We feel your pain https://globalnews.ca/news/9840523/vancouver-island-tourism-wildfire-highway-closure/amp/. If government can’t even take care of the basic necessities (maintain the roads, build hospitals, pay the bills), shut it down and start again. Or maybe they’re too incompetent which is why they ignore the problem altogether and focus on virtue signalling instead? Much easier to spend time hand wringing over climate issues and gender wars rather than fixing the problems at hand.
I don't know man, how many millions of acres burned this year. If you don't think the climate has changed for the worse for US then your not paying attention.
Lets not forget that we are specialized for our current climate. If it gets too hot or too cold (ice age) we can not live in these places. The climate has always changed but right now it is changing to something we may not be able to handle.
For sure it’s a concern. For sure Canada’s emissions are a nanometer in comparison to the US, China or India. And…FOR SURE no Canadian bureaucrat or politician has any clue how to fix it. But paying bills? Building bridges? https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6450110
Like, this is their first job, and they can’t even get THAT right.
The comfortable comms people are what is causing the problem. I'm sure the road people are doing their best. But god forbid they be allowed to provide updates. No, that had to go through the managers in comms. Time to fire these padded, irresponsible, whiny bureaucrats.
Pretty hard to have a group of employees without any managers guiding them. Good managers are worth their weight. No managers means little productivity.
It happens everywhere now in Canada. In the spring of 2023 the Sea To Sky highway in BC was closed for 6.5 hours for an accident that involved no fatalities and only one significant injury. This would have been cleaned up in a third to half the time only ten years ago; crews are now busy collecting data that will never be used. Process is paramount to the exclusion of utility or any notion of common sense, even if that process yields exactly zero benefit. It is emblematic of a nation on its way out.
At one time, when life was an ongoing struggle for most people in this country, government recognized its responsibility to provide the infrastructure, services and stability that the people required to plan and run their own lives. As we have become more affluent it has enabled government to shift its focus to providing social services and to grow its own (ever more useless) bureaucracy, so that it could run our lives for us…Thus we have more navel-gazing, less competence and no real practical knowledge or skills within the self-licking ice cream cone(s) that voraciously consume our taxes, even as we willingly surrender every aspect of our lives to them.
Correct. It will cost. The way our social services system (writ large incl health, welfare, education, etc) is set up now is not at all perfect but it does cost a bit and it will hurt folks who are now used to that level of support if we take money from that to fund infrastructure, whether it is highways, ferries, dams, protective infrastructure (against natural disasters). We are also one of the least policed nations in the developed world and we have a very small armed forces which is supposed to be the option of last resort for emergencies including police incidents. To bring all of the above to a standard across Canada that most would find acceptable would be difficult with just some serious tax hikes. Under the current Fed govt and some prov govts, it would never happen.
It will not happen if we change governments to CPC either. We want it all for nothing and we have had it all for nothing for over 25 yrs now and the back log bill is huge
Having worked for both Feds and Prov, I can tell you that the line of maintenance is very thin across the country. The capability of emergency services including police and ambulance is even thinner. If you want this fixed it will cost. Right now taxpayers are at the limit, what with inflation, etc — so the alternative is what social services would you like to see cut?
I would add that people need to stop voting for those politicians who can't/won't acknowledge that if we want nice things like good infrastructure it will cost more in taxes. And before any brings up that word efficiencies - I'm well aware that gov't could be more efficient, but not to the tune of the billions of dollars needed.
I'll also point out that part of the reason we've gotten to this sad state is because far too many people in past years voted in the politicians who promised tax decreases.
The government handed out over $7B in Covid funds to people that didn’t qualify then said “Too bad, so sad” and did not take action to recover any of those monies. If government were to cut waste and set proper priorities it would be a start. Cutting 39 ministries to 20 would also be a start.
40% increase in public service since 2015 PLUS a gazillion dollars contracted out - and for what? What did we, the public, get for it. Excellent comms, people! Comms to make the Liberals look good & have handy, empty but lengthy responses that say nothing.
You are right to challenge the OPP. Crash investigations take too long. I was once near an accident near Thunder Bay. As an OPP vehicle was involved an investigator had to be flown out from Toronto before Highway was reopened ! Luckily I took the 3 hour extra time detour.
Typical colliaion delays on hwy 17, 11 and 144 in Northern Ontario.
Hwy 144 between Sudbury and Timmins is commonly closed simply due to heavy snow they cannot clear fast enough. They should try to do better, but everything has a cost.
Yes and it is likely news to you that when those roads get snow on them or need repair it is the city slickers who pay for it. If the city slickers as you call them refused to pay Northern Ontario and most of rural Southern Ontario would look like Kentucky.
Sorry, but we are busy tearing down statues of people who got things done: MacDonald getting a cross country railroad done before electronic society and the industrial rev, Ryerson with a curriculum which taught young people how to get things done, and a Queen who insisted that her subjects get things done. It's hard to get things done when you are whining about how your ancestors were inhibited from 'getting 'er done'. Larry Baswick
How you do things is important. Any means to an end is great if you don't have a conscience or do have to pay the butchers bill. I operate and always have from the principle that I would not ask you to do it if I will not.
