Canada's long, slow decline

[Zeitgeist]

2 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Typical defence when presented with a differing opinion.

I'm calling it as I see it.  Okay,  if you want to have a conversation about "reasonable accommodation" of cultural differences from what is traditionally associated with Canada and even that which should be considered eternally Canadian, that is fair.  My stance on that is clear: We have two official languages, common law precedents, a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, separation of church and state, but also cultural values formed around Judeo-Christian tradition.  I think we should be careful not to throw away strong, values-based traditions, only to replace them with nihilism or some post-modern idea that values are meaningless.  Atheism can be as puritanical as any religion.  There's also the threat of importing religious extremism through immigration that is antithetical to our way of life and very existence.  Extreme leftist political correctness is also bad news, wherein people aren't allowed to express opposing viewpoints and the hypersensitive are triggered to hide in "safe spaces" because of mere free speech.  At the other extreme is alt-right fear of anything foreign, global, or supportive of public spending on social safety nets.  The middle has disappeared.  Where are the reasoned, balanced arguments? 

Immigration, in my opinion, should be carefully managed, not ended.

[DogOnPorch]

26 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

I'm calling it as I see it. 

 

Ever read Xenophon?

[WestCanMan]

On 11/14/2018 at 7:24 AM, turningrite said:

... Argentina, which slid from being the Western Hemisphere's second most prosperous country at the beginning of the 20th century to developing world status by the end. It can happen and this is the future we're apparently choosing. Can anybody or any political party prevent it?

Our current government is killing our energy sector just to try to look good, while countries like China, India and Saudi Arabia are still going all-out on carbon-based energy. They're not sacrificing a cent from their economy while we're gutting ours. Plus we're bringing on the financial burdens of this lib gov't debt, plus we're adding the drain of unchecked immigration to our system.

Tent cities weren't a thing in Canada when I was a kid. It seems as though we're just getting started. Rising energy costs, rising housing costs, mounting debt, and a government that thinks money grows on trees...

 

 

 

[Zeitgeist]

2 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Our current government is killing our energy sector just to try to look good, while countries like China, India and Saudi Arabia are still going all-out on carbon-based energy. They're not sacrificing a cent from their economy while we're gutting ours. Plus we're bringing on the financial burdens of this lib gov't debt, plus we're adding the drain of unchecked immigration to our system.

Tent cities weren't a thing in Canada when I was a kid. It seems as though we're just getting started. Rising energy costs, rising housing costs, mounting debt, and a government that thinks money grows on trees...

 

 

 

The Liberals throw away tax dollars for sure.  Government should only be activist in the areas where there’s a clear and important need.  They’ve got too many dubious pet projects. 

[turningrite]

On 11/15/2018 at 7:18 PM, Zeitgeist said:

The Liberals throw away tax dollars for sure.  Government should only be activist in the areas where there’s a clear and important need.  They’ve got too many dubious pet projects. 

Trudeau's main objective is to paper over the enormous problems generated by corporate globalism and the associated and precipitous decline, at least in this country, of the middle class. The problem is that you can't draw blood from a stone and what's left of the middle class is increasingly tapped out. Corporations and the truly wealthy use all the mechanisms available to them, including their influence and connections in government, to avoid taxation and, meanwhile, working, taxpaying Canadians are increasingly squeezed by incremental demands by governments at all levels that they contribute 'a little bit more' to help the subsidy class as well as by escalating living and particularly housing costs. The income base upon which government (i.e. taxpayer) 'generosity' is based is simply shrinking. And yet callow politicians like Trudeau yelp about the fallout (i.e. 'Racism!' and 'Xenophobia!'), as if the reaction, which if truth be told is grounded in economic conditions, wasn't entirely predictable.

There's in interesting piece in today's Toronto Star ('Election door knocking reveals a darkness in the burbs') by a recent municipal election candidate in one of the GTA's previously contented and secure middle class suburban communities, who was startled by the extent of struggle and pessimism she confronted while campaigning. The article's author worries that people will seek a "scapegoat" and points to immigration as one particular focus of anxiety. But isn't this a problem government, including feckless politicians like Trudeau, who touts job-shedding globalism at the same time as promoting increased immigration, has created? I believe the heart of darkness in this country lies not in its declining middle and wage-earning taxpaying classes but in those who have designed and implemented policies that have undermined once-broad middle class security and prosperity. The consequences have not been accidental. A solution will only emerge after we abandon reflexive progressive sloganeering and name-calling and start to objectively analyze the situation.  

Edited November 19, 2018 by turningrite

[Centerpiece]

I mean really - REALLY! Can we really expect anything of substance from this government when our Prime Minister - LEADER of our country is so challenged to explain the basics of Trade. It's difficult NOT to speak ill of him - but this short clip encapsulates why we're going downhill......

Link: 

 

[turningrite]

4 minutes ago, Centerpiece said:

I mean really - REALLY! Can we really expect anything of substance from this government when our Prime Minister - LEADER of our country is so challenged to explain the basics of Trade. It's difficult NOT to speak ill of him - but this short clip encapsulates why we're going downhill......

