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[Liberty4all]

I’ve lived in Canada my whole life. Toronto. I watched the city go from Toronto the Good to Toronto the Gun.

I've watched the white flight from the city, I've watched as the middle class spread across the city dissipated replaced with a wealthy and increasingly security guarded core to a poor middle gang infested suburbs.

I can't really speak for the rest of Canada although I've didn't stints in alberta and Vancouver.... What I can say is that the cities of Canada are changing.

I could move to the US as my wife is an RN. It is increasingly attractive. The right in the US is more in line with my politics and isn't cold like Alberta which is the only province in line with my politics.

I'm a patriot though. I'll stick with my country as long as there is hope. Which is increasingly look like there's not.

Worst case scenario Canada's old age pensions (CPP and OAS) along side my RRSP'S (401k) should hold up long enough that I can retire in Florida or Arizona with a lower cost of living. Our old age plans are in alot better shape than the states.

I worry greatly though for my kid.

 

[Sakura]

Governments can only encourage so many things through tax breaks. Other things such as sexual liberation, feminism, the West's obsession with indivualism and the systematic destruction of the nuclear family have led to this.

These are forces that have prevailed even since the dawn of modern civilization. When you hit an apex, population expansion rates stabilize then start to decline. It's a worldwide pattern currently.

Canada has everything to gain from a larger population density. It just so happens that it's hard to control.

There is more that can be done than just tax breaks though. How about funding a comprehensive government study on why people are choosing to not have children? One reason I would expect to come up is the high cost of living. How much money would a house for a family of 4 cost? It wouldn't be cheap, not if you are renting or buying. Why do some other western countries have higher birthrates? For example the US, France, Australia, NZ have fertility rates of 1.8+. Not replacement numbers but still better than Canada's 1.5. I think there is a better effort that can be made.

 

[JordanN]

I could move to the US as my wife is an RN. It is increasingly attractive. The right in the US is more in line with my politics and isn't cold like Alberta which is the only province in line with my politics.

I wanted to avoid putting politics in my opening paragraph but I will say this right here: I am disappointed that Canada has no viable Conservative Party.

Even in other "doomed" places like Sweden, they still have parties that express an anti-hard left stance.

But in Canada, every political party now is either Liberal, Liberal Lite, or Liberal Extreme. In which case, rest in peace my gun rights or free speech.

 

[Siri]

The canadian dollar being high is abnormal. It tends to be around 75% of the american dollar for a decade or so then it goes above the US dollar for a few years before sinking again.

Canada has been a colony of the USA for a very long time. The vast majority of popular culture is the same (but slightly limited) as south of the border and the only reason it isn't 100% is because the media governing agency forces radio and TV to have Canadian content.

Most businesses are owned by Americans. These owners don't want to provide a "canadian discount" (which it isn't due to lower wages as you mentionned) so everything gets sold at a premium so 1 canadian sale = 1 american sale.

The biggest issue in my opinion is people want -more- american influence so nothing will ever change for the better. The goverment tries to promote a Canadian identity but it's a colonial one. Americans do this but we do this because we are better. Canada can't stand on its own.

Edit: yeah house design in Canada is garbage. In Japan people think it is beneath them to buy a house someone else lived in so fresh construction is popular. Most houses are customized to their current owner's preferences. In canada some company builds 50 houses that look the same in a small area after buying the land. I guess it's noob proof though.

My guess is that you weren’t born in Canada.

Canada is not a ‘colony’ of the United States, and Canadians are nothing like Americans. There are so many examples of this that it would literally take me a day to name them all.

One example: Canadians don’t elect leaders based on their religious beliefs. In The United States it’s impossible to become President if you’re an atheist - COMPLETELY impossible (or at least you have to lie about it). In Canada, however, we have an understanding, deep within us, that politics is not religion, and that our leaders should govern on the basis of evidence and not theology.

BTW, everytime I cross the border into the US I feel the change immediately - even when I’m in my car. The moment I step out of my car that feeling intensifies tenfold. And I’ve never met a true Canadian who hasn’t felt the same way.

 

[Chromata]

I do not expect a 100% atheist country to pass anti-Atheist laws. I do not expect a 100% Christian country to pass anti-Christian laws.
Common sense should tell anyone that groups look out for their own interests. Why wouldn't they?

An Islamic society isn't going to give a damn what some heretic thinks because to them, anything that goes against Islam is considered a fringe idea. Just as how, in Communist China, the reverse scenario exists. The Chinese government would view religion as fringe or a threat to their society and either suppresses or ostracizes it.

Canada's demographics tells us a similar story. When it was founded in 1867, the country was overwhelming centered around Christianity. We have many examples of Christian based countries who either didn't care or stopped enforcing rules found in the bible. Meanwhile, several Islamic countries still exist who interpret their religion more strongly than the Christian West.

Given these raw truths, I am not sure why it's hard to understand that a demographic shift away from Christendom to that of an Islamic majority does pave the way for the West to become exactly like all these other countries in the Middle East.

The proof is in the pudding, when countries try and promote a secular lifestyle but it comes in direct conflict with Islam, it is not Islam followers who are cheering on these laws. In which case, the demographics directly supports what's going to happen when a religious majority takes over, they are 100% guaranteed to not pass any laws meant to protect the non-muslim minorities.


Ok, so why aren't they leading the charge in their own countries then? I already pointed out, plenty of Christian majority countries have undergone movements that remove strict interpretations of the bible. They were also the first to even push for "separation of church and state". In Islamic countries, how many are already theocracies or promote Islam is the law of the land?


Germans were never Nazis by default. They could have enlisted in the Nazi Party and actually spread their party's message, in which case, I would still be weary of a room of Nazis being able to vote on human rights issues.

In your example, Muslims obviously choose to follow their faith. Unless they actually leave their beliefs, we already know based on group pattern behavior that there are still assimilation issues or opposition to secular laws.


How do you come up with this?
There certainly was a culture. Look at every building that was erected. Does Canadian architecture have any relation to Asian Architecture, or African, or Indigenous?
Did Canadians not play sports? Did they not build their own schools and universities? Didn't Canada have their own entertainment industry?

Being a 150 years old is not an excuse for saying there was no culture. There are countries that were founded much later, would you say a country like Israel has no culture, just because it started in 1948?


And yet when we look around the world, there are still certain boundaries or differences that demonstrate cultures can remain the same when put up against other ones.
The most spoken language in the world is Mandarin, which is 3,000 years old. I'm not sure how one can interpret that is going to change any soon. Or if it does, why? If the Chinese feel comfortable speaking the same tongue their ancestors from millennia ago were using, what exactly is the pressure to ditch that?


That's exactly how the world was before the 1970s. What do you believe immigration control is? When countries are free to put up quotas or literally deny entrance, they did have control over how "diverse" a nation should really be. Some countries still practice to be honest. It's the mostly the West though that is now taking the brunt damage of it. Illegal immigration for example, is being treated as a topic where anyone who opposes it must also support "concentration camps" or "nazism". All nuance is now lost, because the media has succeeded in painting a picture where unlimited immigration can only be a good thing, and anyone who is against this must be a bad person. Even though I believe in the opposite. Uncontrolled immigration + importing a mix of non-native cultural backgrounds = lack of assimilation or worse, actual ethnic or religious conflict.


If people want to visit different countries as a tourist, that's a whole different story. Tourists are universally seen as outsiders, who generally don't even stay long in a foreign country, nor do they actually participate in the local politics. The actual cultural conflict of interest is much more minimized, because no tourist is considered a legal citizen of a foreign country they visit. So you can be expected to be on your best behavior or you literally get back on the plane and have to leave. IMO, that is how far globalization should go. It doesn't actually disrupt how a nation continues to run itself. But when you do import people with completely different history or beliefs and they soon get to vote in elections, then that's when things start to look a little chaotic.


I see zero evidence of this. If you're talking about the recent migration waves, then no, Canada would not collapse without their contribution. The country is much older, and once Canada hit Industrialization status, it already solidified its place as being a world power.


Nonsense, they pass on what they built in the past to those they believe would take care of them once they left this earth. That is what inheritance is all about. And when you look at a nation, its those citizens who come first and are expected to carry on their legacy or traditions of their ancestors before them. Pretend we lived in a world where Canada completely closed its borders. Do I believe that all the railways or government buildings would fall apart if Canada never opened its door again to outsiders? Absolutely not. As long as the people still exist, with the same culture of hard work and scientific progression, it is quite possible the country itself would look nearly identical to how it is today.


Let us separate individuals from nations. If we do know there are nations that for example, have built many libraries and scientific institutions, and maintained them for hundreds of years, then yes, it is completely rational to believe that on a national level, there are countries or places on earth that place a higher level of importance on the sciences than compared to somewhere else.

On an individual level, then the variation is much more different. Yes, we'll get scientists from all around the world who are interested in pursuing the same fields. However, if these same scientists find themselves travelling to the countries I mentioned above that had years of building up their own scientific community, then the conclusion I reach is there are places on earth where people who want the to be apart of the most ground-breaking research clearly do so in the same countries that value it more than others. If this was not the case, then I would expect a sort of "reverse migration" where the complete opposite happens (people leave very advance countries to go to research in less developed ones).


It's relevant because when you brought up "science is progressing at unprecedented rate" I asked you in which countries do we see so much interest in it for it to take place? Your first examples where even Germany & Japan, telling me you went with those examples clearly because they are 1st world or that those are cultures that will always place an emphasis on scientific advancement, whereas the same cannot be said Brazil or Guatemala, for whichever reason, are much further behind in this aspect.

If it's in my country's interest to not slowdown or become like the rest of the world where certain cultures do not have as much priority on scientific development, then I would expect my nation to do everything it can to protect this status in fear that it could be "changed" one day. I also never said other people are savages. How else are we suppose to criticize other groups or countries if they do have different interests compared to the West?

You imply that a majority Christian society will only look out for their own interests, yet you also say that Christians stopped enforcing rules in the bible. Christians are the only people who are capable of living in another system? Every situation has deeper connotations to it, you can't just look at the generalized whole and say Christians can promote secularism but Muslims can't. I keep trying to explain to you why making conclusions based off other countries is not accurate and you still keep equating the actions of other Islamic nations with a Muslim population in Canada. The context is entirely different, the style and system of governance in Islamic countries is entirely different from Canada and USA. Middle eastern countries have existed for many thousands of years, the theocracy runs deep. The kind of pressures faced by individuals and the historical precedent are different than other societies. It's easy to say "well they should just adopt our system and stop being religious" when you're not the one doing it. The context behind the American Revolution is nothing like the kind of revolution you're expecting from these nations. When you're changing a system that deep, it's at the sacrifice of many lives, and there's no guarantee it'll even turn out well (if they even want to change at all). When you move to a new country as an immigrant, these pressures are entirely different, the system is entirely different, the context is entirely different. Immigration is not just living your old lifestyle in a new place, it's a system of adjustment.

Just as Germans are not Nazis by default, Muslims are also not believers of the extremes of Islam by default. Muslims also have every right to follow their own faith which can be done in many non-conflicting ways (it doesn't just boil down to hatred). That's not the point of my example. My example was to demonstrate how the actions of a nation can be separate from its populace and that those same individuals would behave differently in a different context.

I never said Canada has no culture, I said Canada doesn't really have its own culture. That also doesn't mean Canada doesn't have a distinctive culture, it means Canada doesn't have much of a distinctive culture. Canadian culture is a mix of Indigenous, French, British, and American culture. Hockey isn't even a Canadian invention, its roots trace to the Iroquois and possibly even Britain. Canadian buildings are very similar to American ones, even the CN Tower shares similarities to numerous other towers that came before it (ex: Milad Tower). Canadian entertainment is heavily influenced by American entertainment, the most popular movies, shows, and music in Canada are all American. I'm not saying these to bash Canada, I'm the one that was defending it in this thread. 150 years is not enough time to develop a rich and distinctive culture, that's literally ~3 generations of people. You're comparing Israel, a nation of Jewish people whose culture spans many thousands of years, to Canada. It's on another scale. It doesn't matter that Isreal was formally a country only recently, the people of Israel have roots far beyond that.

The world before the 1970s was leagues behind what it is today. The GDP per capita has more than tripled for both USA and Canada from 1970 to today. The amount of cultural and communicative influence countries have on one another today is far beyond the 1970s, the world will not go back to being the way it was. I can understand some of your concerns with globalization, but I just can't fathom expecting countries to pretend the last 50 years of technological advances didn't happen. It's productive to have conversations around immigration, sure, but to limit globalization to only tourism would mean severely hampering the kind of productivity present in the world today. Businesses that engage internationally don't just have superficial tourist connections. If you look at a major company like Sony, there are higher ups who've lived years of their lives in Japan and America, who speak English and Japanese, and who have experienced both cultures. That's not the exception, that's the norm.

Inheritance does not imply that you are given credit for your ancestor's accomplishments. They chose to pass it on to you because you were their direct descendants. You may feel pride for what they've done and wish to carry it on, but you are in no way responsible for their actions. There are immigrants or first/second generation Canadians present in every facet of Canadian society (from government to medicine to education to blue collar jobs and onwards). The country cannot function the same without them. The pace of growth in Canada's productivity far exceeds the population growth of its native population, if you expect Canada to move forward then immigration is mandatory. You want Canada to be just as powerful as USA, but you want them to do that with 1/10th of USA's population (and while admitting less immigrants per year). That's not going to happen.

Many nations might culturally value education, but might also not be in a position to output the amount of scientific productivity as other nations. This has to do with many factors such as war tensions, economic pressures, and population. We shouldn't make hasty judgments on the values of a nation just by looking at its current state, we need to consider how it got there to begin with. This may be the case with Brazil and Guatemala. I don't know their history, I don't know their culture, I don't know the conditions of their people. I just know that we can't judge Brazilian immigrants off the fact that Brazil itself might not release as much scientific research as other nations. Sure you might have aspiring scientists going to world famous research institutions to learn, which is great because that's what helps inspire their respective nation's children, but it's also important to note that this will result in a spread of knowledge to other places in the world as well. A huge chunk of the head specialists and researchers in the hospitals I've worked in are immigrants who have been trained from different institutions all around the world. They also teach internationally and conduct research internationally.

To clarify, I know you didn't call anyone savages. I didn't mean it to paint you a certain way or attack you, I'm just saying some of your arguments come off that way. I'm enjoying the debate though .

 

[JordanN]

You imply that a majority Christian society will only look out for their own interests, yet you also say that Christians stopped enforcing rules in the bible. Christians are the only people who are capable of living in another system?

Christianity, for better or for worse, is a flexible religion. In fact, Christendom does stand out by the sheer amount of denominations and contradicting faiths. Just off the top of my head I can name several different Christian groups: Catholics, Protestants, Evangelists, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah's Witness, Baptists, Amish, Mennonites, Anglicans.

I guess you can now understand why a secular society goes very easily with Christians. If they really couldn't tolerate each other. they would have slaughtered each other until only 1 or 2 major faiths were left standing.

Now, I do not see Islam being anywhere as versatile or as openly tolerant as Christianity has took hundreds of years to do so. Just off the top of my head, Muslims are almost always Sunni and Shia. It's only a really small minority that belong to a different sect. Now, if you want to argue if our immigration policies should in fact favor Secularist Muslims over the less divided Sunni/Shia, then I would agree with you.

However, the current "multiculturalism" paradox does not want to discriminate on these grounds in which case, my fears are again justified. Muslims do tend to remain as a unified bloc wherever they go. They do tend to vote on the same issues that once again, favor a pro-Islam narrative as opposed to an anti-religious one. Christians in so far do also have their own voting blocs, but at least we know most Christian countries don't come together and say "You know what? Everyone must now follow the bible or else". It was perhaps true 500 years ago, but not today for the very detailed reasons I mentioned above.

And in regards to the question "are Christians the only people who are capable of living in another system" this question. Which countries on earth are the most tolerant? And what exactly do their demographics look like? You can keep telling me that "No, Jordan. These Islamic countries will become tolerant one day. You can't blame Muslims as a demographics for this" well ok, but I am in no way obliged to make an exception for why these countries still haven't moved forward on secularism whereas we know for a fact today: a country that is either non-religious or at least Christian = almost no real risk of losing secularism.

The context is entirely different, the style and system of governance in Islamic countries is entirely different from Canada and USA. Middle eastern countries have existed for many thousands of years, the theocracy runs deep.

We literally saw last decade several Islamic countries organized protests and overthrow their rulers. So it seems like they are happy to change leaders they are not happy with, and yet did they actually change their religious system too? So to me, that's not really a valid excuse for why they still choose to keep Islam as the law of the land and punish Atheists or Homosexuals.

But I understand why they're not going to do that. They have their own religion and they obviously care more about their own book than what some heathen Canadians have to say from half way across the world.

The problem however is I clearly want the same with my country. I do not want our demographics to shift in a way where my relatively peaceful life now comes under attack, because our government did not have the foresight to monitor immigration and prioritize actual beliefs that are compatible with Canada instead of foreign ones that contradict it.

I remember a few years ago, there was in fact a Conservative politician (Kellie Leitch) who wanted to upgrade our immigration tests. Basically, you did have to ask a question that stated "Men & Women are equal". Now just look, what is going to happen when we do let people in this country who might have answered no to that? There's literally no reason for them to care or value the current Canadian system because they've already been admitted inside. This is an example of why I think maintaining some form of immigration control is crucial. Was Canadian culture really suppose to change, if the people who first lived inside voted to protect certain traditions or beliefs?

When you're changing a system that deep, it's at the sacrifice of many lives, and there's no guarantee it'll even turn out well (if they even want to change at all).

Well see my above post. The Middle East is happy to go to wars and dispose of leaders they're not happy with. But they don't want to spill blood so non-believers like me can actually live in their countries peacefully? Well ok, I'm still not sure why I would want to import such a culture in my country, if they've demonstrated they're not going to be the first ones to fight for it.

And to make this topic shorter can I ask another question: we've talked so much about how there are different cultures around the world with their own beliefs and history. Why then, don't we have an immigration system that should try and connect people who are more culturally similar to one and other, as opposed to having a "free for all" system that overlooks such backgrounds of religion or personal values?

I cannot justify a more moral system that says, countries should be doing everything in their power to avoid bringing conflict in their country, by maintaining a society that is indeed, a little more homogeneous? Until world peace is actually achieved, the world right now is very much divided and there are ongoing conflicts that can be traced due to cultural differences.

Just as Germans are not Nazis by default, Muslims are also not believers of the extremes of Islam by default.

You don't need to be the most extremist Muslim to still believe in Islamic law. The Taliban is considered one of the most extremist sects out there, and yet even their Islamic neighbors still thought they were insane and went to war with them. You don't have to be an actual Taliban to still believe in death punishments for homosexuals, or death penalties for those who draw the prophet Muhammad.

My example was to demonstrate how the actions of a nation can be separate from its populace and that those same individuals would behave differently in a different context.

Where does a nation derive their beliefs from? It's not a crazy coincidence that perhaps the head of state or the individual citizens, still believe in a book that all share the same theme or the same advice.
If Saudi Arabia replaced their Quran with that of a Bible or Buddhist literature, then I don't believe they will still have laws literally okaying who gets to die because it's considered god's will. Maybe this might open up to why the Middle East & Islam are in fact religions that must be treated separately from the rest of the world. It's been centuries since Christians read their bible and could never agree which version is correct without endlessly going to war over it. In the Middle East, Sunni and Shia (the two biggest Islamic faiths) are indeed at war with each other and cannot agree who has the correct text. Now, whether or not this type of division has overlaps with other real world problems, doesn't change that the risk assessment is much higher in terms of "which religion has the last amount of tolerance for not only others, but even within their own groups"?

