Is Government too bureaucratic and infringing on freedom of the citizens?

[blackbird]

This interesting article pretty well describes Canadian government as well as American.  Canadian government may actually be more bureaucratic and intrusive on everyone's life.  They seem to pride themselves on being leaders in so-called "progressive" legislation.  The Canadian government are leaders in such things as same-sex marriage, medical assistance in dying (MAID), (over 21,000 people have died by MAID in the last few years since it started) and making abortion a part of health care although it is about as far from health care as anyone who thinks about it could imagine.  Around 80,000 to 100,000 abortions per year.

A description of government that suits Canada.

quote

“A big, bumbling, generous, naive, inquisitive, acquisitive, intrusive, meddlesome giant with a heart of gold and holes in his pockets, an incredible hulk, a ‘10-ton marshmallow’ lumbering along an uncertain road of good intentions somewhere between capitalism and socialism, an implausible giant who fights wars, sends men to the moon, explores the ends of the universe, feeds the hungry, heals the sick, helps the helpless, a thumping complex of guilt trying mightily to make up for past sins to the satisfaction of nobody, a split personality who most of his life thought God helps those who help themselves and only recently concluded God needed help, a malleable, vulnerable colossus pulled every which way by everybody who wants a piece of him, which is everybody.”    Unquote

From AM to PM, the fickle force of government is with you (msn.com)

 

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by blackbird

[dialamah]

So you want more maggots in your pizza sauce? 

[Dougie93]

it's not the government

Canadians are bureaucratic

Canada is not an idea

Canadian culture itself is a bureaucracy

because that is all Canadians have to cling to

[blackbird]

One of the consequences of an extreme bureaucracy such as Canada has is the long lineups when arriving at an airport from outside Canada.  They have something called the ArriveCan app which you must have on your smart phone (if you have one).  This is a bureaucratic requirement which you must use when you arrive.  It has been found to contribute to the slow processing of people arriving from outside Canada.  The government refuses to remove it even though countless mayors and other authorities have been begging for the government to remove it so travelers can move at a more normal rate.   Another example of bureaucratic bungling is the rescuing of Afghan refugees who worked for the Canadian Forces.  The government claimed they would take in 40,000 Afghan refugees but so far it is only a fraction of that.  There have been endless reports of very slow government processing of paperwork and difficulty of Afghans obtaining a VISA.  Of course we see the horrendous problems people are having trying to get passports where they have been lined up for days at a passport office.  Another example of bureaucratic bungling and inability to adapt the system to the circumstances.

[Dougie93]

it must be pretty bad, because it's un-Canadian to get riled up about bad service

Americans get riled up about bad service, it's permissible in American culture

but it is the Canadian culture that you just sit there and take it

you can grumble to the guy next to you maybe

but it's not Canadian to walk up to the counter and start telling them what for

I actually do it all the time, but that's my American side and it surely ruffles the feathers in Canada

Canadians are meek, submissive, they sell themselves short, they let themselves get walked on

if you're an American, you think are a somebody and thus you deserve good service, you demand it

and in fact, service is generally way better in America, it's expected in America

Edited July 3, 2022 by Dougie93

[Michael Hardner]

Canada has an archaic and unresponsive management culture.  It follows from our fealty to the crown....

Never question, never discuss, never improve.

[Dougie93]

my American side also takes pride in providing elite service

I do quite well as a salesman in Canada, because I pull out all the stops

I provide the service that I would want

I treat you, the client or customer, as the most important person in the world, while we are doing business

because you are the most important person in the world at that time, literally my livelihood

that's my business ethic

if a customer is unhappy because I have let them down, it bothers me, I lose sleep over it

Edited July 3, 2022 by Dougie93

[Michael Hardner]

6 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

 

I provide the service that I would want

that's my business ethic

Me too.  Dale Carnegie is an influence on me.

I get the most resistance from my team and managers though.  We have 'internal' customers, meaning we are a service that deals with fellow employees.  Too many don't take it seriously.

[Dougie93]

3 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Me too.  Dale Carnegie is an influence on me.

yeah, me too

[Dougie93]

in Canada, it seems like many people, particularly younger people,  think providing service is a lowly job

like they were meant for something better, these people who want service are annoyoing

whereas the business of America is business

it's not a lowly job, it's what we do, and we take pride in being good at it

 

[Dougie93]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

Canada has an archaic and unresponsive management culture.  It follows from our fealty to the crown....

