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Why Canada Should Join the EU

economist.com

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Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#631

Post by remarkEon »

roncesvalles wrote: post #465
jt2190 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

Exactly. Immigration is largely a symptom of declining birth rates. If the birth rate is above replacement, guess what, no immigrants needed!

You don't need immigrants either way.

The idea that a country must import more immigrants because birthrates are not increasing or are below replacement is just "number go up" economics. It's the same trite and annoying arguments that some Bitcoin boosters make (the ones who don't actually understand the underlying technology, there's a parallel there).

Japan, for one example, isn't going to collapse. Or should they import 50M immigrants from across the planet to make sure the numbers in the spreadsheets go up?

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#632

Post by remarkEon »

lesuorac wrote: post #381
Dalewyn wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Importing lots of young labor Everything old is new again, in this case slavery. What century is this, the 17th? I thought we graduated from hauling tons of slaves across oceans.

Who else is going to do menial jobs for low pay when the current citizenry have access to higher paying jobs?

Does everyone have memory loss?

People in high school had after school jobs. Retirees did something on the side for some extra cash to send to their grand-kids. For whatever reason, after "tech" had its moment in the sun (and on Wall Street) the downward wage pressure went to 11. And that's why everyone is so insistent on more immigrants.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#633

Post by seanmcdirmid »

roncesvalles wrote: post #484
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anecdote I have heard is that the USA is a melting pot and Canada is a mosaic. I do notice when I travel to the USA that people seem much more integrated and buy into the USA culture and lifestyle. Here in Canada you just get a bunch of mini communities who do not integrate.

>the USA is a melting pot and Canada is a mosaic Although that's what they teach us in Canadian schools, in my experience it's the opposite. Ghettos and enclaves aren't really a thing in Canada like they are in the US. There are some remarkably insular subcultures within the US like Latinos, Hasidic Jews, the Chinese (in some places), Amish and variants, Indians in certain towns like Edison, Black people in certain c…

> Ghettos and enclaves aren't really a thing in Canada like they are in the US.

I know you are making mostly an anecdotal claim, but if you compare Seattle and Vancouver, and more aptly, their suburbs Bellevue and Richmond, I think the American side is more assimilated simply because we don’t have the percentages of Chinese that the Vancouver area has.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#634

Post by tsimionescu »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #310
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…

Lots of Europe has ethnic strife and tensions. Bosnian / Serbian. Czech / Slovak (until recently). Spain has its breakaway ethnic movements. Ireland like others mentioned is a close analogue.

Bosnia, Serbia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic are all separate countries today. Of course, not all Bosnians, Serbs, Slovak, and Czechs live in the respective nation states, and there is still strife. But I still fail to grasp what, say, the Czech Republic could learn about how to treat its Slovak minority from how Canada trays its First Nations minorities.

Should different Slovak communities in the Czech Republic have their own lands and make their own laws? What if they're living in the same village as Czechs, how will they split the territory there?

There is simply no valid comparison between how populations in Europe live and have developed up to today, and how things sit in Canada with the First Nations.

And note, the Basque country in Spain is already an autonomous region with significant ability to do its own governance. The Basques there have been practicing their own traditions and using their own language since the fascist dictatorship fell. The Catalans of Catalunya (one of the richest regions of Spain, mind you) also speak their own language and are not in any other way culturally suppressed, again, since the fascist dictatorship fell. The reason for their struggle for independence is mostly their perception that they are being dragged down economically by the poorer parts of Spain (i.e. the strictly Spanish-speaking South).

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#635

Post by remarkEon »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #443
yhg56fgniyfv wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all your neighbors no longer spoke English, you don't think that would affect you? Obviously that's an extreme example, but other cultural differences will affect you as well.

If they all spoke a common language, I'd try to learn a bit of it. How exciting!

"Wow all these Goths have moved into my town, but they don't speak Latin, they speak Gothic. How exiting!"

- Anonymous Roman Citizen, 412 AD

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#636

Post by tsimionescu »

zeckalpha wrote: post #525
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

They certainly reflect history better than they do for the First Nations in Canada.

I also have no idea whatsoever what 1500 year old history has to do with anything. None of the cultures of that time exist today in any meaningful sense. Even the Italians or Greeks of today are not the Romans and Greeks of 300 CE, they are vastly different cultures and speak unintelligibly different languages.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#637

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

lucb1e wrote: post #322
lttlrck wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10%?!? That's not grounded in reality - only ignorance, maybe prejudice.

I'm not sure what you're responding to. I'm asking whether there is any bit of the place that is worth differentiating from what was said above, not having a prejudice about any which 10%

There are countless resources you can use to solve your extreme ignorance of the US. Asking people in a HN thread probably isn’t the most effective.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#638

Post by tsimionescu »

toenail wrote: post #11
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…

European nations still have plenty of overseas colonies.. err.. territories. As somebody from an ethnic minority that was eradicated through educational and cultural policies that sounds like a good idea even without the former.

This is the best point that I hadn't considered by far. I was only thinking of the actual territory of Europe, but you're absolutely right that things look very different in overseas colonies.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#639

Post by tsimionescu »

KPGv2 wrote: post #573
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…

> So who are they talking about? Maybe the Irish, who were genocided by the English up into the 20th century.

They are talking about what the EU countries of today can learn from the Canadians' treatment of First Nations people today. Canada's treatment of the First Nations people was also appaling up into the 20th century.

Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU

#640

Post by tsimionescu »

sandworm101 wrote: post #580
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…

The irish. The scots. Basically everyone who wasnt related to the vikings after 1066. The welsh trying to protect thier language are basically quebec. The scots talking about leaving, but never actually doing it, are basically alberta. And thats just similarities in the british isles. Then there are all the little counties bordering giant countries (finland) that see parallels to the canada-us relationship.

Your assertion is that the Scots, the Irish, and the Welsh are treated less fairly in the UK today than the First Nations people are in Canada? Because the article was claiming that EU countries have a lot to learn from Canada today.

I personally very much disagree with the concept that First Nations people in Canada are afforded more rights and are freer to practice their cultural identity than the Scots, Welsh, and Irish in the UK in 2024.

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