Book: The Truth About Canada

[KBZ]

I've received this book a few days ago, and I have a very hard time putting it down; but also a hard time continuing to read it since it just makes me so shocked and angry.

The Truth About Canada is written by Mel Hurtig, father of the Canadian Encyclopedia Here are a few key parts I"ve read so far, and some youtube clips of his lectures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8D67YiLcOM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiurWhmOIgk


For me I think the income distribution in this country is what angers me the most. For such a rich country, there are way too many people living below the poverty line (12%, 22/26 OECD countries -UNICEF), and increasingly only a very few are getting the biggest slice of our success pie if you will.

Looking at the incomes of all Canadians... in 1990 the average personal income of the top 10 percent was $161,460. By 2000, it was 185,070, a gain of $23,610. ...the lowest 10 percent was only $10,341. Ten years later, that had only increased by $80 a year. In other words, the top 10 percent increased their earnings by over 295 times the lowest 10 percent.

If you get a chance, have a look at the 2007 Canada Year Book. It says Statistics Canada analyzed 13,348 family units. The top 5.7% in 2005 owned over 97% of ALL family wealth. The bottom 94.3% together owned less than 3%. Sound fair to you?

It has generally been thought that the consensus among Canadians is that we value Social spending before tax cuts to anything or anyone. Yet we are giving more cuts to Corporations every year, most of them are foreign, and neglect to invest any money back into our country. No country with our standard of living has EVER allowed this. FTA and NAFTA are to blame in the selling out of our country.

Here are some results about the United Nations's Human Development Report 2007/2008.
Doctors per 100,000 people...

Cuba 591
US 549
Belgium 449
Estonia 448
Greece 438
Russia 425
Italy 420
Turkmenistan 418
Georgia 409
and then Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Finland, Austria, France, Spain, Germany, Israel, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Malta, Hungary, Argentina, Lithuania, Slovakia, Uruguay, Latvia, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan all have over 300.

and us? try 214. Something is very wrong for one of the wealthiest countries in the world. In the 70's we ranked 2nd. It is mainly due to poor planning by provincial Governments resulting in the insane spikes in tuition (375% in 4 years to $14,280 at UBC where only 16% of applicants were accepted). And now these parallel private medical insurance is threatening to even further deteriorate our health care.

I could go on and on quoting Mel Hurtig, so I'd recommend giving it a read. Or at least check out the youtube clips to spur some interest

the section in his lecture about how much of Canada is foreign owned is completely disgusting. We sell out more than any other country, and have corporate taxes lower than the US.

It's a breath of fresh air in terms of credibility from a left leaning author as it is almost all quoted material from statistics Canada. As a philosophy major, I should hope that I have been taught to think critically and be skeptical about ANYTHING I hear or read. Yet, somethings simply cannot be denied when the situation is spelled out coherently in so many ways with statistics displayed from many different angles to debunk claims of statistic manipulation.

sorry for the rant. Look forward to discussing with you guys.

[Michaelm]

It's just capitalism...

[antron]

It's too easy for your doctors to leave and work in the US for more money.

[BulletMagnet]

From what I glimpsed of the stuff you posted/linked to, it sounds like a lot of this guy's criticisms of Canada are similar (if not identical) to criticism you might find of the way the USA has gone in recent years, particularly under the present administration. Of course, with media ownership here in a state similar to there, you have to dig deep to find it.

One thing I'm curious about, though, is what the reaction has been to this guy up in Canada...was he dismissed as a "Communist" or "terrorist sympathizer," or "someone who hates his own country?" Moreover, has the word "liberal" been transformed into a dirty word there yet, so that even the politicians on the left (or what remains of them, more accurately) don't use it?

In short, is anyone up there actually considering the possibility that, when someone says that his country is not perfect (or, God forbid, some distance away from it), that he might actually be right?

[KBZ]

It's just capitalism...

corporate profits rise from 4.7 in 1992 to 14.8% as percentage of GDP with less investment in the country than just about every other rich nation?

36 sectors of our economy are foreign owned including natural resources like oil and gas.

How much of USA's oil is foreign owned? none. So clearly our capitalism is different than the capitalism everyone else is getting. I didn't realize that you can't say "NO" in capitalism.

It's too easy for your doctors to leave and work in the US for more money.

Correct, this is part of the problem too. We make it impossible for anyone to become a doctor, and then we give away the few we invest in to countries all over the world. It would make much more sense to invest more into the education of doctors, and make sure we don't let this investment escape us. At least not on the scale that we have seen.

