Scotty

And yet, very clearly, vast numbers of immigrants from China and the Middle East are performing very poorly vs those from Europe. In fact, they are only half as successful. And you feel this shouldn't be taken into consideration at all? Do you commonly buy products that are only half as good as others even though they're the same price, stubbornly insisting that just because they have a much higher failure rate, on average, that doesn't mean THIS one will? No one has suggested policies based on cultural or ethnic bigotry. Instead I've suggested policies based on proven economic performance. I can buy ACME spark plugs or BES spark-plugs. They cost exactly the same. However, I've noticed that a lot of the BES spark-plugs fail pretty quickly. In fact, they seem, on average, to only last half as long as the ones from ACME. Notwithstanding the fact SOME BES spark-plugs perform quite well, wouldn't my knowledge guide me to buy ACME and not BES spark-plugs?

You have lower taxes, I suppose, but do you get to keep more once you've paid your health care bills, then put money into your 401k, and paid for your kid's very expensive education (unless they go to public school)? I think not. Not to mention income is higher to begin with. Let's not even discuss the absolute minimum 5 week vacation you'll get in Sweden vs --- what is the minimum required paid vacation in the US again? Oh right - NOTHING. He just has to worry about thuggery and intimidation by unprincipled management, right? Now which group is likely to be treating the workers worse, their own union, or management?

Actually, there is no category for "western Africa" or "southern Africa". You are probably thinking of the "Other Africa" category. And while I'm not sure what geographic zone the bulk of those immigrants represent (I suspect most are from South Africa) I'd agree that we should be taking more people from there than from those areas which do more poorly.

On what do you base that thought? Isn't immigration intended to help Canada's economy? People who come here and make very low wages don't pay much, if any taxes. People who come here and prosper pay much more in taxes. Where is your argument?

On first glance it seems rather appalling behaviour. But also inexplicable. Why should people protest at what is merely a fund raiser for homelessness, hmm? Upon a little research it seems that this group has held meetings at the community center a number o times and never drawn any protests. So what was different this time? Apparently, it was the presence of a couple of keynote speakers, one of whom was listed as a co-conspirator in the 911 bombings by a US attorney, the other of whom was an Islamic activist who has spoken of his support for Hezbollah and Hamas. So this wasn't simply a case of a bunch of bigots showing up because they knew Muslims would be holding a fund raiser.

Let's be honest and admit the reason for such rules is that certain employers would like nothing better than to rid themselves of more senior employees on a continuing basis, regardless of the enterprise' profitability, specifically because they earn more and have better benefits. A collective agreement which guarantees you an extra week vacation once you've been there ten years is of limited utility if the employer fires everyone after nine years and eleven months. That's really beside the point. You and I both know that if we had a streamlined, simplified system most of these criminal cases would be dealt with in a few minutes of a judge's time. Instead they take months, even years, to wind their way through the system. That's not because of the client's lawyer but because of the immense complexity of the system.

There was an article in the Post the other day about how hard economic times are causing a lot of young, educated Irish to want to emigrate again. The outlook in a number of other European nations is even worse than Ireland's. This offers up the opportunity for Canada to redirect its immigration towards nations which tend to produce more economically successful immigrants. Studies have shown that immigrants from Europe are twice as economically successful as immigrants from Asia or the Middle East, for example. Recent Immigrant Performance By Source Area Should Canada take such statistics into account when considering where to direct is immigration recruitment?

I would say the opposition has established a pattern for grasping at trivial matters and trying to apply enough oil and fire to catch someone's passing attention - and failing. Maybe they ought to try substance presuming, of course, there's any among them which have any.

And I'm still waiting to hear from the anti-union people about how workers in RTW states have things so much better than their counterparts in Scandinavia or Germany.

If it is difficult to dismiss a worker for cause it's not because of the union, but rather, because of the immensely complex policy framework developed and administered by the employer and his HR department. As a comparison, if an obviously guilty person is set free by the court, do you blame his lawyer, or the immense complexity of the legal system and it's often arcane and byzantine rules and procedures?

Really? Please tell us about these amazing benefits and pensions.

