Machjo

It can easily be both. We let him in, but if he can't support himself, that's when homeless shelters and food banks kick in. It's not up to the government to keep him out. He has a right to be given a chance to fend for himself without us tying his hands behind his back. Besides, if things don't turn out so well for him, he'll want to go back home of his own accord anyway. When he asks to be returned, we can happily do so.

I think the good thing with two physicians' signatures is that a physician won't prescribe it if he thinks another physician might refuse to. Looks bad on him. As a result, he'll prescribe it only if he is certain another physician will sign it too. If he's not certain, then he'll probably prescribe something weaker that he knows any other physician will sign. Might make the system less efficient at the front end, but more so at the back end by reducing addictions, etc.

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. I Corinthians 12:13 If there is no difference between a Jew or a gentile, a bond or free, then what's the difference between a Canadian, a Chinese, and an Indian? No, Canadians are no more special than anyone else. We're one global family.

For me, open borders are a religious matter: Love thy neighbour as thyself. My own private property aside, who am I to decide who comes to Canada? Helping them financially might be another matter, but as long as a person is self-sufficient, let him have at her. If you have money to support yourself and can find a job, welcome, brother. Welcome sister.

Perhaps it's time we required any prescription for a particularly addictive drug like an opiod to get two physicians' signatures? Just a thought.

So she expects foreign nationals to out-Herod Herod then, to be more 'Canadian' than a 'Canadian?' Isn't that the definition of a hypocrite?

Given how I believe that human life begins at concepton and that marriage is between a man and a woman, even I would not pass Leitch's test.

I absolutely don't trust leaving it up to an immigration officer's judgement. Any such test must be measurably objective by some kind of metric. Imagine the chaos otherwise. One officer would refuse the black man. Another officer would refuse the one who believes gay marriage is wrong, another officer would refuse the one who believes gay marriage should be made legal. Another officer would ban the one who believes human life begins at conception. Another officer would refuse the one who believes a woman should have the right to abort right up to the time the child is born. In short, each officer would be judging based on his own opinion of what he thinks Canadian values are. Anarchy.

In a sense, they should learn from the English, the French, and the Chinese in Canada. Each community tends to live within its own community where it can function unless it's learnt the other's language. In that sense, had all the refugees been brought to one town, they could then develp their own economy. Maybe even transform that town into a free zone similar to Hong Kong, a tariff-free free-trade and low-tax zone.

Let's start with queston number one: Should a person be discriminated against on the basis of belief independently of whether he has committed any crime? Question number two, your call.

The only solution that I can come up with (and even it would be far from imperfect) would be that any spouse under the age of fifteen automatically becomes single at the age of fifteen and must remarry his spouse. Yet I can see a problem even with that. Imagine a fourteen-year-old married to a twelve-year-old. My proposal would mean that as soon as the fourteen-year-old reaches the age of fifteen (in which case the younger spouse would only be thirteen), the marriage would become automatically dissolved and the thirteen-year-old could not remarry the fifteen-year-old until he reaches the age of fifteen too, thus forcing them apart for over a year. So even that is not a good solution. The only other solution I could see would be to promote some kind of international standard at the UN. I'd say fifteen ought to be the minimum, and even then only with the consent of all living parents at least until the age of 22 (in China, a man cannot marry before 22). Another solution would be to require any marriage to be contracted in the EU in which at least one of the intended spouses is a foreign national to be a monogamous family-marriage contract. This would mean that the marriage contract itself would include a monogamy clause with financial civil consequences to the other spouse should a spouse violate the clause. Since it would be entrenched in a civil contract, it could be transfered to another jurisdiction should the couple move to a jurisdiction where polygamy is permitted. Furthermore, since it would be a family-contract, all living parents must sign it too. This would mean that even if, once abroad, a person succeeds in pressuring his spouse to agree to revise the contract, he must pressure his and her living parents to agree to revise it too. Since even states that allow polygamy still recognize civil contracts, the contract would still be applicable abroad too. This stil would leave the loophole of a person simply marrying his first spouse abroad so as to circumvent this. And it is hard to not recognize a legal marriage contracted abroad no matter the age of the spouse. Again, that brings us back to international pressure to recognize a marriage not before the age of fifteen in all states along with required living parental consent until at least 22 if not even later if there is even a cap. Until that is done, there is no way to stop the loophole without causing more harm than good. We ought to recognize a legal marriage if it was legally contracted in the jurisdiction in which it was contracted. I like the Tunisian model to a degree. There, you cannot legally contract a polygamous marriage (though it does occur illegally just as it does in Toronto, but Tunisia also has fornication laws to deal with that), but it will acknowledge a polygamous marriage that is legaly contracted abroad. In short, it acknoledges the reality of what is and what is not within its reasonable control. In that sense, the EU might even want to partner up with Tunisia to promote the Tunisian model in more states. As more states adopt the Tunisian model, it would become ever more difficult to find a state that will allow the contracting of a polygamous marriage, yet a state will not break one apart once established. A nice balance there. Age is a seprate matter, but they are related in that the stem from the same problem: different jurisdictions recognize different marriage laws, yet once married, the marriage follows the couple to whatever jurisdiction he goes. For this reason, establishing an international standard of some kind is essential.

