Archanfel

So people are angry with Isarel for building a few settlements, whereas Canada is building office towers in a city called Toronto. Ironic, isn't it? In fact, while there are plenty of evidences that Israelis lived in the city of peace thousands of years ago, is there any evidence that it was the Europeans who first settled in Canada? The history of the world is not people making friends. You had better weapons, and you massacred them. End of story.

Oh, great idea. Let's see how that will play out. Let's say a region has a lot of trees. A company can just come in and say I will give each one of you a million dollar to let me cut all of them down. Sure, it will cause huge environmental problems, not only for the region but for all theirs neighbours, not to mentions global warming for everybody else. Do you think the local population will care? They will just take the money and move to Florida. That's assume the company was very ethical and didn't just bribe the government officials. How about labour resource? Surely a local government can handle that? Well, guess what, any local government with stingy labour laws and high minimum wages will quickly lose businesses. Before long, you will see thousands of municipalities competing for sweat shops. Even the federal government is sometimes at a disadvantage against multiple nationals, you hope a local government can effectively stand up to them? See what Walmart did? They just closed shops in any towns where a union was formed. And that's a service company that has to be local. Manufacture and technology companies will just move to China and even the Canadian government can't do a damn thing without protectionism. Unfortunately, protectionism does not work that well when you are small. With greater power comes greater responsibilities. If you want a total free market without any regulation (i.e. the government has absolutely no power), that's fine by me. It will be brutal for many people, but the market eventually will balance out. But you can not ask for power without taking up the responsibilities.

Why abolish the CMHC if it's sound business? The government typically have longer investment horizon than private corporations, therefore, crown corporation does have certain competitive advantages. There's no reason why CMHC can't make money for the Canadian tax payers if it's run as a business.

That's why no matter what the intent, government policies are almost never fair. It will be best for the government to simple butt out. If university education can improve future earnings, then the banks would have no problem providing student loans, albeit with unsecured interest rates. In the mean time, billions dollar can be used to reduce tax burden.

Maybe because we want to do business with China? And a $1000 aid might allow us to sign a $10 million contract? Any decisions on aids should not be ideological. The only question we should ask is whether it will benefit Canadian interests. Having said that, I'd rather the aid came from "donations" from businesses who would benefit. If no business is willing to donate, then maybe the benefit is not there.

"I just can't take all this mamby-pamby boo-hooing about the bloody Indians! You won! Alright? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That's what conquering nations do. It's what Caesar did and he's not going around saying "I came, I conquered, I feel really bad about it." The history of the world is not people making friends - you had better weapons and you massacred them. End of story." -- Spike

Why do people worry about tuition debts anyway? If you found a good job and lived frugally, you should be able to pay off $30,000 in no time. You made a personal choice to go to university, why should somebody else pick up the tab?

Very true, not that the Canadian government is doing that. A fiscal conservative government should not intefere with the market, either by helping human beings, or by favouring certain corporations. Therefore, no regulation, no bail outs, no taxes, totally free market. Unfortunately, in general, most individuals will not be able to fight large corporations without the government's help, at least not in the short term, so I am not sure that's what people want. What people want is to put all the burdens on the corporations, yet don't bail them out. Actually, people want the bail out too, they just don't want to acknowledge that.

Why should the government pay for everything? Being social liberal means the government should butt out people's lives, that including stop paying for people's lives. Liberalism should not be the same as, and I dare say should be the opposite to, progressiveness.

What if I want: Gut the military and stop sending young people to die overseas. Stop recognizing natives. All people should be treated equal. Start hanging with dictators again as long as there are money to be made for Canadians (when did we stop?) Open up immigration to everyone with skills, stop accepting refugees. Pipelines Stop attacking same sex marriage and abortion, gradually remove government from personal businesses. I guess that's a pipe dream in Canada. Harper, Trudeau, they all want a bigger government. They just can't agree on how to interfere with people's lives.

Last time I checked, the town of Markham hasn't changed the law, has it?

What's a "Christian pagan"? Can a Christian be a pagan?

Not sure what they are complaining about. If they don't think the education is worth the money, just don't go to school. Nobody is forcing them.