150 years is not enough time to develop a rich and distinctive culture, that's literally ~3 generations of people.

If this is what you meant to say, what my posted meant to say is Canada is in fact distinct from other cultures around the world. Canada is culturally different from Japan, or India or the Middle East or Africa or South America. If you're saying our distinct culture is in fact more similar to the USA/France/Britain then YES. I 100% agree with this.

And the country only being 150 years solidifies this. Israel being founded in 1948, doesn't look like Canada. South Sudan, being founded in 2011, doesn't look like Canada. Why does actual time matter, when we have differences the eyes can see immediately? If Canada for 3 generations had a culture that was clearly British/French inspired, then the next 3 generations could very well be the same. As long as the original people are still there, the culture does reflect those who lived and passed it onto their children.

The world before the 1970s was leagues behind what it is today. The GDP per capita has more than tripled for both USA and Canada from 1970 to today.

This is highly subjective.
The world was both high advance and less advance, depending on which topic you want to address.

Like for example, yes GDP per capita is better, but I had another user on Neogaf just tell me last weekend we are actually more poorer with today's money compared to the past.

Or another example, 50 years ago, was global climate temperature considered as much of a danger/threat as it is today? Even if people are more educated about climate change today, would you not prefer if carbon emissions were at the same levels they were in the 1970s as opposed to where they are in 2020?

Basically, there can be an argument for how the world worked 50 years ago that could be treated as a positive, just as how you can make arguments that say we have done some things better in the future.

but I just can't fathom expecting countries to pretend the last 50 years of technological advances didn't happen. It's productive to have conversations around immigration, sure, but to limit globalization to only tourism would mean severely hampering the kind of productivity present in the world today. Businesses that engage internationally don't just have superficial tourist connections. If you look at a major company like Sony, there are higher ups who've lived years of their lives in Japan and America, who speak English and Japanese, and who have experienced both cultures. That's not the exception, that's the norm.

You can still do foreign business without physically swapping different populations together. And in fact, the world before the 1970s still engaged in this.

Franchising/licensing out brand names. The CEO of Walmart doesn't literally manage every store, he or she has subordinates that run several different locations and then reports their results to the board of directors. If it was a foreign operation, the same system still applies. Go to a foreign country, open a new branch, and hire people locally within the country who then sends their money back to main headquarters in the USA.

Inheritance does not imply that you are given credit for your ancestor's accomplishments. They chose to pass it on to you because you were their direct descendants.

Why would they then pass it onto their direct descendants instead of random strangers?
Could it be that they had strict rules or expectations that only those who were apart of the original family are more likely to carry on their legacy instead of the rare scenario where they abandon it?

It's actually a very magnificent system. Canadians from 3 generations ago may not have lived to to see their children (or they may have died half way through the transition) and yet, there was still a flawless transfer of power. The trains didn't stop running, the government didn't stop running, people still kept practicing traditions like going to church without their great grandaddy having to scold them to go.

It becomes very reasonable to assume that inheritance is a natural process, because who do you expect to be the best person to carry on your legacy, if they are not your own flesh and blood and were raised in the same culture that you and your previous ancestors came to live by? Or here's another scenario, you are a frail elderly man or woman, and you clearly don't have much time left. You only have one biological child. Do you pass on your house to your child, or do you opt to give it away to a stranger you just met on the street? What do you think might motivate people to pass on their own personal possession to family members, if we as humans didn't believe those we are most similar to are expected to carry on where we left off after we die? How would humans even have a culture in the first place, if all we did was approach random strangers and try and convince them to follow all the same rules or customs as us, when you could raise a family where brother, sister, mother and father do have a better understanding of each other than with the outside world?

Now, do you see what i'm getting at when I talk about inheritance?

Many nations might culturally value education, but might also not be in a position to output the amount of scientific productivity as other nations. This has to do with many factors such as war tensions, economic pressures, and population.

What if I told you for hundreds of years, that there were still civilizations who did culturally place more value in science and productivity even when compared to the rest of the world?
This is a serious question. I knew you were even going to bring up "war" yet many of these same scientifically developed countries were in fact war mongers or caught up in constant fighting.
Nobody denies that Germany had a violent past. Or Japan. And yet you were still the first one who answered that those two nations were also the best examples of science. Why? It's not like this culture could have just spawned out of thin air. It had to have their roots that go much deeper than what a few years of fighting could achieve.

Why isn't the all the world equal in this aspect, since wars or economic pressures or even population has been something affecting every nation for hundreds of years?

The country cannot function the same without them. The pace of growth in Canada's productivity far exceeds the population growth of its native population, if you expect Canada to move forward then immigration is mandatory. You want Canada to be just as powerful as USA, but you want them to do that with 1/10th of USA's population (and while admitting less immigrants per year). That's not going to happen.

There are several countries with larger populations that still punch far below their weight compared to where Canada has always stood on the world stage.
In fact, one doesn't even need to use the entire USA as proof of why they're so advanced.

The states of Texas or California, if they were ever to become independent, would still become superpowers in their own right. A population only matters when you actually compare what the people are capable of producing.

I completely disagree that in order to grow the population (in an act of catching up to the U.S) it must be done with immigration. No, we should actually invest first in sectors that actually meets the world's demands for goods.
There are plenty of countries for example, whose only resource is oil that practically drives their economy. I wouldn't go as far as to use the same tactic, but I would try and export things that aren't commonly found in the wild. Like Computers and digital software. You don't need billions of people to run your own Microsoft. You actually need people who understand how a tech startup works in the first place.

And in regards to the population, there can still be immigration but for reasons explained above, there should also be a natural effort and increasing the birth rate of the people who already live here. You wouldn't have to go through the boring steps of grabbing people all over the world and giving them a test and then hoping they assimilate. Millions of Canadians exist already, why isn't it the government's duty to use them first and populate their own country?

To clarify, I know you didn't call anyone savages. I didn't mean it to paint you a certain way or attack you, I'm just saying some of your arguments come off that way. I'm enjoying the debate though

I would never look down on another nation for simply not having the same cultural interests as the West. For example, the same nations who might not really value science could still have a culture that is really good at sports or music. If that's even their strength (i.e they're economically poor but they still win several gold medals at the Olympics or in tournaments) I would even encourage them to follow in that direction since that's something the rest of the world cannot best them in.

I am personally looking out for the interests of what Western nations continued to define themselves for hundreds of years. I do think that, when you look at all the records or achievements, then just as how there are countries who do good at sports, we similar patterns of countries that always had a culture of excelling well in the sciences. It's ok for both these nations to still co-exist and be different. I think the flaw of multiculturalism is that, it somehow thinks it cannot balance this or let one culture get completely swallowed by the other. And when that happens well, we can look at the Native Indians to see that losing your own influence in society quite literally sets you back, or even puts you on extinction.

 

[DeliciousDoc]

My guess is that you weren’t born in Canada.

Canada is not a ‘colony’ of the United States, and Canadians are nothing like Americans. There are so many examples of this that it would literally take me a day to name them all.

One example: Canadians don’t elect leaders based on their religious beliefs. In The United States it’s impossible to become President if you’re an atheist - COMPLETELY impossible (or at least you have to lie about it). In Canada, however, we have an understanding, deep within us, that politics is not religion, and that our leaders should govern on the basis of evidence and not theology.

BTW, everytime I cross the border into the US I feel the change immediately - even when I’m in my car. The moment I step out of my car that feeling intensifies tenfold. And I’ve never met a true Canadian who hasn’t felt the same way.

Actually I was born in Canada and my family was one of the first to colonize it. Notice how you can't talk about Canada without directly comparing yourself to the US. That's why you are a colonist.

 

[Chromata]

Christianity, for better or for worse, is a flexible religion. In fact, Christendom does stand out by the sheer amount of denominations and contradicting faiths. Just off the top of my head I can name several different Christian groups: Catholics, Protestants, Evangelists, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah's Witness, Baptists, Amish, Mennonites, Anglicans.

I guess you can now understand why a secular society goes very easily with Christians. If they really couldn't tolerate each other. they would have slaughtered each other until only 1 or 2 major faiths were left standing.

Now, I do not see Islam being anywhere as versatile or as openly tolerant as Christianity has took hundreds of years to do so. Just off the top of my head, Muslims are almost always Sunni an Shia. It's only a really small minority that belong to a different sect. Now, if you want to argue if our immigration policies should in fact favor Secularist Muslims over the less divided Sunni/Shia, then I would agree with you.

However, the current "multiculturalism" paradox does not want to discriminate on these grounds in which case, my fears are again justified. Muslims do tend to remain as a unified bloc wherever they go. They do tend to vote on the same issues that once again, favor a pro-Islam narrative as opposed to an anti-religious one. Christians in so far do also have their own voting blocs, but at least we know most Christian countries don't come together and say "You know what? Everyone must now follow the bible or else". It was perhaps true 500 years ago, but not today for the very detailed reasons I mentioned above.

And in regards to the question "are Christians the only people who are capable of living in another system" this question. Which countries on earth are the most tolerant? And what exactly do their demographics look like? You can keep telling me that "No, Jordan. These Islamic countries will become tolerant one day. You can't blame Muslims as a demographics for this" well ok, but I am in no way obliged to make an exception for why these countries still haven't moved forward on secularism whereas we know for a fact today: a country that is either non-religious or at least Christian = almost no real risk of losing secularism.


We literally saw last decade several Islamic countries organized protests and overthrow their rulers. So it seems like they are happy to change leaders they are not happy with, and yet did they actually change their religious system too? So to me, that's not really a valid excuse for why they still choose to keep Islam as the law of the land and punish Atheists or Homosexuals.

But I understand why they're not going to do that. They have their own religion and they obviously care more about their own book than what some heathen Canadians have to say from half way across the world.

The problem however is I clearly want the same with my country. I do not want our demographics to shift in a way where my relatively peaceful life now comes under attack, because our government did not have the foresight to monitor immigration and prioritize actual beliefs that are compatible with Canada instead of foreign ones that contradict it.

I remember a few years ago, there was in fact a Conservative politician (Kellie Leitch) who wanted to upgrade our immigration tests. Basically, you did have to ask a question that stated "Men & Women are equal". Now just look, what is going to happen when we do let people in this country who might have answered no to that? There's literally no reason for them to care or value the current Canadian system because they've already been admitted inside. This is an example of why I think maintaining some form of immigration control is crucial. Was Canadian culture really suppose to change, if the people who first lived inside voted to protect certain traditions or beliefs?


Well see my above post. The Middle East is happy to go to wars and dispose of leaders they're not happy with. But they don't want to spill blood so non-believers like me can actually live in their countries peacefully? Well ok, I'm still not sure why I would want to import such a culture in my country, if they've demonstrated they're not going to be the first ones to fight for it.

And to make this topic shorter can I ask another question: we've talked so much about how there are different cultures around the world with their own beliefs and history. Why then, don't we have an immigration system that should try and connect people who are more culturally similar to one and other, as opposed to having a "free for all" system that overlooks such backgrounds of religion or personal values?

I cannot justify a more moral system that says, countries should be doing everything in their power to avoid bringing conflict in their country, by maintaining a society that is indeed, a little more homogeneous? Until world peace is actually achieved, the world right now is very much divided and there are ongoing conflicts that can be traced due to cultural differences.


You don't need to be the most extremist Muslim to still believe in Islamic law. The Taliban is considered one of the most extremist sects out there, and yet even their Islamic neighbors still thought they were insane and went to war with them. You don't have to be an actual Taliban to still believe in death punishments for homosexuals, or death penalties for those who draw the prophet Muhammad.


Where does a nation derive their beliefs from? It's not a crazy coincidence that perhaps the head of state or the individual citizens, still believe in a book that all share the same theme or the same advice.
If Saudi Arabia replaced their Quran with that of a Bible or Buddhist literature, then I don't believe they will still have laws literally okaying who gets to die because it's considered god's will. Maybe this might open up to why the Middle East & Islam are in fact religions that must be treated separately from the rest of the world. It's been centuries since Christians read their bible and could never agree which version is correct without endlessly going to war over it. In the Middle East, Sunni and Shia (the two biggest Islamic faiths) are indeed at war with each other and cannot agree who has the correct text. Now, whether or not this type of division has overlaps with other real world problems, doesn't change that the risk assessment is much higher in terms of "which religion has the last amount of tolerance for not only others, but even within their own groups"?


If this is what you meant to say, what my posted meant to say is Canada is in fact distinct from other cultures around the world. Canada is culturally different from Japan, or India or the Middle East or Africa or South America. If you're saying our distinct culture is in fact more similar to the USA/France/Britain than YES. I want 100% agree with this.

And the country only being 150 years solidifies this. Israel being founded in 1948, doesn't look like Canada. South Sudan, being founded in 2011, doesn't look like Canada. Why does actual time matter, when we have differences the eyes can see immediately? If Canada for 3 generations had a culture that was clearly British/French inspired, then the next 3 generations could very well be the same. As long as the people are still there, the culture does reflect those who lived and passed it onto their children.


This is highly subjective.
The world was both high advance and less advance, depending on which topic you want to address.

Like for example, yes GDP per capita is better, but I had another user on Neogaf just tell me last weekend we are actually more poorer with today's money compared to the past.

Or another example, 50 years ago, was global climate temperature considered as much of a danger/threat as it is today? Even if people are more educated about climate change today, would you not prefer if carbon emissions were at the same levels they were in the 1970s as opposed to where they are in 2020?

Basically, there can be an argument for how the world worked 50 years ago that could be treated as a positive, just as how you can make arguments that say we have done some things better in the future.


You can still do foreign business without physically swapping different populations together. And in fact, the world before the 1970s still engaged in this.

Franchising/licensing out brand names. The CEO of Walmart doesn't literally manage every store, he or she has subordinates that run several different locations and then reports their results to the board of directors. If it was a foreign option, they same system still applies. Go to a foreign country, open a new branch, and hire people locally within the country who then sends their money back to main headquarters in the USA.


Why would they then pass it onto their direct descendants instead of random strangers?
Could it be that had strict rules or expectations that only those who were apart of the original family are more likely to carry on their legacy instead of the rare scenario where they abandon it?

It's actually a very magnificent system. Canadians from 3 generations ago may not have lived to to see their children (or they may have died half through the transition) and yet, there was still a flawless transfer of power. The trains didn't stop running, the government didn't stop running, people still kept practicing traditions like going to church without their great grandaddy having to scold them to go.

It becomes very reasonable to assume that inheritance is a natural process, because who do you expect to be the best person to carry on your legacy, if they are not your own flesh and blood and were raised in the same culture that you and your previous ancestors came to live by? Or here's another scenario, you are a frail elderly man or woman, and you clearly don't have much time left. You only have one biological child. Do you pass on your house to your child, or do you opt to give it away to a stranger you just met on the street? What do you think might motivate people to pass on their own personal possession to family members, if we as humans didn't believe those we are most similar to are expected to carry on where we left off after we die? How would humans even have a culture in the first place, if all we did was approach random strangers and try and convince them to follow all the same rules or customs as us, when you could raise a family where brother, sister, mother and father do have a better understanding of each other than with the outside world?

Now, do you see what i'm getting at when I talk about inheritance?


What if I told you for hundreds of years, that there were still civilizations who did culturally place more value in science and productivity even when compared to the rest of the world?
This is a serious question. I knew you were even going to bring up "war" yet many of these same scientifically developed countries were in fact war mongers or caught up in constant fighting.
Nobody denies that Germany had a violent past. Or Japan. And yet you were still the first one who answered that two nations were also the best examples of them. Why?

Why isn't the all the world equal in this aspect, since wars or economic pressures or even population has been something affecting every nation for hundreds of years?


There are several countries with larger populations that still punch far below their weight compared to where Canada has always stood on the world stage.
In fact, one doesn't even need to use the entire USA as proof of why they're advanced.

The states of Texas or California, if they were ever to become independent, would still become superpowers in their own right. A population only matters when you actually compare what the people are capable of producing.

I completely disagree that in order to grow the population (in act of catching up to the U.S) it must be done with immigration. No, we should actually invest first in sectors that actually meets the world's demands for goods.
There are plenty of countries for example, whose only resource is oil that practically drives their economy. I wouldn't go as far as to use the same tactic, but I would try and export things that aren't commonly found in the wild. Like Computers and digital software. You don't need billions of people to run your own Microsoft. You actually need people who understand how a tech startup works in the first place.

And in regards to the population, there can still be immigration but for reasons explained above, there should also be a natural effort and increasing the birth rate of the people who already live here. You wouldn't have to go through the boring steps of grabbing people all over the world and giving them a test and then hoping they assimilate. Millions of Canadians exist already, why isn't it the government's duty to use them first and populate their own country?


I would never look down on another nation for simply not having the cultural interests as the West. For example, the same nations who might not really value science could still have a culture that is really good at sports or music. If that's even their strength (i.e they're poor but they still win several gold medals at the Olympics or in tournaments) I would even encourage them to follow in that direction since that's something the rest of the world cannot best them in.

I am personally looking out for the interests of what Western nations continued to define themselves for hundreds of years. I do think that, when you look at all the records or achievements, then just as how there are countries who do good at sports, we similar patterns of countries that always had a culture of excelling well in the sciences. It's ok for both these nations to still co-exist and be different. I think the flaw of multiculturalism is that, it somehow thinks it cannot balance this or let one culture get completely swallowed by the other. And when that happens well, we can look at the Native Indians to see that losing your own influence in society quite literally sets you back, or even puts you on extinction.

You're pointing out subvariations of Christians while leaving out subvariations of Islam. Islam is not Sunni or Shia, those are just common major groupings. It's like saying fruits vs vegetables. There is tremendous variation within those groupings. Christianity is grouped similarly, with ~3 major faith groupings then subvariations. That's how all religions are, to my knowledge. If you want some examples of subtypes, here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_branches#Recent_divisions and that's not a comprehensive list, there are many many more variations. Christians also did not always tolerate each other, that's why you had events like the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The power of the church has corroded significantly in the past few centuries, which is why secularism is so commonplace, not because Christianity is so tolerant. I agree there's more conflict going on at the moment in the Middle East, but then you're getting into a long conversation about politics. Destabilization of the Middle East isn't as simple as Islamic religions not getting along, there's a long and controversial history involving a long list of nations in that tale.

To address your point about revolts against leaders, replacing the leader of your nation is not going to undo centuries upon centuries of theocracy. That's like saying getting rid of a Democratic leader would immediately remove the Democratic party. You'll have another Democratic leader in its place that's still controlled by the Democratic system. In the Middle East, that's compounded to a much grander degree. The amount of religious and historical precedent involved in Islamic nations is much greater than what was involved in the American Revolution. I'm not taking away from what was accomplished in the American Revolution when I say this, just pointing out that expecting something similar to happen in a completely different area isn't reasonable. So yes, I do stand firm on my stance that you cannot blame Muslims as a demographic for these behaviors and it's not reflective of what a multicultural system in Canada would entail. There is also no guarantee that Islamic societies will go secular, there are many different factors involved in that, and there's no guarantee it'll even be for the better.

