O Canada!

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That's pretty much what I'm trying to say. Time is way too precious to waste so much of it driving.

And this is still a thread about Canada because we're comparing Canadian distances with those in other parts of the world. Some people are on the same wavelength as Canada on distances and others aren't.

 

I drive 1.5 hours each way to see my kids, and really, it's just a little hop compared to how bad it could be.

As for change, I have mixed feelings about the loss of the Canadian penny. We minted our last one last week sometime. So now we'll get gouged to the nearest nickel. Grrr. On the other hand, it's kinda pointless to have a one cent coin that costs 1.5 cents to produce, and I guess the cost of retooling it to use a lesser weight would have also been economically unfeasible.

I'd rather put the time in to roll the coins in my piggy bank than give a percentage to the banks. God knows the dirty dogs take a percentage of everything else.

It's funny that Trudeau's one finger salute was mentioned. He is almost universally detested in Alberta. A notable exception was my mother. Admittedly, she was an immigrant from the USA, and came by way of British Columbia, but still, she was exceptional in this matter. I asked her once about the NEP screwing Alberta. She said "only the fat cats got screwed, and they conned the workaday folks into believing they'd been screwed."

Mom was a big believer in a strong centralized government. I came to understand it later when I studied the Quebec crisis. Trudeau didn't screw around attempting to appease murdering terrorists. He dang well expected people to follow the law, and when they started kidnapping and murdering, he sent in the military -- martial law! Harsh, but effective. I wonder what he'd do now with the puling Quebec students on strike because their tuition (the lowest in the country) is being raised (to a level that is STILL going to be the lowest in the country!) Actually, I don't wonder. He'd be sending in the military to round up the little terrorists (yes, throwing smoke bombs into a subway is terrorism, it's designed to promote fear, fear = terror, and it's all for a political purpose.) In addition, without the smoke bombs, these kids are infringing on the civil liberties of the students who WANT to attend classes but are being barred by human chains. I'm OK with peaceful, non-trespassing protests, but what these little tools are doing is beyond the pale, and I really wish the government would grow some cojones and just arrest all of these little twerps.

 

I always think of Canada as the biggest Scandinavian country, but with 2 reasonably understandable languages.
Sometimes I see these episodes of Life or some program on NatGeo, with bears and wolverines and stuff. Looks great! I've seen a Canadian beaver once (not on the Discovery Channel, though), but she lives in Los Angeles.

 

Don't get me started on those *******s, I've lost my entire term 'cause of them that's after I paid tuition fee... They have a really stupid "us vs them" mentality; just by wanting this stupid strike to end and return to class, I'm apparently the enemy. Btw, in my uni at least, they are a minority less than 15% of students are with the strikers. So basically they give a bad name to all of us... yayness.

I don't have rich parents, nor have I a scholarship which means I need to get loans to study. Of course the university isn't going to reimburse me for the last term. So the protesters wanting to lower university tuition ended up costing more money to students like me who are on loans. I sure hope the irony isn't lost on them. This latest incident and the fact the provincial government is pilling up scandals after scandals and by being utterly ineffective makes me want to get out. I dunno maybe go to Australia or something, I hear it's nice there.

 

Go there in the winter Flix. I imagine a lot of Canadians would appreciate a trip somewhere warm when the -30 starts to hit. Although actually the last few winters have been pretty mild. I didn't even have cold enough weather last winter to make an ice sculpture. The few days I could have used were followed up but a warm streak.

This just reminded me of something. Have any of you other Canadians around here ever run outside in the middle of winter in your bare feet to grab something or close a gate etc. ?

 

Duh, it's rite of passage -- I'm not getting my huge boots and coat and everything just to check the mail (it's down stair my apartment building) it's like I always said you haven't experience a true winter unless you've experience it here.

Btw, by "mild winter" do you mean the temperature merely got around -20C, -25C and gotten on average 45cm snow ? If so then yes the last winter was mild.

 

Help me out here - how do students "go on strike"? If you don't show up for class, don't you just fail? If they are preventing others from entering class, then their activities are criminal.

And isn't tuition relatively inexpensive everywhere in Canada? I was under the impression that you could come out of a four year education, even if you borrowed the whole thing for about $30K, which is less than the cost of a year in many of the US colleges and universities. Some kids at US schools graduate with a degree, and what amounts to a mortgage.