Things will not be lovely. Nature didn't select the "lovely" species to survive. Nature selected the most adaptive species. We do not live in a "lovely" world. That only exists in the children's books. No, the beautiful princess and the handsome prince will not live happily ever after. Sorry to burst your bubble. Also, you conveniently omitted my assertion that things might get worse "in the short term". Changes are always painful, but they are necessary. Instead of generalize all inequality to be bad, we need to see which ones are good for changes and which ones are bad. Yes, it's good to have lower crime rates, longer life expectancies and all those things (I don't think mental illness is easily comparable). The question is whether you are really making the society more adaptive to achieve those things in the long term or you are just relocating resources for a temporary fix and jeopardize the competitiveness of the society. For example, making sure higher educations are accessible to everybody, that's important. Subsidizing failing industries, probably does more damage than good.

And what makes you think the "well-being" of the citizens equals the well-being of the society as a whole? Yes, inequality will increase all those thing in the short term. However, if inequality encourages competition, innovation and productivity (not a given depends on the inequality), society's chance of survival will ultimate improve. And I don't believe the GNI has hit some sort of ceilings that our lives would not improve anymore. In fact, life for people with higher education (rather than just 1%) has improved a lot over the 70s due to globalization despite income inequality worsening.

So it was a rhetoric question after all. Why do you bother posting it as a question when you already made up your mind?

Why should they be the leaders and caretakers of society? Just because they are rich? And who said investing is not working?

I never said disparity in health problems is not inequality. However, my point is inequality is necessarily good or bad. As long as there are competition for resources, there will be inequality. The question is whether inequality hurt societies or not. And to figure that out, you will have to define what does "hurting societies" mean. I also don't know why you want to limit discussion to "developed" nations. The very concept is not well defined and the list is constantly changing (I would say China was once developed). Is Greece a developed nation? Probably yes. Is it stronger than China? Probably no. Unless of course it was a rhetoric question in the first place and you just want to preach something.

It really depends on what you mean by hurting societies. Does food inequality really hurt a species? Probably not. Do they cause more health issues (more like death issues)? Probably do. Take China as an example, there's no doubt their reforms over the last 30 years greatly widened income inequality among ordinary citizens (the chairman is rich even in North Korea). Is China a stronger society? Absolutely. Are lives better for the Chinese? Well, depends. Poor urban population probably do have more health and social issues. Things are not always clearly good or bad either. For example, unemployeement causes all kinds of social issues. However, it also allows the labour force to realign with the ever changing economy.

Do you guys really think this legislation will be effective or is this another feel good exercise?

Are you sure that driving under the influence does not cover Marijuana usage? Do you have any statistics showing that people using medical Marijuana are not a problem? Are you sure they do not incur costs on our public health system? Are they good taxpayers that contribute their fair share into our society? You can understand why I am a little skeptical when a bus driver in possession of marijuana just killed a bunch of people in Toronto. I am not against legalizing marijuana, but I am not willing to say it's harmless without some solid evidences.

It should as long as it's profitable for them. The readers, on the other hand, should take their words with a grain of salt. I would actually recommend that to readers of any news agency or commentators.

There's no question that Rob Ford is not the most polished talkers. That's why you can easily tell when he was lying during the election. Black Dog seems to think the entire population fell for his lies, I think Torontonians are smarter than that. What do you think? Do you think most people in the city are ideological, selfish, ignorant or gullible?

I will be surprised if this expands to China anytime soon. In the meantime, as long as you are buying Chinese products, you are funding a booming economy that increased the demand for shark fins and other endangered animal products. Therefore, as I said, this is nothing more than a feel good exercise to score some political points. The only way to save the sharks (assuming that's the goal here, not you feeling better) is to work with the Chinese to either lower the demand or provide an alternative supply. It doesn't even need to be shark fin, as long as it's close enough, you can flood the market with counterfeit. Yes, it will not be as flashy or even morally correct as a politician announcing we are shark fin free (not), but it will be far more effective in saving sharks. Again, assuming that's the goal here.

Sorry, not going to do the leg works for you this time. You made the assertion that ridership AND revenue will drop, I didn't. I'd like to hear your reasons to see whether this is another mere "suggestion" or something you are actually willing to stand behind. You might also want to consider the cost of running a motor vehicle and how much does TTC fare has to rise to make driving economical. I have no problem if people decided to walk or bike instead of taking the TTC. Those are far better for the environment and good exercises too. I am not too worried about capital projects. TTC used to be profitable and had no problem covering its expansion. If TTC can stand on its own, then capital projects can be funded by credits over many years like every other companies would do. They can even be funded by taxpayers with the understanding that these new projects will eventually be profitable and taxpayers will get their money back. Finally, despite the half hearted effort by Rob Ford, I do believe the TTC can drive alternative revenues. The profitable Hong Kong transit takes a lot of money in from real estate development.