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The government doesn't adequately deal with mental health issues properly in general, not just with respect to military issues. But blindly throwing money at the problem isn't really a good approach. To be honest, I think this is one case where awareness campaigns could go a long way.

Yeah, exactly.

Of course they have conflicting claims. They both claim the Danish territory of the North Pole. But that is for short term political reasons. In the long term, both countries are going to follow the law of the sea and peacefully resolve the Arctic dispute. The exception of course, is if the West takes absurd positions on international issues such as Ukraine, which cause unnecessary tit-for-tat wars with Russia. Of course the West shouldn't take such absurd positions to begin with, so these tit-for-tat wars are avoidable. It's called mutually assured destruction, both Russia and US/Canada want to avoid that. The issue will be resolved peacefully via the law of the sea. Also, how does spending money on military today to deal with a potential threat in like 2-3 decades make more sense than not spending that money today, and spending it in the future when it will be more relevant? Being a member of an organization is not charity. Spending 1.2% of our GDP on a military to defend other countries is charity.

Nope. That isn't 'my logic' at all. No. Military spending today puts us in debt, which means that we are less able to spend on military in the future (and most of the military spending today will decay in 20 years time). Wouldn't it make more sense to have a more flexible approach to military spending and change spending based upon demand for military? The police are supposed to deal with domestic violence. What organized groups are you referring to that the police cannot handle? Also, why does it make sense to give funding to the military as opposed to the police to deal with this issue?

I'm not denying that the referendum was absurd. At the same time, I reject the west's position that any referendum is illegal & the Crimeans have no right to self determination. There is. A referendum on separation being illegal because the country in which the referendum takes place declares that it is shouldn't matter because it denies people the right to self determination (and therefore the law is immoral). The Texans should have the right to separate if they want to , the Quebecois should have the right to separate if they want to, the Scottish should have the right to separate if they want to, the Basque region in Spain should have the right to separate if it wants to, etc. You want a more recent example of an 'illegal' separatist movement gaining independence? Try Kosovo. How can Kosovo have the right to separate from Serbia, but at the same time Crimea has no right to separate from Ukraine? The position of the West is absurd and hypocritical.

Yes, cause clearly we will have a war over the arctic with denmark and the US. *sarcasm* The only country remotely a 'threat' is a nuclear Russia (which Canada will never be able to defeat), that wan't to follow the UN law of the sea to resolve Arctic territorial disputes. Our 'interests' being our 'allies', which means that it is charity to other countries.

Unless the country faces no military threats from nearby countries. Who is going to invade Canada? No one. Defence from what? Exactly. It's just charity towards other countries. What a bunch of nonsense: "Canada is really big, therefore we are a net recipient of military 'charity'". No one is going to invade Canada and take over its frozen tundra. Canada faces no existential threats; the cold war is over. Size doesn't matter if there are no threats.

Well, this guy's thought patterns are so weird, I wonder how he thinks. It is intriguing.

What 'international law' did Russia break? No, first there was a referendum, then Russia moved in. You can call it 'illegal' if you want, but the by that logic the USA is 'illegal' since they started an 'illegal' war against the British to can independence. What is more dangerous for international security is having people not respect the right of the self determination of various groups of peoples. Lack of respect of this is what prevents various independence movements from having peaceful democratic means of accomplishing their goals, and results in these groups resorting to violence like in Eastern Ukraine. Complete BS and nonsense guilt propaganda. Except we don't thanks to Harper, Baird and their idiot cold-war mentality towards foreign policy (specifically Ukraine & Russia). Not that any of the other 3 parties would be better.

Please, tell me who is the aggressor and who is the victim for these non-thorny issues.

Yes, furthermore, all these continuous transfers reduce our ability to help in cases of truely unique circumstances. The same can be said of our military (we need to rethink it completely).

On a side note, Canada needs to rethink how we perceive our military, because our military is basically another form of charity to other countries.

Yeah, this has been a big problem in the past. It is better to target aid to things like schools or infrastructure, rather than just hand money away. I'll point to the Chinese proverb of 'give a man to fish, and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time', the Malthusian catastrophe, and large differences in demographic trends between developed and developing countries as reasons to be concerned about blindly giving away aid without fully thinking through the consequences. Canada needs to abandon the target of 0.7% of GDP. It is unrealistic and too expensive. While I sort of agree with the general message (that most aid should be done by individuals to private charities), I think the position of zero aid is too extreme. For one, there are occasional unexpected natural disasters or wars, where the return on aid can be very high and it might be of geopolitical value to help the country (for example, if North Korea invades South Korea, do you really want to send them zero aid). Another reason to have some government aid is purely for 'image' value on how other countries perceive Canada.

Did anyone else see that Glen Beck recently renouced the 2003 invasion of iraq.

Okay. Fair enough. I was unclear about your position regarding employer compensation for pregnancy.

I didn't decide upon it. It just doesn't make sense. Some people care what I think. Nor would nobody caring what I think negate my arguments. I care because I think that nationalistic or ethnic pride are dangerous concepts.

