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Why Canada Should Join the EU

economist.com

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Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#331

Post by marcusverus »

defrost wrote: post #271
xen2xen1 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same complaint about DEI stuff in the US. Diversity is wonderful, but you also need people to integrate. The US used to be called the great melting pot, now we don't expect people to melt. No wonder we have so many problems. People used to be expected to integrate, that don't now, people should rightly be pissed.

[flagged]

Of course they do, but you'll never hear about them. Opinions are given weight by numbers, not abstract ideas like when your ancestors arrived.

How do you think they look back on their forebears, who failed to preserve and pass on their birthright?

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#332

Post by sumedh »

louwrentius wrote: post #321
threeseed wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Young Canadians doubly so Similar situation in Australia and US. And most of it misplaced. One major issue is trying to buy a first home where the blame goes towards immigrants. Instead of towards older generations where the problem really lies. They apply political power across multiple levels of government to affect everything from planning, taxation, inheritance which systemically prevent young people getting in…

In NL the housing shortage is blamed on immigrants whereas the actual reason for said shortage is absolutely the politics of the right-wing cabinets for the last 15 years who did nothing significant to improve the speed of housing construction. It’s not that strange as one of the political parties basically explicitly protects business interests and oh boy did they profit. It’s political nihilism.

> the politics of the right-wing cabinets for the last 15 years who did nothing significant to improve the speed of housing construction.

Is the population rising because NL natives are having more kids or because new people coming in?

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#333

Post by jt2190 »

wvenable wrote: post #306
titanomachy wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. I don't live in Canada anymore, but even my moderate and liberal friends in Canada regularly complain about immigrants. That sentiment feels very new to me, though. I think Canada did have a positive view of immigrants for a long time.

In Canada, one cannot lump all immigrants together even those from the same part of the world. Canada used to be pretty strict on immigration only allowing highly skilled individuals from all over the world. But in the last decade this has changed to just importing as many bodies as possible. I won't go into the reasons for this change but it has dramatically altered the character of the country in this time. We have…

Canada is in a demographic crisis: The birthrate is too low, the population is aging and the country can’t afford to provide people with all of the social benefits AND have no laborers paying in to the benefit system. Importing lots of young labor rebalances the demographics and bolsters funding of benefits, at the expense of a housing crisis and social tensions. The alternative is to deeply cut benefits, which is political suicide for any party that dares to try.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#334

Post by gmueckl »

jopsen wrote: post #172
gmueckl wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that one can find a political definition of Europe that is lax enough to justify inclusion of these countries if so motivated. Turkey is formally in (suspended) membership negotiations and a major discussion point was that most of its land area is not on the European continent. Redefining Europe to include Canada would be outright ridiculous. The Union would have to redefine its own identity if it wanted to a…

> Turkey is formally in (suspended) membership negotiations and a major discussion point was that most of its land area is not on the European continent. Would the that be a discussion point if Turkey had a well functioning democracy? Solid economics? Didn't have the death penalty? Found some sort of resolution to conflicts on its borders?

I don't have answers for your questions. My wording is also imprecise. I only meant to say that I remember that the location of Turkey was used as an argument against starting membership negotiations when that was deliberated within the EU.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#335

Post by devops99 »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #273
jasode wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reddit thread started by a woman working at a college in Toronto was on the front page of reddit 2 months ago. Commenters just piled on with more and more anecdotes. : https://old.reddit.com/r/canadian/comments/1g7a6eg/im_sick_o... I binged watched a bunch of videos on Europe's various countries' backlash to immigration. An example was a Sweden reversal of attitude on immigration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am…

Reddit is completely astroturfed and shouldn't be taken as an real-world indication of political sentiments on any issue. However, turning to racist policy in light of economic crisis is not new, the last time Americans deported people of Mexican descent in droves was during the aftermath of the Great Depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation Humanity will just have to relearn the lessons of the…

[dead]

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#336

Post by dismalaf »

I'd be down, my family already gets all of our medical care in the EU anyway (wife is an EU citizen, as is our son).