MacDonald, was a drunk, a crook, a corrupt politician and a liar of the highest order. He sent Indians to a far north reservation in the fall with no food and said he would send it with no intentions of ever doing so knowing they would starve and starve they did. He also created Canada. For the later we gave him a statue and named roads after him. For the former we are rightly look upon him with scorn and tear down his statues.
What he did was not okay by our standards now. It was also not okay by the standards of that day he just did not get caught then.
I am sure your view would be different if you had suffered under these people.
This is literally incoherent. If nation-building is the criterion one has to meet in order to merit a statue, and MacDonald fulfilled the criterion, then the fact that he doesn't meet your or anybody else's moral standards is irrelevant. If the statue had been for MacDonald's achievements as a moral philosopher and we realized we'd made a mistake, that would be different.
Like I said to Larry, I am sure your view would be different if it was your family who was starved to death.
He did not just not meet my moral standards, he was a homicidal, genocidal maniac who was also a corrupt thief.
Some would say Mussolini and Hitler were great guys, after all they made the trains run on time. Hitler's Final Solution was based on MacDonalds Final Solution for the Indians, that being residential school. In fact Hitler got the name from MacDonald.
If you ever had a sense of logical relevance, Colin, it seems to have deserted you here. Did you even understand the point being made? And, no, neither the personal experience of myself and my family nor you and your family has the least bearing on the verdict of incoherence you justly bring on yourself with this sort of fallacious reasoning.
This isn't an academic exercise. Have you ever stopped to ponder the role careless, slipshod thinking plays in moral atrocity? Since you mention Hitler you might want to reflect on the fact that the Nazis too were moral purists, convinced they were saving the Fatherland from the malign influence of homosexuals, communists and Jews. Beware self-righteous moral fervour: history is replete with examples of its harm.
Opps Hit a nerve I see. What is incoherent is your posts and frankly I was did not see your point at all.
That will not change the fact that most of these guys were monsters and it may not matter to you but it does to me and many others. I might not rename Dundas street over it at the cost of millions but they were still monsters, even if they were our monsters.
You hit a nerve all right. I don't know where your ilk get your smug, dismissive arrogance from: what I do know is the harm you've collectively done throughout history. No one is asking you to venerate MacDonald, but some people do and they're perfectly free to erect statues to him if they choose, just as you're free to pick your own heroes. What's so complicated about "You don't tear down my statues (or shrines, monuments, temples, etc.) and I won't tear down yours" that you fail to understand? Isn't this democratic? Isn't it inclusive? Isn't it respectful of other people's autonomy and their right to decide for themselves who's a monster and who's a saint, before you see fit to inform them? Your sort start by toppling statues and destroying art, then it's on to burning books, then dissenters, heretics and witches. Please awaken from your dogmatic slumber and look in a mirror: the phrase "We have met the enemy and he is us" was made for self-righteous sleepwalkers like yourself.
P.S. You might consider starting the waking process by discovering something about one of the men whom, in your astonishingly unapologetic ignorance, you've just casually dismissed as a monster. If you can accomplish half the good in your life that he did, maybe someday a street will be named after you:
I take your point, but it has to be tempered with the recognition that getting the railroad done involved a LOT of deaths & injuries and the exploitation of workers, especially Chinese workers who were given jobs that other (white) Canadians thought were too dangerous. Working conditions that today's society would not tolerate.
Not to worry. Harjit Sajjan has recently become federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness. You know, the Mr. Sajjan who as Minister of National Defense for six years, really improved their capabilities and preparedness.
Bureaucrats are scared. They don't want to take stands for fear of what higher will say. And they don't want to take a stand for fear of what they'll have to explain to politicians or the public. It's insane mental gridlock because no one understands anymore the idea of duty or responsibility. Want better updates? Then give the lowly guy on the side of the road the ability to speak, and fire the nonsense comms person that sits, comfortable and out of touch, between the real workers and we the people.
Power is centralized. Everywhere. Not even our ‘democratically elected Ministers’ speak freely - they answer to & obey the PMO first & foremost. I suspect it’s the same provincially. Way, way too many bureaucrats & their contractors, all busy cya’ing & trying to appear relevant to justify those fat pay cheques.
How can we afford infrastructure when our all encompassing health care system sucks 50% out of every provincial tax dollar? Quite frankly, making sure that a wealthy boomer has 100% zero-cost health coverage for their skin treatments is more important than roads, bridges and power lines to Canadian voters.
Canada's universal health care system is a monster that is eating tax dollars for everything else.
You get what you demand, and Canadians demand that zero-cost health care for the wealthy and cash transfers for special voting blocks. This is more important than infrastructure, a functional court system, enough affordable housing, mental health services for kids, etc.
We need to curtail that size and scope of Canada's universal health system before it is too late. We can start by not giving the wealthy free health care and Old Age Security for rich boomers. (OAS is the #1 largest line item in the federal budget btw)
Our healthcare system does not work because our premiers are incompetent and when the Cons get in they like to tear down anything a previous Liberal did.
