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Why Canada Should Join the EU

economist.com

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Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#601

Post by cmrdporcupine »

valunord wrote: post #555
FrinkleFrankle wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian, the idea of becoming part of America makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. Our country has problems, yours is broken. It's been broken since its inception. Giving every state an equal representation in the Senate and an outsized representation in Congress meant that it was ALWAYS going to break. I the 70s a few people tried to change this by abolishing the electoral college and ensuring you vote dire…

I get the sentiment, but let’s not pretend Canada’s running some utopian alternative to the US. Canada’s got deep, deep, DEEP structural cracks that are hard to ignore. I've got family that fled Canada and I've got some more that are miserable up there at the moment. They hate the government, they hate the cultural evolution, and they simply hate all the possible futures right now. Think about this: - Trudeau’s leade…

Alberta's voice being drowned out? Civil war? "Fled" Canada?

C'mon. Get real.

You sound like you've been talking to a pretty far right-wing echo chamber.

I'm from Alberta originally and ... no... not drowned. Shrill, and a with a strong persecution complex, but... very well heard. And with way more power than it pretends.

There are certainly forces... American forces included... that would like to characterize things the way you are. For their own interests.

The problem is, this isn't accurate.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#602

Post by lolinder »

userbinator wrote: post #586
lolinder wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoting doesn't solve much in cases like this—all the top-level comments are political to one degree or another (mostly very political), and they're pinned to the top at this point by upvotes from politically like-minded people. There are a bunch of downvoted comments from the less-popular political perspectives in the threads, but them being downvoted only decreases the quality of the conversation, because the gr…

mostly very political The article itself is political, so why wouldn't the discussion be? The real question is whether HN wants political discussion, which at least in the past has been "no".

I guess the distinction I'm drawing is that the comments aren't interestingly political. The political topics that are left on the HN front page are usually there because the discussion is heavily moderated to keep things civil and interesting, and that doesn't seem to be happening here.

The top comment by tsimionescu is fine. Not great, but par for the course. The replies are at least mostly civil, but they're also mostly drive-bys.

The other top-ranked top-level comments range from uninspired to terrible. There's this one (which suggests that OP and I aren't the only ones feeling this way), then the usual "the right is ascendant" comment, then an insanely flamebaity comment (235 replies and counting) that begins with "clearly the author is ignorant" and somehow manages to go downhill from there.

Then there's a tired/wired meme and two single-sentence calls pointing to alternative alliance/free-trade arrangements with no further explanation.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#603

Post by petre »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #303
dr_dshiv wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious how others on this thread experience this. It’s different from anti immigration sentiment in EU & USA then?

I have a BIL who immigrated to Canada and most of my family immigrated to the US. In the US most immigration sentiment is around illegal immigrants and fear of crime. In Canada, up until COVID there was basically no ill sentiment towards immigrants because no illegal immigrants and not really much immigrant crime. COVID flipped the job markets and economy, so people turned their eyes to skilled immigrants. Most Ameri…

"People from the future. They took our jobs." -- South Park

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#604

Post by ska »

bombcar wrote: post #515
ska wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>whose physical presence spans a majority of a major continent, I take your point, but this part isn't true. Canada is a little larger, and then there is also Mexico which is about 1/2 the size, so US is roughly 2/5ths of North America.

uS is over 9m sq kms, Mexico is under 2. Canada is larger than the US but if the US extended its northern border 50 miles Canada wouldn’t have any population left.

Oh you’re right about relative size of Mexico - my memory had a units error (km vs mi). Still, it’s not even as big as Canada so the statement wasn’t close to right…. It’s a bit under 9/20

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#605

Post by petre »

naniwaduni wrote: post #193
JodieBenitez wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a moment I thought that was satire. Canada has its share of "multicultural" problems. And that's on top of french speaking people vs. english speaking people.

> And that's on top of french speaking people vs. english speaking people. In the EU, of course, everyone is against anglophones.

Not really, the real "anglophones" are against everybody else, specifically Eastern Europe. So they got out of the EU thinking that would solve their problem.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#606

Post by int_19h »

roncesvalles wrote: post #482
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.

Integration is a 1st generation immigrant problem. I don't think that 2nd gen Indians (let's be honest, that's what you're referring to) have any problems integrating into Canadian culture. In fact I've noticed they integrate better than most other immigrant groups. They tend to identify with both urban and suburban culture, and aren't overly religious.

In BC, at least, it felt like the most culturally integrated immigrant group were the Chinese.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#607

Post by deepsun »

brailsafe wrote: post #373
deepsun wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a nitpick -- the "overheated property market" sounds like a bad thing, but I don't understand why it must be that way. In the end -- property developers are Canadian companies, and must bathe in money. "Younger Canadians" must be enjoying elevated salaries at these companies. The only reason I see why it is that way is when other Canadians restrict the supply of real estate (NIMBY) to inflate their own property…

That may be true, but money is still expensive, lead times are absurd, and we have a small number of companies who probably make most of their money jsut by owning the land regardless of whether it's developed or not. Likewise, even if you're making very good money in one of a scarce few highly specialized or senior positions, you'll need to be doing so for an extended period of time, and probably make much more than…

Agree, but that is a problem created by locals, not immigrants. Why do they blame immigrants?

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#608

Post by int_19h »

bawolff wrote: post #468
galangalalgol wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a, maybe not worst case, but really bad case, where there is violent conflict between the west and the PRC, how mught that play out in BC? My understanding is that a large portion of that 54.5% are from there? In the US during ww2 many Japanese business and land holdings were nationalized and then auctioned off to local business people. It seems like a work of fiction now, but such things have precedent.

> In the US during ww2 many Japanese business and land holdings were nationalized and then auctioned off to local business people. Not just in the US. Canada has its own shameful history of that sort of thing during WW2.

In BC specifically, in fact. What is Richmond, BC today was a Japanese community originally rather than Chinese as it is today.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#609

Post by VerminOctopus1 »

fijiaarone wrote: post #470
throwawaysleep wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quebec would be a economic powerhouse if it weren’t French. One of the many reasons why.

Fewer than 25% of people in Quebec speak French fluently. Less than 1/10 use French as their primary language.

…Have you ever even been to Quebec? If you go anywhere outside of Montreal, you’re lucky if anyone even speaks english. It’s all heavily French.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#610

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #588
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian wealth is dominated by real estate, mostly land, which isn't directly a product of labor.

Valuable land is a product of labor, even if only due to being within the boundaries of a secure and orderly society. Armies, judicial systems, etc, plus labor to bring about the goods and services. Plenty of examples of prime land decreasing in price due to the labor around it not being of sufficient quality/quantity. It might even be that a society decreasing in wealth (real wealth, in the form of ability to create…

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