It does matter. It makes no sense to be proud of things that you had no influence over. Want to be proud because you worked really hard at your job and earned some money? Sure. Want to be proud because you won a competition? Okay. Want to be proud because a soccer team that you coached won a game? Okay. But want to be proud because you were born into a certain ethnic group? No, that makes no sense.

Sorry typo, I intended to write: You are just dividing total annual income here. How about taking into account total hours worked? Or job experience? Or education level?

Where did I make such a claim? Nowhere. Nice strawman argument attempt. What I do object to are the absurd claims people make such as 'women are discriminated against because they make 77% the wages of men'. And then people use that to support institutionalized discrimination that favours females over males. And to top it off, many people reject discrimination occurs against males, that discrimination is not homogenous across society and refuse to acknowledge the complexity of the situation. If people want to argue that the 4% 'wage gap' that remains after accounting for occupation, experience, education, hours worked, and various other factors is due to discrimination, that is one thing. But trying to claim a 23%+ gap is a result of discrimination is absurd. Furthermore, the 4% 'wage gap' isn't necessarily due to discrimination. The 4% is what remains unexplained by the regression model. In particular, if the regression model has difficulty taking into account different factors used in the model ('how hard people work' is difficult to take into account) then this imperfect information will result in some of the wage gap. In addition, biological factors could also explain some of the wage gap since humans are a sexually dimorphic species; in particular, hormones influence behaviour, and this behaviour can impact job performance. For example, high levels of testosterone could cause an individual to act more aggressively (increase chances of committing crime) but also cause the individual to have a higher desire to protect (increasing the chances that the individual will join military services). And in addition to that, you also have the social influences that occur since birth and will alter people's decisions due to social and psychological pressures. So if there is an attitude that 'girls can't do math' then this can discourage females from entering fields that involve math. But this is distinct from workplace discrimination. And if you want to tackle this problem, you should tackle the source (cultural and traditional gender roles) rather than try to 'correct' this problem by trying to impose institutionalized discrimination in the workplace, in universities, etc. Furthermore, it is relevant to point out that 'gender discrimination' varies greatly depending on the age of a population and the location of a population. Gender discrimination is very different if you live in San Francisco compared to Alabama, or if you live in Toronto compared to rural-Northern-Ontario. There older generations have a large effect of this gender discrimination than younger generations. And as I pointed out, in some cases (such as young people in urban areas in North America) women are out-earning men. So you have to recognize that North America is not-homogenous enough to the point where people can focus only on women's issues, claim that men have a 'privileged position' and claim the existence of this societal-wide 'patriarchy'. Also, if you try to 'correct' for past gender discrimination through institutionalized discrimination, you won't create equality, rather you will create alternating waves of discrimination. I'll give you an example, let's say the majority of the company's baby-boomer generation is male. The company, in an effort to be 'more diverse' favors women in hiring for younger generations. Now when these baby-boomers retire, there will be over-representation of women, so the company then makes an effort to favour men. Now when the next generation retires, you will have over-representation of men again, and so on. And this applies on a larger scale to the so called wage gap. If you try to fix the issue of baby-boomer males earning more than baby-boomer females by institutionalized discrimination, then when the baby-boomers retire, the males of younger generations will have been discriminated against and be earning less. Look, I recognize that is an issue, but it is not the only explanation for differences in occupational choices between males and females. The are also biological influences for example. And for when people decide to choose an occupation, go to university, etc. there is no significant discrimination against women (if anything there is discrimination against men due to all of the female-only scholarships, various campaigns to encourage specifically women to go into these fields, the influences of primary and secondary school systems in Canada, etc.). Rather, the cultural perception of gender roles influencing people's behaviour from childhood is a lot more relevant in affecting occupation choice than 'discrimination' of hiring practices or university applications. So you dismiss discrimination against hiring men in certain fields because you consider these fields 'nurturing'? How does this stupid cliche counter what I wrote? Society perceives that violence against men isn't as morally bad as violence against women. It is ingrained in our media and in our culture. Therefore, people are more willing to commit violence against men because it is more socially acceptable. What an absurd claim. Please tell me all about these 'advantages' I have for being male. I would like to know them. Your doubt is unfounded. I acknowledge that feminism can mean anything from gender-equatism to misandric-hate-ideology. Academic feminism is bullshit and there is no societal-wide patriarchy. Furthermore, in most cases, what 'feminists' identify as 'patriarchy' isn't 'patriarchy', it is 'traditionalism'.

Yes, but how does this instill 'pride'?

Then you would have societal collapse like in those distopian movies. Though, given time I'm sure that test-tube babies would become a thing. Why is this hypothetical relevant? This is a problem, sure. But how is it the employer's fault? What is the justification to make the employer pay for this?

You are just total annual income here. How about taking into account total hours worked? Or job experience? Or education level?

Could you explain this concept to me because I do not understand it. How does one take pride in one's ancestry? Being of a certain ancestry is not an accomplishment, nor do people choose it. Why should it matter how many 'immigrant cultures' one has?

Yes, the horror of what occurs in every other part of the developed world is too terrible for here! *sarcasm*

... Maybe education is relevant in determining someone's earnings and marginal product of labour? Idk clearly it's a big mystery! *sarcasm* So you think women should earn the same as men even if the man has a higher education level? Now that is sexism!