Every other country in the 1st world does healthcare better than us except the US. You feel free to go to the US and pay for your healthcare, I will willingly pay higher taxes to keep the single payer system going. Go to talk to any American who does not have gold plated insurance and see what they have to say.
Way to set the bar low. If Canadians had the gumption and self esteem to compare themselves to the best systems in the world, most of which are Asian and European, it would be eye opening.
Too bad Canadians are too parochial and envy driven to look at any alternative that doesn't involve a state monopoly on health care.
(?) Of all the expenditures you could have chosen to object to, you picked health care? What's the point of having roads and bridges if you're too sick to go anywhere?
Those roads and bridges are used by business to make money to pay taxes to fund health care.
No infrastructure, no welfare state health care.
A primary function of government since the beginning of written history has been infrastructure. Health care as a government service is a recent secondary phenomenon.
No kidding. The health and well-being of the common man were of very little concern to what passed for government (aka, tribal leadership) for most of history, and infrastructure projects didn't concern the average 'citizen' (using the term loosely) either, except in the most basic survival sense. Governments didn't worry much about such things as public education, unemployment insurance, old age security pensions or even the will of the people, but modern mass societies have of necessity evolved broader conceptions of governmental responsibility, yes? Governments are now expected to invest in education and health care as public goods just as they're expected to invest in roads and bridges, and it's incoherent to deem any of these goods 'secondary' to the others, or to pretend their respective virtues are somehow in competition with each other when in fact they're on different continua that don't intersect.
As for the economically better off assuming a greater proportion of health care costs than the economically worse off, the former already do this with their taxes, just as they do for government-funded infrastructure projects. Do you think the economically better off should pay extra tolls to cross bridges too?
Do I expect the wealthy to pay more for their health care, even at the risk they they get better health care than the public system could ever provide? Yes.
Excusing your toll road logical fallacy (which is a natural monopoly), countries such as Germany, France, the US and even our cousins in Australia have legislated expectations that the wealthy will be responsible for more of their own health care. This is the normal in superior performing systems. Canada's belief's around health care are weird and mediocre in the developed world context.
As for the role of government, the role of government first and foremost is to regulate and enforce relations between people. Courts, police, child protective services, environmental rules, etc. After that is the role to protect the borders of the state and relations with other states. Military, diplomatic corps, etc. In the past this was first. After that is the enabling and provisioning of infrastructure to protect and connect these communities. Road, bridges, tunnels, telecom, etc. Then is the training of folks to fill these roles, and to regulate the trades and professions. Schools, licensing bodies, etc. Only after all that is health care a role of government. Most people quite frankly could provision their own health care if they needed to, they just don't want to. Canadians are entitled after all.
My hypothesis is that the cost of no-fee universal health care is the monster that is eating both money and capacity to perform these other, more core functions, such as infrastructure. The size and scope of government in Canada is too wide to do anything well, including infrastructure.
Perhaps someone (me?) should write about how Canadians expect their governments to be the jack of all trades with a wide scope, but therefore it doesn't do anything well. With focus and a narrower mandate we could have a world class state.
But Canadians want to be taken care of by a cradle to grave welfare state like children.
"The size and scope of government in Canada is too wide to do anything well..."
And yet you imagine one of government's responsibilities is "to regulate and enforce relations between people," a bizarre notion that takes us well beyond even the aspirations of "cradle to grave welfare state" enthusiasts. Nothing in your Marvel comics overview of history has any relevance for attacking universal health care, much less supports a hypothesis that health care is the "monster" preventing us from excelling in infrastructure planning and creation.
One of the most basic truths of logic, by the way, is that valid conclusions are limited to things already implicit in their premises; and from premises that concern themselves exclusively with health care costs, nothing can follow about under-performance in infrastructure creation. I think you're posturing here, KS. I think you've never opened a book of logic in your life and wouldn't know Modus Ponens from Modus Tollens, or any other rule of inference. If I've committed a logical fallacy, kindly specify which one and we can discuss the matter. My understanding is that I posted not a syllogism, susceptible of being ruled either valid or invalid, but simply a dead-on analogy that perfectly highlights the absurdity of your equally groundless attack on people who, in the end, do the heavy lifting in making health care available to everyone.
I share facts and comparisons to other peer countries. You delve into non sequiters and straw man arguments.
You attack my hypothesis with a stand on logic that doesn't address the facts laid out.
We can't provide world class infrastructure as long as we spend too much societal, fiscal and governmental capital on an overly generous yet mediocre health care system. Our peer nations focus on results while Canada focuses on process (and the left's definition of social justice)
There are pockets of municipal, provincial, and even (gasp) federal governments that are still functionally competent, but these pockets of competency are disappearing quickly as those with the work ethic, responsibility, and practical skills that don't involve technology gradually retire / pass away.
Of course, you do find GenX (my cohort), Millennial, and even younger public sector workers who are tremendous and excellent, but they are becoming more rare with each passing year. One prays they will stick with the systems they currently support, and hopefully become leaders in improving them.