I'm not saying that immigration should have no policies or go unchecked, I agree there does need to be a conversation in place about this. There are rules in the immigration system which are meant to help newcomers become productive and successful in Canada. The faster that happens, the better for everyone. Ideally, we would want to avoid fragmentation because that's not in the best interest of Canada as a nation. World peace won't be achieved unless we go through the necessary steps to achieve it and that involves struggles along the way.

I have shown you how Canada isn't that different from nations around the world. The maple leaf is a sign of indigenous heritage, the consumed products/media are overwhelmingly American, the buildings are similar to other American cities too, none of the sports Canada is famous for (Lacrosse, Hockey) were invented by Canadians, etc. To say that Canadian culture is just as distinct and rich as Japan, Middle East, or Africa, which have all FAR outdated any notion of Canada, is just disrespect to the longstanding traditions and histories they hold. There are no ancient Canadian traditions or ruins or tales. This is something acknowledged by many others in this thread too, who see Canada as lacking its own identity (even though personally I wouldn't go that far myself).

Yes, you can still do foreign business from afar, and yes businesses did do this in the 1970s. They changed things, that's why they're far more productive now. If you take the values and customs of an American board of directors, throw them into a non-American country, then expect to be successful, you'll fail hard. A business needs to adjust to the location and you always need mediators who are capable of operating in both nations in order to effectively communicate with one another. If businesses operated like they did in the 70s, there would be extremely stunted (if any) growth. There's a reason why Sony has HQ's in nations all across the world with multilingual and multicultural people constantly shifting between them, instead of one HQ with small branches in different places. I would absolutely love to see the kind of reasoning that person uses to say we're poorer than in the past, that's ridiculous. Extreme poverty has been declining worldwide and I already mentioned the GDP statistics.

Of course people will give their inheritance to their direct descendants, but a nation that desires growth and advancement cannot succeed on that alone. If you have a town of 10 people and all they do is pass their resources on to their kids, the only way you're increasing productivity is by slowly increasing your population and building on old knowledge. That's incredibly slow, kids aren't born and raised in a year. This is where immigration comes in, because they're not just using old facilities, they're going to play a pivotal role in creating better ones. When you look at a nation, it's the system that gets passed down, and on the macro scale small family inheritances are nothing. But yeah I'm with you that it's beautiful how the system can work so well transitioning from one generation to the next .

The history of nations is not hundreds of years. The nations with the greatest scientific progress has shifted across thousands of years and you can write near endless pages on why. Korea, Babylon, China, Persia, Maya, etc. all sorts of nations at some point were flourishing with technological advancement.

I don't care what kind of shifts in import/export are employed, you're not going to make the productivity of 1 Canadian equal ~9 Americans. It's not like USA is going to just let Canada make these improvements while they sit around doing nothing. Nations with large populations that are unproductive are usually not first world ones. Canada is a first world nation. If you want to export more specialized resources (like Computers) then you'll need more tech companies. If you want more tech companies you'll want more employees. If you want more employees you'll need more people. Also, if you want more tech companies, you'll want to give incentive to more businesses to develop in Canada. What's the biggest incentive for a business? Customers. What's more attractive, 37 billion local customers or 330 billion local customers? Sure you can make policy changes to create more incentives for local business development (that's what Trump's been doing in the US), but that only works to a point, especially when a big chunk of the (already small) 37 billion is nearing retirement age.

 

[Hotspurr]

Most western democracies are slowly drowning in consumerism.
It's basically the religion of the 21st century and what keeps the world going.
Lately Canada has become more expensive, but access to healthcare and education are still better than in the US. Job market for advanced tech skills is meh. General innovation isn't noteworthy, maybe in the biosciences.
It's probably a nice relaxing place to raise a family and enjoy life while having a modest lifestyle.

 

[Atrus]

Canada is fantastic if you’re poor or fleeing a war torn or despotic country.

If you’re middle class or better it can be a brutal slog. There’s not much in the way of innovation and so we end up being a branch plant economy that’s stagnating.

Cost of living is high, jobs are at severe risk of automation and globalization, and our dollar is shit.

In order to maintain order we created a system that favours oligopolies or the handful of old monied families that rule entire provinces at times.

 

[JordanN]

You're pointing out subvariations of Christians while leaving out subvariations of Islam. Islam is not Sunni or Shia, those are just common major groupings. It's like saying fruits vs vegetables. There is tremendous variation within those groupings. Christianity is grouped similarly, with ~3 major faith groupings then subvariations. That's how all religions are, to my knowledge. If you want some examples of subtypes, here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_branches#Recent_divisions and that's not a comprehensive list, there are many many more variations. Christians also did not always tolerate each other, that's why you had events like the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The power of the church has corroded significantly in the past few centuries, which is why secularism is so commonplace, not because Christianity is so tolerant. I agree there's more conflict going on at the moment in the Middle East, but then you're getting into a long conversation about politics. Destabilization of the Middle East isn't as simple as Islamic religions not getting along, there's a long and controversial history involving a long list of nations in that tale.

Ok, then lets compare Sunni & Shia with that of Protestant & Catholics. Historically, both have gone to war with each other, but which one of them is more peaceful or more likely to tolerate the other in the most modern year?
And from there, what about actual religious tolerance? Are Jews/Christians/Sikhs/Atheists etc treated fairly nicely in the Islamic world as Muslims are currently in the Secular West? I actually think this should be my main argument as to why we must be careful with Islam because historically, it did come in direct conflict with other religions.

Islam had previously invaded Europe in the early 600s, They also invaded India as well. And while you may argue that the European invasions were from a much older time, religious conflicts still exists with Indians, with attacks as recent as 2008.

It cannot be destabilization alone that explains why Islam tends to have a harder time getting along with their neighbors when compared to other religious groups. I think there is something different about their holy textbooks, that either directly inspires or serves as a great justification for why Muslims might be more willing to commit terrorist attacks, or why their societies have been so slow to adopt a more widespread secular lifestyle.

For example, look in the news about the rise of antisemitic attacks in Europe. Now, depending on the source, some will say it's far-right, others will says it's muslim inspired. Maybe I can find the actual statistical breakdown but if it turns out that it's Islam behind the attacks, would Native Europeans once again, be right to feel concerned that muslim immigration into Europe should be treated with more skepticism?

To address your point about revolts against leaders, replacing the leader of your nation is not going to undo centuries upon centuries of theocracy. That's like saying getting rid of a Democratic leader would immediately remove the Democratic party. You'll have another Democratic leader in its place that's still controlled by the Democratic system. In the Middle East, that's compounded to a much grander degree. The amount of religious and historical precedent involved in Islamic nations is much greater than what was involved in the American Revolution. I'm not taking away from what was accomplished in the American Revolution when I say this, just pointing out that expecting something similar to happen in a completely different area isn't reasonable. So yes, I do stand firm on my stance that you cannot blame Muslims as a demographic for these behaviors and it's not reflective of what a multicultural system in Canada would entail. There is also no guarantee that Islamic societies will go secular, there are many different factors involved in that, and there's no guarantee it'll even be for the better.

When the U.S overthrew the British government, they sent a clear message that didn't want to be ruled by a monarchy. Even though there was nothing actually stopping Americans from appointing their own King/Queen, the founding fathers believed it would be in the U.S best interest to pursue a Republic form of government instead.

Thus, I see change being reflective of group interests. If there was a revolution lead by mostly Atheists, then I don't think they're going to keep a government is in direct conflict with their beliefs (or basically, what the French Revolution was). When Muslims overthrow their own government, there isn't actually a similar pressure to change. They would either need to adopt a more secular version of Islam to begin with, or they renounce their faith in it completely. I don't see either happening for a long time....

So yes, I do stand firm on my stance that you cannot blame Muslims as a demographic for these behaviors and it's not reflective of what a multicultural system in Canada would entail.

We would never have to worry about assimilation if what you say about demographics is true.
Everywhere around the world you look, taking two groups of people who exist on opposite wave lengths and bringing them together has never produced a completely equal society.
Meanwhile, when you take groups of people who are culturally or ethnically similar, than these problems associated with diversity practically disappear?

How do I know this? Look at any statistics that collects data based on ethnic or religious differences. Crime, politics, education, even health, we're still not all the same. And while diversity supporters will be fast to point out "the reason these differences exists, is because of discrimination" I am bold enough to ask the question "Then why exactly is the goal of diversity, is to continuing introducing more problems into a system that is already flawed"?

Not every Muslim is going to blow us up. Not every Muslim will oppose Women's rights. Not every Muslim may want to behead Muslims. But if maybe one group of people is more likely to be involved in terrorist attacks or express fundamentalist believes, then morally speaking, why are taking such chances importing such a belief system or cultural group, when there are in fact many other nations that do have customs and beliefs that align closer to Canada? Is it not unreasonable to think that, perhaps British culture or British Christians is more "Canadian" than places like Syria or Egypt whose culture doesn't mirror what Europeans a continent away believe in?

Again, this is not saying "we cannot import muslims ever" or "not every muslim believes what their original country looks like". But based on cultural compatibility and priority, wouldn't a quota system that matches us with other countries closer to us instantly solve the elephant in the room of directly avoiding the problems of racism/discrimination/assimilation?

I have shown you how Canada isn't that different from nations around the world. The maple leaf is a sign of indigenous heritage, the consumed products/media are overwhelmingly American, the buildings are similar to other American cities too, none of the sports Canada is famous for (Lacrosse, Hockey) were invented by Canadians, etc. To say that Canadian culture is just as distinct and rich as Japan, Middle East, or Africa, which have all FAR outdated any notion of Canada, is just disrespect to the longstanding traditions and histories they hold. There are no ancient Canadian traditions or ruins or tales. This is something acknowledged by many others in this thread too, who see Canada as lacking its own identity (even though personally I wouldn't go that far myself).

These countries being older doesn't change we are still culturally distinct from all the non-European parts of the world. You have only argued exactly why these places are so different from us. I do not disagree that Japanese folktales are Japanese in origin. Or that African folktales are African in origin.

But Canadian culture exists as an extension of where Europeans left off (mainly because the country's history was founded and lead by them). We weren't physically around when the Ancient Greek & Roman Empires were around, and yet there are still many structures found today that took direct inspiration from them. Why would that be, as opposed to designing government buildings that resembled Japanese Temples or African Huts? Was the culture not overwhelming European to begin with?

Yes, you can still do foreign business from afar, and yes businesses did do this in the 1970s. They changed things, that's why they're far more productive now. If you take the values and customs of an American board of directors, throw them into a non-American country, then expect to be successful, you'll fail hard. A business needs to adjust to the location and you always need mediators who are capable of operating in both nations in order to effectively communicate with one another. If businesses operated like they did in the 70s, there would be extremely stunted (if any) growth. There's a reason why Sony has HQ's in nations all across the world with multilingual and multicultural people constantly shifting between them, instead of one HQ with small branches in different places. I would absolutely love to see the kind of reasoning that person uses to say we're poorer than in the past, that's ridiculous. Extreme poverty has been declining worldwide and I already mentioned the GDP statistics.

It's a double edged sword, especially based on what your own personal goals are.

I'll use one example (even though it's really corny). Nintendo operates as a primarily Japanese-centric company. They've definitely subscribed to my idea of opening foreign offices but their actual power is limited compared to what their Headquarters in Kyoto offers. For better or for worse, their appeal to a "Japanese-first" mindset has lead to great successes (i.e Wii, DS) but it's also had great fuckups too (Wii U, Gamecube).

In terms of actual profitability, they've been around for hundreds of years and they've only posted losses a few times in their history. To my knowledge, I do not believe this strategy is going to tank the company any time soon, especially with the Wii having filled up their bank accounts.

But even without going into the topic of money, I believe there are other advantages to not diversifying your business. By being Japanese first, they still retain their own national pride and image. They also don't put themselves at risk by being bought out by other foreign companies. As long as they're still in Japan, they are free to do what they want within their own borders, and it's everyone else who seeks access to their products and services.

I'm exactly like this when it comes to nationalism over profits. You can make tons of money by completely opening the borders but at what cost does this come to culture? Do we really want a world run by faceless corporations, who want to sell generic products to everyone, or do we still want to see unique companies that still manage to cater to their own bases while treating the rest of the world market as secondary?

Or look at what globalism has done with China? Easily the largest and most dangerous dictatorship on earth, globalism has only helped to cement the power of the Chinese Communist Party but they've also taken away a lot of jobs too. The world's lust for cheap cellphones has had the negative effect where companies (motivated by profits) would rather open more Chinese sweatshops and have all their product made abroad instead of actually creating jobs at home.

You may say "but our cellphones would cost more money if we produced them here" but there's also a human impact to this as well. We could make our own products that's not indirectly supporting a murderous regime while also creating jobs for the people who are unemployed at home.

Of course people will give their inheritance to their direct descendants, but a nation that desires growth and advancement cannot succeed on that alone. If you have a town of 10 people and all they do is pass their resources on to their kids, the only way you're increasing productivity is by slowly increasing your population and building on old knowledge. That's incredibly slow, kids aren't born and raised in a year. This is where immigration comes in, because they're not just using old facilities, they're going to play a pivotal role in creating better ones. When you look at a nation, it's the system that gets passed down, and on the macro scale small family inheritances are nothing.

A one of a kind hyper genius like Bill Gates or Elon Musk can fill the void of millions of people by coming up with something so ground breaking, it changes the course of history forever.

In fact, in all of human history, what made nations successful really can be boiled down to the very few highly intelligent individuals whose inventions forced the rest of the world to react.

We wouldn't need a million people to catch up to the U.S if say... Canada literally had its own Bill Gates who creates something bigger than Microsoft. We wouldn't need a million people, if Canada invented robots that could go outside and start harvesting the field 24/7 without ever getting tired like a whole bunch of human farmers would.

It was never a numbers game. The USA may have hit that jackpot in the beginning and got a hold of these Men who were smart enough to drive U.S innovation forward. In which case, the real purpose of immigration should be only used to bring in the most brightest and educated people, otherwise, what exactly is wrong with utilizing the millions of Canadians that already exist today? I do not consider having a variety of different food to be on the same level as trying to find the next Von Braun who can take us into Outer Space.

I don't care what kind of shifts in import/export are employed, you're not going to make the productivity of 1 Canadian equal ~9 Americans. It's not like USA is going to just let Canada make these improvements while they sit around doing nothing. Nations with large populations that are unproductive are usually not first world ones. Canada is a first world nation.

Yes, but the USA is not a country where 99% of the population is caught up in the tech industry. There is still a significant amount of workers who are employed in the food industry, fishing, coal mines, education, government etc.

In fact, your point actually helps mine a lot. We need quality over quantity. I know first hand that Canada actually accepts a lot of temporary foreign workers, but the jobs they take on involves working coffee shops like Tim Hortons or they they're in Nursing Homes looking after the elderly.

A million people working at these places isn't what's going to make Canada economically more powerful, as harsh as it sounds. But if the smaller population represented more highly educated job professions per capita, than that is what is needed to go toe to toe with the U.S.

If you want more tech companies you'll want more employees. If you want more employees you'll need more people. Also, if you want more tech companies, you'll want to give incentive to more businesses to develop in Canada. What's the biggest incentive for a business? Customers. What's more attractive, 37 billion local customers or 330 billion local customers? Sure you can make policy changes to create more incentives for local business development (that's what Trump's been doing in the US), but that only works to a point, especially when a big chunk of the (already small) 37 billion is nearing retirement age.

From a pure numbers game, that might sound attractive. But keep in mind actual wealth disparity.

Brazil and India have a much bigger population than Canada and yet (corny example) why do companies like MS/Sony/Nintendo still treat them with less priority? Are they aware they might actually lose money trying to sell electronics where most of the population can't actually afford them?

Canada may have a small population but it's expected that individual Canadians carry more cash on them than a lot of these third world places where the average income is below minimum wage.

 

[levyjl1988]

I remember Jordon Peterson speaking about this once. Canada has lost its distinction and everything looks the same.

That’s what happens when you have conservatives run the country. There is no uniqueness or creative people at the top of dominance hierarchies.

You have to travel to Rome, Italy, Venice, etc to get that culture and distinction. They are popular tourist attractions. Canada has none of that.

Tourism in Toronto is shit. I’ve been to Vancover and man it’s better than Toronto.

 

[Chromata]

Ok, then lets compare Sunni & Shia with that of Protestant & Catholics. Historically, both have gone to war with each other, but which one of them is more peaceful or more likely to tolerate the other in the most modern year?
And from there, what about actual religious tolerance? Are Jews/Christians/Sikhs/Atheists etc treated fairly nicely in the Islamic world as Muslims are currently in the Secular West? I actually think this should be my main argument as to why we must be careful with Islam because historically, it did come in direct conflict with other religions.

Islam had previously invaded Europe in the early 600s, They also invaded India as well. And while you may argue that the European invasions were from a much older time, religious conflicts still exists with Indians, with attacks as recent as 2008.

It cannot be destabilization alone that explains why Islam tends to have a harder time getting along with their neighbors when compared to other religious groups. I think there is something different about their holy textbooks, that either directly inspires or serves as a great justification for why Muslims might be more willing to commit terrorist attacks, or why their societies have been so slow to adopt a more widespread secular lifestyle.

For example, look in the news about the rise of antisemitic attacks in Europe. Now, depending on the source, some will say it's far-right, others will says it's muslim inspired. Maybe I can find the actual statistical breakdown but if it turns out that it's Islam behind the attacks, would Native Europeans once again, be right to feel concerned that muslim immigration into Europe should be treated with more skepticism?


When the U.S overthrew the British government, they sent a clear message that didn't want to be ruled by a monarchy. Even though there was nothing actually stopping Americans from appointing their own King/Queen, the founding fathers believed it would be in the U.S best interest to pursue a Republic form of government instead.

Thus, I see change being reflective of group interests. If there was a revolution lead by mostly Atheists, then I don't think they're going to keep a government is in direct conflict with their beliefs. When Muslims overthrow their own government, there isn't actually a similar pressure to change. They would either need to adopt a more secular version of Islam to begin with, or they renounce their faith in it completely. I don't see either happening for a long time....


We would never have to worry about assimilation if what you say about demographics is true.
Everywhere around the world you look, taking two groups of people who exist on opposite wave lengths and bringing them together has never produced a completely equal society.
Meanwhile, when you take groups of people who are culturally or ethnically similar, than these problems associated with diversity practically disappear?

How do I know this? Look at any statistics that collects data based on ethnic or ethnic differences. Crime, politics, education, even health, we're still not all the same. And while diversity supporters will be fast to point out "the reason these differences exists, is because of discrimination" I am bold enough to ask the question "Then why exactly is the goal of diversity, is to continuing introducing more problems into a system that is already flawed"?

Not every Muslim is going to blow us up. Not every Muslim will oppose Women's rights. Not every Muslim may want to behead Muslims. But if maybe one group of people is more likely to be involved in terrorist attacks or express fundamentalist believes, then morally speaking, why are taking such chances importing such a belief system or cultural group, when there are in fact many other nations that do have customs and beliefs that align closer to Canada? Is it not unreasonable to think that, perhaps British culture or British Christians is more "Canadian" than places like Syria or Egypt whose culture doesn't mirror what Europeans a continent away believe in?

