Machjo

I find the most irritating parts of the Charter are those pertaining to the separate school system and official bilingualism, both of which are remnants of the beliefs if the pre-reconciliation era and both rooted in the idea of 'two founding races.'

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a very flawed document; but after seeing the the kind of laws governments can try to pass, even a severely flawed human rights declaration like the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is still far preferable to no protection at all.

On the flip side, she seems sympathetic towards deregulating the indigenous cultural industry, though even she admits that her ideas on this go further than her party's position on indigenous issues, meaning that if she won, she could find herself promoting this without the backing of her party.

That's one concern I have about the BQ: it can be just as xenophobic as the CPC. But then again, the Greens and the LPC and the NDP each have their own problems too unless you happen to have a really competent local candidate from any of these parties. I guess in the end, it really does come down to the character of the local candidate in each riding. And yes, my local BQ candidate's has exhibited traces if anglophobes which I must consider in my decision. I'm still trying to determine whether her character strengths outweigh any character flaw of hers.

I found her answer on her Facebook page. She opposes any Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement if it means abandoning the supply-management system. That said, Harper is promissing to protect it too. So on that front, Harper and my BQ candidate are on the same page but disagree with me. Trudeau and Mulcair likely agree with Harper on this too. So clearly supply-management policy won't help to distinguish candidates in any way except the Libertarian Party which has no candidate in my riding. So going back to public media funding and packaging and labeling language laws and allowing monolingual Federal services, the BQ is clearly more free-market and small-government oriented than the CPC.

The CBSA decided to appeal the IRB's recent decision in our favour. I have nothing against that per se. Sometimes there could be concerns about the IRB hearings officer's objectivity, competence, or even trustworthiness if corruption is suspected. Fair enough. However, what happens when a CBSA officer, knowing full well that he will lose the appeal, decides to waste even more taxpayer money on an appeal with the intent of wielding the appeals process as a weapon of harassment and revenge for having dared to challenge the CBSA's power? How do we find a balance between allowing the CBSA to appeal a decision on the one hand but not waate countless taxpayer dollars to wield it as a personal weapon of harassment and revenge on the other? I believe that one possible solution would be to allow a CBSA officer to appeal if he wants to but, should he lose the appeal, force him to reimburse the taxpayers dollar for dollar out of his personal income for the entire cost of the appeal process. This would ensure that, if the reason for the appeal is legitimate, he'll have nothing to fear; but if he's thinking of wasting countless tax dollars to just wield it as a weapon of personal revenge and harassment for having dared to challenge his power, he might then want to reconsider. Such a policy would certainly save the taxpayer at least thousands of dollars in legal fees and protect foreign tourists from CBSA harassment through the legal process. Another point has to do with prioritization of resources. In our case, even if it were found that she were working in Canada without a visa, given that as a tourist she has to leave Canada within six months of her arrival date either way, is an appeal really worth all the tax money involved when at worst she would be deported for two years max, and even that could be waved for special reasons such as marriage (for which we have January in mind)? Would it be wise to disallow the CBSA to appeal a decision on a non-criminal charge against someone in Canada on a tourist status? I'd be hesitant to do so sinse again there might sometimes be legitimate reasons to do so; but again we want to be sure that a CBSA officer can't use it for a personal vendetta. So maybe we shouldn't disallow it but just treat it as above again mainly to ensure that taxpayer-funded appeals are legitimate. Your thoughts on such a reform of the appeals process?

Unbelievable waste of taxpayers' money! The CBSA decided to appeal the IRB's decision in our favour!

For all the poorly-thought-out laws for which he's voted, he's not giving any farm away. He just supports more consumer choice, albeit in only some domains unfortunately.

Perhaps. Maybe I'll ask her that along with my CPC candidate (neither of whom is likely to win in my riding, but then again, I vote on principle, not strategically or for who will win). That said, even the CPC is only lukewarm to dismantling it if I understand correctly, which would bring us back to the Libertarian Party candidate if there were one in my riding.