If it was 'nakedly crooked' would the first judge have agreed it was perfectly legal? Sounds to me like its highly technical, and that they had strong legal opinions it was entirely legal.

. I've never really understood why people think that just because they don't have enough knowledge to discuss a subject they can substitute childish insults and then 'interpret' what the discussion is about in order to feel they have 'won'. Does it give you some sort of inner satisfaction?

I disagree. The one to Americans and Iranians is entirely theoretical and philosophical. The one to the Muslims in Canada is far more specific. We know what the Toronto 18 did and planned, and we know why. The other is completely open. Are attacks against civilians always wrong? The Americans did that in WW2 against the Japanese, and arguably against the Germans, as well. Most Americans would be aware of this.

Other than Charley Sheen, most of us work for someone.

Did they? The unemployment rate in New York is lower than that of Mississippi. Florida is up around 12%. Please examine the numbers and show me the correlation between RTW states and unemployment. I don't seem to see one. Unemployment by state Germany seems to be doing quite a bit better than the US economically, with less debt, and yet their working people appear to enjoy unheard of benefits as compared to their sweatshop employed American allies. Why is that? Germany's deficit is 3.3% of GDP while American's is over 10% of GDP Free to be poor and beaten down, you mean? Yes, so many people want that freedom. And I don't mind them having it but the problem is they insist everyone else share that 'freedom' with them. Which is how you get a bunch of poor, beaten down people looking resentfully at public service workers and saying "Hey! They have vacations! They get sick leave! They get more than minimum wage! That's not right! They should get treated like crap like I am!" Sorry. No sympathies for that viewpoint.

But he has to do that anyway, wait or not. That's not an apt comparison. When I go to Rogers I wait very little time, or no time. People come in, and get taken care of all day long, generally without much waiting. I think we can all understand that when a bus hits a train there's going to be a sudden, unexpected flood of injuries into the ER, causing our wait to be extended. However, on any given night I bet the ER knows exactly how many patients are going to be coming in, and probably has the stats to show what will be their likely complaints, and can allocate the resources to take care of them in a reasonable period of time. Other jurisdictions do so.

You'd be mistaken.

Wearing the hijab in public in Iran is not a matter of choice, but of law. Any woman caught not wearing it would be arrested, beaten and imprisoned. In Canada, wearing the hijab is a matter of choice. It is a statement with regard to ones dedication to certain religious and cultural ideals.

The problem with that sort of question is how broad an interpretation one can place on it. There are a whole world of possibilities and circumstances that ones imagination can raise which would allow for the possibility of saying 'yes'. And the more sophisticated your mind, the more open to a variety of possibilities there are, the more likely you can see where it might be justified. However in the case of the Canadian poll, people were specifically asked about the Toronto 18, and 12% of Muslims sympathized with them and agreed with their aims, while 14% expressed support for other types of violent extremist causes. I'd also like to point out that the Koran forbids attacks on innocent civilians. However, as dedicated as the Muslim world is to Islam that seems to be a prohibition which is widely ignored in practice.

If by 'prejudices' you mean my 'prejudice' in a discussion about the economic performance of immigrants to bring in those immigrants who perform better economically, well then, guilty. I don't disagree. Which, by the way, is one reason why we should be concerned with the deteriorating economic circumstances of newcomers. As I pointed out, the Muslim immigrants in Europe who are expressing hostility towards their new 'homelands' tend to be in poor economic circumstances too. And as the link I placed in the above post indicates, immigrants from the middle east are among the worst performers, economically, of all immigrants.

No, it wouldn't be that tough. Basically you'd be reporting bad behavior as you come across it, and in addition, perhaps actually posting things like "Stop the insults please" on occasion. I already do the former anyway. Trust me, it's not difficult or time consuming.

Really? How large? I mean, in comparison to other large organizations and what the give their workers?

So you think only the Right To Work legislation is keeping the proud working man of Mississippi from sinking down to the level of those poor, abused Germans workers?

Why don't we, instead of arguing from personal experience compare the way the state and their employer treats the average citizen in the U.S. RTW states, like Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas with how the state and employers treat the average citizen in one of those nations groaning under the weight of incompetent socialist government and corrupt union representation, like Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, etc...