From what I glimpsed of the stuff you posted/linked to, it sounds like a lot of this guy's criticisms of Canada are similar (if not identical) to criticism you might find of the way the USA has gone in recent years, particularly under the present administration. Of course, with media ownership here in a state similar to there, you have to dig deep to find it.

One thing I'm curious about, though, is what the reaction has been to this guy up in Canada...was he dismissed as a "Communist" or "terrorist sympathizer," or "someone who hates his own country?" Moreover, has the word "liberal" been transformed into a dirty word there yet, so that even the politicians on the left (or what remains of them, more accurately) don't use it?

In short, is anyone up there actually considering the possibility that, when someone says that his country is not perfect (or, God forbid, some distance away from it), that he might actually be right?

there's a quote in the book of a Brazilian priest who said "when I feed the poor, they call me a Saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."

And I understand that this seems to be the case in the Americas. However, in the authors case he is hardly even known. There are many voices echoing similar cries of "we're getting fucked and no one is doing anything about it", but it's rare that this voice is heard when 3 companies own 63.3% of the media, and of our 106 daily newspapers, only 6 are independent. All these media outlets seem to say is that our rising problems will be solved with even more tax cuts to corporations. Even though they pay less than the US and seem disinterested in investing any money back into our economy.

"liberal" and "socialist" aren't dirty words up here. The dirty words seem to be "why" and "how".


At the end of the day we seem so happy with our low unemployment rate, yet 21% of jobs are low income. So it seems we can't pay our mortgages with low unemployment rates can we.


thanks for the input guys/gals (hey you might be!), I look forward to hearing more.

[neorichieb1971]

In the UK the richest 10% of people have had a growth of 30% income since Gordon Brown came into power just 1 year ago. Yet all the pawns down at the bottom are paying more and more towards everyday things.

As with all things, the bubble bursts eventually. Immigration is one key factor towards this. Most poor people from poorer nations come to countries like UK and Canada to have a better life, but it means that more competition exists in the job market and only the rich benefit from that.

Its only when the rich milk the country dry that anything is done about it. Usually the governments in power will print more cash and spread it around a bit, then the rich people suck it up again like a super duper vacuum cleaner.. Repeat that cycle about 20 times and you have the art of capitalism.

The amount of doctors isn't necessarily a bad factor. If the state of health in Canada is great (which it is compared to most countries) then the need to have high ratio of doctors is pointless. Thats like Kmart having the same size parking lot as Walmart.

[escadrille]

Canada?! It's about time somebody bombed those assholes...

[KBZ]

In the UK the richest 10% of people have had a growth of 30% income since Gordon Brown came into power just 1 year ago. Yet all the pawns down at the bottom are paying more and more towards everyday things.

As with all things, the bubble bursts eventually. Immigration is one key factor towards this. Most poor people from poorer nations come to countries like UK and Canada to have a better life, but it means that more competition exists in the job market and only the rich benefit from that.

Its only when the rich milk the country dry that anything is done about it. Usually the governments in power will print more cash and spread it around a bit, then the rich people suck it up again like a super duper vacuum cleaner.. Repeat that cycle about 20 times and you have the art of capitalism.

The amount of doctors isn't necessarily a bad factor. If the state of health in Canada is great (which it is compared to most countries) then the need to have high ratio of doctors is pointless. Thats like Kmart having the same size parking lot as Walmart.

I don't think it's fair to blame immigration as it really should boost an economy. No sane country would allow a corporation to take advantage of their attractive market. Selling your product and not investing any of it back into the country that allowed your presence is doing just that. Just to show; Industrial average of Research and Development in Canada is a pathetic 3.5% of corporate profits. 0.36% from oil corporations. Keep in mind that most of these corporations are foreign owned!

We are very well ahead of most countries in terms of the use of technology. We own more technology than most countries like the UK, US, Australia, and New Zealand. But look at these stats for High tech exports as a percentage of total manufacturing exports...

US 35.8%
UK 34.7%
OECD Average 24.5%
EU 22.1%
Canada 12%

Any way you cut it, we're getting the short end of every stick in the game.

The biggest issue we have is our insane wait times. There are increasingly more and more horror stories of people waiting so long that it violates their human right to medicare! This in turn spawns 'Health Act violating' private clinics.

Interesting how our right to medicare is what banished privatized health care, and now brings it back. It's blatantly obvious that the problem with our health care is the severe lack of doctors due to discouraging actions from our government to millions of potential physicians.