Unfortunately, I'd submit a massive majority of those working in public sectors have been trained and mentored in, shall we say, a less than pursuit-of-excellence environment. I know many good people who couldn't bear it and have left the public sector because of its soul-sucking nature. I was one of them at the local level, back in 2010. I established a private consultancy and have never looked back.
There's a tremendous amount of risk-averse, liability-obsessed, responsibility-phobic public sector workers from the local to the provincial and national levels currently pulling down a pretty good living while mailing it in and watching the clock until quitting time.
The worry I have is that it just seems to be getting worse, right across this country, and no one seems to have any idea how to fix it. Conservative governments have cut, mercilesesly in many cases, and have left behind a 'public service' that quite simply lacks the human capacity to do anything. Liberal/NDP governments have gone on hiring binges, but despite massive expenditures, results continue to be abysmal. The issue seems to be the culture I mentioned earlier - risk-averse, liability-obsessed, and responsibility-phobic - that plagues government departments from local to provincial to national.
Whoever can figure out how to change that losing culture in governments at all levels to a risk-realist, results-focused, and responsibility-based approach may actually save our country. It won't be easy, or quick, but if it doesn't happen, this country is in VERY serious peril.
The culture of government in Canada reflects the culture of the country. We as Canadians have a well earned reputation for being polite and chronically risk adverse.
It is not just there. I was an IT consultant for a couple of big name companies and worked IT at a big bank, my wife worked at large hospitals, and I worked one of the largest mechanical contracting firms in Canada. It was appalling all around.
The government does not have a monopoly on risk-adverse people who can not manage and make stupid decisions. It is everywhere and I don't think it can be changed. Yes the Cons are the worst because they appeal to our base nature of pay as little as you can but frankly the Liberals are not much better. The Cons can not manage money and the Liberals waste too. We are too cheap to give the NDP a go. When I think of Rae's government, 90 to 95, he actually did pretty good given that Mulroney put us into a real life economic depression but people talk about him as if he robbed us blind. He did not.
So I don't think it can be changed. The people who work in government no matter if they are a clerk or the PM are exactly the same as the people we work beside every day.
The best recent example of Cdn competence & preparedness was the convoy in Ottawa. The Feds sat on their hands literally for 2 weeks before stirring with ‘OMG this requires a Public EMERGENCY Order!’ They had to FLY IN police officers for crying out. From ACROSS CANADA! The province was ‘like dude, whatever, not our problem.’ Never mind that there was a convoy - but this showed me exactly what we, as individuals, can expect in a dire situation. I’m not talking about loud horns, but massive F4 tornados, the 1997 Manitoba flood - that level. Folks, ain’t no Blackhawk helos rappelling in your comfort food, blankies & medicines within the hour.
We’ve got a barebones atrophied military (personnel-wise & equipment) that’s stretched so thin their personnel are leaving & no one wants to join. I have yet to hear of a stellar local community, to hold up as an example, that has a great emergency plan that it clearly articulated to its public. (Altho Wpg built that amazing water diversion project - kudos to WPG!) Same provincially - ‘we’ve learned from this & a public inquiry will set guidelines and OUR GOV’T will establish a committee to draw up yadda yadda yadda...’
A lot of ‘we hear your pain, sympathies to the affected families.’ Of course, with the requisite photo op displaying emotional, teary-eyed leaders hugging anyone willing to be touched.
Sensitivity on steroids, competence / effectiveness on chemo.
This is the kind of competence one can expect in a nation of citizens who, in childhood, proudly displayed the 'participation' awards they were given for finishing eighth in skills competitions. Without doubt Canadians trail the citizens of many other nations when it comes to basic know-how, inventiveness, and long-term strategic planning (where's the high-speed rail network that should be spanning the country?)--though not, alas, in their grotesquely over-developed sense of self-entitlement.
In this connection, may I suggest that someone who thinks Ontario’s Solicitor General and Transport Minister should be looking into the scandal of his having been inconvenienced on the road for a few hours might be part of the problem? What if it had indeed been winter, a season that despite its appearing every year with the regularity of the Indian monsoon always seems to catch Canadians by surprise? As an alternative to allowing delays to become "deadly," wouldn't it be prudent to prepare for them as individuals, not as wards of government? And while we should indeed have more and better infrastructure, with redundancy and other safety features built in, if we really expect government to accomplish this task on our behalf are we prepared to fork over the tax dollars required? I haven't heard a clamor for higher tax bills; but even if we resigned ourselves to them, does Canada have the engineering expertise and industrial muscle on a scale that would also be needed? Where's the evidence that when government distributes money to Canada's private sector anybody benefits besides the lucky companies themselves?
We feel your pain https://globalnews.ca/news/9840523/vancouver-island-tourism-wildfire-highway-closure/amp/. If government can’t even take care of the basic necessities (maintain the roads, build hospitals, pay the bills), shut it down and start again. Or maybe they’re too incompetent which is why they ignore the problem altogether and focus on virtue signalling instead? Much easier to spend time hand wringing over climate issues and gender wars rather than fixing the problems at hand.
I don't know man, how many millions of acres burned this year. If you don't think the climate has changed for the worse for US then your not paying attention.