Again - the students don't teach, so why can't classes go on without the 15% who are complaining? I don't even understand how you can go on strike as a student. You aren't required to attend college. If you don't want to pay the extra amount, drop out and go somewhere else.

 

I imagine they're just demonstrating ...

The problem I've had with most all demonstrators I've ever seen is that they're really not demonstrating (exercising their right to free speech and peaceful public assembly, etc.), but acting like f*cking animals - intimidating, threatening, terrorizing, and being generally lawless and oftentimes criminally reckless. Any chance they ever had of convincing me of anything goes straight down the toilet when you act like that.

If they're really doing what LKD says in this example, I literally hope with great passion that their tuition goes up and not down and that they fail their classes and lose lots of money and are criminally prosecuted whenever appropriate and that these actions follow them around forever on their permanent record.

 

They actively block the university access so student like me who'd like to y'know learn stuff cannot access the classes. They also intimidate students, again like me, by either saying stupid stuff like "U R on teh rong side dooodz" or "Dooodz ur acting like capitalisticaly-like man*" or good old real life physical threat.

We can only hope, that they get prosecuted or at least fail their classes we can only hope -- As a side note; this "incident" might sounds silly (it is) and abstract to you all, but it is very real for me, I'm living it. Glorious !

And people wonder why I want to emigrate somewhere else, I 'unno anywhere again Australia sounds nice. I also hear living in Nova Scotia is pretty good, thought technically that wouldn't be emigrating just moving from one province to another. Anyone lived in Nova Scotia ?

*I'm paraphrasing in bad English for the benefit of my non French speaking friends on BOM, but believe me it sounds as retarded in the original

 

I read one article that said they were entering classes in session and disrupting them, seeking to verbally and physically intimidate the students who want to attend classes.

That's terrorism, as is blocking access to university buildings. I'm not making this stuff up.

 

They are currently gleefully defying court orders, and the government doesn't want to crack down on them for fear of being seen as overly harsh. The court of public opinion is in full swing.

 

Oh, wow. I've never heard of a protest group being so hated before. Why is that? I am generally in support of protests but I know Canada has some significant differences than the U.S so the situation might be different. Is it just because they're blocking and shouting stuff?

 

Here's one of the best things I have learned about Canada:

http://www.joeydevilla.com/2008/08/11/marilou-dozois-prevost-lookin-and-liftin-good/

I have no idea how to embed pictures so you'll just have to follow the link. I never knew Canada was famous for its powerlifting training programme, but maybe some of those Eastern European countries should take note.

 

That's nice, Harbs. Now find me a brunette!

Btw, you can left-click the pic, take the url from the properties and wrap it in image-tags. IMG and /IMG (with the [], of course)

This link
http://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/marilou_dozois-prevost.jpg
would show like this

 

They wouldn't get any sympathy from me either. There are people in the US who have questioned the long term value of attending a college or university, simply because tuition rates are such that it would take you a huge amount of time to make up in future earnings what it cost you to go to school in the first place. But that's because tuition at many US schools is upwards of $50,000 per year. As I understand it (and Canadians feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here), you can get a 4-year degree anywhere in Canada for less than that.

You'll likely make up in earnings whatever it is you paid for your degree in a few years. And even if you borrowed the whole thing, it's not like coming out of college in debt $20K or $30K is debilitating. Hell, I graduated from college with $20K in debt, and my loans have been paid off for a few years now. However, there are people that come out of school $200K in debt. That's like buying a house, except you don't have the house. That IS debilitating, unless you did something like go to medical school where a high salary during your career is assured.

Tell those whiny, *****ing, Quebec brats to suck it up!

 

That pic TOTALLY cheered me up!

Back to the protestors, there's something else. Ofelix is going to hate me for it, and Beren will likely do a facepalm, but it exists and should be discussed.

Canada is a federation of provinces. Like the United States, there is often an issue of provincial (state) rights/jurisdiction vs. federal rights / jurisdiction. This can get dicey. In addition, the country spans a continent. This results in economic disparity between regions as time goes on. Cultures also tend to drift in different directions, as well as languages -- think of the differences between a New Englander's speech compared to that of a Louisiana resident's speech. Of course, Canada has an extra hassle in terms of having two official languages, and anglophones have been in a love/hate relationship with the francophones for centuries, literally centuries!