So losing more doctors to the private sector doesn't solve anything since we still wont have enough to help everyone in a timely matter like every other country of similar wealth (excluding the US).

and yes, it wouldn't seem all that bad to some that we DESERVE to be bombed given how a country of our potential conducts itself.

[ED-057]

Well of course the big corps and their shareholders are going to keep hoarding money, that is undeniably their goal. And if society's collective wealth isn't increasing at a rate that suits them, then will be forced to grab a larger share. Which they can, because their money gives them power.

And at the moment, here in the US, I don't think the rate of increase of our total wealth is doing so hot.

Historically, what has led to improvements in the standard of living for everybody is technological advances that enable manufacturing. If an unskilled worker can go into a factory and operate some machinery that will crank out hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of product every hour, then pretty much everybody wins. The worker gets to make a respectable wage, the business is profitable and can invest in more equipment, and the price of the product can be lower so that people can afford to buy more of it.

A significant proportion of manufacturing has moved over seas. We are the market for these products which means our money is going to China, etc.

So-called IP industries can't replace manufacturing. Making more Corn Flakes means there's more to eat, while selling more licenses for a piece of software means only more money being funneled to the copyright holder. Their products are only worth what people can afford to pay for them. Since the Chinese have less money per capita than we do they can't possibly buy as much of our (even if they wanted to) software/games/movies/whatever as we buy their tools/electronics/widgets.

On the upside, this could help the Chinese increase their standard of living until it more closely matches ours. Unfortunately they are screwing themselves in other ways such as massive pollution and female infanticide. Plus oil will run out someday and the whole world is losing out from unsustainable exploitation of the environment in general.

[Neon]

haha you Canadians and your piddling problems

Enjoy your legal weed and gay marriage whilst our economy continues to swirl around the drain

[DEL]

Quote;

Looking at the incomes of all Canadians... in 1990 the average personal income of the top 10 percent was $161,460. By 2000, it was 185,070, a gain of $23,610. ...the lowest 10 percent was only $10,341. Ten years later, that had only increased by $80 a year. In other words, the top 10 percent increased their earnings by over 295 times the lowest 10 percent.

Yes its true that the gap between the rich and everyone else is widening, but its not limited to Canada. The title could read; 'The Truth about America' or 'The Truth about the UK' and so on.

Kingbuzzo wrote;

I don't think it's fair to blame immigration as it really should boost an economy.

Should?!? Well then there's reality....The huge influx of immigrants into the UK has caused a heavy drop in pay for a number of industries. So the indigenous population are poorer. Except for the top 10% of course, who are recession proof/immigration proof etc.

[neorichieb1971]

As the price of everything is going up (I paid £65 to fill up yesterday) I am seeing more Lamborghini's, Ferrari's and Aston Martins than I have ever seen lately. Not to mention SUV's (were not so popular in the 90's) everywhere.

So whilst taxes on fast cars sky rockets and the price of fuel is hitting catastrophic levels, it seems most of the cash is being funneled into quite a few pockets (not mine though).

The premiership football stadiums cost £50 a ticket or more to watch a game, yet most stadiums are filled week in week out. I couldn't afford it personally.

The fact is, if you were rich, would you share your cash? Would you inject money into your local community?

The main food of thought in any president/primeminister is "If I can't help my country maybe I can help myself". It seems months after someone has left office that it is brought out in the open that they done rather well for themselves. Tony Blair has 5 or 6 homes, spends alot of time abroad and left a country at the point of a catastrophic down turn.

Democracy's generally work better when the leader was ACTUALLY voted in. At least Canada has that.

[Michaelm]

Here in the Netherlands there's a constant whining about the best of the students moving to the states cause the pay is higher there.
Oh well, not constant, but as soon as there's talk about regulating the high bonuses and salaries of top managers that whining starts again.
But when it comes to regulating the salaries of the most lowest paid you never hear stupid stuff like that.

In fact, cities are competing about having another multi-national opening a plant in their vicinity. They even give away money. Money that comes out of taxes, mind you. Those multi-nationals just make some empty promises and collect the cash, open the plant, get cheap workers and then do what they want.

This goes on and on and on and on.
Giving away the cash to get the plants goes on and on and on and on.
It's like selling your soul to the devil, only quicker and more efficient.