Lets not forget that we are specialized for our current climate. If it gets too hot or too cold (ice age) we can not live in these places. The climate has always changed but right now it is changing to something we may not be able to handle.
For sure it’s a concern. For sure Canada’s emissions are a nanometer in comparison to the US, China or India. And…FOR SURE no Canadian bureaucrat or politician has any clue how to fix it. But paying bills? Building bridges? https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6450110
Like, this is their first job, and they can’t even get THAT right.
The comfortable comms people are what is causing the problem. I'm sure the road people are doing their best. But god forbid they be allowed to provide updates. No, that had to go through the managers in comms. Time to fire these padded, irresponsible, whiny bureaucrats.
Pretty hard to have a group of employees without any managers guiding them. Good managers are worth their weight. No managers means little productivity.
The managers are the worst of the lot.
It happens everywhere now in Canada. In the spring of 2023 the Sea To Sky highway in BC was closed for 6.5 hours for an accident that involved no fatalities and only one significant injury. This would have been cleaned up in a third to half the time only ten years ago; crews are now busy collecting data that will never be used. Process is paramount to the exclusion of utility or any notion of common sense, even if that process yields exactly zero benefit. It is emblematic of a nation on its way out.
While Canada needs a better infrastructure, Canada has proven it cannot build anything. So do not expect better infrastructure.
Sad but far too true. Our great accomplishments are in the rear view mirror.
At one time, when life was an ongoing struggle for most people in this country, government recognized its responsibility to provide the infrastructure, services and stability that the people required to plan and run their own lives. As we have become more affluent it has enabled government to shift its focus to providing social services and to grow its own (ever more useless) bureaucracy, so that it could run our lives for us…Thus we have more navel-gazing, less competence and no real practical knowledge or skills within the self-licking ice cream cone(s) that voraciously consume our taxes, even as we willingly surrender every aspect of our lives to them.
Boy! You nailed it! Good observation on how the purpose of govt has evolved.
Devolved (lol)
Correct. It will cost. The way our social services system (writ large incl health, welfare, education, etc) is set up now is not at all perfect but it does cost a bit and it will hurt folks who are now used to that level of support if we take money from that to fund infrastructure, whether it is highways, ferries, dams, protective infrastructure (against natural disasters). We are also one of the least policed nations in the developed world and we have a very small armed forces which is supposed to be the option of last resort for emergencies including police incidents. To bring all of the above to a standard across Canada that most would find acceptable would be difficult with just some serious tax hikes. Under the current Fed govt and some prov govts, it would never happen.
It will not happen if we change governments to CPC either. We want it all for nothing and we have had it all for nothing for over 25 yrs now and the back log bill is huge
Having worked for both Feds and Prov, I can tell you that the line of maintenance is very thin across the country. The capability of emergency services including police and ambulance is even thinner. If you want this fixed it will cost. Right now taxpayers are at the limit, what with inflation, etc — so the alternative is what social services would you like to see cut?
I would add that people need to stop voting for those politicians who can't/won't acknowledge that if we want nice things like good infrastructure it will cost more in taxes. And before any brings up that word efficiencies - I'm well aware that gov't could be more efficient, but not to the tune of the billions of dollars needed.
I'll also point out that part of the reason we've gotten to this sad state is because far too many people in past years voted in the politicians who promised tax decreases.
I gave you love but there is no way that is going to happen. People are just to greedy to pay for those nice things.
The government handed out over $7B in Covid funds to people that didn’t qualify then said “Too bad, so sad” and did not take action to recover any of those monies. If government were to cut waste and set proper priorities it would be a start. Cutting 39 ministries to 20 would also be a start.
40% increase in public service since 2015 PLUS a gazillion dollars contracted out - and for what? What did we, the public, get for it. Excellent comms, people! Comms to make the Liberals look good & have handy, empty but lengthy responses that say nothing.
You are right to challenge the OPP. Crash investigations take too long. I was once near an accident near Thunder Bay. As an OPP vehicle was involved an investigator had to be flown out from Toronto before Highway was reopened ! Luckily I took the 3 hour extra time detour.
Typical colliaion delays on hwy 17, 11 and 144 in Northern Ontario.
Hwy 144 between Sudbury and Timmins is commonly closed simply due to heavy snow they cannot clear fast enough. They should try to do better, but everything has a cost.
This is only news if you are a city slicker.
Yes and it is likely news to you that when those roads get snow on them or need repair it is the city slickers who pay for it. If the city slickers as you call them refused to pay Northern Ontario and most of rural Southern Ontario would look like Kentucky.
Sorry, but we are busy tearing down statues of people who got things done: MacDonald getting a cross country railroad done before electronic society and the industrial rev, Ryerson with a curriculum which taught young people how to get things done, and a Queen who insisted that her subjects get things done. It's hard to get things done when you are whining about how your ancestors were inhibited from 'getting 'er done'. Larry Baswick
How you do things is important. Any means to an end is great if you don't have a conscience or do have to pay the butchers bill. I operate and always have from the principle that I would not ask you to do it if I will not.
