Argus
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Posts posted by Argus
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24 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:
Who is 'they' ? I missed something.
Germany?
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25 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:
And more on the Nursing Education backlog.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-nursing-schools-cant-accommodate-increase-in-demand-at-time-when/
Governments need to pay attention to this nuts and bolts stuff which doesn't get into the headlines until it's too late. Too much politics is devoted to stupid and vain "identity fights". I would also include in this the ridiculous transit issue in Toronto which results in nothing being built...
Germany used to be famously good at brokering education systems that produce knowledgable adults, trained individuals as well as post-secondary education for professionals and academics too.From what I understand they have a top notch medical system without the waits we have come to take as normal. They also have private hospitals and health care providers supplementing a robust public health system.
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34 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:
So this is 4 years old and would indicate that we're not short of doctors due to medical school graduate numbers being low.
https://meds.queensu.ca/ugme-blog/archives/3568
There are two things about this which come to mind. The first is that our universities accept and graduate a lot (I don't know how many) of foreign students whose tuition is paid for by their governments. Saudis, as one example. They have no intention of working in Canada, but they do take med school positions and they also take residency positions. This article doesn't seem to account for them. How many of these fulfil their residency requirements and then go home to Saudi Arabia or wherever?
The second is to wonder how many foreign grads are allowed. There are only 3300 residency positions and we get 2500 requests in addition to the 2900 graduates from our schools. So the blockage would seem to be the number of residency positions which are restricted. Although since this in turn restricts the number of med school positions it's a moot point.
We need more residency positions, obviously, but that too is something the governments are keeping down for cost saving purposes. I doubt, frankly, whether this really saves much money. I suspect it's a false saving in that it discourages people from getting prompt medical attention until things get so bad it's much more costly to treat.
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20 minutes ago, Boges said:
If the US is any indication. Low income, Low education, Low skill people actually do vote Conservative.
Actually, it's rural people who vote Republican. Religious people in particular, who are vulnerable to fearmongering and rabble rousing about gays, transgenders and abortion. And I wouldn't call Republicans conservatives or they'd have some interest in fiscal responsibility.
Although there's certainly something to be said about the effectiveness of the political indoctrination post-secondary students are subjected to and how that impacts their voting patterns. I wouldn't call people 'educated' though, just because they have a degree. I've met and dealt with too many blithering imbeciles with degrees. Most of our politicians have them, after all, including Trudeau.
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2 minutes ago, Boges said:
I'm ambivalent. Ultimately the market will decide.
This is a naked vote grab for the Ontario PCs.
It's unlikely to help many in the demographic which votes Tory.
2 minutes ago, Boges said:But the fact that wages are criminal inadequate compared to the price of housing does need to be addressed.
The high price of housing is due to the low supply, which in turn is due to incompetent local and provincial leadership which has allowed the proliferation of regulations and fees to deter the building and buying of the kinds of homes people want to live in and the supply of rental housing.
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10 minutes ago, Boges said:
I've heard this, apology for no cite, but the effective Minimum wage is about $17/hour in any place that's worth living.
Any job an adult would apply for is already paying more than $15/hour. This is much ado about nothing.
Then why do you support it? Especially given almost everyone holding these jobs lives at home with mom and dad?
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1 minute ago, Boges said:
Wages need to catch up to the cost of living.
When we talk about entitlements, 30 or 40 years ago, people could actually live off a low skilled job. That's impossible now.
There was an article this week that it's actually impossible for someone making $75k to buy a home in Toronto.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/you-make-75-000-per-year-will-you-ever-be-able-to-afford-a-toronto-house-1.5647845There are a variety of reasons for that, but paying service sector workers $15/hour is not one of them.
Then maybe Toronto should have its own minimum wage because basing everyone's economic rules around Toronto screws up the rest of the province.
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Interesting information on minimum wage workers. It seems that 92% do NOT live in low income households.
“The fact is most minimum wage earners are teenagers or young adults, under the age of 25, and many live with their parents,” said Ben Eisen, co-author of the study, “Who Earns the Minimum Wage in Canada?” by the fiscally conservative think tank.
For that demographic, minimum wage jobs are generally “a first step towards higher paid employment … younger minimum wage earners do not typically remain minimum wage workers for long; as they gain experience their salaries rise.”
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29 minutes ago, Boges said:
Well guess what? Paying South of $15/hour is also a major culprit in the labour shortage seen in the service sector.
So are government handouts and an entitlement culture.
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12 hours ago, Aristides said:
Engineering companies are.
Nobody is complaining about the shortage of gender studies grads, or social studies or other grads from the humanities, social studies or various grievance studies. Maybe we should stop funding those.
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18 minutes ago, Boges said:
The price of living has long since blown passed a scenario where $15 is even a livable wage.
In Toronto, maybe. But minimum wage jobs are primarily staffed by young people just starting out and still living at home anyway. Only 1% of minimum wage workers are over 25 in the US. Not sure of Canada since the huge number of refugees and immigrants might make the situation somewhat different.
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18 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:
They're increasingly insane there too..