Again, this is not saying "we cannot import muslims ever" or "not every muslim believes what their original country looks like". But based on cultural compatibility and priority, wouldn't a quota system that matches us with other countries closer to us instantly solve the elephant in the room of directly avoiding the problems of racism/discrimination/assimilation?




These countries being older doesn't change we are still culturally distinct from all the non-European parts of the world. You have only argued exactly why these places are so different from us. I do not disagree that Japanese folktales are Japanese in origin. Or that African folktales are African in origin.

But Canadian culture exists as an extension of where Europeans left off (mainly because the country's history was founded and lead by them). We weren't physically around when the Ancient Greek & Roman Empires were around, and yet there are still many structures found today that took direct inspiration from them. Why would that be, as opposed to designing government buildings that resembled Japanese Temples or African Huts? Was the culture not overwhelming European to begin with?


It's a double edged sword, especially based on what your own personal goals are.

I'll use one example (even though it's really corny). Nintendo operates as a primarily Japanese-centric company. They've definitely subscribed to my idea of opening foreign offices but their actual power is limited compared to what their Headquarters in Kyoto offers. For better or for worse, their appeal to a "Japanese-first" mindset has lead to great successes (i.e Wii, DS) but it's also had great fuckups too (Wii U, Gamecube).

In terms of actually profitability, they've been around for hundreds of years and they've only posted losses a few times in their history. To my knowledge, I do not believe this strategy is going to tank the company any time soon, especially with the Wii having filled up their bank accounts.

But even without going into the topic of money, I believe there are other advantages to not diversifying your business. By being Japanese first, they still retain their own national pride and image. They also don't put themselves at risk by being bought out by other foreign companies. As long as they're still in Japan, they are free to do what they want within their own borders, and it's everyone else who seeks access to their products and services.

I'm exactly like this when it comes to nationalism over profits. You can make tons of money by completely opening the borders but at what cost does this come to culture? Do we really want a world run by faceless corporations, who want to sell generic products to everyone, or do we still want to see unique companies that still manage to cater to their own bases while treating the rest of the world market as secondary?


A one of a kind hyper genius like Bill Gates or Elon Musk can fill the void of millions of people by coming up with something so ground breaking, it changes the course of history forever.

In fact, in all of human history, what made nations successful really can be boiled down to the very few highly intelligent individuals whose inventions forced the rest of the world to react.

We wouldn't need a million people to catch up to the U.S if say... Canada literally had its own Bill Gates who creates something bigger than Microsoft. We wouldn't need a million people, if Canada invented robots that could go outside and start harvesting field 24/7 without ever getting tired like a whole bunch of farmers would.

It was never a numbers game. The USA may have hit that jackpot in the beginning and got a hold of these Men who were smart enough to drive U.S innovation forward. In which case, the real purpose of immigration should be only used to bring in the most brightest and educated people, otherwise, what exactly is wrong with utilizing the millions of Canadians that already exist today? I do not consider having a variety of different food to be on the same level as trying to find the next Von Braun who can take us into Outer Space.


Yes, but the USA is not a country where 99% of the population is caught up in the tech industry. There is still a significant amount of workers who are employed in the food industry, fishing, coal mines, education, government etc.

In fact, your point actually helps mine a lot. We need quality over quantity. I know first hand that Canada actually accepts a lot of temporary foreign workers, but the jobs they take on involves working coffee shops like Tim Hortons or they they're in Nursing Homes looking after the elderly.

A million people working at these places isn't what's going to make Canada economically more powerful, as harsh as it sounds. But if the smaller population represented more highly educated job professions per capita, than that is what is needed to go toe to toe with the U.S.


From a pure numbers game, that might sound attractive. But keep in mind actual wealth disparity.

Brazil and India have a much bigger population than Canada and yet (corny example) why do companies like MS/Sony/Nintendo still treat them with less priority? Are they aware they might actually lose money trying to sell electronics where most of the population can't actually afford them?

Canada may have a small population but it's expected that individual Canadians carry more cash on them than a lot of these third world places where the average income is below minimum wage.

You're asking big questions then making sweeping generalizations in order to answer them. If you want to properly compare Islamic religions and Christian religions' histories, you'd need to get people who have studied these topics in-depth. You and I are just interested individuals. For example, just in the Islam invasions link you sent me, it's stated that some people welcomed Islam with open arms and that many details of the conquests could have been reinterpreted in a biased manner by Christians to serve a political interest. History isn't a clean story with convenient answers where one Google search proves one side victorious. Christians have had no shortage of blood on their hands as well in periods like the Crusades (or the aforementioned St. Batholomew's Day massacre). You seem to hold a double standard towards Islam as a religion by believing it to be of little variance and harboring a bloody history, when it not only has a high degree of variance like Christianity but Christianity also has a bloody history. We can keep falling back on the actions of Islamic nations, but I've already stated that these actions are not determinant of the populace in other contexts. This isn't me passing your arguments off either, I just don't think this part of our discussion is productive because it's mostly speculation. Cross linking events like the American Revolution with a theoretical revolution leading to secularization of an Islamic nation isn't going to net us a result because America never faced the degree of theocratic pressures that face Islamic countries today. You can't state for certainty that they should strive for secularism over some other path just because it worked out in the context of America. How much of history comes out to be untrue or completely misunderstood due to limited information, multiple contexts, and differing perspectives? A lot. And that's for events that have already happened long ago, that uncertainty is even greater when we're talking about events happening today because we are literally living it.

You cannot hope to combat discrimination if you never join two groups that aren't used to being with each other. Every system is a mess until you progressively sort it out, early attempts at democracy were awful and riddled with problems. That didn't mean democracy was a terrible idea, it means that the system needs adjustments, just like everything you do in your life. Human history is basically people trying new things and improvising as they go based on what they've learned. The end goal of diversity is to bring the world together and create more opportunities for everyone, which in turn further increases our collective productivity and empathy towards one another. It isn't supposed to be easy, nothing worthwhile ever is.

Your proposed solution of matching yourself with similar countries does not resolve discrimination, it just sidesteps it. You're still discriminating when you do that. You can propose a stepwise solution or a modality towards diversity, but eventually people need to learn to work together. That's why Canada is creating programs to help adjust immigrants to Canadian life specifically based on their culture rather than just finding more pseudo Canadians.

I agree with your wording that Canadian culture is an extension. That's what I mean when I say that Canada has mostly borrowed pieces of other cultures. This isn't the case for places like Japan or Persia which have been around long enough to originate (not as any extension) their cultures and influence others.

Nintendo does operate as a primarily Japanese company as their main headquarters are in Japan. However, they do not treat the rest of the market as secondary. Nintendo's IP's and hardware are made to appeal to a wide audience regardless of their culture or age. Many Nintendo characters, like Mario (which was inspired by an American), are inspired by foreign nations. Businesses will not find success by expecting nations across the world to become interested as secondary customers. Look at Microsoft's weak sales in Japan as one example, which is something they're actively trying to change now by having their executives communicate on a deeper level with Japanese markets and developers. If you look at the Nintendo Switch, it actually sold a lot more in the US and Europe than it did in Japan (https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...d-more-units-than-the-super-nes/#528d4a2246cd), that's not indicative of a company that prioritizes one consumer base. Pokemon is a cultural phenomenon due in part to the huge media backing it has internationally, it's something simple that everyone can connect with. One of the biggest faces of the company, Reggie Fils-Aime, was the head of Nintendo America and his parents weren't even American!

The jobs that you are referencing (Tim Hortons or nursing homes) are the kind of jobs necessary to help support the Canadian population moving forward. Ironically, the nursing home jobs will be especially important moving forward. Every nation is built on the backs of its workers and businesses need employees in all sectors. Who do you think makes the food for Bill Gates and Elon Musk to eat? Where do you think the silicon comes from to create the computer chips used by Elon and Bill? When Elon creates a rocket to be sent to space, who do you think is employed to do the manual work?

Elon Musk actually immigrated to Canada and became Canadian, he initially studied in Canada, but then later moved to America. If you want the next Elon or Bill to be in Canada, then Canada needs to do a better job of incentivizing businesses to stay and create more opportunities for people (which is the current plan for immigrants). The problem is that once someone's in a reasonably successful position, there's not many reasons to conduct business in Canada over USA, and that's partially due to its small population. You countered my point by pointing out the wealth disparities in Brazil and India (which I agree with), but I'm talking about USA. You said that you wanted Canada to be just as strong and productive as USA. Alright, how is that supposed to happen when USA is more effective at harboring businesses, has 9 times the potential workforce, 9 times the potential customers, a higher fertility rate, all while being right next to Canada, and has more developed industries partly because of the aforementioned reasons? (And I'm not even counting the fact that USA also admits more immigrants per year too).

 

[StreetsofBeige]

For any of you non-Canadians, what is your image of Canada?

Multi-cultural? An immigrant's dream? Free universal healthcare?

Hate to break this to you, but that is a 100% lie.

Only the big cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and some other like Ottawa and perhaps Calgary(?) have good representation of many ethnic backgrounds, but even that is skewed. Most of the ethic immigrants are Asian (Oriental or East Indian). There's not many Latinos or Blacks.

Outside of these kinds of core cities, the vast majority of the rest of the smaller towns, other parts of the province etc.... are literally 90% White. Maybe 5% Native, and maybe 5% ethnic. I made up the numbers here so I'll be off, but you get the idea. And these kinds of areas are usually very right wing conservative. No different than the US. NY City is big on culture. But I'm pretty sure every city in Montana isn't.

The most obvious is the prairies (Alberta/Sask( voting righty), and Quebec always have a hate for anything regarding English or someone Arab who wears head carves and stuff like that. They will literally shoot down a political candidate if they support more open arms with other people. It's French first, everyone else last.

As for immigration, Canada's loving "hey come on over" is not so easy. The country grills you with a questionnaire that ranks you with points. The more money and assets you have, the more education you have, the better job and entrepreneurial spirit you have etc..... the better. If you are a random low skilled, poor immigrant you're going to have a hard time getting in unless you luck out claiming refugee status, or more common you get sponsored over.

Sponsoring means someone in Canada will basically cover your ass. The government will grill the sponsor to ensure they have enough money to support you. It's not like you come over and immediately get tons of free shit like a local.

Universal healthcare is not so universal. We get taxed a decent amount on stuff, so really the common tax payer is just self funding it themselves. Also, the things that are covered are doctor's visits, xrays, hospital stays and surgeries and I believe medication in hospitals (which does cover the major shit). Unless you can claim being so broke you need help or is classified as emergency medical help (like someone knocked out your teeth), the average person still has to pay for:

- Dental care
- Eye care
- Paramedic/ambulance service
- Crutches, casts, wheelchairs..... medical gear
- Prescription drugs

So it's not totally free.

 

[JordanN]

You're asking big questions then making sweeping generalizations in order to answer them. If you want to properly compare Islamic religions and Christian religions' histories, you'd need to get people who have studied these topics in-depth. You and I are just interested individuals. For example, just in the Islam invasions link you sent me, it's stated that some people welcomed Islam with open arms and that many details of the conquests could have been reinterpreted in a biased manner by Christians to serve a political interest.

While I concede I'll give Islam the benefit of the doubt until I read more about its history, I think this statement has me asking two things:
1. Are we suppose to believe that Islam today is in fact more violent than it was in the past? If the past somehow painted a more "positive" image of the religion, then what event sparked modern Islam being seen as more fundamental and intolerant? There are in fact, real reasons today why I wouldn't want to open my arms to a foreign religion, based off news reports or statistics that show Islam isn't at the same level of assimilation that Christianity or Buddhism is.
2. I hate to sound like a reductionist but even if Islam in the past didn't have a bloody history, this is still a religion whose founder was a War Lord. Christianity, for all its faults, had a founder who never preached violence and was just a traveling public speaker. Of course, this obviously didn't stop future Christians from still using his book to massacre others but I can still look at the world today, and there are very few Christian nations who even seek a return to the days of violently removing non-believers. At worst, when we think of Christian fundamentalists, we think of people who yell "You're going to hell for not believing in Jesus" or they might shoot up an abortion clinic. But this is completely different from saying, drawing an offensive picture of Jesus and expecting violent retaliation in response.

For other religions, I think there's a similar standard. "Radical Judaism" seems to be 99% concentrated in Israel/Palestine but otherwise, I can't remember the last Jewish terror attack in North America or Europe. Sikhs and Punjabs, I too would be interested in hearing what assimilation issues they have in Western countries. Buddhism, another religion that by itself. doesn't actually try to force itself on the West.

But the unfortunate reality is, Islam has a long way to go before it even reaches Buddhists or Judaism status where there isn't a news article published everyday talking about "Muslims want to force the burka in public" or "Extremist Muslims once again blow up another building".

You can't state for certainty that they should strive for secularism over some other path just because it worked out in the context of America.

I only used this example as a "what if" Islam was more culturally similar to the West. I do not realistically expect them to become secular tomorrow unless some new movement grows popular and actually succeeds at showing that a majority muslim population could peacefully co-exist with others.

My response is, we don't pressure these Middle Eastern countries to adopt secularism, in exchange we in the West get to keep ours (via demographics).

You cannot hope to combat discrimination if you never join two groups that aren't used to being with each other

Why do we have to combat discrimination, if we don't actually import it in the first place!
You see, discrimination is something that only exists, when the two opposite cultures are forced together. It is in fact a byproduct of diversity, and not the other way around.
If you took Canada's immigration system, and tomorrow it was somehow announced "given the historical and present demographics: Christian or non-religious groups will be prioritized first" how does one create discrimination against a group that is not even there? The only other way, is if a bunch of Canadians hopped on planes and flew tot he Middle East just to hurl anti-Islam slurs in which case, why not just leave them there? Don't let them re-enter the country again so they can learn what being a minority in a foreign land is like.

Every system is a mess until you progressively sort it out, early attempts at democracy were awful and riddled with problems.

Here's something I want you to understand though. What makes an immigration system that prioritizes similar cultures, more broken, than a system that is free for all and has no limits on compatibility? For example, if the UK and France where the only two countries Canada agreed to do population trades with, what exactly would the fate of Canada be? Does the nation collapse, does racism (against French/British) go up, does Canada now become poorer?

Keep in mind, I picked these two countries because they do have a lot more with Canada than with the rest of the world. Does the immigration system completely break, when you actually set restrictions on who can be inside. Why or why not?

The end goal of diversity is to bring the world together and create more opportunities for everyone, which in turn further increases our collective productivity and empathy towards one another. It isn't supposed to be easy, nothing worthwhile ever is.

That is in no way sustainable, Our planet's resources are not infinite. If everyone on Earth moved to the U.S tomorrow, housing shortages, overcrowded hospitals, overcrowded schools, competition for jobs, public use of welfare, would skyrocket. I

If you want to the bring the world together or better our productivity, then we should focus on trade. If 50,000 people leave India for the West tomorrow, there are still Billions of Indians sitting back at home. Is it really productive if we try and bring all 1 billion across the sea, instead of helping or letting these countries develop on their own?

We can literally repeat this for every non-Western country on earth. Do we wait for the Billions of people living in China to all get on a plane to Canada for better opportunities, or can China create new opportunities for Billions of Chinese where they already live?

Your proposed solution of matching yourself with similar countries does not resolve discrimination, it just sidesteps it. You're still discriminating when you do that. You can propose a stepwise solution or a modality towards diversity, but eventually people need to learn to work together. That's why Canada is creating programs to help adjust immigrants to Canadian life specifically based on their culture rather than just finding more pseudo Canadians.

Does it not sound disturbing, that the government has to pay money in order support an idea that has never proven itself to exist? So what we know about diversity is:
1. We create a problem in the first place (importing very different cultures), as opposed to using the resources that are already here (Canadians who had settled here since 1867 or prior)?
2. When we bring diversity home, we now must pay the government additional money to try and fight "discrimination", basically creating an upkeep with no proven road map for when we can expect a return on our money (or when exactly the utopian vision of equality will be promised)

You say people need to learn to work together, even though we live in a world where religious and ethnic conflicts are still a thing. What do you think the rest of the world is doing wrong, that Canada somehow has the answer for a century wide issue? It can't just be "bringing people together", that's exactly what kicked off conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Tibet & China, Pakistan/India or Tutsis and Hutu.

I agree with your wording that Canadian culture is an extension. That's what I mean when I say that Canada has mostly borrowed pieces of other cultures. This isn't the case for places like Japan or Persia which have been around long enough to originate (not as any extension) their cultures and influence others.

What was the purpose of Canada borrowing culture from Europe and not Japan or Persia?

And explain how Canada wasn't influential in its history? Right after Canada's founding, the country already had already participated in foreign conflicts such as the Boer Wars or WW1. They were also able to negotiate for their own territory with the 1930s British North America Act.

Nintendo does operate as a primarily Japanese company as their main headquarters are in Japan. However, they do not treat the rest of the market as secondary. Nintendo's IP's and hardware are made to appeal to a wide audience regardless of their culture or age. Many Nintendo characters, like Mario (which was inspired by an American), are inspired by foreign nations. Businesses will not find success by expecting nations across the world to become interested as secondary customers. Look at Microsoft's weak sales in Japan as one example, which is something they're actively trying to change now by having their executives communicate on a deeper level with Japanese markets and developers. If you look at the Nintendo Switch, it actually sold a lot more in the US and Europe than it did in Japan (https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...d-more-units-than-the-super-nes/#528d4a2246cd), that's not indicative of a company that prioritizes one consumer base. Pokemon is a cultural phenomenon due in part to the huge media backing it has internationally, it's something simple that everyone can connect with. One of the biggest faces of the company, Reggie Fils-Aime, was the head of Nintendo America and his parents weren't even American!

I'm going to correct you there.
Nintendo's wide audience comes in spite of them being successful abroad, rather than deliberately creating what the West wants. It's why they can still make or publish games that are exclusive to one region first but then decide later to release it worldwide (i.e Xenoblade only got a foreign release after petitioning came from the West). Or why their systems clearly deviate from bigger juggernauts like Playstation/Xbox.

And while their hardware sells better outside of Japan, this has always been the case, even when they released actual flops. Reggie being CEO of NOA was like a bird with clipped wings. He was tasked with helping to market Nintendo products in the West, but he never actually had the authority to lead Nintendo as a whole.

Nintendo will always be a Japanese company first, while running subsidiaries who must always tow the corporate line. They still obviously sell products outside of Japan, but it's just a continued means of supporting their own efforts at home. For example, compare how Nintendo reinvests in their business. They've built new headquarters and expanded their development teams in Japan. The last Western studio they owned was buying Retro in 2002, and before that, they sold off Rare to Microsoft.

The jobs that you are referencing (Tim Hortons or nursing homes) are the kind of jobs necessary to help support the Canadian population moving forward.

It's a self inflicted problem. These types of jobs were always meant for High School students or Senior citizens. By importing people who are even more likely to work for less $/hour, it is now suicide for Canadians since the value is diminished.

If we were really facing a crisis, then these jobs should start paying more, or stop expanding. Yeah, I'm already of headlines that talk about layoffs but what they never tell you is that these same companies go on mass hiring sprees and then cut staff in half, or that Tim Hortons will build another store right next to each other.

Basically, companies want us to believe there is a problem, when it's just a trick to boost profits in the long term while offering to pay people less.

When Elon creates a rocket to be sent to space, who do you think is employed to do the manual work?

We have a surplus of university graduates every year. These same people are sometimes forced to work at a McDonalds because there isn't actually a lot of job openings in tech.
Again, the crisis is a manufactured one. Because of corporate greed, they refuse to hire 1st gen Canadians because cheaper labor exists elsewhere.