MacDonald, was a drunk, a crook, a corrupt politician and a liar of the highest order. He sent Indians to a far north reservation in the fall with no food and said he would send it with no intentions of ever doing so knowing they would starve and starve they did. He also created Canada. For the later we gave him a statue and named roads after him. For the former we are rightly look upon him with scorn and tear down his statues.
What he did was not okay by our standards now. It was also not okay by the standards of that day he just did not get caught then.
I am sure your view would be different if you had suffered under these people.
This is literally incoherent. If nation-building is the criterion one has to meet in order to merit a statue, and MacDonald fulfilled the criterion, then the fact that he doesn't meet your or anybody else's moral standards is irrelevant. If the statue had been for MacDonald's achievements as a moral philosopher and we realized we'd made a mistake, that would be different.
Like I said to Larry, I am sure your view would be different if it was your family who was starved to death.
He did not just not meet my moral standards, he was a homicidal, genocidal maniac who was also a corrupt thief.
Some would say Mussolini and Hitler were great guys, after all they made the trains run on time. Hitler's Final Solution was based on MacDonalds Final Solution for the Indians, that being residential school. In fact Hitler got the name from MacDonald.
If you ever had a sense of logical relevance, Colin, it seems to have deserted you here. Did you even understand the point being made? And, no, neither the personal experience of myself and my family nor you and your family has the least bearing on the verdict of incoherence you justly bring on yourself with this sort of fallacious reasoning.
This isn't an academic exercise. Have you ever stopped to ponder the role careless, slipshod thinking plays in moral atrocity? Since you mention Hitler you might want to reflect on the fact that the Nazis too were moral purists, convinced they were saving the Fatherland from the malign influence of homosexuals, communists and Jews. Beware self-righteous moral fervour: history is replete with examples of its harm.
Opps Hit a nerve I see. What is incoherent is your posts and frankly I was did not see your point at all.
That will not change the fact that most of these guys were monsters and it may not matter to you but it does to me and many others. I might not rename Dundas street over it at the cost of millions but they were still monsters, even if they were our monsters.
Have a good evening.
You hit a nerve all right. I don't know where your ilk get your smug, dismissive arrogance from: what I do know is the harm you've collectively done throughout history. No one is asking you to venerate MacDonald, but some people do and they're perfectly free to erect statues to him if they choose, just as you're free to pick your own heroes. What's so complicated about "You don't tear down my statues (or shrines, monuments, temples, etc.) and I won't tear down yours" that you fail to understand? Isn't this democratic? Isn't it inclusive? Isn't it respectful of other people's autonomy and their right to decide for themselves who's a monster and who's a saint, before you see fit to inform them? Your sort start by toppling statues and destroying art, then it's on to burning books, then dissenters, heretics and witches. Please awaken from your dogmatic slumber and look in a mirror: the phrase "We have met the enemy and he is us" was made for self-righteous sleepwalkers like yourself.
P.S. You might consider starting the waking process by discovering something about one of the men whom, in your astonishingly unapologetic ignorance, you've just casually dismissed as a monster. If you can accomplish half the good in your life that he did, maybe someday a street will be named after you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dundas,_1st_Viscount_Melville
I take your point, but it has to be tempered with the recognition that getting the railroad done involved a LOT of deaths & injuries and the exploitation of workers, especially Chinese workers who were given jobs that other (white) Canadians thought were too dangerous. Working conditions that today's society would not tolerate.
Not to worry. Harjit Sajjan has recently become federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness. You know, the Mr. Sajjan who as Minister of National Defense for six years, really improved their capabilities and preparedness.
Hey, the Architect of Operation Medusa should be able to fix this in about forever.
Bureaucrats are scared. They don't want to take stands for fear of what higher will say. And they don't want to take a stand for fear of what they'll have to explain to politicians or the public. It's insane mental gridlock because no one understands anymore the idea of duty or responsibility. Want better updates? Then give the lowly guy on the side of the road the ability to speak, and fire the nonsense comms person that sits, comfortable and out of touch, between the real workers and we the people.
Power is centralized. Everywhere. Not even our ‘democratically elected Ministers’ speak freely - they answer to & obey the PMO first & foremost. I suspect it’s the same provincially. Way, way too many bureaucrats & their contractors, all busy cya’ing & trying to appear relevant to justify those fat pay cheques.
Blame the 24/7 news cycle and the constant outrage over small things like Bernardo changing prisons.
"Small" outrage over Bernardo. Don't tell me this place has attracted another clueless, blind, pathethic weak male shill for the Liberals.
FFS this is why I close comments. Everyone. Grow up. I’m on holiday.
Sorry. I just hate being gaslit. Happy holiday.
How can we afford infrastructure when our all encompassing health care system sucks 50% out of every provincial tax dollar? Quite frankly, making sure that a wealthy boomer has 100% zero-cost health coverage for their skin treatments is more important than roads, bridges and power lines to Canadian voters.
Canada's universal health care system is a monster that is eating tax dollars for everything else.
You get what you demand, and Canadians demand that zero-cost health care for the wealthy and cash transfers for special voting blocks. This is more important than infrastructure, a functional court system, enough affordable housing, mental health services for kids, etc.