While life gets utterly expensive for most, some get utterly rich because of our lovely capitalism. But hey, at least it brought us video games

[KBZ]

Great feedback guys. Good to see we have some informed and critical thinkers here.
I wish I had time to comment on everything said right now, but alas, it is Canada day and I need to show I don't hate my country :p

Democracy's generally work better when the leader was ACTUALLY voted in. At least Canada has that.

I do envy how your country has a Mixed Member Proportional system of democracy while we are behind the rest of the democratic world with our ancient First Past the Post System. I don't see how we can expect our Democracy to work if the popular vote doesn't even mean anything.

The fact is, if you were rich, would you share your cash? Would you inject money into your local community?

I always thought the deal was that if you profit of us, you invest in us. At least it seems to have been the case 20 some years ago. And beyond not making them invest in us, we aren't even taxing them. Makes no sense that I pay 40% tax while corporations pay 25.6%

let me break down the Corporate tax cuts in the past few years...

2000 35.4%
2001 28.6%
2002 26.6%
2003 27.0%
2004 25.8%
2005 25.6% (that's only 25.6% tax on $157.55 Billion in profits)

and now our government has agreed to have it drop to 15% by 2012, the lowest corporate tax of any major industrialized economy. I guess we aren't the pinko-socialists we think we are....

Yes its true that the gap between the rich and everyone else is widening, but its not limited to Canada. The title could read; 'The Truth about America' or 'The Truth about the UK' and so on.

Canada, the UK and US rank rather low in terms of income distribution compared to countries like Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany. Maybe they're all slipping into inequality but us Anglos just seem more eager to?

Should?!? Well then there's reality....The huge influx of immigrants into the UK has caused a heavy drop in pay for a number of industries. So the indigenous population are poorer. Except for the top 10% of course, who are recession proof/immigration proof etc.

Over here we pay immigrants below minimum wage, and below poverty level pay. I don't see how this is fair to them, or us. If we make it possible to pay some people such low amounts that it undermines their human dignity, then how can we expect this not to effect the rest of the workers? If lowest I get paid is $10, and my friend can be paid $6 then I wont have a job. But there's no way I'll blame him since it's clearly the fault of whoever allowed such an unbalanced pay rate.

[KindGrind]

From Canada too. So in Quebec we're taxed 50% of our paycheck (and this is not an exaggeration), then a further 15% on everything we buy... The richer 10% don't pay taxes. Ever. They can hire experts and do some technical, legal tax evasion. Forever!

For doctors, I think the USA, as some pointed out, is a very interesting alternative. The taxes in Quebec are so terrible (see above) that people flee. The only thing that keep people near, apart from their family/friends, is the relatively cheap housing compared to the rest of Canada/US. We have it a lot easier than the West here in that department.

The doc problem is a double one: they go away, and those who stay are mostly women. This is a pure fact, and my guess is that it's the same everywhere. Recent studies show that 90% of the students in medecine school are women. Of course, when they're most needed (when they graduate), many of them go on leave to have children, and this is very legitimate. What we get, then, is a tragically low number of practicing doctors, and many of those who do have a license work part-time. The people in charge of deciding how many prople gets in every year are not interested in letting in more people: more doctors means a more common job, which spells lower pay for all of them.

And this will get worse, with the boomers probably clogging the system in a very near future...

[JusteZero]

Most Canadians don't care about this stuff for 2/3rds of the year, since hockey season is over though I'm more open to consider your points. J/K

Hope I'm not wandering to far off topic, but people today in Canada are hippies. C'mon KB I think this is all rather interesting and can create an intellectually stimulating discussion but will anything change? Government process to the average person is not transparent and no matter how well constructed the arguments of the author may be, it may as well require a decoder ring for more than half of us.

Not trying to derail but for anything to change what can we as a greater populace do?

The most I hear about politics among all the young people working for me is "George Bush sucks" "No war for oil" "Legalize marijuana" "Steven Harper hates gays" or other such sloganeering fit for a sign in the hand of a greasy tie-dyed flower child.

Of course getting kids interested in politcs and forming their own viewpoints is easier said than done. As much as I love NOFX and Bad Religion and other musicians and movie stars are they really the ones who should encourage political discussion or activism among the otherwise uninformed?


Im probably rambling abit, more my thoughts lately on whats wrong with this country(admittedly I still love it). I think I just convinced myself to go buy that book.... Its a long time til hockey season I need something to read anyways.

[escadrille]

There's always something to complain about. This country has major problems alright. Balanced budget, ample natural resources, huge landmass, educated and affluent population, low crime, first rate technology and infrastructire, etc etc.


