west pipelines.   Any kind of trade "war" would be a slaughter, starting with auto tariffs, loss of American foreign direct investment, and more U.S. energy independence.  Canada can still have U.S. trade, but should not be so dependent on a single export market.

In hindsight, maybe an all-out trade war would be a good thing for Canada. If Canada hurts enough, it might then finally start listeing to its economists in desperation to go unilateral.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

11 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Agreed....if Canada is better motivated to diversify trade because of Trump's policies, then Trump has done Canada an enormous favour.

From that perspective, in a strange way, I'd almost wish for an all-out trade war between the US and Canada. Unfortunately, I'm not sure most Canadian politicians would catch on. They might lower tariffs against other states but would foolishly raise them against the US. They just can't ignore the US and forcus on what's best for us.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

55 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Our little sideshow impacts your economy more than China.  The US exports far more to Canada, your number one export market, than to China.  But continue to take allies for granted.  We know the game here.  Take advantage through unfair trade policy as much as possible.  Threaten countries, including allies, and use fear.  Pathetic. 

Canada should focus on what is within its control. Does free trade with the US benefit Canada? Sure it does, the biggest advantage being in transportation costs compared to countries farther afield.

However, Canada can trade with the US only to the degree that both sides are willing to trade with one another, and Canadian tariffs are hurting our consumers more than they are anyone else. With that, Canada should just forget about the US and adopt unilateral global free trade. The US would reciprocate to its benefit or not to its detriment. Not our business. Let the US do what it wants and we'll do what's best for us.

If you believe that the US is a sovereign state, then you accept that whether to its benefit or to its own harm, the US has the sovereign freedom to choose with whom it will trade just as Canada does. If the US chooses to not trade with Canada, or to trade less with Canada than Canada would like, while that certainly does hurt Canada, there is no point in Canada hurting itself even more by masochistically raising our own taxes against the US. Let the US do its thing and let Canada adopt unilateral global free trade.

 

Also, let's be consistent in our arguments. Canada chose to protect its agricultural industry (to its own harm, sure, but according to its own sovereign choosing) and Trump decided to try to strongarm Canada to back down on that. That angers me for two reasons. Firstly, Trump imposed economic harm on the US itself by raising tariffs against Canada, which just shows how foolish he is (no brighter than our own politicians). Secondly, he tried to usurp Canadian sovereignty through such strongarm tactics.

 

Unfortunately though, Canada is now behaving in the same way through its own strongarm tactics to usurp US sovereignty and to our own harm (and even worse given our comparative economies of scale). In short, we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

47 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

So let me get this straight....the countervailing tariffs that Canada imposed on itself for American exports from GOP states is causing so much more additional pain in Ontario and Quebec, Trudeau and Freeland are begging Trump to remove the U.S. Commerce Dept tariffs on steel and aluminum so they can remove their own, self imposed tariffs.

Can't make this stuff up....

https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/ontario-quebec-urge-feds-to-do-more-on-u-s-tariffs

 

 

 

They're fools. US tariffs hurt US consumers more than they do anyone else and Canadian tariffs hurt Canadian consumers more than they do anyone else. If Trudeau and Freeland had the slightest inkling of economics 101, they'd just unilaterally drop all tariffs and let the US do what it wants.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

1 hour ago, Jimwd said:

The problem it creates is that it’s unfair to Canadian producers. Your suggestion is a good one but would never fly with the Americans. They expect a country 1/10 the population to purchase the same amount as 330 million people . And the funny thing is we do. But their tariffs on lumber has increased the construction costs of a home in America by about 2000 dollars. They cut of their nose to  spite their face. 

Shooting themselves in the foot. And we foolishly retaliate in kind by shooting ourselves in the foot too. The essence of a trade war.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

10 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Canada will always ensure that as many American workers and consumers are fucked over by Trump’s tariffs as Canadian workers and consumers.  Thus the counter-tariffs.  Fair trade.  Make no mistake, this is 100% Trump’s fault and every thinking Canadian knows it.  

Trump was reacting foolishly to Canada's own protectionism. Canada was shooting itself in the foot, Trump felt jealous, and so he decided to shoot the US in the foot in retaliation. Canada, foolish as it is, decided to shoot itself in the foot even more in retaliation for that. That's the essense of a trade war.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

10 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

It is user pay alright, with low income and poor Canadians paying higher prices for basic commodities like dairy and poultry, not to mention the inter-provincial trade barriers for many other consumables.   Low income Americans pay little or no income tax after credits and deductions.

Government borrowing to pay those subsidies rais interest rates which affect all US residents including low-income ones.

The best solution for Canada would be for Canada to just open its borders to US products that meet Canadian food standards, not subsidize our own industry, let US taxpayer (or lenders) subsidize my food purchases, and let the Canadian industry die off and its workers adapt to new industries.

