Machjo

If I had my way, Parliament would adopt unilateral free trade with the world or at least incrementally advance towards ever more free trade compared to now. Instead, Trump has put Parliament in a difficult position. Every party has backed Trudeau's retaliatory tariffs against the US even though those same tariffs will hurt Canadian consumers more than anyone. Sheer has even removed Bernier from his shadow cabinet. Intellectually, the right decision would be for Canada to adopt unilateral free trade with the world or at least negotiate as much free trade as Trump would be prepared to accept. Psychologically though, Trump forces Canadian politicians into a corner having to decide how to save face against his attacks. If I were PM, I would try to solve this dilemma by not retaliating against Trump's tariffs, promoting more free trade, and then just making it clear that we'd chosen this policy in spite of and not because of Trump's belligerence. Politically, that could be difficult though, and any PM who doesn't take on a fighting stance against Trump's belligerence would risk getting ousted by his own party. I probably would get ousted myself similarly to how Bernier recently has. An alternative options, at least if Canada were to adopt unilateral free trade with the world, would be for Canada to then make it clear that it will not raise tariffs against other countries at Trump's insistence come hell or high water. That could be a way for Parliament to adopt full free trade with the world without appearing to have surrendered to Trump. So how does Canada's Parliament escape this dilemma? As long as it doesn't find a way to return to freer trade while saving face against Trump, this trade war will just escalate until it ruins the North American economy. What other path could Parliament follow that would allow it to return to free trade without giving the impression of defeat before Trump? Until it solves that, we could be in a trade war that could drag on for years and destroy millions of jobs on both sides of the Canada-US border.

Just last week, the leader of Canada's opposition party demoted one of Canada's most outspoken proponent of free trade from the shadow cabinet to a backbencher, and Trump is partly to blame for that by raising the ante on both sides. I very much disagree with the united stance all of Canada's political parties have presented to fight a trade war. There is no denying that Trump galvanized them in that direction. If I were PM, I'd be pushing for unilateral free trade, but I can guarantee that Trump would have made it just multiple times more difficult for me to do so without looking like I was somehow waiving the white flag of defeat to the US. I could repeat as many times as I wanted that I would be proposing unilateral free trade in spite of Trump and not because of him. Yet because of the toxic environment Trump created, even if someone like Bernier was PM right now and proposed such a thing, his own party would replace him. I'm for Canada adopting unilateral free trade and have supported it long before Trump rose up. Had Trump been willing to save Canada face, unfortunately most Canadians still don't support unilateral free trade but they might have supported edging a step closer to free trade than is presently the case. Trump has since polarized both sides so much as to undo decades of progress by raising the walls of protectionism. I dislike Canadian protectionism. I thought even Harper was way too protectionist. And now, to my surprise, we have a president in the White House who makes even Trudeau look like a free-trade enthusiast! Just to give you an idea of what Trump has done, just read my posts of about a week ago. I was proposing an all-out trade war against the US come hell or high water while knowing full well that that would just hurt both sides. Now I like to think more rationally so after a few days to calm down, I regret my previous threads. But that's my personality. Not all Canadians can control their emotions in the same way. The way I reacted last week is now most Canadians had. Unlike me though, most are still thinking like I was last week and are still proposing that we escalate to a full-on trade war even if it hurts us. It's not about saving our jobs, but saving our pride so as to not look like we just backed down in a fight.

While moving to a Chinese-speaking community might result in the Canadian integrating into the local Chinese-speaking community in the short term, I suppose you're right that in the long term either the Chinese spouse or at least their children would finally integrate into the English-speaking community. I suppose that at most, it delays integration into the English-speaking community but does not prevent it.

