canada
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- boobs1
People are nice in Canada. They're cuddly, and they drink a lot.
- i_monk-2
The country is falling behind, but it's hardly (just) Trudeau's fault:
1. Unopposed leadership. Our parliamentary system is deeply flawed, designed for a past age, and reliant on customs only some of the parties even both paying lip service to anymore. Under FPTP if you cross that minimum seat count, you can do whatever you want until the next election. The Opposition parties may as well go on vacation. Nearly every vote is whipped, so as long as you're even somewhat careful not to spark a rebellion among your own MPs, you will get 100% support for your agenda.
2. and 4. The BoC only has one level to pull and that's the interest rate. They have no other tools in their tool box. But more relevant is the over-dependence on and entanglement in the US economy, with the EU and China as distant considerations. Too many of our political and economic decision-makers put Wall Street's interests ahead of Bay Street's and certainly Main Street's.
3. True. Housing has become a retirement plan, most of our politicians are landlords, in the pocket of developers, or both, all creating a crippling fear of doing anything that might lower property values even slightly. If given a choice between paying a fine and building affordable housing, developers will pay the fine—see Montreal. But why are developers even given a choice? The notion of regulating industry for the common good has nearly evaporated here.
5. We do attract doctors and such, from a diverse number of cultures, then prevent them from working in those fields. If you want to be a doctor here you're required to re-certify and redo your residency in a Canadian hospital, which is expensive and the number of residency programs bottlenecks the entire thing. We've got immigrants coming from all over, but doubling down on a service-based economy means we're mainly going to get whover the most upwardly mobile are around the world – China for a while, then India, now I think it's Nigeria. We're also absolute shit at promoting our own culture because it competes with American imports.
6. I haven't noticed any change in pot use among anyone I know, but we already had lack of ambition nailed down before it was legalized.
- loleveryangle
- 3. Developers just won’t build if they’re forced to do ‘affordable housing’ — what ever that term meansGnash
- They will find other ways to make moneyGnash
- studderine0
so Calgary is conservative and boring, where as Vancouver is liberal and happening?
- juhls0
Anna Paquin was born in Winnipeg.
- zarkonite0
This fucking guy can't help being on the wrong side of EVERY issue.
- sikma0
Calgary is the home of Canada's current Conservative movement. It's actually very noticable in the politcal views of the average citizens. In all of Alberta there is only one non-conservative MP (Member of Parliament) in our federal government.
Vancouver is on the other hand a bastion of liberalism in Western Canada. We didn't elect any Conservative MP's in Vancouver proper, something which our PM is VERY aware of.
The political difference between the two cities is night and day.
- i_monk0
Everyone ready for the coup going on downstairs?
- studderine0
damn, so it appears the general feeeeeeling is: dont move to calgary, it sucks.
- Milan0
i live in calgary, unfortunately, but hopefully not for long. here are a few reasons why it sucks:
- cold for 8 months of the year. can get -40 celsius and below in the winter. this year, it snowed in the beginning of june.
- too many rednecks and cowboys. seems like 3/4 of the people drive trucks/suvs. they don't know how to drive, so they feel safer in big cars, but endanger everyone else.
- calgary stampede. at the beginning of july, everyone dresses up as cowboys for a week and drink a lot of beer. whole city smells like horse manure. thank god i'll be in europe on vacation that week.
- horrible traffic, there are over a million people living here, but the roads are designed for 1/4 of the population.
- it's an ugly and boring city with no interesting sights. the buildings and houses are ugly, built with one thing in mind - cost. the sculptures and "art" they have scattered around downtown makes you wanna puke. seriously, type "calgary sculptures" into google images if you wanna see some funny shit.sadly, i could go on all day... don't even think about moving here, especially now that the economic boom it had is over.
- lol - oh the memories.
you going to move to Van?sikma - vancouver is nice, but not far enough from calgary i'm afraid. i'd like to move to france, switzerland or maybe san franciscoMilan
- HAHAHHAHA!!!sikma
- you sound scaredsikma
- *scarredsikma
- -40 sounds awful and san fran costs alllloooottt of money.studderine
- hahahajuhls
- wow, calgary sounds lovely.VectorMasked
- lol - oh the memories.
- Salarrue0
you need to go to montreal
- MisterMonk0
Canada sucks... maybe except Montreal with all those fake French! Vancouver boring city... Toronto just NYC wannabe... the rest just ugh. Oh yeah Design part same ugh.
igloo, moose and men on horses gonna kill me now!- Any day MisterMonk...
weve torched your white house before, and we'd do it again.ross
- Any day MisterMonk...
- studderine0
jesus, all of you scared me the fuck away from canada.
- monNom0
Vancouver has a charm that fades with time. At first you'll think that it's forward thinking and kinda Bohemian. But after a while you realize that everyone is actually just ignoring the giant problems here. Really pretty on a clear day though.
Calgary has some great chicken wings.
- benfal990
if you like cowboys and potato fields. otherwise come to Montreal and enjoy the show my friend.
- benfal990
yeah and lots and lots of wild animals e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e ...
- juhls0
Give it a try.