Not sure EU countries would want millions of our immigrants flooding them though, especially once they see wages in Germany...

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#337

Post by cmrdporcupine »

joshlemer wrote: post #328
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't really let "poor" immigrants into Canada. The system here attempts to cherry-pick in people based on a whole points system, with "I have money to buy a house" and "I have a $$ profession" being being points contributors. We actually have the opposite problem, to some degree. Acquiring more skilled talent from abroad has depressed skilled labour compensation here. And acquiring people from abroad with $$ to i…

This isn't true. There are about 1 million international students in Canada and they aren't cherry picked. Basically anyone who gets into any of the strip mall colleges in Ontario gets in, and many of them are basically just diploma mills "selling" Canadian immigration status to anyone willing to pay. There is nominally a requirement to be self sufficient financially but it just requires showing you have 20k CAD in a…

Being an international student isn't "immigration status" -- it's temporary by definition. There's a potential path to PR from there, but by no means guaranteed. I'd have to go look up the conversion rate, but my understanding is the majority of international students are returning home after, or at least that used to be the case.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#338

Post by krapp »

valunord wrote: post #164
krapp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there’s a case to be made for Canada, Greenland, and the US forming a closer political and economic union. Not as some imperialistic land grab, but as a pragmatic response to shifting global power dynamics and shared interests. Canada I understand. But why Greenland, other than the fact that Trump saw it in the window and decided he wanted it? The US already has a base there, it doesn't seem to be that vital to our…

So while it's kinda hard to see at first blush perhaps, Greenland plays an actual critical role in North American security and economic interests - far more than it might seem at first glance. Yeah, Trump's interest aside (which definitely brought some unnecessary circus to the topic), Greenland’s value lies in a few key areas: - Strategic Arctic positioning. It's central to Arctic geopolitics. While the Arctic ice m…

These all seem like post-hoc rationales to me, because as far as I know (and I may be wrong) no one was talking about Greenland in this context until Trump brought it up.

If Greenland is that important, we already have all of the money if we wanted to buy it, and all of the tanks and planes and nuclear submarines if we didn't want to take no for an answer.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#339

Post by lucb1e »

titanomachy wrote: post #253
lucb1e wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What of this is not true for the rest of the country then? I haven't visited at all but what the comment above you mentioned (basically the woes of limited social mobility, bad employment terms including tying healthcare to it if you're not rich, insane incarceration, etc.) is the kind of stats and stories I'm familiar with. The country does some things well also, as the commenter above also said, but it's not a plac…

> I haven't visited at all > it's not a place [I] would recommend most people to live Your recommendation (or lack thereof) carries little weight, then. But to actually answer your question, there are many places in the US (urban, suburban, and rural) where fear of violent crime is not a major factor in the day-to-day life of most people. I don't know anyone who has been a victim of violent crime, and it does not fea…

Thanks for the answer. Though I can't say that I expected most people to fear being violently killed on a daily basis indeed, murder is something the person above mentioned so that technically is an answer to my question about which bit is not ubiquitous for the country

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#340

Post by transcriptase »

cldellow wrote: post #247
skissane wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At present nearly every min wage and gig economy position in the country is 99% early 20s males from India taking advantage of being able to enrol in a diploma mill to qualify for PR. The Feds knew of this shady pipeline for years and did nothing because it juiced GDP numbers that otherwise would have revealed a recession. Australia has had the same problem and in the last few years the Australian government has cr…

Canada has begun cracking down on this. There are now caps on the number of visas issued. Foreign students are no longer allowed to work full-time jobs by default while studying. This is especially relevant, because the Comprehensive Ranking System for permanent immigration gives points for years of full-time work experience in Canada, as well as for diplomas earned in Canada. Unwinding it will be a bit messy: lots o…

Yes cracking down. In a typical LPC “we’re going to reduce the number by 10% after tripling it, starting next year” fashion.
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