Scotty

I didn't suggest this could be reversed. And we mostly have a service economy, so the low wages of Chinese don't enter into it. Wages began going down long before Chinese imports started going up, you know.

Has feminism benefited more than the very few? It was touted as the way to free women from the confines of their drudgery, to let them have fufilling careers and expand their world views. And for some few women it has done exactly that. We have women in ever profession now. But those are the few. Like men, what most women found in the workplace wasn't a career but a dull job with few prospects that was entirely unfulfilling. It allows a minorit of women to flourish while the rest simply exchanged one form of drudgery for another. This 'emancipation' however, came at a heavy cost. The law of supply and demand meant that the more workers society had the less individual value they had. Where a single wage earner used to be able to carry most families now two became necessary simply becase of that lowered value. What had been 'choice' now became necessity. In addition, divorces and familiy breakdowns skyrocketed and birth rates plummeted. Now the buses and subways are filled with tired, unhappy women every morning, heading off to their dull jobs while their kids are shoved into daycare. When they get home they have to rush to do all the chores they couldn't do during the day. Most of them can only dream about having the chance to stay home to look after their kids and all those chores.

That's neither reasonable nor even possible given the laws and reality. So we're faced with better training and monitoring.

That was what you read into his reply, not what the poster said. Your posts seem to have a similarity in that they heap vitriol and hatred on Americans. Someone with that much hatred and anger towards a particular group, someone who claims that the bombing of the WTC was justifiable self defense, that sort of person strikes me as someone who would support other terrorist actions against the United States. So answer the question.

Everyone has already looked at the evidence and overwhelmingly they have decided that the WTC was destroyed by aircraft not by controlled devices. As far as I'm aware no one of any stature or reputation believes otherwise. And most of those who do seem to believe in this theory, if you look at them, turn out to have more than a few screws loose.

You asked another poster a hypothetical based on what you saw in his statements. I'm asking you a hypothetical based on what I see in yours. So answer the question.

Here is a hypothetical for you, Omar. Based upon your daily postings, would you be willing to aid a terrorist group in killing Americans? Would you be willing to kill Americans yourself, or supply information to terrorists who would be willing to kill Americans?

I'm not afraid. I don't think any of us are taught, are trained to regard everyone we meet as a potential terrorist. We don't go about our lives or our jobs constantly wary in case someone's hand goes under their coat or into their pocket to draw out a gun and shoot us. I can't even imagine what that sort of daily anxiety would do to you.

So why don't we have that?

That's a flat out lie.

But they don't fill those two roles. People who want to be firefighters take paramedic training because it looks good on their resume. But they're not hired as paramedics and they are not given the equipment to make full use of those abilities, nor do they have the legal right to do so, ie injecting certain drugs for example (which they don't have anyway). They are not employed as paramedics. So that has had nothing to do with the increasing costs. Earlier in the thread it was pointed out that some jurisdictions in the US, at least, require all their cops to be paramedic trained, and fill dual roles. The trunks of their cars are loaded with paramedic gear, and they can get to health emergencies quickly. See the following video for an example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxlIAQj4IWY I think that's a great idea and we ought to do it here, too. But even filling dual roles we can't afford to pay all our cops and firefighters $100k per year.

Why was the first thread locked anyway? Yesterday, a cop who jumped up on a car hood in Cleveland and fired into the windshield at the two occupants was acquitted of all charges despite them being unarmed. More than a hundred shots were fired into the car by a dozen cops following a twenty five minute chase by over fifty police cars. The male and female occuapnts were shot about twenty times each. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/us/michael-brelo-cleveland-police-officer-acquitted-of-manslaughter-in-2012-deaths.html?_r=0 You can take his as just another example of trigger happy cops, but why are the cops so trigger happy? I believe police in the US are desperately afraid. I think they're trained and told that they have to assume every single person they encounter is armed, and dangerous and might be a killer. So they do. And any little move that startles them draws the risk of them drawing and shooting. This video is among the best at showing that hairtrigger response, where a cop shoots a man after he reaches into his car to get his papers after the cop asked him for his licence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXmVPxQGTsE People talk like this is a black and white issue but I think it was Kimmy in the last topic who pointed out it wasn't necessarily. It's just that the police have a lot of encounters with young black men. I wouldn't doubt, however, that they're more wary around them, given the violence in so many of those encounters. The number of police killed has actually gone down over the past generation or two. More cops were killed in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. And of the police killed, more were killed in car crashes or when hit by a car than by gunfire. But police paranoia seems to be at an all time high. http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html I think something needs to be done about police training, to begin with. Being aware of the possibility of being shot at is one thing, but being hyper afraid of it is another. I think the determination of police to keep themselves as safe as possible leads to incompetent policing and a military mindset that says it's 'us' against 'them'. Those RCMP clowns in Vancouver who tazered the Polish guy did so because that was what they were trained to do. After all, even with four of them, reaching and grabbing for the guy might lead to danger if he has a knife or something. The chances of any of them being seriously hurt, even if he had a knife were vanishingly small, but it looks to me like police want to stand off and do everything from a distance wherever possible, afraid of being hurt. And that makes for rotten policing. I also think society (in the US and Canada) needs to get over its Hollywood inspired worship of cops and stop excusing them from doing absolutely bone-headedly stupid things, even if they were 'afraid for their lives'. Because it looks to me like police are taught to be afraid for their lives every single moment of the day.