Economics aside though, I recognize that farmers are an extremely powerful lobby group in Canada that would never allow such common sense to prevail.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

1 hour ago, Jimwd said:

America subsidizes its farmers to the tune of 20 billion, that’s not fair trade.

In one respect, the Canadian system is better than the US one in that at least it's more user-pay. For example, as a non-consumer of eggs and dairy, I don't contribute to that industry. If I were in the US, I would have no choice but to contribute through my taxes.

On the one hand, I'd say if the US is stupid enough to have US taxpayers subsidize my food consumption, who am I to complain about that? Even economists would agree that the US consumer would be helping to enrich Canadians by subsidizing our food.

On the other hand, I understand the political optics behind it. One solution could be to allow US food products to be sold tariff-free only to businesses that sell only to recipients of social assistance in Canada. This would mean for example that I would not be allowed to buy from that shop. A social-assistance recipient could be provided with a government card authorizing him to buy from that shop.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

10 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Wealth taxes will only encourage more capital flight from Canada, and less foreign direct investment, as would higher royalties on resource extraction.  Not "surrendering" may pay big political dividends for Trudeau/Freeland in the short term, but Trumps larger squeeze favours the Americans in the long run, or at least changes the balance of trade game from what it has been.   

That depends. I was thinking maybe a personal wealth tax of 20% (meaning that essential and business assets would not count in that). In exchange, eliminate income taxes, value-added taxes, carbon taxes (since rualties essentially serve that purpose anyway), tariffs, and maybe other taxes too. Overall, that would amount to a significant overall tax reduction. Of course only once our debt is paid off first, but then yes, let's start really dropping our overall taxes.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

18 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Agreed...Canada has no control over the changes that are happening to globalization.   Capital is leaving Canada because of current policies and conditions.   Consumer spending in Canada is slowing down....two out of three months had negative growth.   Oil is still way down from the heady days of $100 Brent.   Tariffs have been weaponized, and the WTO is too damn slow and impotent to react.

And tariffs are among the worst taxes around. Yes, the government needs a sourse of revenue. Three general sources include taxes, royalties on resource extraction, and fines.

 

I like royalites since they're user-pay. Just raise those. I like fines since they charge the people who deserve to pay. Raise those.

 

As for taxes, they need to be rational. I could see a moderate wealth tax for example. But as for tariffs, they actually hinder economies of scale and efficiency (for example, it would be better for an Ontario plant to sell to New York and its Washington plant to sell to Vancouver from the standpoint of transport costs. Tariffs distort these.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Indeed....the "free traders" want to keep the north-south gravy train running without addressing longstanding domestic and protectionist barriers.  Trump (and Obama) kicked this hornet's nest and Canada is scrambling to figure it out.   The huge American market does not exist for Canada's export dependencies.

I don't care too much about that. Sure US free trade with Canada would benefit Canada too just as it would the US; but since Canada has no control over that, I don't worry about it. I say just unilaterally drop tariffs and quotas against the world and let the chips fall where they may. Growing pains, sure, but it would make us economically more resilient in the end.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

21 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I don't see any need for common passports.

For example, an Australian shows you his passport, and then a New Zealander shows you his passport, what is the difference in practical terms?

It's all the same country, it's called the House of Windsor.

Since Australia and New Zealand have relative open borders between one another, you're right that that allows each to work in the others' country visa-free. But if they ever ended that agreement, then the different in passports would be wide. Ensuring a common citizenship and passport would make it more difficult to remove Canadians' freedom to move around Canada. Semi-sovereign states but with a common citizenship and passport.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

3 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

The purpose of Canadian Confederation is; Keep the French in, keep the Americans out, and keep the Indians down.

  It's archaic.  It's obsolete.  It doesn't serve its stated purpose and never really did.  A 19th century agreement which makes no sense whatsoever in the 21st century.

Interesting perspective, and not far from the truth. I still see the benefit of a common citizenship and passport though from the standpoint of labour mobility. Beyond that, perhaps we should transfer all other powers to the provinces. This would make them almost sovereign states in their own right minus responsibility for citizenship and passports going to the federal government. But then with the federal government holding so little responsibility, we could probably reduce the Federal parliament to nine MPs elected by the members of the provincial parliaments, good enough. Heck, it's not like the feds would need to manage a heck of a lot then.

 

It would literally hace one ministry: Citizenship and passports.

[Ottawa says Ontario's call to drop retaliatory tariffs would mean 'surrender']

22 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I don't see any reason why Ontario cannot have trade utterly free of barriers with both New York and British Columbia at the same time, and I don't see any need for Confederation for Ontario to do that.

In fact, as I say, Confederation is the problem.

I favour free trade, so you won't here a complaint from me there. In principle, confederation might be more worthwhile if it could maintain free trade within our borders. Otherwise, from an economic standpoint, what's the point? Maybe each province could become a loose federation that would share a common citizenship and passport and nothing else. I'd be happy with that, honestly.