I have a solution everyone! Appoint me king. I'll decide the values.

Had Canada not banned French, German, and Hungarian, and never passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Indian Act, the Gradual Civilization Act, etc., most parts of Canada today would speak neither English nor French, exogamy rates would be higher than they are, and Canada would essentially be a multinational state with a few French pockets in Quebec and a few English ones in southern Canada.

Just to clarify on Bill 101, no, not all Quebecers, and not even all French Quebecers, agree with Bill 101. Take me for example, Yes, I agree with the principle of official monolingualism in the sense that Quebec ought to have only one official language of government administration, and maybe impose that on natural monopolies too, but that is about as far as I go. Bill 101 goes ten times farther in imposing itself on education and all but the smallest mom and pop shops. Consider the Conservative Party of Quebec too. It's views make even the PC Party in Ontario look authoritarian! It's mostly a very libertarian party in spite of its conservative name.

The ideal system exploits the strengths of a monarchy and those of a republic. While we can graft a republic onto a monarchy, we cannot so easily graft a monarchy into a republic. The Commonwealth might be able to establish an elective monarchy for example. An international monarch also presents some international advantages.

Harper was weak on the economy no doubt, but in comparative terms, he still did better on the economic front. On immigration, foreign policy, citizenship, and identity, he came across as hyper-authoritatian.

One solution that I could see would be the following: 1. Parliament is elected by the population of the state. 2. The Senate is elected by each nation. This means that English Canada would elect one senator, French Canada one senator, and each indigenous people one senator. One additional senator would represent the Deaf community and one all other communities. 3. Either house can abrogate laws that had been adopted prior to this system, but not any law that is adopted after it. 4. Each house need a simple majority with no vote against for a law to pass. Such a system would allow either house to abrogate past colonial laws, but adopting new laws would be extremely difficult. This would promote a comparatively libertarian system overall, with any law being one that would require significant consensus for it to pass.

I did not blame the ageof enlightenment for the oppression of minorities, but rather that it did not prevent such oppression.

Is the Queen Canadian? What does that have to do with anything. She's the Queen of Canada. People are people.

That is not waht I said. You seemed to suggest that the Age of Enlightenment solved all problems, so I pointed out that was not the case. I might have misunderstood you. Fair enough.

And on the point about federalism, though it is true that we can't blame federalism per se for the oppression of indigenous and French people, we can blame official bilingualism to a degree. Like I said, the excesses of Bill 101 aside, Quebec's policy of official unilingualism is preferable to the federral policy of official bilingualism.

I'm not necessarily criticising the age of enlightenment, but rather what appeared to be your rationale against monarchy. I was just pointing out that neither side is perfect.

I think Harper's words were his worst enemy. In many cases, even when I agreed with his policy, I cringed at his verbal attacks against the opposition. He always semed to have a battle or war mentality against the other parties. If you compare with Trudeau, even when I disagree with his policies and his words are fluff, he still knows how to choose his words to come across as friendlier and more consiliatory. I think the Conservatives can learn from that. Combine good policy with kind words, and the Conservative Party can go far. Oh, and drop the identity politics, please. The Conservative strength is on the economy, not on how someone dresses at a citizenship ceremony. And consistency. Free trade requires more immigration. The two go hand in hand. So it's important to have more open borders to make a free economy flourish. Again, it comes back to ethnic identity politics. Ideally, Canada should become one big Hong Kong with open borders.

Taxme, don't confuse the official language of government administration with the legal impositio of the official language on businesses. I agree Bill 101 goes way too far. But to make Quebec bilingual would be even worse. Here's why: Under QUebec's official unilingualism, any person who knows French can access employment in the government of Quebec, whether he is unilingual Frech, a French-LSQ bilingual, a French-Innu bilingual, a French-Arabic bilingual, etc. Under federal official bilingualism, only the Anglo-French bilingual can access federal employment. A person can be quadrilingual, but if he does not know English and French specifically, he's out of luck. In that sense, official unilingualism is more just and equitable than official bilingualism. In that same sense, gatineau's policy of official unilingualism is more inclusive than Ottawa's policy of practical bilingualism.

The French age of enlightenemnt might not be a good idea, Benz. Consider how the Basques, the Bretons, the Occitannais, etc. have been oppressed since. Even at the time of Georges Pompidou in the 70's, he took an extremely negative view of France's indigenous languages other than French. Schools in Breton put up sings saying: No spitting or talking Breton. Only in more recent years has the French government toned down its attacks, but even then it had little to do with Republicanism. It had to do with EU human rights laws and EU criticism of France.