 

It makes you cringe, doesn't it? Unless his lines are written for him and studiously practiced in advance, Trudeau tends to babble incomprehensibly. I think the critique in the last election that Trudeau was "just not ready" was entirely too generous. He never will be. How can we endure this for another year?

[DogOnPorch]

2 hours ago, turningrite said:

It makes you cringe, doesn't it? Unless his lines are written for him and studiously practiced in advance, Trudeau tends to babble incomprehensibly. I think the critique in the last election that Trudeau was "just not ready" was entirely too generous. He never will be. How can we endure this for another year?

 

By this simple formula will we carried forward into Liberal 2019: Look...a bad orange squirrel!! Bad squirrel...bad!

[turningrite]

9 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

By this simple formula will we carried forward into Liberal 2019: Look...a bad orange squirrel!! Bad squirrel...bad!

It'll be fascinating to see which shiny baubles the Libs will bring forward to distract voters in 2019. I suspect it's a pretty safe bet they're gearing up to demonize those who try to inject immigration policy concerns into the policy debate.

[DogOnPorch]

1 minute ago, turningrite said:

It'll be fascinating to see which shiny baubles the Libs will bring forward to distract voters in 2019. I suspect it's a pretty safe bet they're gearing up to demonize those who try to inject immigration policy concerns into the policy debate.

 

Oh goodness yes. Racists and Islamophobes all. Folks with such Hitler-like opinions shouldn't be allowed to vote let alone be allowed to exist in public un-punched. 

[Argus]

2 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Oh goodness yes. Racists and Islamophobes all. Folks with such Hitler-like opinions shouldn't be allowed to vote let alone be allowed to exist in public un-punched. 

As long as they continue to pay the lions share of taxes, I guess they've got no choice.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Argus

[taxme]

On 11/14/2018 at 7:24 AM, turningrite said:

I've been feeling very pessimistic recently about this country's prospects. It seems to me that both by inclination and design we're headed in the wrong direction. Our politics is governed by a feckless cartel that seems unable to gauge or understand the concerns of ordinary Canadians and our economy, which is too dominated by various officially sanctioned oligopolies, is at best an unproductive second-tier entity. One of my relatives has told me that her son, who will soon graduate university with a STEM degree, is thinking of leaving the country for better opportunities elsewhere, probably in the U.S. or Australia. At the top of his list of his concerns about remaining is government policies that distinctly disadvantage young people like him. I believe that over the next 30 to 40 years Canada will simply become a 21st century version of Argentina, which slid from being the Western Hemisphere's second most prosperous country at the beginning of the 20th century to developing world status by the end. It can happen and this is the future we're apparently choosing. Can anybody or any political party prevent it?

It would appear as though Canada lacks the free enterprise spirit politicians. Right now it would appear that we have as politicians liberals/socialists/communists running Canada who do not believe in free enterprise but government or private enterprise. We stifle growth by listening to such groups as environmentalists or native Indian tribes who in most cases dictate to our politicians as to where or what can be done and whether a project can go ahead or be stopped. We have people running this country who believe in more government, more taxes, more rules and regulations and more laws and less freedom. In other words the government appears to try to make anyone trying to create jobs or exist are an enemy and should be controlled and regulated to death by the government. There appears to be more pessimism rather than optimism in this country. Canada and the Canadian people are in so much debt because of our so called political leaders who lack care and concern for the taxpayer's tax dollars. It's just spend, waste and blow. 

Canada is pretty much a socialist country and that is our problem. Socialism discourages rather than encourages. There are so many rules and regulations, laws and orders federally, provincially and municipally that everyone every day has at least violated one or many rules or laws. With so much control over we the people it is very hard to believe and think that one is really all that free in Canada anymore and it seems that every other month a new law or regulation is put on the books. 

I have asked this question here many times as to why some feel here that Canada is great. But yet no one has come forward yet to tell me why they think Canada is so great. I am pessimistic about Canada. Can you make me feel optimistic about Canada? Do you have something to offer? Over. 

[taxme]

On 11/19/2018 at 10:25 AM, turningrite said:

It'll be fascinating to see which shiny baubles the Libs will bring forward to distract voters in 2019. I suspect it's a pretty safe bet they're gearing up to demonize those who try to inject immigration policy concerns into the policy debate.

The liberals are always there and ready to look for anything the conservative party may say that appears to be racist. We will never be able to have a proper debate on immigration as long as the liberals will attack and try to make anyone questioning immigration or multiculturalism as racists. The trouble with the conservative party is that they do not know how to fight back. They let the liberals make asses of them all the time. The conservative party needs more people like Trump in their party who are not afraid of the liberal party or the liberal media like Trump does and who will challenge anyone who dares try to call Trump a racist. He knows how to shut them down with a few words. This is what liberals are good at? They try to put the opposition on the spot with accusations and hope that it will stick and work for them and make the other party look bad. Canada does have an immigration problem and if the liberals are allowed to go unchecked with their program of more immigration things will only get worse. It is plain as day that the liberals have no love for Canada or Canadians. Their love is with the rest of the world. You can be sure that the race card will be brought up in the next election by the liberals against the conservative and the people's party. That will be their ace in the hole. Just watch.