Elon Musk actually immigrated to Canada and became Canadian, he initially studied in Canada, but then later moved to America. If you want the next Elon or Bill to be in Canada, then Canada needs to do a better job of incentivizing businesses to stay and creating more opportunities for people (which is the current plan for immigrants). The problem is that once someone's in a reasonably successful position, there's not many reasons to conduct business in Canada, and that's partially due to its small population.

The government does give away incentives. I'm aware of instances of the game industry and the VFX industry taking advantage of this (i.e Ubisoft opening a new Manitoba studio, and various film companies who come to Vancouver or Toronto to shoot movies).

You said that you wanted Canada to be just as strong and productive as USA. Alright, how is that supposed to happen when USA is more effective at harboring businesses, has 9 times the potential workforce, 9 times the potential customers, a higher fertility rate, and has more developed industries partly because of the aforementioned reasons?

The USSR had a bigger population than America by the end of the Cold War. Yet the nation still struggled in nuclear power, or even creating their own computer chips (they were all clones of what Intel had already made).

We can set population aside and compete in the technological race, which is where a lot of money can be seriously made. We already have companies like AMD or IBM here, why not grow their operations first? Maybe even throw more money towards start ups.

We do not need millions of [new] people to catch up with the U.S in that aspect. Growing a bigger population would be more useful if we wanted to match the U.S in military strength, but I should iterate that is something saved for last, assuming Canada actually wants to risk an arms race, as opposed to raising the standards of of the citizens who already live here so more wealth could spill into other industries.

I'll continue to do more research and post more ideas of how we can grow Canada's economy and influence while doing so with a smaller population.

 

[Mossybrew]

I can’t even bring myself to read this page.

Me either. I've been ignoring it but the thread continues to exist. So, my meager thoughts:

- Props to you BC Canadians that come down to Whatcom County to spend. You're an asset to our economy and I thank you.
- Been to Vancouver twice and enjoyed the hell out of myself, everyone was very friendly.

That's the extent of my input.

 

[Siri]

Actually I was born in Canada and my family was one of the first to colonize it. Notice how you can't talk about Canada without directly comparing yourself to the US. That's why you are a colonist.

Pfffffft.

 

[thelastword]

I know this sounds like a strange thread to make, especially coming from me, but man, every day I'm starting to wonder what is Canada at this point?

Whereas every other country has something unique or special going for them, I'm getting convinced that Canada now feels like a really bland or uninspired version of the U.S, but with a lot more downsides.

Such as:

Our money is worthless:

Seriously, wtf happened? I remember as a kid, I would carry around both U.S and Canadian 25 cents and when we cashed them in, we would joke that the cashier would take the U.S quarters without noticing.
But now flash forward and our money isn't even worth as much as the U.S anymore and it appears it's getting worse.

It all looks the same:

Even though I've spent my entire life living in Ontario, I think it's pretty crazy that when I look at other provinces, they all have the exact same layout. Long roads surrounded by strips malls. Or an entire jungle of houses.
That's it. Even though I understand this is the standard in a lot of Western countries, when it comes to Canada that is 99% of what everything looks like.

You take a look at the below screenshot and tell me which town this is? Halifax? Oakville? Winnipeg? Vancouver? The real answer is Markham. But would you even care if you gave a different answer?

Everyone is crowded at the U.S border:

To be fair, this just might be the limitation of our geography. Despite how huge this country is in terms of sheer landmass, there isn't actually a lot of areas suitable for raising farmland.
That said, with the huge amount of people who continue to migrate here every year, it does kinda worry me that there isn't actually an attempt to spread out the population.

Think about it, if an army where to invade this country, all they have to do is take over Toronto or Montreal, and the rest of the country would collapse very easily.

Not much [local] entertainment:

This one actually affects me, because my current profession is wanting to make 3D Art for Movies and Games, however, I've done my research a long time ago and basically found that Canada is serioussssssssly underrepresented in terms of having our own thriving movie or game studios.

And while that's not to say there isn't an industry here, the limited offerings combined with a surplus of artists means competition is EXTREMELY fierce.

I remember going to job fairs for doing TV animation and the amount of people applying is huge. You really have to be cut throat to land a job in Canada.

Pictured: What a typical Canadian job fair looks like.



Food & Rent are skyrocketing:

If you move to Canada, expect to start paying out the ass now just to eat. It wasn't always like this but fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I barely don't cook anymore because meat is now expensive.

And renting is even worse. In just about every city, you can only expect $800 a month as the "cheapest" and everywhere else, it's $2,000 a month that is the average. This is on top of working the same jobs found in the U.S but with half the salary.


What is Canada anymore?

I ask myself this question everyday. What exactly is Canada? I don't really see any real culture that isn't just people working themselves to death and consuming. That's it. It doesn't feel like Canada no longer has a culture that isn't obsessed with consumerism.

For example, why don't we have a Space Program? Why aren't we sending people to the moon or other planets? We literally border the U.S, I'm sure we could do trade with them or redirect our resources to accomplish our own NASA?

But nah, it feels like the future is just building more and more houses and strip malls and filling them with more people who just go to work or spend their time shopping.

One good thing about Canada, it's pretty safe though, much less crime especially gun crime than the US and it's much cleaner too (sanitation)......

 

[Brofist]

China's cities are the ugliest I've ever visited. That skyline ain't a beauty either though, I'll give you that

Japan's are pretty fucking ugly too minus Kyoto and a few nice places. Canada is much nicer looking

 

[Tesseract]

let the meat world burn

 

[Chromata]

While I concede I'll give Islam the benefit of the doubt until I read more about its history, I think this statement has measking two things:
1. Are we suppose to believe that Islam today is in fact more violent than it was in the past? If the past somehow painted a more "positive" image of the religion, then what event sparked modern Islam being seen as more fundamental and intolerant? There are in fact, real reasons today why I wouldn't want to open my arms to a foreign religion, based off news reports or statistics that show Islam isn't at the same level of assimilation that Christianity or Buddhism is.
2. I hate to sound like a reductionist but even if Islam in the past didn't have a bloody history, this is still a religion whose founder was a War Lord. Christianity, for all its faults, had a founder who never preached violence and was just a traveling public speaker. Of course, this obviously didn't future stop Christians from still using his book to massacre others but I can still look at the world today, and there are very few Christian nations who even seek a return to the days of violently removing non-believers. At worst, when we think of Christian fundamentalists, we think of people who yell "You're going to hell for not believing in Jesus" or they might shoot up an abortion clinic. But this is completely different from saying, drawing an offensive picture of Jesus and expecting violent retaliation in response.

For other religions, I think there's a similar standard. "Radical Judaism" seems to be 99% concentrated in Israel/Palestine but otherwise, I can't remember the last Jewish terror attack in North America or Europe. Sikhs and Punjabs, I too would be interested in hearing what assimilation issues they have in Western countries. Buddhism, another religion that by itself. doesn't actually try to force itself on the West.

But the unfortunate reality is, Islam has a long way to go before it even reaches Buddhists or Judaism status where there isn't a news article published everyday talking about "Muslims want to force the burka in public" or "Extremist Muslims once again blow up another building".


I only used this example as a "what if" Islam was more culturally similar to the West. I do not realistically expect them to become secular tomorrow unless some new movement grows popular and actually succeeds at showing that a majority muslim population could peacefully co-exist with others.

My response is, we don't pressure these Middle Eastern countries to adopt secularism, in exchange we in the West get to keep ours (via demographics).


Why do we have to combat discrimination, if we don't actually import it in the first place!
You see, discrimination is something that only exists, when the two opposite cultures are forced together. It is in fact a byproduct of diversity, and not the other way around.
If you took Canada's immigration system, and tomorrow it was somehow announced "given the historical and present demographics: Christian or non-religious groups will be prioritized first" how does one create discrimination against a group that is not even there? The only other way, is if a bunch of Canadians hopped on planes and flew tot he Middle East just to hurl anti-Islam slurs in which case, why not just leave them there? Don't let them re-enter the country again so they can learn what being a minority in a foreign land is like.


Here's something I want you to understand though. What makes an immigration system that prioritizes similar cultures, more broken, than a system that is free for all and has no limits on compatibility? For example, if the UK and France where the only two countries Canada agreed to do population trades with, what exactly would the fate of Canada be? Does the nation collapse, does racism (against French/British) go up, does Canada now become poorer?

Keep in mind, I picked these two countries because they do have a lot more with Canada than with the rest of the world. Does the immigration system completely break, when you actually set restrictions on who can be inside. Why or why not?


That is in no way sustainable, Our planet's resources are not infinite. If everyone on Earth moved to the U.S tomorrow, housing shortages, overcrowded hospitals, overcrowded schools, competition for jobs, public use of welfare, would skyrocket. I

If you want to the bring the world together or better our productivity, then we should focus on trade. If 50,000 people leave India for the West tomorrow, there are still Billions of Indians sitting back at home. Is it really productive if we try and bring all 1 billion across the sea, instead of helping or letting these countries develop on their own?

We can literally repeat this for every non-Western country on earth. Do we wait for the Billions of people living in China to all get on a plane to Canada for better opportunities, or can China create new opportunities for Billions of Chinese where they already live?


Does it not sound disturbing, that the government has to pay money in order support an idea that has never proven itself to exist? So what we know about diversity is:
1. We create a problem in the first place (importing very different cultures), as opposed to using the resources that are already here (Canadians who had settled here since 1867 or prior)?
2. When we bring diversity home, we now must pay the government additional money to try and fight "discrimination", basically creating an upkeep with no proven road map for when we can expect a return on our money (or when exactly the utopian vision of equality will be promised)

You say people need to learn to work together, even though we live in a world where religious and ethnic conflicts are still a thing. What do you think the rest of the world is doing wrong, that Canada somehow has the answer for a century wide issue? It can't just be "bringing people together", that's exactly what kicked off conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Tibet & China, Pakistan/India or Tutsis and Hutu.


What was the purpose of Canada borrowing culture from Europe and not Japan or Persia?

And explain how Canada wasn't influential in its history? Right after Canada's founding, the country already had already participated in foreign conflicts such as the Boer Wars or WW1. They were also able to negotiate for their own territory with the 1930s British North America Act.


I'm going to correct you there.
Nintendo's wide audience comes in spite of them being successful abroad, rather than deliberately creating what the West wants. It's why they can still make or publish games that are exclusive to one region first but then decide later to release it worldwide (i.e Xenoblade only got a foreign release after petitioning came from the West). Or why their systems clearly deviate from bigger juggernauts like Playstation/Xbox.

And while their hardware sells better outside of Japan, this has always been the case, even when they released actual flops. Reggie being CEO of NOA was like a bird with clipped wings. He was tasked with helping to market Nintendo products in the West, but he never actually had the authority to lead Nintendo as a whole.

Nintendo will always be a Japanese company first, while running subsidiaries who must always tow the corporate line. They still obviously sell products outside of Japan, but it's just a continued means of supporting their own efforts at home. For example, compare how Nintendo reinvests in their business. They've built new headquarters and expanded their development teams in Japan. The last Western studio they owned was buying Retro in 2002, and before that, they sold off Rare to Microsoft.


It's a self inflicted problem. These types of jobs were always meant for High School students or Senior citizens. By importing people who are even more likely to work for less $/hour, it is now suicide for Canadians since the value is diminished.

If we were really facing a crisis, then these jobs should start paying more, or stop expanding. Yeah, I'm already of headlines that talk about layoffs but what they never tell you is that these same companies go on mass hiring sprees and then cut staff in half, or that Tim Hortons will build another store right next to each other.

Basically, companies want us to believe there is a problem, when it's just a trick to boost profits in the long term while offering to pay people less.


We have a surplus of university graduates every year. These same people are sometimes forced to work at a McDonalds because there isn't actually a lot of job openings in tech.
Again, the crisis is a manufactured one. Because of corporate greed, they refuse to hire 1st gen Canadians because cheaper labor exists elsewhere.


The government does give away incentives. I'm aware of instances of the game industry and the VFX industry taking advantage of this (i.e Ubisoft opening a new Manitoba studio, and various film companies who come to Vancouver or Toronto to shoot movies).


The USSR had a bigger population than America by the end of the Cold War. Yet the nation still struggled in nuclear power, or even creating their own computer chips (they were all clones of what Intel had already made).

We can set population aside and compete in the technological race, which is where a lot of money can be seriously made. We already have companies like AMD or IBM here, why not grow their operations first? Maybe even throw more money towards start ups.

We do not need millions of [new] people to catch up with the U.S in that aspect. Growing a bigger population would be more useful if we wanted to match the U.S in military strength, but I should iterate that is something saved for last, assuming Canada actually wants to risk an arms race, as opposed to raising the standards of of the citizens who already live here so more wealth could spill into other industries.

I'll continue to do more research and post more ideas of how we can grow Canada's economy and influence while doing so with a smaller population.

You bring up interesting questions regarding religion, and they're questions I can't answer myself.

When I refer to discrimination, I don't just mean locally, I'm talking discrimination in general. Two populations can live far from each other and still have disdain for one another. It's not dependent on forced interaction, it could be due to one bad interaction (and no more interactions afterwards) or disagreements in lifestyle among other things. Let's say a friend of mine told me they were poorly treated by Person A and that Person A is a terrible person. I can discriminate against Person A without ever having met them myself and Person A might feel the same towards me. The only way for me and Person A to start getting along is if we try to put our differences aside, clear any misunderstandings, and accept each other personally. I agree that Person A and I don't HAVE to get along, just like we don't HAVE to clear discrimination. However, I believe it's the right thing to do and it's the kind of world that I want to live in. I can choose to avoid talking to Person A and deal with them only when I absolutely have to, but then I'm missing out on learning opportunities and the potential camaraderie I might have otherwise had with Person A.

I don't think we should be electing two extremes here (unchecked immigration vs strongly controlled immigration). The immigration process still requires you to provide evidence of education, background, expertise, etc. (another user in this thread pointed that out). I want the immigrants that come to Canada to thrive alongside everyone, so of course I'd also be in favor of a system that's a middle ground between the extremes. I just don't think the answer is perpetuating sameness rather than creating a more comprehensive system that doesn't rely on forced assimilation.

I worded that 'influence' part pretty badly, I can see how it sounded like I said Canada has no cultural influence. I can clarify, Canada definitely does have cultural influence but it's limited in terms of scope. For example, the Ancient Greeks laid the ground work for numerous societies that exist today, and that's been compounded throughout the many years of its existence. Canada might have that in the future, but it does not have that presently.

I didn't say Nintendo makes what the West wants, it sounds like we actually agree here. Nintendo makes games that are simplistic and lighthearted but fun. They're inspired by foreign themes, but the games are relatively free of politics and don't require you to be raised in one specific culture to fully understand. This is what makes their games so successful around the world. Anyone can pick up and play Mario for fun, not everyone can do the same with a game like Modern Warfare (which is banned in Russia). Reggie never had the authority to lead Nintendo as a whole, but my point about Reggie is that globalization is creating these sorts of opportunities. Reggie answered to somebody, but he was still very high up the Nintendo chain, and had to be accustomed to interacting with multiple cultures on a deeper level. It's an example of immigrants (in this case his parents) leading to successful ventures in completely different nations (USA and Japan).

Canada does give incentives, but not to the degree of USA and lately USA has been pressuring American companies to hire local labor rather than outsourcing. I'm with you that Canada should focus on developing big companies already here and help out startups. I don't know the specific details of how they'd do this, but I do know that at the moment USA is way more effective at this than Canada.

 

[JordanN]

You bring up interesting questions regarding religion, and they're questions I can't answer myself.

I too also have questions and answers about religion that I'm still interested in learning.

However, I can condense all my points about into one simple message: where are we suppose to draw the line, between supporting multiculturalism & perserving demographics?

If Muslims ever feel like their new life isn't fair, that maybe "Canada just doesn't feel like home" they will always have several other Muslim countries to return to as a backup.

But if me, an Atheist or even just another secular follower or even LGBT said "You know what? I am scared of Canada becoming too multicultural or Islamic. I want a place where I could feel safe and in control of our borders" then where do we go? Do we go to England? Nope, they're having similar problems there. Do we go to France? Nope, they're having the same issues there. Do we go to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway? Nope, they're all being told "Open your doors to Islam but you can't be allowed to close it".

Multiculturalism has created this paradox where unless a nation actually says no to it (like Japan or Hungary, they both maintain an migrant system that puts their citizens first), then any place on Earth loses its homogeneous status and quickly becomes the next similar thing.

The Middle East could be bombed, invaded, sanctioned etc for a thousand years, Muslims will always have those countries to still call their own.

But Canada or Britain don't even need a single bomb dropped on them, to have their safe place for Christians or Atheists, disappear forever. Do you consider this fair?
And if you do believe these people could run to another country, what do you believe is going to happen again if, once again, multiculturalism says "Open your borders and never close your doors, ever!". People can only keep running until there is no where left to run.

When I refer to discrimination, I don't just mean locally, I'm talking discrimination in general. Two populations can live far from each other and still have disdain for one another. It's not dependent on forced interaction, it could be due to one bad interaction (and no more interactions afterwards) or disagreements in lifestyle among other things. Let's say a friend of mine told me they were poorly treated by Person A and that Person A is a terrible person. I can discriminate against Person A without ever having met them myself and Person A might feel the same towards me. The only way for me and Person A to start getting along is if we try to put our differences aside, clear any misunderstandings, and accept each other personally. I agree that Person A and I don't HAVE to get along, just like we don't HAVE to clear discrimination. However, I believe it's the right thing to do and it's the kind of world that I want to live in. I can choose to avoid talking to Person A and deal with them only when I absolutely have to, but then I'm missing out on learning opportunities and the potential camaraderie I might have otherwise had with Person A.

And you're saying this is only possible by physically moving entire populations across the world? I'm sorry but I must ruthlessly disagree with this.
Humans beings, since the days of Ancient Egypt, had already invented something that deals with this. It's called Diplomacy.

We have Heads of State or Professional Diplomats whose job it is to meet face to face, and settle differences by signing treaties or negotiating deals.

It would have been a disaster if your solution to meeting a foreign nation and (assuming we don't like each other) is to start transferring your own citizens into their land unopposed.

The end of WW2 might have been a bigger bloodbath, if we saw the defeated countries like Germany or Japan, being forced to take in millions of Soviets for example.

I don't think we should be electing two extremes here (unchecked immigration vs strongly controlled immigration). The immigration process still requires you to provide evidence of education, background, expertise, etc. (another user in this thread pointed that out). I want the immigrants that come to Canada to thrive alongside everyone, so of course I'd also be in favor of a system that's a middle ground between the extremes. I just don't think the answer is perpetuating sameness rather than creating a more comprehensive system that doesn't rely on forced assimilation.

I find it interesting if you consider my proposal to be extreme.
The opposite of unchecked immigration, is North Korea. Look it up, citizenship is exclusively given by birth, it is almost unheard of for foreigners to live inside that isn't a rare exception (i.e U.S soldiers who defected, but a lot of them later came back).

