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Why Canada Should Join the EU

economist.com

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Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#521

Post by bombcar »

gwbas1c wrote: post #130
aborsy wrote: post #66

Canada will do much better joining US (and distancing itself from declining EU and its disastrous policies). The US is much better managed; the results speak for themselves.

"The point" of Canada is that it's a separate country that doesn't have US politics. That being said, the general lockdown of the boarder after 9-11 has driven a lot of people who live close to the boarder nuts. Crossing the boarder used to be like crossing a state/province boarder. If you look at satellite photos of the boarder around Maine, NH, and VT, it's full of little country roads where you could cross unimped…

Maybe it’s only the online ones, but Canadians seem to have more fun discussing American politics than they do their own.

Perhaps because it’s like the weather; something massive and powerful that could crush you at any time but you can’t change it.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#522

Post by bombcar »

atmosx wrote: post #107
aborsy wrote: post #66

Canada will do much better joining US (and distancing itself from declining EU and its disastrous policies). The US is much better managed; the results speak for themselves.

Interesting. How do you define "success"? Is the average American Joe really better off than the average European Joe? In the U.S., a cancer diagnosis can lead to bankruptcy, while treatment is free (or close to free) in most EU countries. Education is largely free as well, and you don't see people walking around armed like they’re in the Marine Corps. So, I'm not sure what benchmark we're using to measure this.

Which way are the immigrants flowing? If European Joe is better off than American Joe it should be a net flow to Europe, no?

And I’ve seen way more people walking around with military weapons in Europe than I ever have in the USA - to be fair, they were the literal armed forces of the country, but still exceptionally weird to see as an American.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#523

Post by Yawrehto »

kbutler wrote: post #512
jimbob45 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expired: Northern California should become its own state I miss the wired/tired/expired lists greatly. Wired from 2000-2010 was a high-quality publication.

Tired: Wired Expired: Wired subscription

Fired: tired but inspired staff at Wired (because your subscription expired)

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#524

Post by krapp »

chrisntb wrote: post #445
krapp wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US has attempted buying Greenland a few times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_the_United_State...

Huh. I guess I stand corrected.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#525

Post by zeckalpha »

tsimionescu wrote: post #6

> Canada’s inclusive treatment of its indigenous peoples, at least in recent decades, could be emulated by Europeans (though First Nations Canadians might fairly object to closer ties with ex-colonists) I really wonder what the author meant with this line. There's very few populations in Europe that bear any similarity whatsoever with the relationship between First Nations people and most Canadians, since most popula…

Modern boundaries don't reflect history well. There's an extension of linguistics concept to states rather than languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...

We also have lost much to history. Take a look at the shuffling that happened during https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#526

Post by 3vidence »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #293
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because those immigrants came here because they wanted to be Canadians. These new immigrants have no desire to integrate.

This isn't the true problem. The old and new immigrants aren't even really that different. They are mostly from India like they were for the past 15-ish years and more. The real true difference is that the economy and job market flipped, and now there are layoffs, fierce job competition, and inflation. That type of environment makes people generally jealous and angry at others, and so there is a new focus on immigran…

Like you just have to look at the distribution of immigration across different countries in the past 10 years to see that this isn't correct.

It was not the norm that 60% of all immigration was from a single country...

Additionally immigration has objectively increased at a time of large unemployment which used to not be allowed until the current government lifted the restriction on 6% unemployment.

You can have a mixture of opinions but we gotta stick to the facts first

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#527

Post by zeckalpha »

rayiner wrote: post #385

Does the economist know what time it is? Nationalism is resurgent: nationalist parties now control the U.S. and Italy. Canada seems poised to Poilievre, who has made impassioned appeals to Canadian nationalism. And in Germany, France, and the U.K., nationalist parties have effectively rendered the governing coalitions impotent, even if they cannot yet command a majority. What a time to suggest that Canadians cede the…

This could be seen as a EU-nationalist framing. Just like the United States has shifted from being a federation of states toward being a singular entity.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#528

Post by bombcar »

krapp wrote: post #338
valunord wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Greenland has the population of a small US city.

For the cost of only $14 per American per year, we could pay everyone in Greenland $85k/yr for life. It’s $4.5/bln a year.

Greenland has already obtained some independence from Denmark and is looking for more. It’s unlikely they sell themselves to the USA directly but something that is effectively the same with a fig leaf on it could certainly happen.

And if actual world-scale conflict broke out, it would de facto be a US protectorate at best, and just another territorial acquisition at worst.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#529

Post by bombcar »

chrisntb wrote: post #445
krapp wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US has attempted buying Greenland a few times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_the_United_State...

> In August 2019, the Washington Post estimated the purchase price of Greenland would fall between $200 million and $1.7 trillion

Now THERE’S a price range!

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#530

Post by bpodgursky »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #128
tsimionescu wrote: post #6

> Canada’s inclusive treatment of its indigenous peoples, at least in recent decades, could be emulated by Europeans (though First Nations Canadians might fairly object to closer ties with ex-colonists) I really wonder what the author meant with this line. There's very few populations in Europe that bear any similarity whatsoever with the relationship between First Nations people and most Canadians, since most popula…

> And the few tribal populations in Northern Europe generally were and certainly are today treated at least as fairly as anything in Canada. Really? The Sami populations don't have any sovereignty that I know of.

You have to shoehorn the Sami into this comparison because they really only colonized the Nordic countries contemporary with the majority "European" populations. They weren't, in the same sense, indigenous, just... less western.
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