We need to curtail that size and scope of Canada's universal health system before it is too late. We can start by not giving the wealthy free health care and Old Age Security for rich boomers. (OAS is the #1 largest line item in the federal budget btw)
Our healthcare system does not work because our premiers are incompetent and when the Cons get in they like to tear down anything a previous Liberal did.
Every other country in the 1st world does healthcare better than us except the US. You feel free to go to the US and pay for your healthcare, I will willingly pay higher taxes to keep the single payer system going. Go to talk to any American who does not have gold plated insurance and see what they have to say.
Way to set the bar low. If Canadians had the gumption and self esteem to compare themselves to the best systems in the world, most of which are Asian and European, it would be eye opening.
Too bad Canadians are too parochial and envy driven to look at any alternative that doesn't involve a state monopoly on health care.
Talk to any European and they pay a fraction what we do for healthcare with much better outcomes.
“Anything previous the Liberals built”. Spare me.
(?) Of all the expenditures you could have chosen to object to, you picked health care? What's the point of having roads and bridges if you're too sick to go anywhere?
Those roads and bridges are used by business to make money to pay taxes to fund health care.
No infrastructure, no welfare state health care.
A primary function of government since the beginning of written history has been infrastructure. Health care as a government service is a recent secondary phenomenon.
No kidding. The health and well-being of the common man were of very little concern to what passed for government (aka, tribal leadership) for most of history, and infrastructure projects didn't concern the average 'citizen' (using the term loosely) either, except in the most basic survival sense. Governments didn't worry much about such things as public education, unemployment insurance, old age security pensions or even the will of the people, but modern mass societies have of necessity evolved broader conceptions of governmental responsibility, yes? Governments are now expected to invest in education and health care as public goods just as they're expected to invest in roads and bridges, and it's incoherent to deem any of these goods 'secondary' to the others, or to pretend their respective virtues are somehow in competition with each other when in fact they're on different continua that don't intersect.
As for the economically better off assuming a greater proportion of health care costs than the economically worse off, the former already do this with their taxes, just as they do for government-funded infrastructure projects. Do you think the economically better off should pay extra tolls to cross bridges too?
Do I expect the wealthy to pay more for their health care, even at the risk they they get better health care than the public system could ever provide? Yes.
Excusing your toll road logical fallacy (which is a natural monopoly), countries such as Germany, France, the US and even our cousins in Australia have legislated expectations that the wealthy will be responsible for more of their own health care. This is the normal in superior performing systems. Canada's belief's around health care are weird and mediocre in the developed world context.
As for the role of government, the role of government first and foremost is to regulate and enforce relations between people. Courts, police, child protective services, environmental rules, etc. After that is the role to protect the borders of the state and relations with other states. Military, diplomatic corps, etc. In the past this was first. After that is the enabling and provisioning of infrastructure to protect and connect these communities. Road, bridges, tunnels, telecom, etc. Then is the training of folks to fill these roles, and to regulate the trades and professions. Schools, licensing bodies, etc. Only after all that is health care a role of government. Most people quite frankly could provision their own health care if they needed to, they just don't want to. Canadians are entitled after all.
My hypothesis is that the cost of no-fee universal health care is the monster that is eating both money and capacity to perform these other, more core functions, such as infrastructure. The size and scope of government in Canada is too wide to do anything well, including infrastructure.
Perhaps someone (me?) should write about how Canadians expect their governments to be the jack of all trades with a wide scope, but therefore it doesn't do anything well. With focus and a narrower mandate we could have a world class state.
But Canadians want to be taken care of by a cradle to grave welfare state like children.
"The size and scope of government in Canada is too wide to do anything well..."
And yet you imagine one of government's responsibilities is "to regulate and enforce relations between people," a bizarre notion that takes us well beyond even the aspirations of "cradle to grave welfare state" enthusiasts. Nothing in your Marvel comics overview of history has any relevance for attacking universal health care, much less supports a hypothesis that health care is the "monster" preventing us from excelling in infrastructure planning and creation.
One of the most basic truths of logic, by the way, is that valid conclusions are limited to things already implicit in their premises; and from premises that concern themselves exclusively with health care costs, nothing can follow about under-performance in infrastructure creation. I think you're posturing here, KS. I think you've never opened a book of logic in your life and wouldn't know Modus Ponens from Modus Tollens, or any other rule of inference. If I've committed a logical fallacy, kindly specify which one and we can discuss the matter. My understanding is that I posted not a syllogism, susceptible of being ruled either valid or invalid, but simply a dead-on analogy that perfectly highlights the absurdity of your equally groundless attack on people who, in the end, do the heavy lifting in making health care available to everyone.
I share facts and comparisons to other peer countries. You delve into non sequiters and straw man arguments.
You attack my hypothesis with a stand on logic that doesn't address the facts laid out.
We can't provide world class infrastructure as long as we spend too much societal, fiscal and governmental capital on an overly generous yet mediocre health care system. Our peer nations focus on results while Canada focuses on process (and the left's definition of social justice)
There are pockets of municipal, provincial, and even (gasp) federal governments that are still functionally competent, but these pockets of competency are disappearing quickly as those with the work ethic, responsibility, and practical skills that don't involve technology gradually retire / pass away.