It's fun to be 15 and listen to politically-inclined pop-punk bands, but let's get real here. You can complain about how such-and-such isn't perfect but let's look at some real-world comparisons. Where are you going to get abetter deal? The only real answer is the US, but as soon as you move across the borded your life expectancy goes down along with your taxes. I don't like paying taxes either, but it's not like I don't get a return on my investment.

but people today in Canada are hippies.

What? Maybe some are, but cart yourself off campus or out of downtown and you will find just as many gun-toting, Bible-loving rednecks as you will in the US (per capita of course).

[KBZ]

Most Canadians don't care about this stuff for 2/3rds of the year, since hockey season is over though I'm more open to consider your points. J/K

Hope I'm not wandering to far off topic, but people today in Canada are hippies. C'mon KB I think this is all rather interesting and can create an intellectually stimulating discussion but will anything change? Government process to the average person is not transparent and no matter how well constructed the arguments of the author may be, it may as well require a decoder ring for more than half of us.

Not trying to derail but for anything to change what can we as a greater populace do?

The most I hear about politics among all the young people working for me is "George Bush sucks" "No war for oil" "Legalize marijuana" "Steven Harper hates gays" or other such sloganeering fit for a sign in the hand of a greasy tie-dyed flower child.

Of course getting kids interested in politcs and forming their own viewpoints is easier said than done. As much as I love NOFX and Bad Religion and other musicians and movie stars are they really the ones who should encourage political discussion or activism among the otherwise uninformed?


Im probably rambling abit, more my thoughts lately on whats wrong with this country(admittedly I still love it). I think I just convinced myself to go buy that book.... Its a long time til hockey season I need something to read anyways.

I guess I should become a rock star or something. And yeah, I'm from Ottawa so I very well could just forget about this whole thing once Aflie laces up again. :p

There's always something to complain about. This country has major problems alright. Balanced budget, ample natural resources, huge landmass, educated and affluent population, low crime, first rate technology and infrastructire, etc etc.


It's fun to be 15 and listen to politically-inclined pop-punk bands, but let's get real here. You can complain about how such-and-such isn't perfect but let's look at some real-world comparisons. Where are you going to get abetter deal? The only real answer is the US, but as soon as you move across the borded your life expectancy goes down along with your taxes. I don't like paying taxes either, but it's not like I don't get a return on my investment.

Actually, we've found out that our budget is not balanced at all as it favours corporations looking to exploit our market and drain it dry. And those vast natural resources? Almost all of them are foreign owned. So it wouldn't be hard to form a solid argument claiming that we don't even HAVE these resources anymore.

And if having educated people is so great, then why do we discourage people with insanely high tuition rates when other equally rich and civilized nations seem to be able to provide equal to greater education with equal personal income tax? Loss of jobs, low access to education along with hundreds of other cuts to the social sector wont exactly result in low crime rates if the situation in the US is any indication.

And the better deal being in the US? I'm not too sure I follow. I'm not trying to flame or anything, but I always thought that Scandinavian countries have a better deal for the average working citizen than over here. Except the hockey sucks :p

[escadrille]

There's always something to complain about. This country has major problems alright. Balanced budget, ample natural resources, huge landmass, educated and affluent population, low crime, first rate technology and infrastructire, etc etc.


It's fun to be 15 and listen to politically-inclined pop-punk bands, but let's get real here. You can complain about how such-and-such isn't perfect but let's look at some real-world comparisons. Where are you going to get abetter deal? The only real answer is the US, but as soon as you move across the borded your life expectancy goes down along with your taxes. I don't like paying taxes either, but it's not like I don't get a return on my investment.

Actually, we've found out that our budget is not balanced at all as it favours corporations looking to exploit our market and drain it dry. And those vast natural resources? Almost all of them are foreign owned. So it wouldn't be hard to form a solid argument claiming that we don't even HAVE these resources anymore.

And if having educated people is so great, then why do we discourage people with insanely high tuition rates when other equally rich and civilized nations seem to be able to provide equal to greater education with equal personal income tax? Loss of jobs, low access to education along with hundreds of other cuts to the social sector wont exactly result in low crime rates if the situation in the US is any indication.

And the better deal being in the US? I'm not too sure I follow. I'm not trying to flame or anything, but I always thought that Scandinavian countries have a better deal for the average working citizen than over here. Except the hockey sucks :p

Look, you've got a real undergrad-communist thing going on here that I'm about ten years too old to be interested in. Good luck building the socialist utopia though.