Honestly, I oppose supply-management and tariffs. If I had my way, Canada would just adopt unilateral free trade and I supported this idea long before Trump came to power. The problem with Trump though is that he doesn't understand basic psychology. By launching a trade war against Canada, he creates a toxic environment that feeds the flames of protectionist Canadians while putting pro-free-trade Canadians in a difficult situation. Should the Government of Canada consider adopting unilateral free trade (or even show the slightest hint of anything that could appear to be defeat before Trump), it then has to seriously consider if it's prepared to accept the potential backlash. In other words, how does it do the right thing while saving face in a trade war? A few solutions exist: 1. Canada fights back as a way to preserve its dignity and save face even if it just hurts everyone involved in the end. 2. Canada could admit defeat which would only feed future Canadian resentment against the US which could surface sometimes even years into the future when the US needs help in a war or other matter. 3. Canada could still do the right thing and adopt unilateral free trade while simply clarifying in no unambiguous terms that it is doing this in spite of Trump's actions and not because of them, that some Canadians supported such a position long before Trump came to power and that, if anything, Trump's attacks may have even delayed this move and could even have derailed it and so he can take no credit for it. I'd favour the third solution as a way to do the right thing while still saving face, but even that one could be a tough pill for many Canadians to swallow. Again, Trump doesn't understand the most basic points of human psychology.

I didn't express myself clearly there. My bad. I was thinking that many businesses exist but there is only one government. But that's wrong. different levels and jurisdictions of government exist. So I guess yes, one government could operate in one language and another government in another just as one business and another could. For maximum efficiency to save on translation costs though, governments and businesses of the same language would try to interact with one another as much as possible and try to avoid interactions outside of that language market.

I can agree with this in the private sector, but not in the public sector. Any organization needs a common language of internal administration to function efficiently, be it a business or a government.

I should have clarified. Some of the ones I know knew Chinese better and sometimes much better than their spouses knew English; and they weren't returning to Toronto or Vancouver but moving there for the first time in most cases specifically to assist their spouses in the business market.

I've known a few French Canadians, both men and women, who'd lived in China; learnt Chinese; returned to Canada; married Chinese; moved to Toronto, Richmond, or Vancouver to help their spouse set up a business in the Chinese-speaking community; and then themselves integrated into that community while still maintaining links to the French-speaking and extending ties to the local English-speaking community. What are your thoughts on the process of reverse linguistic integration?

I stand with Bernier on this one.

We know Trump can hold a maximum of two terms according to the US Constitution. Should Canada choose to not retaliate against US tariffs and instead just emphasize the unfairness of Trump's tariffs against Canada, Canada may be able to win much more support in the US against Trump. In fact, even many Republican Senators have spoken out in defense of Canada against Trump as it is. Should Canada not retaliate, this would win Canada even more support. Sure it might hurt our economy for the next eight years, but it will hurt the US one just as much and any retaliatory tariffs will only hurt us all even more anyway. So why not just ride this one out and show Trump for the fool that he is?

Why not keep it simple? If a jurisdiction meets the standards of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, we unilaterally drop our tariffs against it. That would include the US. We import more steel from the US than we export to it anyway, so the market should be able to adapt to his steel tariffs easily enough.

Maybe Canada should just unilaterally drop all tariffs against the world. This would not only help consumers but businesses too as they could then buy the best machines and equipment from around the world tariff-free.

And about my addictions, I've never suffered nicotine addiction either. As for alcoholism, it started at twelve and stopped at twelve when I went cold turkey the first day I started and realized I was prone to drink it compulsively. However, I soon went back to it in the military due to peer pressure and living in close quarters with other drinkers. Kind of ironic that I was able to avoid alcohol easily enough in the private sector but then struggled with it once I'd joined a state-funded institution. I finally got off the alcohol once I'd left the military and returned to the private sector. I don't know the significance of it, but I find it interesting none-the-less.

Regulating addictive products through effective self-exclusion and advertising policies cost far less than fighting the different crimes resulting from lack of regulation. I've never suffered gambling addiction myself but have read up on it. It can lead to theft, robbery, working for illegal loan sharks as debt collectors, entering prostitution (which can also spread HIV and other diseases for which the taxpayer must foot the bill, suicides, bankruptcies, loss of employment, etc. etc. etc. And that's just gambling addiction. Then we have liver problems caused by alcoholism, lung problems caused by tobacco, etc. Health care ain't free.

