Evening Star

Yeah, me too. I'm fine with funding addiction treatment but I don't see why all of this potential revenue needs to earmarked specifically for this purpose.

I am open to the idea of covering dieticians and massage therapists (as well as mental health counsellors and physiotherapists), actually. These can sometimes be more effective and possibly ultimately less costly than MDs for a lot of lower-level health issues.

This is not in their current platform. There is a vague statement about funding 'alternative' therapies that are less expensive or invasive but nothing more than that. May has said that homeopathy was only mentioned in an earlier platform because of an 'error'. They do seem to have accepted a resolution in opposition to water fluoridation, which is a bit troubling.

I only voted "no" because I don't think this should be a requirement: [Edited to highlight quote]

Um, aren't you planning to vote Green yourself?

Why? I'd probably trust Agriculture Canada with genetic engineering research more than multi-national corporations.

They go further than that. From their policy book: Labelling and and a certain level of caution seem sensible enough but outright banning new experimentation seems pretty wrong. It's one of my issues with them. I might still vote for them, though.

So why is there this difference? How could we strengthen caucuses in Canada?

I mean, the Libs managed to dominate Canada in the 20th century in a FPTP system anyway, so Edit: + STV might strengthen MPs and weaken the power of party leaders, which I would favour.

Yeah, that's a point in favour of the Greens imo.

I'm not sure what you're on about but I like you, generally, so I'll refrain from shooting back. I just thought that the Liberals would be the most likely 'second choice' for either Conservative or NDP voters, which would help them out in a ranked/preferential voting system. "Guarantee until Kingdom Come" was meant to be obvious hyperbole. I don't think that's that radical of a suggestion (and centre parties usually do well in STV systems such as Ireland's, I thought?). Even if the CPC and NDP were to splinter as ToadBrother suggests, I'm not sure that would negate this effect THAT much.

Yeah, I agree about MMP: it seems like a mess to have two sets of MPs that are elected through totally different means who will have similar powers. Ranked voting would basically guarantee Liberal governments until Kingdom Come, right?

I mean, in 1993, the Greens were definitely to the right of the NDP.

I've read their policy book and watched May in debate and I'm not sure this is true in 2015. On what issues is this the case? They are also in favour of raising corporate taxes, are at least as willing to go after offshore tax havens, are more open to returning to borrowing from the Bank of Canada, are more sceptical of free trade deals, are less obsessed with balanced budgets, are more anti-war. Honestly, I'm not sure the Greens were ever to the right of the Liberals.

So where is the line? If he had an NDP sign on his lawn, would you object? He would be promoting a competitor to the current government. What about the scientists who attended this rally?: http://globalnews.ca/news/843344/scientists-across-canada-rally-to-protest-harper-government/Should they have all lost their jobs? What is the difference?

Yeah, I'm curious where the line is for the 'can't badmouth the boss' people. If I work for a music school, I may well lose my job for telling people to buy books somewhere else, even if they are cheaper. But we, even Conservative posters, are generally fine with public servants having signs on their lawn that promote an Opposition party. So we are all accepting of some difference between public servants and private sector workers in this regard. Where is the line, then? At which point is disciplinary action justified? Argus has given his interpretation of where the line is in #10 but that still seems a bit fuzzy and quite open to interpretation. Do others see it the same way? Setting the line at "where it interferes with his ability to do his job" seems clear enough.

That's fair.

That article was already linked here, and I responded in post #22, explaining why I think the article contains very little to no objectively verifiable information or rational discussion.

I didn't read the other thread, and you didn't give a cite here, but I just read two articles on UC Berkeley's microaggressions guidelines: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/22/the-university-of-california-s-insane-speech-police.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-microaggression-what-not-to-say-at-uc-20150624-story.html and looked at the guidelines themselves: http://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/seminars/Tool_Recognizing_Microaggressions.pdf While I don't agree with some of what is there, even articles that are critical of the guidelines make clear that these are requests, not policies backed up with the potential for disciplinary action. The guidelines were supplemental material provided at non-mandatory workshops for deans and department heads. So, yes, it does seem like a different situation.

Also this:

This was your claim: Can you support this claim by giving an example of a professor who has faced disciplinary action for doing this or even an example of a university that has this policy on the books? I am not going to dig through other threads to find it. Can you provide a cite here?

Tbf, it's not COMPLETELY unrelated. He does critique government science policy in a broad sense in the song.

Probably not, because "Canada's efforts are a waste of time" doesn't sound like a scientific conclusion as much as a political opinion. If people who are publishing actual scientific findings are being suppressed because the findings "add to the pressure on [the government] to do something about global warming", then I would see that as exceptional interference. But sure, if an Environment Canada scientist published a paper showing that global emissions were rising even after Canada's were reduced and the scientist were muzzled or his unit lost his funding, I would be among the first to oppose that.

Yeah, this makes sense. I agree that this sort of action is not a smooth career move, which is probably why it was undertaken by someone who was close to retirement. However, official measures were taken here, which seem like they need to be backed up by official policy.