We can start with cutting their salaries. These are jobs which are in high demand and always have been. Fifty years ago young men lined up for the opportunity to apply to the fire and police services. They were blue collar jobs then but were seen as good solid professions for young men without a lot of education or family connections. They do not require any exceptional set of skills which are hard to find and don't require a lot of training. The training for a police officer or firefighter takes less time than for a hairdresser. Despite perceptions, they are not really that dangerous either. There is no reason to pay them $100,000 a year plus benefits. These high pay rates are bankrupting municipalities and taking money away from infrastructure and social services. I don't recommend amalgamation so much to save money as to make more efficient use of the resources we have. As you say, we have to have the fire coverage. We can't have fire halls twenty minutes away from fires. Every minute counts. But the competition to get into the fire service is so heavy that almost all applicants get paramedic certification. We have a shortage of paramedics and EMTs while qualified firefighters are washing their trucks and scrubbing the floors of their fire halls. Or sleeping. The 24 hour shift is incredibly wasteful. We pay firefighters while they're sleeping, showering, making breakfast, lunch and dinner, and eating them. Put paramedic vans and ambulances in larger firehalls. Put paramedic motorcycle in firehalls! You'd be able to respond quickly to health emergencies with people trained, authorized and equipped to do the job instead of sending out big fire trucks with five guys to do little more than give oxygen until the paramedics arrive. *even though they have paramedic training regular firefighters are not authorized to use all paramedic equipment nor do their trucks come equipped with it. Do you not find it ridiculous that in many places ambulances take a long time to get to the scene, because of a shortage, while firefighters are sleeping? Thorold is a middle-class town of 18,500 in southwestern Ontario. It has maybe 10 or 15 fires a year, the mayor figures. But although its 18 firefighters don’t have much to do, they make big-city money. An arbitrator recently awarded them a retroactive 9.2 per cent raise that bumped their pay to $92,119. Similar settlements have been awarded throughout the province. Most of the people who make these towns’ Sunshine List (because their compensation is over $100,000) are cops and firefighters. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-firefighters-are-underworked-and-overpaid/article24459593/

A quick response to a fire is imperative. They grow horrifyingly fast. At the same time, only about 10% of fire department calls are now about fires The equipment and trained people need to be readily available, but the resources are badly misused. Firefighters often work only a half dozen 24hr shifts in a month, and much of their shifts are taken up by eating, showering, sleeping, and doing janitorial and equipment maintenance duties around the firehouse. For this their annual salaries are approaching $100,000. Sending out a big truck with 5 guys on it to every little accident, stroke and heart attack call is a waste of resources. They'e sent because they're available and they're not doing anything else important. Amalgamating paramedic, ambulance and fire services as is done in a number of US cities, would ensure that those galumphing big fire trucks are not racing around the city to get to scenes where only 2 guys in a four by four can do the job. Almost all firefighters are cross-trained as paramedics anyway, and why are we hiring separate people to drive ambulances (also well paid) while $100,000 a year firefighters are busily washing floors and trucks and cleaning toilet bowls back at the firehall? Wouldn't it make more sense to hire a janitor for their halls if needed and have them driving ambulances?

Only if you believe the figures given by the most dishonest political party in Canada and the most incompetent Ontario provincial government in the history of confederation.