I'm not a smoker, yet I know exactly where to buy tobacco. I'm not a drinker, yet I know exactly where to buy alcohol. I don't gamble, yet I know exactly where the local casino is and where I can buy lottery tickets. How is it that I know where to buy tobacco and alcohol and know where to buy lottery tickets and know where the local casino is even though I don't participate in any of these yet don't know where I can buy cannabis even though I sometimes smell its stench when I head downtown? I don't know where to buy cannabis; but if it's legalized, I probably will soon enough. I think the fact that I know where to buy legal drugs but not where to buy illegal ones shows that prohibition does work at least to a degree to push it underground and make it at least somewhat less visible. The fact that I know where to buy tobacco and alcohol and lottery tickets and where to gamble shows that the advertising laws pertaining to these aren't strict enough. They should be strict enough that I could not know where to buy these products unless I was actively looking for them, happened upon them by chance while looking for something else, or someone told me or showed me.

Heroin trafficking is profitable too, but not likely something you want sold at the local 7/11.

Again, I'd rather ban drugs outright but am simply exploring how best to regulate them if the political winds should blow in the direction of legalization and if we had to legalize them under political pressure. Now are you saying that unless we totally decriminalize drugs with no more regulation than we impose on the local Toys r Us, we're now fascists?

So you see nothing wrong with the easy availability of addictive products on the market without regulation?

Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? He might have murdered his wife, but isn't the point of a trial to determine that very question? If you can already decide his guilt, then may I propose we stop wasting money on the Canadian judiciary. far more efficient that way, no?

I don't like to put my personal life out online and especially like to maintain my anonymity. But I'll make an exception here and say that I have suffered addictions in my life myself so have experienced addictions. Those who oppose ID and fingerprint scanning at casinos or who support the sale of tobacco or alcohol at grocery stores or who support the decriminalization of cannabis have never experienced addiction. Any addict will tell you that he wants the government to make it harder, not easier, for him to access the drug he's addicted to. If you look at gambling in Singapore, it's a problem and they even consider it a crisis, yet it's not nearly as bad as the problem in Canada. Why you might ask. The answer is simply that they have implemented and enforce an effective self-exclusion policy. In comparison, Ontario's self-exclusion policy is useless. I've never suffered nicotine addiction, but I have a hard time imagining that a nicotine addict who's trying to quit wants the government to allow grocery stores to sell tobacco products. I can imagine how a recovering alcoholic would not appreciate alcohol being sold in an open isle at a grocery store either. You have to have suffered addiction to understand the mind of an addict.

You can't really apply normal market rules to addictive products. For example, a non-addict buys an apple because he wants to buy an apple. An addict buys heroin even if deep down inside, he really doesn't want to buy it. That's why controls would be absolutely necessary. To be honest, I lean more towards outright prohibition and capital punishment like in Singapore. However, look at the direction in which we're heading politically. We've already legalized gambling with insufficient regulation: facial-recognition cameras just aren't reliable enough on their own to identify those on a self-exclusion list and casinos can still legally advertise in many places online and offline. Grocery stores can sell cigarettes so as to tempt shoppers who are trying to quit. We're now about to legalize cannabis. Unfortunately, the political trend is heading away from the direction I would like to see it go in. So, if legalize we must, then let's legalize it and regulate it appropriately so as to minimize the harm done. Unless you have an idea on how to change the political trend towards the opposite direction, then we seriously need to talk about regulation. Judging from the lack of regulation with regards to gambling, tobacco, and alcohol today, do you really have confidence in the government's ability to adequately regulate cannabis?