Though the Libertarian Party's likely position of simply cutting public media funding would be the most free-market-oriented policy on the matter, the second-most free-market-oriented policy on the matter would be to at least give us more say in how public funding is directed by converting it to a voucher program as my local BQ candidate is proposing. The CPC's position might follow in third place by showing interest for neither eliminating funding nor converting it to a voucher program. The other parties would follow after that for wanting to increase funding without giving us a say in how it's spent. So all in all, my local BQ candidate still ranks up there on this point. As for deregulating packaging and labeling language rules, again my local BQ candidate is the only one who's shown interest, and this could increase consumer choice on the market by allowing monolingually English-labelled and French-labelled imports into the Canadian market. As for deregulating Québec's dairy farms for trade agreements, I support that in principle; but given that I'm vegan anyway, it's not a major concern for me. That said, given that my riding is mostly urban and that my local BQ candidate is so free-market-oriented on these other points, I have a hard time imagining her being particularly protectionist over dairy products.

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/ottawa/sick-husband-assaulted-by-cornwall-ont-border-officials-woman-says-1.3244240 Given that in the last few years a few people have died at the hands of CBSA officers or in CBSA custody, that in the last year a Briton was arrested, detained and deported for 'working illegally in Canada' for helping his Canadian girlfriend build a DIY patio, that the CBSA has had tense relations at the Cornwall crossing with the nearby Mohawk community, that I myself have witnessed the CBSA detain someone for deportation without having made the least effort to look at even the most basic proof that it could have uncovered with a few simple questions (and which was uncovered at an IRB hearing at high cost to me and the taxpayer with the conclusion being that on a balance of probabilities she was neither working nor studying in Canada and that the CBSA failed to meet its burden), and now this, isn't it time that the CBSA get some kind of oversight or at least introduce better hiring practices or training program for its officers?

No link. I got this from personal e-mail exchanges between myself and my local candidates. My local BQ candidate's position on some points is not her party's position, though it doesn't contradict her party either, the party's platform itself being so meagre. She did say though that she liked the idea of media vouchers and not necessarily requiring both English and French on packaging and labeling and would pass the ideas on to her party and has already decided to support them in Parliament herself. I can only guess that either the BQ gives its candidates significant leeway like the Reform Party used to do or my local BQ candidate is somewhat rebellious. She is only 22 years old, so perhaps more idealist, but definitely very free-market when it comes to public media funding and packaging and labeling language requirements. Not as much as the Libertarian Party (which would likely at least reduce media funding), but converting public media funding into media vouchers and loosening language requirements for packaging and labeling is still more free-market than the CPC on these matters. My local CPC candidate is not particularly gung ho about reducing media funding nor converting it to vouchers, happy to just keep it more or less as is, and he's not interested in deregulating packaging and labeling language rules in the least either. Again, much of this might be unique to my local candidates and might not necessarily apply to other ridings, so before voting for your local BQ candidate just because no competent Libertarian candidate is available in your local riding, you might want to ask him some questions first to be sure that your local BQ candidate is equally free-market oriented as mine., not to mention that there may be a competent Libertarian candidate in your riding as a better alternative.

Most Canadians reject vegan ism too. Do SHOUTcast We Ban That too? Most Canadians probably reject curry, should we ban that too?

The BQ the most free-market-oriented major party in Quebec aside from the Libertarian Party? To my recent surprise, my local BQ candidate expressed support for adopting a public-media voucher programme so as to allow people to subscribe to the media of their choice within reasonable parameters, and also supports loosening linguistic requirements on packaging and labeling. Of course this is coming from a local BQ candidate and not her party, so her colleagues in her party might not agree with her, but for ridings without a Libertarian Party candidate, it seems promissing. Combine that with the BQ's position on official bilingualism, and my local BQ candidate is more free-market oriented than any CPC candidate that I know. The only thing that really irritates me about the BQ is its position on the niqab, but if I'm lucky my local BQ candidate might not be too committed to her party's position on the niqab either. I'm still awaiting a confirmation of that from her. One drawback for my BQ candidate is that I live in an extremely federalist riding, meaning that few would vote for her and even among those that do vote for her, most of them would likely be federalists voting for her not because of her views on sovereignty but because of her policy position on other matters. I myself would fall into that category, essentially voting for her on principle knowing full well she has little chance of winning.