Of course, you do find GenX (my cohort), Millennial, and even younger public sector workers who are tremendous and excellent, but they are becoming more rare with each passing year. One prays they will stick with the systems they currently support, and hopefully become leaders in improving them.
Unfortunately, I'd submit a massive majority of those working in public sectors have been trained and mentored in, shall we say, a less than pursuit-of-excellence environment. I know many good people who couldn't bear it and have left the public sector because of its soul-sucking nature. I was one of them at the local level, back in 2010. I established a private consultancy and have never looked back.
There's a tremendous amount of risk-averse, liability-obsessed, responsibility-phobic public sector workers from the local to the provincial and national levels currently pulling down a pretty good living while mailing it in and watching the clock until quitting time.
The worry I have is that it just seems to be getting worse, right across this country, and no one seems to have any idea how to fix it. Conservative governments have cut, mercilesesly in many cases, and have left behind a 'public service' that quite simply lacks the human capacity to do anything. Liberal/NDP governments have gone on hiring binges, but despite massive expenditures, results continue to be abysmal. The issue seems to be the culture I mentioned earlier - risk-averse, liability-obsessed, and responsibility-phobic - that plagues government departments from local to provincial to national.
Whoever can figure out how to change that losing culture in governments at all levels to a risk-realist, results-focused, and responsibility-based approach may actually save our country. It won't be easy, or quick, but if it doesn't happen, this country is in VERY serious peril.
The culture of government in Canada reflects the culture of the country. We as Canadians have a well earned reputation for being polite and chronically risk adverse.
That isn't a recipe for excellence.
It is not just there. I was an IT consultant for a couple of big name companies and worked IT at a big bank, my wife worked at large hospitals, and I worked one of the largest mechanical contracting firms in Canada. It was appalling all around.
The government does not have a monopoly on risk-adverse people who can not manage and make stupid decisions. It is everywhere and I don't think it can be changed. Yes the Cons are the worst because they appeal to our base nature of pay as little as you can but frankly the Liberals are not much better. The Cons can not manage money and the Liberals waste too. We are too cheap to give the NDP a go. When I think of Rae's government, 90 to 95, he actually did pretty good given that Mulroney put us into a real life economic depression but people talk about him as if he robbed us blind. He did not.
So I don't think it can be changed. The people who work in government no matter if they are a clerk or the PM are exactly the same as the people we work beside every day.
Nob5should be surprised
The best recent example of Cdn competence & preparedness was the convoy in Ottawa. The Feds sat on their hands literally for 2 weeks before stirring with ‘OMG this requires a Public EMERGENCY Order!’ They had to FLY IN police officers for crying out. From ACROSS CANADA! The province was ‘like dude, whatever, not our problem.’ Never mind that there was a convoy - but this showed me exactly what we, as individuals, can expect in a dire situation. I’m not talking about loud horns, but massive F4 tornados, the 1997 Manitoba flood - that level. Folks, ain’t no Blackhawk helos rappelling in your comfort food, blankies & medicines within the hour.
We’ve got a barebones atrophied military (personnel-wise & equipment) that’s stretched so thin their personnel are leaving & no one wants to join. I have yet to hear of a stellar local community, to hold up as an example, that has a great emergency plan that it clearly articulated to its public. (Altho Wpg built that amazing water diversion project - kudos to WPG!) Same provincially - ‘we’ve learned from this & a public inquiry will set guidelines and OUR GOV’T will establish a committee to draw up yadda yadda yadda...’
A lot of ‘we hear your pain, sympathies to the affected families.’ Of course, with the requisite photo op displaying emotional, teary-eyed leaders hugging anyone willing to be touched.
Sensitivity on steroids, competence / effectiveness on chemo.
Useless.
This is the kind of competence one can expect in a nation of citizens who, in childhood, proudly displayed the 'participation' awards they were given for finishing eighth in skills competitions. Without doubt Canadians trail the citizens of many other nations when it comes to basic know-how, inventiveness, and long-term strategic planning (where's the high-speed rail network that should be spanning the country?)--though not, alas, in their grotesquely over-developed sense of self-entitlement.
In this connection, may I suggest that someone who thinks Ontario’s Solicitor General and Transport Minister should be looking into the scandal of his having been inconvenienced on the road for a few hours might be part of the problem? What if it had indeed been winter, a season that despite its appearing every year with the regularity of the Indian monsoon always seems to catch Canadians by surprise? As an alternative to allowing delays to become "deadly," wouldn't it be prudent to prepare for them as individuals, not as wards of government? And while we should indeed have more and better infrastructure, with redundancy and other safety features built in, if we really expect government to accomplish this task on our behalf are we prepared to fork over the tax dollars required? I haven't heard a clamor for higher tax bills; but even if we resigned ourselves to them, does Canada have the engineering expertise and industrial muscle on a scale that would also be needed? Where's the evidence that when government distributes money to Canada's private sector anybody benefits besides the lucky companies themselves?