You mean you COULDN'T respond! Your attitude was exactly what I portrayed it as, that the poor are being victimized any time the government allows the middle class to keep even a little of their money!

You can save and spend at the same time. It's called investing. And the only way you're going to make any money in a TFSA is to invest that money in something, and I don't mean bonds or GICs.

First of all, that's crap. Second of all, TFSAs are not for the RICH. the RICH don't give a damn about piddling amounts like that. No, his or her attitude is the same as that of the NDP. Everyone who is middle class is actually RICH, and if they complain about taxes then somehow they're robbing the poor of their deserved share of national wealth. That comes from a mentality which says everyone deserves an equal share, which is communism, pure and simple. You don't DESERVE wealth or even a moderate amount. You deserve an opportunity to prosper, but if you squander that opportunity why is that everyone elses fault? How is it if I study hard and work hard and thrive, and you smoke pot and drop out of school and can't be bothered showing up for work it's MY fault you're poor!? And if I complain about the government taking my money and giving it to you I'm in line for a guillotine from those wretchedly poor people who I'm somehow robbing?? Then maybe we should do away with them since they only serve the property rights of the wealthy! No more social programs!

All governments make stupid promises.

No, but Mister Trudeau said that it was a known fact that Liberal governments balance the budget while Tory governments run deficits.

As was pointed out in the paper this morning, Trudeau senior only had 1 out of 15 budgets not in deficit.

They made them happy by paying them off! The Liberals have paid off all the public service unions with huge increases to pay and benefits which are driving Ontario into bankruptcy. They get kickbacks from the unions in the form of political activism, volunteerism and paid political advertising on their behalf during elections. The NDP built up the Ontario deficit from $35B to $90 BILLION in just one term in office. Over the ten years of the Harris government, that increased to $132B, though most of that was due to inflation. The Liberals have increased that to $288 billion dollars, with nothing to show for it. The Liberals have increased the debt by so much by DOUBLING spending during their term in office. Almost all that increased spending has all gone to increased salaries for public servants. Our roads are not in better shape, nor our hospitals, nor our social programs, nor our schools or universities. And our electricity grid is certainly not in better shape!

I suspect that a large part of the government's immigration plans are to increase the size of the population so that the overall debt will be statistically lower and easier to pay off. Fifty million can pay off a given amount a lot easier than thirty million.

The impoverished have never been treated so well in the history of this species. All of their needs are seen to by the sweat of someone elses brow. What you are complaining about, what you have the balls to suggest poorer Canadians might be justified in committing murder over, is that they don't have as much money as THEY WANT. They're not starving. They're not freezing in the dark. They're not going about unclothed and they're not homeless. They get free medical care, and free education for their children. What incredible hubris and GALL you have to suggest their position is even in the same GALAXY as the poor of prerevolutionary France! They just can't afford all the luxuries they want, all the luxuries they see the higher classes have. It's jealousy, pure and simple. Some of them are poor through no fault of their own, but most of them are just losers in life who made stupid decisions and continue to make stupid decisions. Some of them are lazy, some lack motivation and won't risk the effort unless absolutely promised a nice reward, some of them lack anything remotely like mental discipline. Some of them get addicted to drugs and alcohol, and a few just have no damned luck at all. And none of that is the fault of middle class people who have studied, persevered, worked hard, done shitty jobs to get ahead, and get up early every damn day to go out to work. But in addition to taxing the income of middle class earners, and taxing every dollar they spend with sales taxes, you're so indignant that the government might exempt a portion of the after tax, pre-HST money they invest in hopes of getting ahead from FURTHER taxation! To the point you think they should be guillotined! You ever work for a living, buddy!? Does your indignation and anger on behalf of the poor stem from your own miserable failure of a life and a determination to blame it on everyone else!?

The question is do you find it acceptable to pay a police constable ten billion dollars a year? Clearly not. We'd have only one cop to police the whole country. At $100k per cop we certainly have more than that, but a lot less than other countries like the UK and France which don't feel their police officers should be driving around in Mercedes and BMWs. The same goes for firefighters. These are blue collar jobs which don't merit rates which are considerably higher than most university educated professionals get. This country has a major problem with the money it pays to its public servants. Europe, even Western socialist Europe, doesn't pay its teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops, etc. such high salaries. The result is they can afford better public services than we can because they can have more people working in those positions.