The system I propose is the moral one. It is based on what you said that "increasing diversity means more government spending to fight discrimination".
What is the cost of bringing British & French culture to Canada? If 50% or more of all our yearly immigrants came from those two countries, how much is the government actually suppose to spend to see them assimilate? Your points about education or expertise is universal. I do not expect France or Britain to have a shortage of skilled professionals. Yet we know that they are the most culturally similar to us which means discrimination should theoretically go down, not up. How do we argue that we're suppose to bring more discrimination into our country when we don't have to?

I worded that 'influence' part pretty badly, I can see how it sounded like I said Canada has no cultural influence. I can clarify, Canada definitely does have cultural influence but it's limited in terms of scope. For example, the Ancient Greeks laid the ground work for numerous societies that exist today, and that's been compounded throughout the many years of its existence. Canada might have that in the future, but it does not have that presently.

Ancient Greece was already more influential than many other civilizations that existed in the same time.
If your point is to say every ancient civilization had that influence, I disagree. Where does that put Ireland, who has been around since 10,000 BC?
Some countries today are also less influential compared to their past. Mongolia use to control Asia and parts of Europe. Today, they are arguably less influential than Canada is (when was the last time you watched a Mongolian Movie or played their games)?

I didn't say Nintendo makes what the West wants, it sounds like we actually agree here. Nintendo makes games that are simplistic and lighthearted but fun. They're inspired by foreign themes, but the games are relatively free of politics and don't require you to be raised in one specific culture to fully understand. This is what makes their games so successful around the world.

Well part of their game design is in fact Japanese influenced.
You can find interviews and stories of developers who worked in both industries, and they will tell you Japanese developers usually go straight for gameplay first, whereas the West starts off with the technical or graphical features first.

Again, this success comes in spite of how they operate. Why wouldn't they just release every single one of their region exclusives? It can't be just "fun" alone. They know there are still differences in the game market around the world.

Reggie answered to somebody, but he was still very high up the Nintendo chain, and had to be accustomed to interacting with multiple cultures on a deeper level. It's an example of immigrants (in this case his parents) leading to successful ventures in completely different nations (USA and Japan).

Not high enough to release a new console, or even high enough to convince major publishers to specifically release games for them.
My analogy of a "bird with clipped wings" is still apt. I do not deny the other contributions, I'm just saying that NOA, NOE, all these foreign subsidiaries, are still subservient and don't exercise any more power than what Japan gives to them.

If you want to see a reverse example, that is what Playstation is. It went from being headed from Japan to now giving full autonomy to their U.S branch who even serves as the actual headquarters now. To them, they will invest anywhere they see as an opportunity to make the most money. Nintendo's idea of reinvestment is still building more Japanese Studios and Headquarters.

Canada does give incentives, but not to the degree of USA and lately USA has been pressuring American companies to hire local labor rather than outsourcing. I'm with you that Canada should focus on developing big companies already here and help out startups. I don't know the specific details of how they'd do this, but I do know that at the moment USA is way more effective at this than Canada.

I can answer this.

You don't have to think big, think small. Any project cannot get off the ground, if there is tons of red tape and bureaucracy getting in the way.

Look at projects like building a new subway station or constructing a new condominium. No one says Canada doesn't already have the resources to do those things since we clearly do have some of things already. However, pay attention to where development gets started, when does it get halted, when does it progress again, and when do they finally finish?

You will learn that there's much political interference, or bribery, or protests, or scandals, that makes getting new projects off the ground a big headache.

We can think of our government like this. The government obviously has tons of money, yet how do you think the budget is really balanced? Do we ever factor in the cost, of the Prime Minister going on vacation? Or making random stops in different countries? Or sometimes, money just "disappears"?

Where Canada & the U.S differ, is that we actually need to get our own house in order. It's not always about bigger population or more money. If all the money could be used to build a new transit line is instead being used to buy socks, is the problem that we can't build new transit, or is it we don't know how to manage money?

I think throughout history, a country can only succeed when it's truly unified. When there is a single vision. When everyone in the country can nod in unison and say "yeah, lets fund that. It's a good idea".

That is the steps I would want Canada to take. That it needs to have an identity. That it needs to establish a purpose. It needs to assure its own population, that the government is actually working towards their best interests, and not the opposite. It's from there, should we expect everything else about the country to fall into place.

More efficiency, more tech startups, more viable transit that can move millions of people around, which results in more jobs actually being created and filled. All of this requires a shared vision or idea.

But if everyone refuses to work together and we still put with the excessive amount of red tape, then it's no surprise why the system begins to slow down or even collapse entirely.

 

[Chromata]

I too also have questions and answers about religion that I'm still interested in learning.

However, I can condense all my points about into one simple message: where are we suppose to draw the line, between supporting multiculturalism & perserving demographics?

If Muslims ever feel like their new life isn't fair, that maybe "Canada just doesn't feel like home" they will always have several other Muslim countries to return to as a backup.

But if me, an Atheist or even just another secular follower or even LGBT said "You know what? I am scared of Canada becoming too multicultural or Islamic. I want a place where I could feel safe and in control of our borders" then where do we go? Do we go to England? Nope, they're having similar problems there. Do we go to France? Nope, they're having the same issues there. Do we go to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway? Nope, they're all being told "Open your doors to Islam but you can't be allowed to close it".

Multiculturalism has created this paradox where unless a nation actually says no to it (like Japan or Hungary, they both maintain an migrant system that puts their citizens first), then any place on Earth loses its homogeneous status and quickly becomes the next similar thing.

The Middle East could be bombed, invaded, sanctioned etc for a thousand years, Muslims will always have those countries to still call their own.

But Canada or Britain don't even need a single bomb dropped on them, to have their safe place for Christians or Atheists, disappear forever. Do you consider this fair?
And if you do believe these people could run to another country, what do you believe is going to happen again if, once again, multiculturalism says "Open your borders and never close your doors, ever!". People can only keep running until there is no where left to run.


And you're saying this is only possible by physically moving entire populations across the world? I'm sorry but I must ruthlessly disagree with this.
Humans beings, since the days of Ancient Egypt, had already invented something that deals with this. It's called Diplomacy.

We have Heads of State or Professional Diplomats whose job it is to meet face to face, and settle differences by signing treaties or negotiating deals.

It would have been a disaster if your solution to meeting a foreign nation and (assuming we don't like each other) is to start transferring your own citizens into their land unopposed.

The end of WW2 might have been a bigger bloodbath, if we saw the defeated countries like Germany or Japan, being forced to take in millions of Soviets for example.


I find it interesting if you consider my proposal to be extreme.
The opposite of unchecked immigration, is North Korea. Look it up, citizenship is exclusively given by birth, it is almost unheard of for foreigners to live inside that isn't a rare exception (i.e U.S soldiers who defected, but a lot of them later came back).

The system I propose is the moral one. It is based on what you said that "increasing diversity means more government spending to fight discrimination".
What is the cost of bringing British & French culture to Canada? If 50% or more of all our yearly immigrants came from those two countries, how much is the government actually suppose to spend to see them assimilate? Your points about education or expertise is universal. I do not expect France or Britain to have a shortage of skilled professionals. Yet we know that they are the most culturally similar to us which means discrimination should theoretically go down, not up. How do we argue that we're suppose to bring more discrimination into our country when we don't have to?


Ancient Greece was already more influential than many other civilizations that existed in the same time.
If your point is to say every ancient civilization had that influence, I disagree. Where does that put Ireland, who has been around since 10,000 BC?
Some countries today are also less influential compared to their past. Mongolia use to control Asia and parts of Europe. Today, they are arguably less influential than Canada is (when was the last time you watched a Mongolian Movie or played their games)?


Well part of their game design is in fact Japanese influenced.
You can find interviews and stories of developers who worked in both industries, and they will tell you Japanese developers usually go straight for gameplay first, whereas the West starts off with the technical or graphical features first.

Again, this success comes in spite of how they operate. Why wouldn't they just release every single one of their region exclusives? It can't be just "fun" alone. They know there are still differences in the game market around the world.


Not high enough to release a new console, or even high enough to convince major publishers to specifically release games for them.
My analogy of a "bird with clipped wings" is still apt. I do not deny the other contributions, I'm just saying that NOA, NOE, all these foreign subsidiaries, are still subservient and don't exercise any more power than what Japan gives to them.

If you want to see a reverse example, that is what Playstation is. It went from being headed from Japan to now giving full autonomy to their U.S branch who even serves as the actual headquarters now. To them, they will invest anywhere they see as an opportunity to make the most money. Nintendo's idea of reinvestment is still building more Japanese Studios and Headquarters.



I can answer this.

You don't have to think big, think small. Any project cannot get off the ground, if there is tons of red tape and bureaucracy getting in the way.

Look at projects like building a new subway station or constructing a new condominium. No one says Canada doesn't already have the resources to do those things since we clearly do have some of things already. However, pay attention to where development gets started, when does it get halted, when does it progress again, and when do they finally finish?

You will learn that there's much political interference, or bribery, or protests, or scandals, that makes getting new projects off the ground a big headache.

We can think of our government like this. The government obviously has tons of money, yet how do you think the budget is really balanced? Do we ever factor in the cost, of the Prime Minister going on vacation? Or making random stops in different countries? Or sometimes, money just "disappears"?

Where Canada & the U.S differ, is that we actually need to get our own house in order. It's not always about bigger population or more money. If all the money could be used to build a new transit line is instead being used to buy socks, is the problem that we can't build new transit, or is it we don't know how to manage money?

I think throughout history, a country can only succeed when it's truly unified. When there is a single vision. When everyone in the country can nod in unison and say "yeah, lets fund that. It's a good idea".

That is the steps I would want Canada to take. That it needs to have an identity. That it needs to establish a purpose. It needs to assure its own population, that the government is actually working towards their best interests, and not the opposite. It's from there, should we expect everything else about the country to fall into place.

More efficiency, more tech startups, more viable transit that can move millions of people around, which results in more jobs actually being created and filled. All of this requires a shared vision or idea.

But if everyone refuses to work together and we still put with the excessive amount of red tape, then it's no surprise why the system begins to slow down or even collapse entirely.

I understand your concerns about wanting to preserve the safe places you've got. I'll also note that some people, like Syrian refugees, cannot go back home (they have limited options too). Ultimately, I'm not one to decide where the line should be drawn. I think that if multiculturalism is done right and individuals are cared for, it can be a safe place for everybody. I live my life with that attitude and I understand it's not something that might even be achieved soon. Diplomacy is just one of the ways for that to happen and goes hand in hand with immigration (one does not need to replace the other).

Many people claim to have the "moral" answer, but I do not think your view is extreme. I'm just saying we shouldn't base our examples off extremes (since you talked about unregulated immigration in a few of your examples) and probably some middle ground is best. It's not about French and British immigrants having a shortage of education, it's more about having a variety of different individuals with different education backgrounds to help spread knowledge.

Another thing to note is we're seeing companies like From Software or Platinum Games who are creating games with a mix of Western and Japanese themes (From Soft is pretty far towards Western though). It's a refreshing change of pace. In some ways I can see your points because Nintendo has made some really weird decisions (like taking a long time to localize one game that's obviously going to be profitable for them and is in demand).

While I agree efficient usage of money is important to increase productivity, this is a problem that's in a lot of governments not just in Canada. It's one way that improvements can be made, but it would involve deep changes to the current political system (and even then systems tend to move towards corruption in some form so there would have to be preventative measures). It's also quite rare that any nation would be completely unified in its decisions, it's good to have dissenting opinions in order to avoid tunnel vision. This is why many leaders prefer to work with others who give them different perspectives rather than "yes" men, especially since decisions of that magnitude don't often have one clear correct answer. I agree with what you're proposing in theory, but I do not think they are practical measures towards change.

 

[JordanN]

I understand your concerns about wanting to preserve the safe places you've got. I'll also note that some people, like Syrian refugees, cannot go back home (they have limited options too).

They absolutely can.
What do you call it when your own President can walk around the capital without any bodyguards? When was the last time a Western leader did the same thing?



You see? The media never wants to show us this stuff. It's funny how a war torn country can still be considered more safe than a 1st world one.
How come no one thinks twice that a Canadian Prime Minister has to wear a bullet proof vest in public? Why aren't we all leaving?

Ultimately, I'm not one to decide where the line should be drawn. I think that if multiculturalism is done right and individuals are cared for, it can be a safe place for everybody.

Now look at the real life examples of multiculturalism in action.
What is the excuse for Brazil & South Africa quite literally being the most dangerous places on earth? They're even more multicultural than Canada and yet everything from level of government to public safety is crumbling.

The answer is very simple: multiculturalism has no safeguards or checks and balances. When you have to deliberately import "discrimination" and then pay for your own problems associated it, then what exactly is the exit plan that is not total collapse or one majority group replacing the other?

No one has actually produced a study that says when will all humans will be made equal. There is no road map that says it's all guaranteed to work in the end. So we are living in an experiment that sadly, is going to leave behind many former husks of a nation, because as you mentioned in an earlier post

The end goal of diversity is to bring the world together and create more opportunities for everyone

I think having the entire world right on our door steps is ripe for disaster. Much less, we're talking billions of people, a lot of whom subscribe to their own biases or continue to identify with their own tribe. How do we convince them all to think the exact same?

Edit: I also think multiculturalism can't be all that great, if the most diverse places on Earth (Brazil/South Africa) still have people fleeing from it and ironically, their first destination is going to the more homogeneous Western countries.

Another thing to note is we're seeing companies like From Software or Platinum Games who are creating games with a mix of Western and Japanese themes (From Soft is pretty far towards Western though). It's a refreshing change of pace. In some ways I can see your points because Nintendo has made some really weird decisions (like taking a long time to localize one game that's obviously going to be profitable for them and is in demand).

Vice versa has also happened. There have been Western studios that try and copy Japanese-esque design. But this not an argument that East and West aren't distinct from one other.
Companies based in Japan have their own traditions that the rest of the world doesn't really adopt or care for. Like the infamous fax machines. Considered obsolete everywhere else, faxing is still the way of life for these Japanese businesses. Does this mean they will always use Fax? No. But ask nearly every Japanese management why they still use them and report back the answer. If they don't think it's broken or meets their lifestyle, they'll use them forever.

While I agree efficient usage of money is important to increase productivity, this is a problem that's in a lot of governments not just in Canada. It's one way that improvements can be made, but it would involve deep changes to the current political system (and even then systems tend to move towards corruption in some form so there would have to be preventative measures). It's also quite rare that any nation would be completely unified in its decisions, it's good to have dissenting opinions in order to avoid tunnel vision. This is why many leaders prefer to work with others who give them different perspectives rather than "yes" men, especially since decisions of that magnitude don't often have one clear correct answer. I agree with what you're proposing in theory, but I do not think they are practical measures towards change.

This is what bipartisanship support is suppose to look like.

I encourage you to watch this video recently published that interviewed Vice President: Mike Pence. He talks about what I just described and even helps dispel some myths about politics. Like for example, he does mention that Republicans/Conservatives do in fact support better healthcare and meets up with the opposition all the time to get bills passed.

But then he talks about the other "unusual" reasons Democrats haven't been co-operative, and that it has nothing do with "yes-men" but in fact, refusing to move the nation forward.




Speaking for myself personally, I am able to look past Left-Wing/Right-Wing labels and come to support what should be the best interest for my country. Everything I typed up in these last 4 pages isn't actually suppose to be casting a negative message or if "Canada really does suck", what I've typed is that only want to see my nation succeed.

Canada could be a turbo left-wing dictatorship ran by cats and dogs, I still wouldn't leave this country if the Prime Minister said "Hockey must always be our national sport"
Canada could be a turbo-right wing dictatorship ran by pigs and cows, I still wouldn't leave if the Prime Minister said "We must show the world we're still good at math".

What I think is more important than politics or money, is having a nation that actually cares about its people and doesn't see them as "replaceable" by the outside world.

It's why I posted that very first video in the beginning of the Syrian President walking the streets and interacting with everyday citizens. He puts his life in extreme dangerdoing that, yet do you think he cares more about living in some concrete bunker forever, or actually being able to meet and greet his fellow family known as his country?

Now look at Western leaders? Why are they walking around in bulletproof vests and surrounded by secret agents all the time. WHY are they afraid of their own citizens, instead of actually wanting to be friends with them like Mr.Assad? Does this sound like a unified culture, or does it sound like society as we know has been split in half?

 

[Later Alligator]

My guess is that you weren’t born in Canada.

Canada is not a ‘colony’ of the United States, and Canadians are nothing like Americans. There are so many examples of this that it would literally take me a day to name them all.

One example: Canadians don’t elect leaders based on their religious beliefs. In The United States it’s impossible to become President if you’re an atheist - COMPLETELY impossible (or at least you have to lie about it). In Canada, however, we have an understanding, deep within us, that politics is not religion, and that our leaders should govern on the basis of evidence and not theology.

BTW, everytime I cross the border into the US I feel the change immediately - even when I’m in my car. The moment I step out of my car that feeling intensifies tenfold. And I’ve never met a true Canadian who hasn’t felt the same way.

born in St Catherines, lived in Canada for 32 years. currently live in WA state, and i find it to be extremely similar to BC. guess I am not a true Canadian

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

born in St Catherines, lived in Canada for 32 years. currently live in WA state, and i find it to be extremely similar to BC. guess I am not a true Canadian

Honestly, they are very similar but there are some key differences. The biggest difference between Canada and the USA is the Latino influence that has permeated nearly every aspect of US culture that doesn’t exist in Canada. Also, Americans have crazy amount of shopping opportunities probably because of their greater purchase power.

And of course, if you move away from the border states things change even more.

 

[JordanN]

Honestly, they are very similar but there are some key differences. The biggest difference between Canada and the USA is the Latino influence that has permeated nearly every aspect of US culture that doesn’t exist in Canada. Also, Americans have crazy amount of shopping opportunities probably because of their greater purchase power.

And of course, if you move away from the border states things change even more.

Funny you say that. I actually am seeing more and more Latinos in Canada. The difference is their numbers are completely dwarfed by those coming from Asia.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

They absolutely can.
What do you call it when your own President can walk around the capital without any bodyguards? When was the last time a Western leader did the same thing?



You see? The media never wants to show us this stuff. It's funny how a war torn country can still be considered more safe than a 1st world one.
How come no one thinks twice that a Canadian Prime Minister has to wear a bullet proof vest in public? Why aren't we all leaving?

Now look at the real life examples of multiculturalism in action.
What is the excuse for Brazil & South Africa quite literally being the most dangerous places on earth? They're even more multicultural than Canada and yet everything from level of government to public safety is crumbling.

The answer is very simple: multiculturalism has no safeguards or checks and balances. When you have to deliberately import "discrimination" and then pay for your own problems associated it, then what exactly is the exit plan that is not total collapse or one majority group replacing the other?

No one has actually produced a study that says when will all humans will be made equal. There is no road map that says it's all guaranteed to work in the end. So we are living in an experiment that sadly, is going to leave behind many former husks of a nation, because as you mentioned in an earlier post,


I think having the entire world right on our door steps is ripe for disaster. Much less, we're talking billions of people, a lot of whom subscribe to their own biases or continue to identify with their own tribe. How do we convince them all to think the exact same?


Vice versa has also happened. There have been Western studios that try and copy Japanese-esque design. But this not an argument that East and West aren't distinct from one other.
Companies based in Japan have their own traditions that the rest of the world doesn't really adopt or care for. Like the infamous fax machines. Considered obsolete everywhere else, faxing is still the way of life for these Japanese businesses. Does this mean they will always use Fax? No. But ask nearly every Japanese management why they still use them and report back the answer. If they don't think it's broken or meets their lifestyle, they'll use them forever.