The rationale behind banning the niqab? As far as I can tell, the rationale behind abrogating the freedom of a woman to wear the niqab is to expand her freedom. What I don't understand is how do we advance women's freedom by further restricting women's freedom? It seems irrational to me.

How a common labour agreement could benefit Canada. If I wanted to start a company requiring highly specialized staff, the EU might be my first choice due to its assign pool of well-educated workers to which I have easy access without having to go through the bureaucratic hoops of getting a work visa for someone. The US might be my second choice due to its large educated labour market. Canada would be low on my list of choices due to its smaller population. Bring in a common labour market agreement and Canada is not so attractive anymore. Even assuming that most of the staff are foreign, even the most high-tech companies hire janitors, cleaners, cooks, servers, drivers, and other more common workers who would not have had a job had the company not settled there. Even without that foreign staff that would otherwise have been paying its taxes and shopping abroad would now be doing it here. That extra tax revenue could go towards educating the unemployed, money the government does not now have. Preventing foreign nationals from working in Canada will not increase the chance of a Canadian janitor being promoted to head physician or physicist for example. As for the worry that such an agreement could also make it easier for qualified Canadians to leave Canada, it's still preferable that such Canadians prosper abroad than collect social assistance in Canada. Sometimes it just happens that the skills don't match the jobs, so a common labour market is mutually beneficial to all countries involved. This would also increase the value of Canadian citizenship. After all, of what value is Canadian citizenship if it allows one to work only in Canada.

If the problem is lack of education and you prevent educated foreigners from taking those jobs, the jobs themselves will just move to where the qualified workers are and potentially taking some unskilled jobs with them. How will that help unskilled workers?

There is plenty of work in Canada. The problem is education. The unemployed don't have the skills to access the available jobs.

She's quite self-sufficient.

Elect a coalition government with the Libertarian Party in the mix and you might see it. Even a majority CPC government didn't entertain it. You want more immigration and higher birth rates (and presumably less emigration), you have to actually make Canada attractive to foreign nationals. Take Hong Kong for example. Few Hongkongese would entertain living in Canada except for the sake of a close Canadian friend or family member who can't move to Hong Kong for one reason or another. My fiancée is a prime example. She refuses to live in Canada for more than three years. Though she'll be able to earn money in Canada, she could earn just as much in Hong Kong. She prefers the food, weather, cultural diversity, and communications and transportation infrastructure of Hong Kong along with its more open market including in healthcare and education. She also feels more comfortable in Hong Kong with much fewer people living in the streets than in Canada. Her only motive for having agreed to stay in Canada is for my parents' sake to give them the chance to adapt. The only two things she prefers in Canada are housing prices and the cleaner air. That's it. So if you want to attract such a person to Canada, you must open Canada's markets a little more. You must understand too that such a person won't care much for Canadian citizenship except for the purpose of being evacuated together with er husband and child from a foreign country in an emergency, nothing else. Heck, even I have preferred Hong Kong for many years but was emotionally held back by my relationship to my parents. My relationship (which actually developed quite by accident initially) with a Hongkongese is all it took to make me decide to move there when she wants to. With all of that in mind, establishing a common labour market might help to attract more people from wealthier places too.

A common labour market would help greatly. It would give foreign nationals the right to work in Canada before giving them any other rights. This would give them the chance to prove themselves first. I would also propose producing a separate citizenship for immigrants, whereby they would pay less in taxes but have no right to social services except to permanent deportation. This would effectively eliminate any concern over them becoming a burden to taxpayers. One exception might be to protect the right of a Canadian child to his foreign parent in the case of mixed marriages.

Another way to increase the population: allow a European-style two-tiered health care system. Many foreign nationals are used to the idea of paying for health care in their own home town and not need to cross the border into another country to do so as we do in Canada.

I think another problem is that talk of the need to increase the birth rate is often coded language for the need to increase the ethnically Angli-French birth rate in a bid to counterbalance indigenous and other minority ethnic birth rates.

If there there is no good option, then what does it matter?

If there there is no good option, then what does it matter?