What if we just legalized and regulated every recreational drug be it nicotine, alcohol, gambling, heroin, meth, you name it, but then we just strictly regulated it. One scenario I could see would be to legalize it but regulate it similarly to how Singapore regulates casinos. If you want in, you have to apply for either a passport or an addictive-products-and-services-business (APSB) ID card, with each following slightly different rules.If you apply for a standard passport, you could enter any such business just by scanning your passport and fingerprint. The scanner would recognize the passport as a legal passport but could not identify its holder nor recognize your fingerprint. On that, it would allow you entry. Alternatively, you could apply for an enhanced passport at extra cost that would include a scan of your fingerprints (or an indicator of any missing finger-tip) and facial image and would allow you to sign a self-exclusion form. With that, the scanner could identify the passport's holder and your fingerprint, could determine if the two match (so as to prevent a person from borrowing a friend's passport) and could deny you entry. Even if you somehow still managed to enter the premises, the facial-recognition camera could still potentially identify you. The self-exclusion would apply for the duration of the passport's validity period.This could even allow partial exclusion. For example, a person could choose to not sign the self-exclusion form but still let his spouse hold his passport. This would mean that he couldn't enter a casino on his own since the scanner would recognize his fingerprint but not his passport and so would deny him entry. This would mean he could visit a casino only when accompanied by his spouse for example.If you apply for a standard APSB ID card, the scanner would recognize it as a legal card but not identify its holder and would not recognize your fingerprint and so would allow you entry. Alternatively, you could apply at extra cost for an enhanced APSB card that would include facial and fingerprint scanning in which case the scanner could identify the holder of the card and the fingerprint and identify the two as matching to the same person and so deny you entry.The self-exclusion form could also make it a misdemeanor offense punishable by a heavy fine for any person in the self-exclusion database to participate in any addictive activity from which he'd excluded himself and impose a heavy fine on any business that allowed a self-excluded person into the premises.On the advertising front, these businesses could advertise on only one state-approved website and to access the site, one would need to clearly identify himself as not on the self-exclusion database. This might mean having to register an account on the site in person at a passport office or at a casino or other registration office and, once an account is registered, require him to sign in each time he visits the site to access its advertising. We could even prohibit these businesses from being identifiable from the outside, meaning that they'd have to hide behind a front business or residence or at least not advertise themselves on the outside of their business.

I think you might be exaggerating there, but I can say that I find official bilingualism highly irritating. I'm a French-Canadian myself and serve the Government of Canada from the private sector. On the surface, I should be happy that official bilingualism increases my employment prospects in French and English. But I'm also well aware that the official status of French and English in the Constitution give me an unfair advantage in the Canadian economy. Morally, ethically, I reject that advantage. I could see a few ways to solve this problem. A moderate first step could be to remove the official status of French outside of Quebec and that of English in Quebec. That would put me on at least somewhat of a more equal footing to let's say an indigenous or Chinese Canadian or a Canadian who knows ASL among others. If we were to take it to an extreme, we could even adopt Esperanto or a similar international auxiliary language that all Canadians would need to learn by the end of high school. Since it would be easy to learn by design (some studies putting Esperanto at from 5 to 10 times easier to learn than English), 50 hours a year for six consecutive years starting at the age of eight would more than suffice for even a somewhat below average student in aptitude. As a result, we'd all be on an equal footing, with all needing to learn a common easy-to-learn second language. Other solutions could exist too of course. Imagine if the US adopted English and Spanish as official languages USA-wide just like English and French in Canada and entrenched it into the constitution. Suddenly, bilinguals in English and Spanish would enjoy an unfair advantage in government, public education, packaging and labeling, etc. On the surface you might think all Spanish-English bilinguals would support this. But in reality, at least some of them would be very bothered by it as they experience unfair advantages coming their way as a result of this policy. They would start to sympathize with non-Spanish and non-English speakers and feel opposed to defenders of the policy on moral and ethical grounds. Some of the most outspoken opponents of the separate school system are in fact Catholics. It shouldn't surprise us. They're probably just reacting the same way I do to official bilingualism as they turn against and reject the privilege imposed on them. What I find most irritating are unilingual English-speakers who defend official bilingualism to their own detriment. On one level, I appreciate their intentions and even admire their willingness to support a policy that undermines their own personal interests. We need more people like that in our society. However, in defending French-speakers as a disadvantaged minority, they ignore how official bilingualism hurts speakers indigenous languages, sign languages, and other unofficial language communities who are even more disadvantaged that we are. If you want to promote some kind of official status for a disadvantaged language, why not a sign language for the Deaf or the local indigenous language or even an international auxiliary language like Esperanto to help the Deaf, dyslexics, and Deaf-dyslexics learn a phonetic language for efficient communication with the hearing instead of promoting Canada's two most advantaged languages? I'm not denying the good intentions of unilingual English Canadians who aggressively defend official bilingualism. I'm just criticizing the lack of thought they put into their decision.

Maybe it's time to go vegan at least until the cartel is dismantled.

I think one major difference between the US and Canada is how Canadians tend to favour the inscribing of ethnic identity construction into the laws and the Constitution (e.g. the Official Languages Act, the separate school system, Christian statutory holidays even with mandatory closures on those days in some provinces, etc. etc. etc.)