This is what bipartisanship support is suppose to look like.

I encourage you to watch this video recently published that interviewed Vice President: Mike Pence. He talks about what I just described and even helps dispel some myths about politics. Like for example, he does mention that Republicans/Conservatives do in fact support better healthcare and meets up with the opposition all the time to get bills passed.

But then he talks about the other "unusual" reasons Democrats haven't been co-operative, and that it has nothing do with "yes-men" but in fact, refusing to move the nation forward.




Speaking for myself personally, I am able to look past Left-Wing/Right-Wing labels and come to support what should be the best interest for my country. Everything I typed up in these last 4 pages isn't actually suppose to be casting a negative message or if "Canada really does suck", what I've typed is that only want to see my nation succeed.

Canada could be a turbo left-wing dictatorship ran by cats and dogs, I still wouldn't leave this country if the Prime Minister said "Hockey must always be our national sport"
Canada could be a turbo-right wing dictatorship ran by pigs and cows, I still wouldn't leave if the Prime Minister said "We must show the world we're still good at math".

What I think is more important than politics or money, is having a nation that actually cares about its people and doesn't see them as "replaceable" by the outside world.

It's why I posted that very first video in the beginning of the Syrian President walking the streets and interacting with everyday citizens. He puts his life in extreme dangerdoing that, yet do you think he cares more about living in some concrete bunker forever, or actually being able to meet and greet his fellow family known as his country?

Now look at Western leaders? Why are they walking around in bulletproof vests and surrounded by secret agents all the time. WHY are they afraid of their own citizens, instead of actually wanting to be friends with them like Mr.Assad? Does this sound like a unified culture, or does it sound like society as we know has been split in half?

Holy shit man, what the fuck are you talking about. Are you seriously posting Syria as the counterpoint to a Canadian society “split in half”? Did you happen to have missed the massive civil war that’s been raging there for the past decade?

 

[JordanN]

Holy shit man, what the fuck are you talking about. Are you seriously posting Syria as the counterpoint to a Canadian society “split in half”? Did you happen to have missed the massive civil war that’s been raging there for the past decade?

Did you actually read my post? Trust me, you rushed to the conclusion too fast if you think you can sum up an entire page long discussion like that.
And no, I didn't miss the Civil War. Feel free to tell me who actually controls the country today and in the future.

Hint: Read my post again and you'll know the answer.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

Funny you say that. I actually am seeing more and more Latinos in Canada. The difference is their numbers are completely dwarfed by those coming from Asia.

Probably because Asia is 7x larger than Latin America. Canada is actually letting in more Latin Americans per capita than Asia, mostly because demand to immigrate from Asia is dwindling while Latin American interest is spiking.

And yeah, I read your post. It’s all over the place and full of stupid shit like blaming multiculturalism for violence in the safest countries on the worlds most dangerous continents.

 

[JordanN]

Probably because Asia is 7x larger than Latin America. Canada is actually letting in more Latin Americans per capita than Asia, mostly because demand to immigrate from Asia is dwindling while Latin American interest is spiking.

And yeah, I read your post. It’s all over the place and full of stupid shit like blaming multiculturalism for violence in the safest countries on the worlds most dangerous continents.

So no argument? Thought as much.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

Uh.

South Africa is the most diverse place in Africa, it’s not the most dangerous place in Africa.

Brazil is the most diverse place in South America, it’s not the most dangerous place in South America.

You were making a point on this, but your basic premise is wrong.

 

[JordanN]

Uh.

South Africa is the most diverse place in Africa, it’s not the most dangerous place in Africa.

Brazil is the most diverse place in South America, it’s not the most dangerous place in South America.

You were making a point on this, but your basic premise is wrong.

And both places are more dangerous than Canada. If I was suppose to feel reassured that more multiculturalism would guarantee safety, then the examples show it doesn't.

I also think I said it in this thread, but keep in mind, these same places too don't actually have functioning governments that keep track of their data. So "unsolved murders" or "mysterious deaths" almost never get investigated. With all the horror stories that came from these places, i wouldn't be surprised if the level of crime or homicide are much higher than what's reported.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

Since when did anyone ever tout multiculturalism as a way to “guarantee safety”? What a bizarre thing to say.

 

[Chromata]

They absolutely can.
What do you call it when your own President can walk around the capital without any bodyguards? When was the last time a Western leader did the same thing?



You see? The media never wants to show us this stuff. It's funny how a war torn country can still be considered more safe than a 1st world one.
How come no one thinks twice that a Canadian Prime Minister has to wear a bullet proof vest in public? Why aren't we all leaving?

Now look at the real life examples of multiculturalism in action.
What is the excuse for Brazil & South Africa quite literally being the most dangerous places on earth? They're even more multicultural than Canada and yet everything from level of government to public safety is crumbling.

The answer is very simple: multiculturalism has no safeguards or checks and balances. When you have to deliberately import "discrimination" and then pay for your own problems associated it, then what exactly is the exit plan that is not total collapse or one majority group replacing the other?

No one has actually produced a study that says when will all humans will be made equal. There is no road map that says it's all guaranteed to work in the end. So we are living in an experiment that sadly, is going to leave behind many former husks of a nation, because as you mentioned in an earlier post


I think having the entire world right on our door steps is ripe for disaster. Much less, we're talking billions of people, a lot of whom subscribe to their own biases or continue to identify with their own tribe. How do we convince them all to think the exact same?

Edit: I also think multiculturalism can't be all that great, if the most diverse places on Earth (Brazil/South Africa) still have people fleeing from it and ironically, their first destination is going to the more homogeneous Western countries.


Vice versa has also happened. There have been Western studios that try and copy Japanese-esque design. But this not an argument that East and West aren't distinct from one other.
Companies based in Japan have their own traditions that the rest of the world doesn't really adopt or care for. Like the infamous fax machines. Considered obsolete everywhere else, faxing is still the way of life for these Japanese businesses. Does this mean they will always use Fax? No. But ask nearly every Japanese management why they still use them and report back the answer. If they don't think it's broken or meets their lifestyle, they'll use them forever.


This is what bipartisanship support is suppose to look like.

I encourage you to watch this video recently published that interviewed Vice President: Mike Pence. He talks about what I just described and even helps dispel some myths about politics. Like for example, he does mention that Republicans/Conservatives do in fact support better healthcare and meets up with the opposition all the time to get bills passed.

But then he talks about the other "unusual" reasons Democrats haven't been co-operative, and that it has nothing do with "yes-men" but in fact, refusing to move the nation forward.




Speaking for myself personally, I am able to look past Left-Wing/Right-Wing labels and come to support what should be the best interest for my country. Everything I typed up in these last 4 pages isn't actually suppose to be casting a negative message or if "Canada really does suck", what I've typed is that only want to see my nation succeed.

Canada could be a turbo left-wing dictatorship ran by cats and dogs, I still wouldn't leave this country if the Prime Minister said "Hockey must always be our national sport"
Canada could be a turbo-right wing dictatorship ran by pigs and cows, I still wouldn't leave if the Prime Minister said "We must show the world we're still good at math".

What I think is more important than politics or money, is having a nation that actually cares about its people and doesn't see them as "replaceable" by the outside world.

It's why I posted that very first video in the beginning of the Syrian President walking the streets and interacting with everyday citizens. He puts his life in extreme dangerdoing that, yet do you think he cares more about living in some concrete bunker forever, or actually being able to meet and greet his fellow family known as his country?

Now look at Western leaders? Why are they walking around in bulletproof vests and surrounded by secret agents all the time. WHY are they afraid of their own citizens, instead of actually wanting to be friends with them like Mr.Assad? Does this sound like a unified culture, or does it sound like society as we know has been split in half?

The leader walking outside in 1 video is not evidence that Syrian refugees can just return home. Western leaders are smart to use bulletproof vests because, unless you live in a heavily restricted society with mind controlled civilians, you'll never know what even 1 odd person can do. That doesn't suddenly make an active war zone safer than Canada. Nobody abandons their old life and flees to go somewhere more dangerous.

Brazil and South Africa are not the most dangerous places on Earth and multiculturalism doesn't automatically make a nation prosperous. I said that it's an important goal to implement, not that it solves all problems and guarantees people will stay.

A multicultural society doesn't mean everyone thinks the same, that's literally the opposite of diversity. You don't need to be the exact same as someone to live and get along with them. The best teams in many situations are of people with different perspectives so you avoid tunnel vision.

Also, your fax machine point isn't true. Hospitals fax all the time and so do businesses. You'll find a fax number on many business websites, I use fax regularly in Canada.

I think it's admirable that you care for your country so much and wish for the best of your nation. Just be careful about generalizing and romanticizing certain things based off limited evidence.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Are you literally now just realizing that Canada is dull, its culture is predicated on a single province (Quebec) and our dollar is pathetic? It's been that way for ages man

Personally, I don't mind it. It's a boring country, but it's safe and peaceful. No gun violence, no broken election, no drama... People leave you alone and it's quiet.

I love it here

Gotta say, this post is about 1/2 right. Living out west we see how broken our election system is and Quebec sure isn't the only culture at all, each province is extremely distinct (in a good way).

Everything else is 100% correct though...

 

[JordanN]

I'm back. I just had to take more time constructing my points very carefully and supply it with more research.

The leader walking outside in 1 video is not evidence that Syrian refugees can just return home.

I think it's proof that the country doesn't exist in some completely uninhabitable environment where no human life is to be found or that it cannot thrive.
Much less, when you have a head of state doing it. What is the argument that is he actually LESS of a target than the average Syrian?

They can or should be expected to go home. Especially when the same Head of State is literally winning battles for his own country in an attempt to reign control or stabilize.


Also, my point is that Syria will always go back to Syrian hands. Even if it took 5 more years for this war to be over, Canada or America wont own it. No Western country that actually has the Christian or Atheist demographics I talked about will get a slice of the pie (although interestingly enough, Assad is actually one of the few rare Arab leaders that is friendly to Christians. Yet, if no actual Syrian is fighting to support this man, doesn't this only prove my point that it's yet another Middle Eastern country that reverts back to a Islamic majority that all the other Muslims aren't trying to make it a more tolerant place?)

Western leaders are smart to use bulletproof vests because, unless you live in a heavily restricted society with mind controlled civilians, you'll never know what even 1 odd person can do. That doesn't suddenly make an active war zone safer than Canada.

We can't brainwash people to not assassinate their head of state, but we can brainwash people to live harmoniously in a multicultural society? I'm sorry, but I thought it would have been common sense for a nation's population to not want to kill their leaders in public unless they represented a tyrant.

Also, what does that say if Assad has more trust in his people to not harm him than Trudeau does? Should this not be counted as a trait worth calling out?

Nobody abandons their old life and flees to go somewhere more dangerous.

Then what I believe is that people of two very different cultures coming together but don't actually mesh unintentionally creates an environment for danger to arise.

Basically, this is what has happened in Europe with the the current migration crisis from Africa & the Middle East. These [European] countries weren't dangerous before, until they did import endless waves of people who have gone on to cause problems.

Examples, like the sexual assaults in Germany in 2015-2016, or the knife attacks in Britain, or the grooming gangs in Britain, or the rise of grenade attacks in Sweden.

In which case, I am completely opposed to the idea that several of these Native European countries must put their own nations at risk that they never asked for.

There's even a reverse example of diversity actually discriminating or acting hostile to to the native inhabitants and not the refugees/foreigners who actually came to their country to do crime. I posted the grooming gangs in the UK article and basically, you have a case of the British police refusing to investigate because the suspects were overwhelming non-White.

I could keep going on but I've made enough tally points of why there are legitimate reasons that multiculturalism in its current form, is not sustainable. Or why the immigration must be overhauled to support more homogeneous cultures instead of radically different ones. Who is the loser in all of this?

If Christians or Atheists have no where left to run, then it's not worth it for them to lose their own nations.

Brazil and South Africa are not the most dangerous places on Earth and multiculturalism doesn't automatically make a nation prosperous. I said that it's an important goal to implement, not that it solves all problems and guarantees people will stay.

Explain again how it's important for nations to put themselves at risk with the problems multiculturalism brings when they don't have to?
I've already mentioned nations for hundreds of years had other ways of contacting each other that didn't involve population transfers. Disputes and conflicts could be settled by professional negotiators.

The discrimination that exists when two countries don't formerly know each other, is still a better outcome then forcing two different cultures side by side and making society even less equal.

A multicultural society doesn't mean everyone thinks the same, that's literally the opposite of diversity. You don't need to be the exact same as someone to live and get along with them. The best teams in many situations are of people with different perspectives so you avoid tunnel vision.

If you don't share similar values, then different groups of people can't live next to each other and get along. And multiculturalism clearly presents that paradox.
A group of people may not like homosexuality. The other group disagrees. They both "get along" until one day, the anti-LGBT crowd becomes a demographic majority and either puts their thought into law or do attack/discriminate against the minority with complete impunity.

Your vision of a multicultural society seems to stem from the idea that populations remain stable. Like every group is divided by a 50:50 split and neither will ever outgrow of this.
Except some groups may immigrate more, or have higher birth rates, or death rates.

Also, your fax machine point isn't true. Hospitals fax all the time and so do businesses. You'll find a fax number on many business websites, I use fax regularly in Canada.

I should reiterate. Faxing itself is still alive, but they [the modern world] uses Electronic Faxing. Western companies themselves are also moving away from physical Fax Machines too.
I wish I could find data that broke down the machine sales by region, but I did find that 6 million Fax machines are sold world wide and in 2013, Japan bought 1.7 million fax machines, or 1/4 of all new fax machines went to Japan.

I think it's admirable that you care for your country so much and wish for the best of your nation. Just be careful about generalizing and romanticizing certain things based off limited evidence.

What if I told you this evidence is quite extensive and well researched? Multiculturalism can be summed up a two fold problem:
1. The world has always been tribal. Not just in humans, but even in other humans as well. Tribes who are different from one another have always want to conquer. The best defense against this, was establishing borders and tightly control who is allowed inside. We have monuments from the past that shows how seriously humans took these tribal difference.

The Great Wall of China. How is that anything but a prehistoric border control?

Or what about all the many Castles built during the Medieval period? These nations even went as far as constructing them surrounded by water with the only access being a draw bridge.

2. There is basically a news report everyday talking about racism or discrimination in the West. The cases are always fresh, or always creative, despite countries still touting or calling themselves "multicultural". Well you are multicultural, and look at the actual effect it's having by making the populace distrust each other, or erode whatever cultural identity they have left.
Cultures are in constant competition with one another, and demographics not remaining on par with one another means there's going to be a loser in all of this.

However, I do not want that be loser to be traditionally Western countries, or any countries at all. Not just because of the fact they are the only places on earth actual Christians can be safeguarded from being minorities in their own land, but because multiculturalism takes away a unique identity.

Even the claim that only Canada has specific ownership of being this "multicultural place" is bizarre. Does the U.S not have the same immigration policies that doesn't favor any religious background? Or France? Or Britain? Or Germany? Or Sweden?

What makes Canada different, is that we do choose to discriminate in the immigration process, but only on the lines of education. But somehow, even going a step further with wanting a more homogeneous immigration process, then that somehow crosses the line? Why is diversity of education frowned upon, but not wanting a more Christian population? It tells me people who drafted or support this system knows that being able to filter for education has its own benefits (i.e more educated = more likely to make more money) but if I told you more homogeneous immigration benefits us more by keeping the country culturally safe, then there I get no reception.

 

[Chromata]

I'm back. I just had to take more time constructing my points very carefully and supply it with more research.


I think it's proof that the country doesn't exist in some completely uninhabitable environment where no human life is to be found or that it cannot thrive.
Much less, when you have a head of state doing it. What is the argument that is he actually LESS of a target than the average Syrian?

They can or should be expected to go home. Especially when the same Head of State is literally winning battles for his own country in an attempt to reign control or stabilize.


Also, my point is that Syria will always go back to Syrian hands. Even if it took 5 more years for this war to be over, Canada or America wont own it. No Western country that actually has the Christian or Atheist demographics I talked about will get a slice of the pie (although interestingly enough, Assad is actually one of the few rare Arab leaders that is friendly to Christians. Yet, if no actual Syrian is fighting to support this man, doesn't this only prove my point that it's yet another Middle Eastern country that reverts back to a Islamic majority that all the other Muslims aren't trying to make it a more tolerant place?)




We can't brainwash people to not assassinate their head of state, but we can brainwash people to live harmoniously in a multicultural society? I'm sorry, but I thought it would have been common sense for a nation's population to not want to kill their leaders in public unless they represented a tyrant.

Also, what does that say if Assad has more trust in his people to not harm him than Trudeau does? Should this not be counted as a trait worth calling out?



Then what I believe is that people of two very different cultures coming together but don't actually mesh unintentionally creates an environment for danger to arise.

Basically, this is what has happened in Europe with the the current migration crisis from Africa & the Middle East. These [European] countries weren't dangerous before, until they did import endless waves of people who have gone on to cause problems.

Examples, like the sexual assaults in Germany in 2015-2016, or the knife attacks in Britain, or the grooming gangs in Britain, or the rise of grenade attacks in Sweden.

In which case, I am completely opposed to the idea that several of these Native European countries must put their own nations at risk that they never asked for.

There's even a reverse example of diversity actually discriminating or acting hostile to to the native inhabitants and not the refugees/foreigners who actually came to their country to do crime. I posted the grooming gangs in the UK article and basically, you have a case of the British police refusing to investigate because the suspects were overwhelming non-White.

I could keep going on but I've made enough tally points of why there are legitimate reasons that multiculturalism in its current form, is not sustainable. Or why the immigration must be overhauled to support more homogeneous cultures instead of radically different ones. Who is the loser in all of this?

If Christians or Atheists have no where left to run, then it's not worth it for them to lose their own nations.





Explain again how it's important for nations to put themselves at risk with the problems multiculturalism brings when they don't have to?
I've already mentioned nations for hundreds of years had other ways of contacting each other that didn't involve population transfers. Disputes and conflicts could be settled by professional negotiators.

The discrimination that exists when two countries don't formerly know each other, is still a better outcome then forcing two different cultures side by side and making society even less equal.


If you don't share similar values, then different groups of people can't live next to each other and get along. And multiculturalism clearly presents that paradox.
A group of people may not like homosexuality. The other group disagrees. They both "get along" until one day, the anti-LGBT crowd becomes a demographic majority and either puts their thought into law or do attack/discriminate against the minority with complete impunity.

Your vision of a multicultural society seems to stem from the idea that populations remain stable. Like every group is divided by a 50:50 split and neither will ever outgrow of this.
Except some groups may immigrate more, or have higher birth rates, or death rates.



I should reiterate. Faxing itself is still alive, but they [the modern world] uses Electronic Faxing. Western companies themselves are also moving away from physical Fax Machines too.
I wish I could find data that broke down the machine sales by region, but I did find that 6 million Fax machines are sold world wide and in 2013, Japan bought 1.7 million fax machines, or 1/4 of all new fax machines went to Japan.



What if I told you this evidence is quite extensive and well researched? Multiculturalism can be summed up a two fold problem:
1. The world has always been tribal. Not just in humans, but even in other humans as well. Tribes who are different from one another have always want to conquer. The best defense against this, was establishing borders and tightly control who is allowed inside. We have monuments from the past that shows how seriously humans took these tribal difference.