Never question, never discuss, never improve.

this can have devastating consequences

take for example this mass shooting down in Nova Scotia

the level of incompetence by the RCMP is truly shocking

like simple, common sense things they could have done, would have saved many lives

there was no great barrier preventing them from saving people

it was just bureaucratic inertia, and so many people died who could have easily been saved

it's a tiny little town, they could have easily taken control of that situation

people getting gunned down on the street, simply because the RCMP chose not to warn them

a mass murderer driving around in a fake cop car

and the RCMP decided that they shouldn't tell anybody about it

that is the ethos of the Canadian bureaucracy

the government is opaque, and they don't want to tell you what is going on, even to save your life

Edited July 3, 2022 by Dougie93

[Michael Hardner]

The system evolved that way because the government was sensitive to criticism by the mass media. In time that became more important than actually serving citizens. Providing good service to a single person probably won't even result in one vote, but ensuring good media coverage might earn you 1% in the election.

There are structural reasons why Canada would be in a good position to fix this, as well as cultural ones.

But has to stop is for citizens to combine politics with managing of our services. Politics should determine the high level approach and strategy to things, but services and focus on people needs to happen beyond the politics.

[Dougie93]

4 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

The system evolved that way because the government was sensitive to criticism by the mass media.

agreed

but it's still shocking that they went into cover up mode while people were still being gunned down

like I was an armed agent for the Canadian state

but no bureaucratic directive would have stopped me from driving up & down warning people on the loudspeakers

mission command, take the initiative, is how I was indoctrinated

Edited July 3, 2022 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

and in this case America is not in anyway superior

no disrespect to American police who put their lives on the line

but I think on the whole, Canadian police are better trained and have a better doctrine

mind you,  most of my experience is with Toronto Police

I think they are one of the elite police forces in the world

and Toronto is a tough beat, it is gang infested

Toronto Police are toe to toe with mass murderers all day everyday

but compared to the LAPD for example, Toronto Police are much more level headed

I grew up going back and forth from Toronto to Los Angeles

and you really noticed how pointlessly aggressive the LAPD was

and how calm & sensible Toronto Police were in comparison

it's like Rodney King, that would never happen in the Toronto I grew up in

George Floyd, I can't see a Toronto cop doing something like that neither

yes, they make mistakes, but Toronto Police are never vicious like that

and I grew up in the hood, in close contact with 51 Division

I honestly never had any trouble with them, other than what I caused by being a foolish teenager

I don't think they are racist neither, like black kid, white kid, I didn't notice any difference

they didn't cut me any slack for being white, they didn't go hard on kids for being black

they treated us all the same

looking back with the wisdom of an armed agent myself, I would say 51 Division was tough but fair

I certainly cannot imagine them sitting on their hands while an active shooter was on the loose

51 Division ran to the sound of the guns

Edited July 3, 2022 by Dougie93

[-TSS-]

Canada seems to be a very well functioning country and therefore it is the desired destination of millions of people worldwide.

However, a true test of a country is what happens to it if things go seriously wrong. People become poor and there is no future. If that happened to Canada would most of its people leave for somewhere else after a better life? 

Of course that happens everywhere when things go wrong but the threshold of that happening is higher in nation states if for not any other reason people don't like to be surrounded by foreigners, which happens if you emigrate.

Therefore Canada is a good administrative arrangement rather than a real country.

[myata]

Governments will be (eventually) as bureaucratic and infringe as much as they are allowed to. There's no such thing as a "good government" that manages itself and keeps itself "good". If we didn't get it in two centuries, what's the chance?

Edited July 3, 2022 by myata

[Dougie93]

2 minutes ago, -TSS- said:

If that happened to Canada would most of its people leave for somewhere else after a better life? 

not me

I swore an oath to defend the Queen of Canada

I will go down with the ship

[myata]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

The system evolved that way because the government was sensitive to criticism by the mass media. In time that became more important than actually serving citizens.