Now the country is unofficially split into "have" provinces and "have not" provinces. This is a crude way of saying that some provinces are doing well economically and others are suffering. The Maritime provinces* ran into some serious trouble a few decades ago when the fisheries bottomed out. They have been "have not" for decades. So of course, the Federal government decided to take a hand and help out. They helped out via transfer payments.

A transfer payment is basically a way of saying to the "have" provinces that they should help out those who are struggling. Now despite accusations of redneck selfishness, Albertans don't mind helping out those who are down on their luck -- for a short term. But we have been paying through the nose for fricking decades, sending out literally billions of dollars to the "less fortunate" provinces and getting nothing but contempt and ignorance from the rest of the country. Quebec, which has a higher population, decent natural resources, and a much more established industrial base, always manages to get itself classified as a "have not" province, and they cheerfully suck money out of Alberta and the other "have" provinces**. Quebec is a pretty great place to live***, with some of the best social programs in the country, including, as Beren mentioned, the lowest post-secondary tuition in the country, even after the proposed pay hike. Alberta lags behind because we don't have the money for that stuff -- it's all going to the "have nots"!

The question often asked is "why is Alberta paying for Cadillac levels of service in Quebec when we ourselves have only Toyota levels?" It's ridiculous, and just plain unfair. Of course the answer is that the Federal government is paying for votes from the more populous Quebec.

The fact is, though, that people with morals who want to work tend to come to Alberta, as opportunities for employment are pretty good here. Lots of Maritimers come to work in our oil patch****. It's a pretty place, and many settle here. So many come, in fact, that neutral mathematicians and enumerators have determined that we should get more seats in the Federal government, based off the idea of representation by population -- you know, one man, one vote kind of thing? You can imagine how Quebec reacts to that. The Idea of having fair representation is anathema to them. They would lose their perks if the country were actually, you know, democratic. They act like Albertan's desire to have fair electoral districts is an "assault of Francophone culture". We are not out to hurt the Francophone culture, we just want fairness. But fairness is a foreign concept to these people, who see Albertans as merely one step up from slaves, hewing wood and drawing water to support their indolent, self-indulgent snobbery. Not that I'm judgemental.

This explains the reaction of the rest of Canada, particularily Albertans, to these pampered little douchebags complaining in Quebec.

* This refers to the provinces on the East coast of the country: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland/Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. They kinda overfished and what was their prime industry is now but a pale shadow of what it used to be.

**Alberta and Ontario are "have" provinces. I think sometimes BC is, too. Saskatchewan should be, but it's been mismanaged since it joined Confederation.

*** If you are a Francophone, that is. They do have quite high taxes, much of which goes to unconstitutional laws that "prtect" the French language and culture from the big, bad Anglos. English speakers in Quebec face a great degree of social stigma.

****The city that is at the centre of the Oil Sands is a disaster called Fort McMurray. The disaster is that far too many people have moved in and services have not kept up with the exploding population. Fort McMurray is often called the second largest city in Newfoundland (look at a map, you'll get the joke) in that so many Newfoundlanders go there to work, as unemployment in the Maritimes is so high. I don't begrudge them the work, I just wish the municipal and provincial government would use the tax revenue they are getting from the place to build adequate infrastructure.

 

Ummm... doesn't that happen? WTF? Isn't proportional representation the world standard, regardless of whether you go the standard republic way in the US, or a parliamentary system that you see in lots of other countries?

We have a census every 10 years in the US for the express purpose of giving proportional representation in the House of Representatives - more people mean more Congressional Districts and more seats. Less people mean less seats. For example the 2010 Census showed that the population of Texas rose far more rapidly than that rest of the country in the last 10 years, and they got 2 more seats in Congress. Conversely, Michigan's population actually declined. Not relative to the rest of the country - fewer people live in Michigan today than lived there in 2000. That's the only state that showed a net negative drop in their population. Obviously, they lost at least 1 seat, and possibly 2.

 

The scientists measure and make recommendations, and those recommendations go to government committees, who make the final decision. Those committees are loaded with Quebec representatives (who, IIRC, are guaranteed in our Constitution to always make up 25% of the House of Commons) who are always seeking to hamstring the democratic process in order to maintain their favoured status. In particular they seek to limit any growth of Alberta's political power, as they know it could end the gravy train.

You may think I am overstating the case. I most assuredly am not.

Edit: Here be a link!

And another!