[KBZ]

it will be a social-democratic utopia actually :p

[Ed Oscuro]

As with all things, the bubble bursts eventually. Immigration is one key factor towards this. Most poor people from poorer nations come to countries like UK and Canada to have a better life, but it means that more competition exists in the job market and only the rich benefit from that.

And those immigrants, importantly! This is just an effect of supply and demand, which applies whether you think you're a hard-boiled capitalist or a communist.

I don't think it's wise or democratic to put heavy limits on immigration, but neither should countries just fling the door open. It's a complicated issue, and even facets that most of us would dismiss offhand (the culture argument0 do factor into the equation in potentially serious ways.

I will say that due to the highly emotional nature of the issue it seems likely to me the issue can coagulate around the same tired talking points as before. It's almost too dangerous an issue for politicians to deal with here in the U.S., and I think former Governor Eliot Spitzer's ID plan's death speaks a bit to the difficulty of having a debate about something in which everybody is entrenched and stands to lose.

Speaking of immigration, how do the various immigrant groups in Vancouver mix with everybody else? I know it's the most diverse city in the world (or was) but I wonder how much of that is tied up in ethnic enclaves (which usually stagnate, at least in the experience of Chinatowns in the U.S.).

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Suck exists all over the world. Get over it.

[Ed Oscuro]

Nature abhors a suck

[KBZ]

Speaking of immigration, how do the various immigrant groups in Vancouver mix with everybody else? I know it's the most diverse city in the world (or was) but I wonder how much of that is tied up in ethnic enclaves (which usually stagnate, at least in the experience of Chinatowns in the U.S.).

I've only live here for two years, so I don't have a lot to tell I'm afraid. Enclave to English Canadians? yeah probably. Most of Vancouver's Chinese seem to keep to themselves in certain areas of town. But it's gone beyond simply having a Chinatown. Richmond is a city outside of Vancouver, and might have a ethnic Chinese majority.

On a side note, it isn't rare that I see the following posted on a community bulletin board....

"Young South Korean Girl looking for Roommate in downtown condo. Must be Female, Japanese, Korean, or Taiwanese."

Personally, I see such postings as being ethnocentric at best, and blatantly racist at their worst. But that's for another thread I guess.

Suck exists all over the world. Get over it.

here, let me bend over.

[escadrille]

As with all things, the bubble bursts eventually. Immigration is one key factor towards this. Most poor people from poorer nations come to countries like UK and Canada to have a better life, but it means that more competition exists in the job market and only the rich benefit from that.

And those immigrants, importantly! This is just an effect of supply and demand, which applies whether you think you're a hard-boiled capitalist or a communist.

I don't think it's wise or democratic to put heavy limits on immigration, but neither should countries just fling the door open. It's a complicated issue, and even facets that most of us would dismiss offhand (the culture argument0 do factor into the equation in potentially serious ways.

I will say that due to the highly emotional nature of the issue it seems likely to me the issue can coagulate around the same tired talking points as before. It's almost too dangerous an issue for politicians to deal with here in the U.S., and I think former Governor Eliot Spitzer's ID plan's death speaks a bit to the difficulty of having a debate about something in which everybody is entrenched and stands to lose.

Speaking of immigration, how do the various immigrant groups in Vancouver mix with everybody else? I know it's the most diverse city in the world (or was) but I wonder how much of that is tied up in ethnic enclaves (which usually stagnate, at least in the experience of Chinatowns in the U.S.).

Toronto is probably more diverse overall, Vancouver (a.k.a. Hong-couver) has more immigrants but predominantly from China and Southeast Asia.

My experience Canada-wide is that there is little problem accepting immigrants in all the major cities, and the only even vaguely problematic cases are caused by a massive imflux of refugees that take a little longer to assimilate.


Beyond that any trouble is usually on the family-level, when a teenager is a totally Westernized Canadian citizen and their father is some crazy religious nut.

[No_not_like_Quake]

People born in Ottawa unite into some Voltron-like robot.

[Ed Oscuro]

I was thinking Due South in reverse but then it'd be called "Due West and over an Ocean," right?

Also, I think Johnny Carson can add another name to this joke. ;)

[JusteZero]

People born in Ottawa unite into some Voltron-like robot.

Our lions launch into space out of the top of the peace tower on parliament hill.

[No_not_like_Quake]

^I was thinking pretty much the same thing.