The Great Wall of China. How is that anything but a prehistoric border control?

Or what about all the many Castles built during the Medieval period? These nations even went as far as constructing them surrounded by water with the only access being a draw bridge.

2. There is basically a news report everyday talking about racism or discrimination in the West. The cases are always fresh, or always creative, despite countries still touting or calling themselves "multicultural". Well you are multicultural, and look at the actual effect it's having by making the populace distrust each other, or erode whatever cultural identity they have left.
Cultures are in constant competition with one another, and demographics not remaining on par with one another means there's going to be a loser in all of this.

However, I do not want that be loser to be traditionally Western countries, or any countries at all. Not just because of the fact they are the only places on earth actual Christians can be safeguarded from being minorities in their own land, but because multiculturalism takes away a unique identity.

Even the claim that only Canada has specific ownership of being this "multicultural place" is bizarre. Does the U.S not have the same immigration policies that doesn't favor any religious background? Or France? Or Britain? Or Germany? Or Sweden?

What makes Canada different, is that we do choose to discriminate in the immigration process, but only on the lines of education. But somehow, even going a step further with wanting a more homogeneous immigration process, then that somehow crosses the line? Why is diversity of education frowned upon, but not wanting a more Christian population? It tells me people who drafted or support this system knows that being able to filter for education has its own benefits (i.e more educated = more likely to make more money) but if I told you more homogeneous immigration benefits us more by keeping the country culturally safe, then there I get no reception.

Nobody said Syria was uninhabitable or that it cannot thrive, but it's still an active war zone. There's no way it's anywhere close to being more safe than Canada. I can promise you that whoever the guy in the video is, he isn't going to walk into a dangerous area with no security or plan. That's just reckless. I'm not going to assume Assad trusts all his people from the basis of 1 video. Anyone can show anything they want in a video, you need a long standing chain of evidence to prove something like that. Whatever happens to Syria in the future, in its current state the refugees will not go back.

I also never claimed we would brainwash people to live harmoniously in a multicultural society. You will never have a society that's completely harmonious with no crime, but I have said this entire time that I believe multiculturalism is the way forward for our species. It's a natural progression given the technological advances we've been taking. There will always be people in a society that face hardship that breaks them or are extreme in their actions, your common sense isn't the norm for each individual in a large population. It just takes 1 violent person with a weapon in a crowd of 100 million reasonable people to kill someone, good luck controlling that.

I know about all those events, I already said multiculturalism isn't going to solve all the problems in society and that the process of multiculturalism is going to be difficult. Whenever you have change in a society, there's going to be problems along the way. I believe that the end goal is worth it. It's clear that you don't agree at all and see it as an unnecessary risk. You want the world to stay as it always was and just continue to improve in the same areas. I think that's a stagnant way of thinking that's not only going to plateau growth and hinder new ideas, but also lead to a less accepting society.

Every nation will want to defend their people, castles having moats was commonplace. The world was a much more dangerous place back then, and it still is dangerous, but to a lesser extent. The world was always tribalist, but I already said that the "tribes" in question have only gotten bigger over time. In all of history, there has been us vs them, and the definition of "us" has grown wider and wider. We're better off for it.

You believe that Canada needs to preserve its old identity. I believe that it's important to remember Canada's old identity, but to also work towards a new identity that incorporates the best parts of many different cultures. It doesn't look like we're going to agree on this matter, so we can disagree on this and see where it leads in the future.

 

[JordanN]

Nobody said Syria was uninhabitable or that it cannot thrive, but it's still an active war zone.

By which definition?
Syria today is not the same Syria from 10 years ago. I already mentioned that Assad and his army have actually won back most of their country. It actually makes complete sense why he started walking in the Capital again. It's proof that the area is under control. I never said Syrians had to live or walk in the most dangerous parts of the country.

There's no way it's anywhere close to being more safe than Canada.

Was Syria ever as safe as Canada? War or no war? And if not, why should we care? I didn't create Syria. I never once came in contact with Syrians or told them what to do. Yet somehow, their country still fell apart.

If Canada is safe, then that's completely because of our own culture. Other countries are free to copy it, but it's not actually a right for them to move here and not actually address the problems in their own country. That is actually why I fear multiculturalism.

If you want to know why some parts of the world are safe and others less so, then maybe the solution isn't actually to combine the two but look at the causes of it instead?

Like look at South Africa. While crime has technically been "decreasing", (although it has spiked again) the country never hit record low levels of murder since 1954. Is this Canada's problem of why we're still safe, or is the onus not on these countries who clearly took a turn for the worst using their own governments?

Clearly culture does matter, and multiculturalism absolutely presents a threat to this. How many times have you or another user brought up cultures "changing" in this thread? Well, if I know what my country has done all these decades to not facilitate crime, then how is it moral to watch us become like every other nation who struggle with this?

I don't want to read stories in 2060 describing how "Canada is now this dangerous warzone, where everyone is feared for their lives" but then I can be the first and say "But I remember a time where it wasn't like this. Something changed that could have stopped this altogether".

Whatever happens to Syria in the future, in its current state the refugees will not go back.

Who is will or why do they have authority over this?
Anyone who isn't actually in active danger but is trying to escape to the West for the better wealth is not a refugee.

In fact, the whole point to a "refugee" system is that you're actually suppose to apply for it and thus the host nation should be able to review it and make a manual decision who is actually inside and who isn't. But if the conditions change where the country isn't officially in a state of war, then nations do have a right to stop all future refugees or tell them to go back if they're not citizens.

IMO, I think this is why it even makes less to not stay behind or find an already safer part of the country to live then seeking asylum. Imagine the 6 months it took to get an asylum pass, you could have found a new job, maybe even join the army, and fight off whatever rebels are destabilizing the country.

I know about all those events, I already said multiculturalism isn't going to solve all the problems in society and that the process of multiculturalism is going to be difficult. Whenever you have change in a society, there's going to be problems along the way. I believe that the end goal is worth it. It's clear that you don't agree at all and see it as an unnecessary risk.

Remind me what was the end goal again?
What goal could be worth the lives of these people living in European countries that must experience this experiment with an unforeseeable end?

Or why can't this goal be achieved without using multiculturalism? Do you know something about population transfers that I don't?

You want the world to stay as it always was and just continue to improve in the same areas. I think that's a stagnant way of thinking that's not only going to plateau growth and hinder new ideas, but also lead to a less accepting society.

Well you have to first tell me what is so important of this great population transfer that I can still see the world change, just not the actual cultures with it?

Japan's culture is stagnant, but what the Japanese are capable of making is obviously not. They find ways to make newer cars, newer cartoons, newer games, newer dishes, newer books etc the sky is the limit. What would replacing Japan's demographics actually hope to achieve or make it a goal worth pursuing in all of this?

Every nation will want to defend their people, castles having moats was commonplace. The world was a much more dangerous place back then, and it still is dangerous, but to a lesser extent. The world was always tribalist, but I already said that the "tribes" in question have only gotten bigger over time. In all of history, there has been us vs them, and the definition of "us" has grown wider and wider. We're better off for it.

And what do you base this on?
I even just said that every day, there are new stories of discrimination or prejudice or conflict. That's not human beings experiencing unity.
We all don't speak the same language, have the same wealth, have the same religion, have the same politics. The unity you talk about is actually found in more homogeneous nations, in which case, I do think a country like Japan and the Japanese have more in common with each other than the rest of world.

But if somehow, Japan became 50% Japanese but then 50% foreigner, then why on earth would I believe the "us" would have grown wider? Those 50% foreigner could have a multitude of beliefs that contradict or go against what a 50% Japanese population are traditionally accustomed to.

You believe that Canada needs to preserve its old identity. I believe that it's important to remember Canada's old identity, but to also work towards a new identity that incorporates the best parts of many different cultures.

And how do you know Canada didn't already have the best parts? Or why does it matter?

You seem to understand that there are indeed parts of the world ruled by different cultures that are struggling, but it's still somehow a good idea for the Western world to take these ideas from them when we're perfectly content in our own borders.

It's not Canada that's fighting a civil war or has an unstable crime rate. It's people running to Canada to get away from their own cultures that caused it.

 

[Chromata]

By which definition?
Syria today is not the same Syria from 10 years ago. I already mentioned that Assad and his army have actually won back most of their country. It actually makes complete sense why he started walking in the Capital again. It's proof that the area is under control. I never said Syrians had to live or walk in the most dangerous parts of the country.


Was Syria ever as safe as Canada? War or no war? And if not, why should we care? I didn't create Syria. I never once came in contact with Syrians or told them what to do. Yet somehow, their country still fell apart.

If Canada is safe, then that's completely because of our own culture. Other countries are free to copy it, but it's not actually a right for them to move here and not actually address the problems in their own country. That is actually why I fear multiculturalism.

If you want to know why some parts of the world are safe and others less so, then maybe the solution isn't actually to combine the two but look at the causes of it instead?

Like look at South Africa. While crime has technically been "decreasing", (although it has spiked again) the country never hit record low levels of murder since 1954. Is this Canada's problem of why we're still safe, or is the onus not on these countries who clearly took a turn for the worst using their own governments?

Clearly culture does matter, and multiculturalism absolutely presents a threat to this. How many times have you or another user brought up cultures "changing" in this thread? Well, if I know what my country has done all these decades to not facilitate crime, then how is it moral to watch us become like every other nation who struggle with this?

I don't want to read stories in 2060 describing how "Canada is now this dangerous warzone, where everyone is feared for their lives" but then I can be the first and say "But I remember a time where it wasn't like this. Something changed that could have stopped this altogether".


Who is will or why do they have authority over this?
Anyone who isn't actually in active danger but is trying to escape to the West for the better wealth is not a refugee.

In fact, the whole point to a "refugee" system is that you're actually suppose to apply for it and thus the host nation should be able to review it and make a manual decision who is actually inside and who isn't. But if the conditions change where the country isn't officially in a state of war, then nations do have a right to stop all future refugees or tell them to go back if they're not citizens.

IMO, I think this is why it even makes less to not stay behind or find an already safer part of the country to live then seeking asylum. Imagine the 6 months it took to get an asylum pass, you could have found a new job, maybe even join the army, and fight off whatever rebels are destabilizing the country.


Remind me what was the end goal again?
What goal could be worth the lives of these people living in European countries that must experience this experiment with an unforeseeable end?

Or why can't this goal be achieved without using multiculturalism? Do you know something about population transfers that I don't?


Well you have to first tell me what is so important of this great population transfer that I can still see the world change, just not the actual cultures with it?

Japan's culture is stagnant, but what the Japanese are capable of making is obviously not. They find ways to make newer cars, newer cartoons, newer games, newer dishes, newer books etc the sky is the limit. What would replacing Japan's demographics actually hope to achieve or make it a goal worth pursuing in all of this?


And what do you base this on?
I even just said that every day, there are new stories of discrimination or prejudice or conflict. That's not human beings experiencing unity.
We all don't speak the same language, have the same wealth, have the same religion, have the same politics. The unity you talk about is actually found in more homogeneous nations, in which case, I do think a country like Japan and the Japanese have more in common with each other than the rest of world.

But if somehow, Japan became 50% Japanese but then 50% foreigner, then why on earth would I believe the "us" would have grown wider? Those 50% foreigner could have a multitude of beliefs that contradict or go against what a 50% Japanese population are traditionally accustomed to.


And how do you know Canada didn't already have the best parts? Or why does it matter?

You seem to understand that there are indeed parts of the world ruled by different cultures that are struggling, but it's still somehow a good idea for the Western world to take these ideas from them when we're perfectly content in our own borders.

It's not Canada that's fighting a civil war or has an unstable crime rate. It's people running to Canada to get away from their own cultures that caused it.

Jordan, I don't mean to spoil the discussion, but we've been going at this for 2 pages. A lot of this comes down to us disagreeing on a few fundamental points and we're just going in circles reiterating things. I can answer your questions, but it's just going to lead to more long posts.

I didn't want to leave you hanging and I enjoyed the debate, but I'm going to have to move on here (especially since I won't have much time for GAF next week).

 

[Siri]

born in St Catherines, lived in Canada for 32 years. currently live in WA state, and i find it to be extremely similar to BC. guess I am not a true Canadian

You’re not.

The suggestion that living in a Washington is similar to living in BC is grotesque. I would never ever agree to that.

 

[Later Alligator]

You’re not.

The suggestion that living in a Washington is similar to living in BC is grotesque. I would never ever agree to that.

where do you live? how much time have you spent in Vancouver and Seattle?

 

[Caker Cult]

For any of you non-Canadians, what is your image of Canada?

Multi-cultural? An immigrant's dream? Free universal healthcare?

Hate to break this to you, but that is a 100% lie.

Only the big cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and some other like Ottawa and perhaps Calgary(?) have good representation of many ethnic backgrounds, but even that is skewed. Most of the ethic immigrants are Asian (Oriental or East Indian). There's not many Latinos or Blacks.

Outside of these kinds of core cities, the vast majority of the rest of the smaller towns, other parts of the province etc.... are literally 90% White. Maybe 5% Native, and maybe 5% ethnic. I made up the numbers here so I'll be off, but you get the idea. And these kinds of areas are usually very right wing conservative. No different than the US. NY City is big on culture. But I'm pretty sure every city in Montana isn't.

The most obvious is the prairies (Alberta/Sask( voting righty), and Quebec always have a hate for anything regarding English or someone Arab who wears head carves and stuff like that. They will literally shoot down a political candidate if they support more open arms with other people. It's French first, everyone else last.

As for immigration, Canada's loving "hey come on over" is not so easy. The country grills you with a questionnaire that ranks you with points. The more money and assets you have, the more education you have, the better job and entrepreneurial spirit you have etc..... the better. If you are a random low skilled, poor immigrant you're going to have a hard time getting in unless you luck out claiming refugee status, or more common you get sponsored over.

Sponsoring means someone in Canada will basically cover your ass. The government will grill the sponsor to ensure they have enough money to support you. It's not like you come over and immediately get tons of free shit like a local.

Universal healthcare is not so universal. We get taxed a decent amount on stuff, so really the common tax payer is just self funding it themselves. Also, the things that are covered are doctor's visits, xrays, hospital stays and surgeries and I believe medication in hospitals (which does cover the major shit). Unless you can claim being so broke you need help or is classified as emergency medical help (like someone knocked out your teeth), the average person still has to pay for:

- Dental care
- Eye care
- Paramedic/ambulance service
- Crutches, casts, wheelchairs..... medical gear
- Prescription drugs

So it's not totally free.

Most of this is spot on except maybe the paragraph about immigration. And might I add that I have a cousin in Hong Kong who's earning a “moderate income" but wants to "better himself" further and as a result is still interested in coming to Canada. Lol! Where have I heard this before? Ultimately it's his decision. But realistically, he's better off staying put because he's not doing too badly so far.

That and (coming from someone born and raised here), Canada is not the answer at all. In fact, better to stay the fuck away. This includes visiting let alone moving here because he's going to have to learn to like Rednecks and heavy drug users. Also transit and infrastructure blows. Everything is so unoriginal, so you can forget about music, arts, etc... And not many (good paying) jobs either. Furthermore, the mundane jobs currently are quite competitive. So much for that bullshit about weathering the Great Recession of 2008 very well as if the country isn't still reeling from all those lost (factory) jobs and adding to that now losses from oil and gas.

Very sorry if this is an unpopular, controversial opinion, but I refuse to save face and force myself in blindly pedestalling this country unlike many others and the media.

 

[YukiOnna]

Most of this is spot on except maybe the paragraph about immigration. And might I add that I have a cousin in Hong Kong who's earning a “moderate income" but wants to "better himself" further and as a result is still interested in coming to Canada. Lol! Where have I heard this before? Ultimately it's his decision. But realistically, he's better off staying put because he's not doing too badly so far.

That and (coming from someone born and raised here), Canada is not the answer at all. In fact, better to stay the fuck away. This includes visiting let alone moving here because he's going to have to learn to like Rednecks and heavy drug users. Also transit and infrastructure blows. Everything is so unoriginal, so you can forget about music, arts, etc... And not many (good paying) jobs either. Furthermore, the mundane jobs currently are quite competitive. So much for that bullshit about weathering the Great Recession of 2008 very well as if the country isn't still reeling from all those lost (factory) jobs and adding to that now losses from oil and gas.

Very sorry if this is an unpopular, controversial opinion, but I refuse to save face and force myself in blindly pedestalling this country unlike many others and the media.

I still can't believe the TTC once got #1 transport. Forgot where but I was surprised pikachu at that.

 

[AGRacing]

I’m Canadian. Most of the “patriotism” here was always just anti-us sentiment in disguise. That felt wrong since I was young.

Unity is at an all time low. You live either in or in between centre of the universe Ontario, “spoiled whining brat capital of the planet earth” Quebec or the the “Canada’s great shame of the climate narrative” western provinces (they have to send a lot of money to the first two places). You could also live in Vancouver I guess - the city always playing some other city on every tv show in the last 20 years. Want to pretend you’re in Boston? Shoot in Vancouver! New York production costs too expensive!? Try Vancouver!!! I’ve already seen someone post a photo of the skyline with a “wtf” style message. You’re right on the money, buddy.

There’s no integration. Every culture sticks to their carved out territories. There’s no unity and in many cases zero assimilation.... and it’s not really the fault of immigrants themselves.... there’s nothing to assimilate into now.

And we are so insecure about our “culture” that we have rules that limit how much American sourced TV can be played. We need to see 10 minutes of fucking Ann of green gables to watch 20 minutes of Big Bang theory.

And one things that’s been bothering me for years..... our last Olympic Games were a joke. I’d love to know where all that money went. You talk about Russia being corrupt (of course they are) but Jesus what a pathetic winter games that was.

Americans : I don’t know what exactly this is.... but do yourselves a favour and NEVER find yourselves on this road.

 

[HarryKS]

Solidarity blockades.

 

[JordanN]

Americans : I don’t know what exactly this is.... but do yourselves a favour and NEVER find yourselves on this road.

IMO, what makes America greatly differ from Canada, is they at least have an inert passion to always do better.
Whether it's sports, music, technology, military, medicine, the arts etc, Americans never want to settle for second best. They ALWAYS want to be the best.

But with Canada, we've descended down mediocrity. There's no such thing as "Canadian pride". We don't build thing that makes the world jealous. We just exist in the corner and watch the cool kids play ball instead.

 

[Kittehkraken]

IMO, what makes America greatly differ from Canada, is they at least have an inert passion to always do better.
Whether it's sports, music, technology, military, medicine, the arts etc, Americans never want to settle for second best. They ALWAYS want to be the best.

But with Canada, we've descended down mediocrity. There's no such thing as "Canadian pride". We don't build thing that makes the world jealous. We just exist in the corner and watch the cool kids play ball instead.

Canada had a brief moment of greatness.

But it all ended up in the scrapyard and those who built it got scooped up by other countries.

 

[JordanN]

Bumping this thread because of a new observation I made.

Just came back from the bank and noticed that they now lock their doors and have 3 security guards standing to let you in. This never use to be a thing, and I don't even live in the biggest city.

I also noticed other businesses have also locked their doors and you have to knock to come in when it starts to get really dark. When I tried to buy pizza, I had to go through the same procedure.

I wonder where all this "paranoia" came from? Well, maybe I do know, but it's sad this is starting to become the new normal.