61–70 of 185 posts
And yet, Canada turned down help from Russia and the US. Then went around and hired 300 firefighters from South Africa that have no experience with this type of fire or equipment (they said due to lack of water, they use sticks to beat the bush fires). I understand it's more of a social help program ("Working On Fire" job assistance), but still it seems bizarre. Or maybe I've been reading the wrong news sources and t…
Here's some comparisons to the numbers in the article you linked to: Canada: 700 firefighters, several choppers, 27 air tankers and 46 pieces of heavy equipment deployed to fight 500,000+ hectare wildfire that has destroyed 2000+ buildings.
In Australia, 2013: 2000 firefighters, 90 aircraft, 200 fire engines were deployed to fight a 118,000 hectares fire that cost ~US$50 million and destroyed 250 buildings
Many of the firefighters in Australia (and in the southern hemisphere) are idle at the moment as it's heading into winter. It's very weird that Canada turned down help when so much property is on the line.
Source http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-02/australian-firefighter...
And yet, Canada turned down help from Russia and the US. Then went around and hired 300 firefighters from South Africa that have no experience with this type of fire or equipment (they said due to lack of water, they use sticks to beat the bush fires). I understand it's more of a social help program ("Working On Fire" job assistance), but still it seems bizarre. Or maybe I've been reading the wrong news sources and t…
Actually our airspace was saturated. We had more aircraft ourselves we could have put up but it would have been unsafe to do so.
It seems very weird that Russia and the US have nothing to contribute, but inexperienced folks from SA do.
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Interesting to know. I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends. But I get conflicting view from the news and statistics.
Canada is big. Calgary is one small part, and that guy was exaggerating anyways. Let's remember that Calgary elected mayor Naheed Nenshi, a famously liberal Muslim who is pushing for better transit and more intensification. Iirc, Calgary was also the provincial stronghold of the NDP, a hard leftward swing of Alberta politics against the long control of the Progressive Conservative party. But yes, the pay sucks for co…
Correction: Edmonton is the stronghold of the NDP. Premier Notley's seat in the Legislature is in Edmonton's Strathcona riding, and I believe before last year Edmonton was the only city to elect NDP MLA's. Calgary has always been a Progressive Conservative stronghold.
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>Sure. Socially? no way. Compared to what? Calgary is more conservative than Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Vancouver, and Victoria. Perhaps it's more liberal than Red Deer or Kelowna, but that's not saying much at all. It's also just an awful place to live. The urban sprawl makes public transit pale in comparison even to Vancouver which also has really bad transit. It's an 80 dollar cab ride to the airport whi…
Calgary is demographically young and cosmopolitan. The average Calgarian came from somewhere else in Canada. Their political views reflect this. When Nenshi was elected, Toronto's media had a massive freak-out over the fact that he's a Muslim. This did not happen in Calgary because Calgarians didn't view his choice of religion as being pertinent to his job. Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto el…
I'm not from Toronto but the fact is that the barely-literate, anti-intellectual, suburban outlying population of places like (edit) Etobicoke elected Rob Ford.
edit: ah yes, the old reddit-style downvote because the truth hurts. The simple fact is the man was a train wreck, and his supporters are basically Tea Party North.
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>What? Obama wasn't elected on the strength of nice hair and Daddy's legacy. Neither was our current PM. You're thinking the way the Conservative political strategists did. They ran their election against Trudeau Senior, not the current one.
Do you really think Trudeau would be PM (now) without his name? 2nd youngest PM ever, and the youngest is Joe Clark. Still rather have Trudeau than harper, I just dislike electing people based on legacy.
Yeah I do. You've got a young, good-looking, charismatic leader with what look like progressive policies on things like drugs and other social issues who occasionally slips up with the etiquette like calling an MP a piece of shit on the floor of the Commons. It makes him look like a real guy, and less like a standard shitty politician, which is what the electorate are sick of. He's also a relative newcomer and time spent out of the limelight of either the PMO or the Official Opposition means he looks like a fresh change.
That's exactly the opposite of Harper and Mulcair, the former of whom comes off as stodgy, out-of-touch and kind of an asshole, and the latter of whom comes off as one of the most fake, manufactured politicians of the modern age.
I know which one I'd bet on every time.
Canada seems to be in so much trouble - I am wondering how things are there. # Massive flooring of the Canadian dollar. # Continued job losses months on end - Unemployment rate of 7.1% ! # Most expensive Natural Disaster in Canadian history. At least they got their Obama.
If it's in so much trouble, why are property prices increasing at a ridiculous rate? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-busine...
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> Calgary is a very conservative city Economically? Sure. Socially? no way.
>Sure. Socially? no way. Compared to what? Calgary is more conservative than Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Vancouver, and Victoria. Perhaps it's more liberal than Red Deer or Kelowna, but that's not saying much at all. It's also just an awful place to live. The urban sprawl makes public transit pale in comparison even to Vancouver which also has really bad transit. It's an 80 dollar cab ride to the airport whi…
There's a bus from downtown to the airport. It takes 40 minutes and costs $3.15. Driving takes 20 minutes.
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On the bright side, it is opening up some long-overdue political dialogue. For example diversification of the Alberta economy away from natural resources. Calgary's downtown office towers have reached record high vacancy rates, with so many engineers laid off. I'm hoping this is an opportunity for tech companies to take notice and move in.
I am not sure this is going to happen. Calgary is a very conservative city, very little public transportation, a terrible cab system (and a city council who opposes alternatives), terrible road network (especially crowchild) no nightlife and very conservative drug and alcohol laws. Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian (54k usd), so the good ones just move the the USA or work remotely. I don…
That's significantly less than I was making as a software engineer in Calgary. Maybe I was lucky, but I suspect your numbers are wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calgary is demographically young and cosmopolitan. The average Calgarian came from somewhere else in Canada. Their political views reflect this. When Nenshi was elected, Toronto's media had a massive freak-out over the fact that he's a Muslim. This did not happen in Calgary because Calgarians didn't view his choice of religion as being pertinent to his job. Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto el…
>Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto elected Rob Ford. I'm not from Toronto but the fact is that the barely-literate, anti-intellectual, suburban outlying population of places like (edit) Etobicoke elected Rob Ford. edit: ah yes, the old reddit-style downvote because the truth hurts. The simple fact is the man was a train wreck, and his supporters are basically Tea Party North.