> 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.
Why Canada Should Join the EU
731–740 of 823 posts
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#732Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labour won the election, but Starmer’s approval rating is already down to 27% after just six months. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/dissatisfaction-starmer-reaches-... . That’s not surprising given that Labour got half a million fewer votes than it did in 2019, when it lost in a landslide, but won anyway because of infighting among the right wing. That’s what I meant when I said nationalists have rendered ruling parties…
Approval ratings are stupid. The 27% on a ~65% turnout roughly corresponds to the % who voted for them. Labour aren't impotent due to the 'excellent' nature of our system, they have all of the power. And as much as Musk blathers, there won't be an election for several years. And Labour aren't a coalition, it's one party. It's the right that would be fragile if it decided to coalesce. Reform took from Labour as well,…
That’s the point! Labour can win the election under the UK’s rules but at the end of the day the Labour government is immediately unpopular it doesn’t have the support of anything close to a majority of voters.
“Coalitions” exist in politics regardless of the election rules. In the U.S., parties have to form internal coalitions. In Germany, parties need to form coalitions between multiple parties. In the UK and Canada, a party can win a majority of seats without anything approaching a majority of voters, but that’s not sustainable. Nationalism eviscerated the traditional Labour base, which is why they lost in a landslide in 2019. In the long run, a party can’t government with a sub-30% approval rating. What’ll likely happen is that you’ll get a game of ping pong where Labour just gets voted out in the next election.
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#733no thanks, we don't need the next thierry to have an expanded fief to "regulate". if anything, canada should model itself closer to the states with more personal freedoms and less regulation. there is a lot of land and resources to develop, the politicians need to just stop trying to maintain the status quo and aggressively try to develop all the land we have. the idea that we can't is a loser's mentality.
Your malevolent childs-ego-inflated-to-national 'winners vs losers' notion will inevitably, if not expunged, make losers of us all. My 'us' is of course unimaginable to your minuscule 'me'.
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#734Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our land sucks. I live in Vancouver and can't grow decent: tomatoes, raspberries.
We live north of you and grow enough raspberries and tomatoes to last almost until the following season. It’s a skill issue.
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#735Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Someone once said something to the effect: "I'm not concerned that computers will become more like people, I am that people will learn to 'think' like computers". A fortiori humans vs social media. You are faux-thinking in a series of tweets.
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#736Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our land sucks. I live in Vancouver and can't grow decent: tomatoes, raspberries.
My family and I have no issues growing either of these on the island or lower mainland. This sounds like a you problem. You don't want to believe a stranger on the internet? Take a cruise through Delta sometime in early summer.
Instead of rudely retorting 'it sounds like a you issue' why don't you not make such an arrogant assumption and suppose I had a deeper reason for saying what I did, that actually is based on experience and research rather than a superficial tour through Delta in peak summer. Don't argue back; just ask why.
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#737Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our land sucks. I live in Vancouver and can't grow decent: tomatoes, raspberries.
Raspberries and tomatoes seem to grow fine on the boulevards despite rainforest soil being less than ideal. Otherwise Canada has extremely fertile land.
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#738Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t know any modern country where people got to vote on immigration. It seems like even if you vote for the anti immigration parties you get just as much immigration. At least in America, “less immigration” won out over “more immigration” by clear polling margins every year since 1965, except for a few years in the 2010s. Democratic processes gave them more. I’ve seen similar results in the UK. Parties mentioning…
> At least in America, “less immigration” won out over “more immigration” by clear polling margins every year since 1965, except for a few years in the 2010s. Democratic processes gave them more. You are probably referring to the Gallup poll [1]. To me, it seems, they don't make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Some questions even dig into the illegal part. I'd say illegal immigration is a differe…
Everyone has this problem. Birth _rates_ are declining everywhere. Different countries are just in different parts of the decline. Even if this is your reason for importing immigrants and you think it’s worth any negatives, you are simply helping the boomers and doing nothing to help later generations. In addition, you are making the situation dramatically worse for migrant origin countries as their young people leave to be workers somewhere else.
I do think it’s also worth asking, if you keep this policy up, what you mean by “Germany.” If it’s an economic zone defined by arbitrary borders, all well and good, but if you think anything more of it than that, then obviously importing immigrants to create a square or non-inverted population pyramid means that at some point in the next century, German culture, norms, morals, and ethnicity will be a tiny minority in Germany the economic zone. If you’re okay with that tradeoff then alls well, but it seems worth acknowledging. I did some rough calculations with Canadian demographics for example, and in 80 years Canada will be totally unrecognizable as it will have had near-total population turnover via migration. Unless birth rates suddenly skyrocket instead of declining, or immigration comes to a screeching halt.
The future is never really predictable, but it’s looking like the future of a lot of Western countries is that they’ll end up basically satellites of countries like India, China, or Turkey. (Of course they’re facing their own declines, particularly China, but there’s a lot of quantity involved.) It’s also unclear to me that voting blocs of young voters will continue to fund entitlements. It will be pretty interesting to live through. I think the closest historical parallel is the total collapse in the Roman population during the early empire.
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#739Earlier quoted context omitted.
Canada could have imported as many young educated people as it wanted from Eastern European countries, Russia, former USSR members etc. What happens in reality is they can't get enough points due to some truly moronic rules. Yet somehow we mostly have people from other parts of the world whose main specialty is food delivery.
Oh, so, tell me... What's the difference against between people from Eastern Europe and those "other parts of the world" ? You're implying a big difference, but I can't put my finger on what it might be.
I'm from Middle East and am now a Canadian after many years, I know first hand it took my own family ample time to adapt to Western values. I'm not going arguing which sets of values is better (though some of them in the West _objectively_ are) but highlighting that it's reductive to deny the differences.
Re: Why Canada Should Join the EU
#740Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes Indians come to Canada for jobs and money but keep their own culture. I always find it slightly bizarre. I have tried to explain that culture and economy are interlinked. India's inequality and superstitious beliefs will keep the population poor.
>I always find it slightly bizarre. I have tried to explain that culture and economy are interlinked. India's inequality and superstitious beliefs will keep the population poor. These arguments are... unreliable to say the least. Back when east asia was poor, people made similar "culture and economy are interlinked" claims. Specifically, that confucianism was holding them back and keeping them poor. After the east as…