The cost of living is a factor of what money people have. Raising the pay rate just raises the cost of living in a never ending cycle. All the stores and restaurants have to pay more so now they have to charge more. And that goes on up the line. You think the jobs that used to pay $15hr before the Liberals started their rapid pay raises are still making that? Of course not! They all had to go up by several dollars too.
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10 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:
I'd be interested in hearing more perspectives on this, but your take on it doesn't surprise me at all either
The thing to bear in mind is these high requirements aren't there because you can't do the job with lower marks. They're kept high to screen out all but the number of people they can accept for the positions they're allowed to offer. This is not a situation where they're allowed to increase the seats based on demand. Nor is medical school.
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In order to limit costs the provinces limit the number of people who can get into nursing and medical schools. We could be graduating far more doctors and nurses, but won't, because you practically need to be a genius even to get into nursing school. Never mind medical school.
Abby Poffenroth spent her high school years focused on one thing: becoming a nurse.
When she graduated this past spring with a 94 per cent average, Poffenroth never imagined she wouldn't make the cut for the program at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.
"I knew it was pretty competitive, but I didn't realize it was as competitive as it was until I got the letter saying I was not accepted," said Poffenroth, 18, who is from Antigonish.
"I had my mind so set on it.... I wasn't really thinking about any other options."
Nova Scotia's desperate need for nurses has some people questioning why the province doesn't simply train more people like Poffenroth, especially as those who are from the province are more likely to stay and work.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nursing-shortage-program-seats-1.6234226
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3 hours ago, Boges said:
In this climate, $15 is certainly the bare minimum you should be paying anyone in Ontario.
McDonalds already pays that.
Do you know what the cost are in Ontario outside major cities like Toronto and Ottawa?
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Ford keeps doing stuff he thinks will make him more popular with the Left. And it's working! Before this announcement they hated him with the white hot passion of a thousand blazing suns! Now they only hate him with the white hot passion of 999 blazing suns!
Meanwhile, the people who actually voted for him are not so happy, especially small businessmen.
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20 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:
They are a minority.
They are in charge and setting government policy.
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2 minutes ago, Greg said:
Yes, very much. It's the reason why Charles and I appreciate it when people correctly structure the opening post of any new thread - including a descriptive topic title, etc.
So the opening post also has a noticeable effect, and not just the title?
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Interesting.
I wonder if that's why "What i think about Donald Trump" has 730 views even though there's only 2 posts. I don't think we have very many active members so most of those must have found it via search engines.
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11 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:
That is an indictment of the education system. An accident in a nuclear power plant may injure a few people. With hydro-electric, a failure with the Columbia River Dams could injure thousands. Coal and oil powered energy, when used according to the manufacturer's instructions could cause a permian-like mass extinction.
Preaching to the converted, bud.
11 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:I confess to being naive. I could not imagine that when people had the opportunity to get vaccinated against Covid, some would not do it to save lives.
I was equally surprised, especially at the ferocity and stupidity of the resistance. Unfortunately, you have to acknowledge a lot of dumb/crazy people exist.
11 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:I cannot imagine that people faced with hundreds of millions of people dying for lack of energy, would jump at the chance to get nuclear power.
The Germans actually deactivated their nuclear power plants and built coal instead. Not making this up.
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8 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:
Just a few bleeding hearts. "Let'm bleed."
I would, of course, completely agree. Unfortunately, our governments do not.
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1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:
Sometimes, I feel like I am talking to a fence post. Oil and coal are not the only sources of energy.
And who has said otherwise?
1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:Western Canada is blessed with enormous riches in uranium. We are in a position to export reactors all over the world which means jobs all over Canada.
The same people who want to close down the oil and gas industry will fight like rabid pit bulls to stop any nuclear power plant being built in Canada. Can you remember the last time one went up? I can't. Decades ago, with none planned. Pretty much the same in the rest of the industrialized world.
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Would the names we give topics influence how likely they would be seen by search engines? By a significant degree?
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Our oil and gas sector accounts for approximately 26% of Canada's total, which itself is roughly 1.5% of world emissions. Basic math then says we're looking at about 0.35% of world CO2 emissions. Trudeau will hobble our economy in order and infuriate resource provinces in order to do little more than virtue signal.
Notably, world leaders clapped politely, but no one else made a similar offer. Other world oil gas and coal producers are ramping up production as world prices spike, eager to pull in billions and billions of dollars.
Trudeau will just borrow more money instead. And if Alberta and/or Saskatchewan wants to separate, well who cares, it's not like they're important anyway since they don't vote Liberal.
Canada will impose a hard cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
Calling the promise "a major commitment" that should inspire other resource-rich countries to dramatically curb their own emissions, Trudeau said Canada is prepared to limit the growth of one of the country's largest industries to help the world hold the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"We'll cap oil and gas sector emissions today and ensure they decrease tomorrow at a pace and scale needed to reach net-zero by 2050," Trudeau said during his two-minute speech in front of other world leaders gathered in Scotland.
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You wonder why we're short of nurses (and doctors)
in Provincial Politics in Canada
Posted
We do NOT have enough doctors. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who can't get a GP and you wouldn't have to wait for months and months to see any specialist or surgeon. We have a much lower number of doctors to population as compared to European countries.