And that check, for whatever it was worth is gone now. And judiciary now likes to talk about high matters like "intent" instead of getting into matters of immediate government overreach, for whatever its independence and impartiality was worth. We had a convention of separation of essential offices from political influence but that's gone now as well (SNC-Lavalin, Freedom convoy). And so, what's left? Anything?

We're down to governments with no effective checks, even formal and superficial ones like above. If they are good, we are in luck. And if ugly?

Edited July 3, 2022 by myata

[Dougie93]

it's not even Canada that keeps me here

my family came here in 1757, before Canada was founded

this is my ancestral homeland

the regiment is my fatherland

[Dougie93]

understand that Canada is just the Confederation

and the Confederation is just an agreement

even if that agreement were to dissolve

Upper Canada would carry on, still Loyalist to the bone

Quebec is not my nation, Alberta is not my nation

Canada is not one nation

Confederation means what it says

[Dougie93]

and this is why Canada is so bureaucratic

because unlike America, Canada is not an idea

Canada is not an ethos

Canada is not a religion

Canada is just a bureaucratic agreement, cobbled together in fear & loathing of the Americans

that's the only thing that binds Canada together

and this is why Canada is starting to tear itself apart

America is spilling over the ramparts

Canadians are becoming Americans by default

so the purpose of Canada is starting to become irrelevant

Canada has become nothing more than a federal government bureaucracy

the only purpose of which is now simply to perpetuate itself

case in point, the Prime Minister of Canada is not even running as a Canadian poltician anymore

he is running as a de facto candidate for the Democrat Party in America

his platform is running against American gun crime

running against American abortion laws

running on American Woke ideology

he's an American poltician, there is no daylight between him and Gavin Newsome in California

Edited July 3, 2022 by Dougie93

[blackbird]

More evidence in the report at the link below.

quote

When Quebecers are thinking about the federal government these days, they are not impressed. How come a G7 country is not able to issue passports in less than three months? Why can’t it deal with an immigration file in months rather than years? How is it that the government can’t ensure there are enough security and customs agents at major airports to process travelers within an acceptable time frame?    Unquote

André Pratte: Federal gridlock is a threat to national unity (msn.com)

Bureaucracy has a natural tendency to constantly add new rules and procedures for every little thing they do.  That is why the size of government tends to grow and grow and grow with more procedures, rules, and involving more bureaucrats in every step of a process.  This slows the whole process down for the smallest project.  Then when people are off work for reasons such as Covid, files pile up and are not dealt with in a timely manner.  The process just drags on and on.  Of course government unions like more bureaucracy because it means ever increasing numbers of employees and union members.  It easily gets out of control and politicians can do little about it because the problems and roadblocks are buried deep in bureaucracy, which is out of reach of politicians.  They must depend on their subordinates who are often outside the actual workings of the bureaucracy themselves.  So on and on it goes as the problems are unresolved.

Edited July 3, 2022 by blackbird

[West]

On 7/2/2022 at 12:40 PM, dialamah said:

So you want more maggots in your pizza sauce? 

The government involves itself too much in your day to day affairs. You can't even go canoeing in four feet of water without the nanny state harassing you over a life jacket as one example. 

[blackbird]

One consequence of bureaucracy is the case of the fire a year ago that burned town the village of Lytton, B.C.  Most people that owned homes there are still waiting for something to be done.  The rubble still has not even been removed.  It is estimated it could take five or ten years for it to be rebuilt.  Many of the older residents might not even be alive to be able to go back after that length of time.  The whole thing is buried in bureaucracy of environmentalism, regulations for contamination of the sites, and aboriginal questions about historical matters.  This is an example of the betrayal of the people by their government that is supposed to be looking after them.

[myata]

And this is getting into a dangerous territory as far as seen from here of course. Today on CBC a "reporter" going out of her way how the police was effective at enforcement at the most recent truck protest, all about the rules, attempts to set up a table quickly dealt with.

Really? And what about environmental, climate change table? Indigenous table, for Heaven's sake? Are we creating a notion of wrong protest already? And only a few short months back it was supposed to be an arm's length from politicians to police, are we flushing it out with Covid too? In the spirit of togetherness, selective enforcement? Good protests and bad, uncanadian protests, as decided by all-knowing government? Will we meed with Putins of the world, somewhere in the sunny perspective?

Sure questions, many of them but where are the answers, will we be getting any?