Canadian Politics

In this case I think they're justified. A guaranteed retirement plan is a pretty fundamental element of a public service job: if the government wants people to spend their lives working for them (especially when those people earn less than a lot of private-sector professionals), then it needs to ensure them a decent retirement. Defined-contribution means that you pay into the plan, but have no guarantee as to what you'll get out of it. Canada Post switching over to that would be the first step to the whole public service doing so, and that means the end of a decent retirement for anywhere between a tenth and a quarter (when you add in teachers and nurses) of the workforce.

They're not going on strike to demand more wages or benefits; they're just trying to keep a very fundamental element of what they've got. That's justified.

I know the population is aging and that poses challenges to pension plans, but that does not give baby boomers the right to shaft all the younger generations by denying us our ability to retire, while we pay for their retirement and health care.

edited 8th Jul '16 4:46:55 PM by Galadriel

Management has dropped their lockout threat for now, talks will continue but no work stoppage right now.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-post-union-labour-lock-out-mail-1.3672570

The Elections Commissioner has sanctioned the Green Party for distributing inaccurate flyers during the election.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elections-commissioner-green-party-polling-1.3695519

The party only has to admit wrongdoing and come in compliance with the Commission.

Well, given that they look to have been cheap in purchasing the polling data, and negligent in oversight, this does not harm my view of the party.

Let's see if they apologise.

So the video of Rob Ford smoking crack was released by Toronto Police.

See here

Elizabeth May could step down as party leader this month, in reaction to the party's support for BDS.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/politics/elizabeth-may-green-party-israel-1.3716764

I know this is a strangely unpopular opinion in the west, but I am no fan of Israel. Not sure if boycotting Israel in opposition to the war is such a smart move, given that I am not really following the politics here, but I wouldn't be opposed to such thought.

That's really too bad. May is pretty much the reason the Canadian Greens have the respect they do. She isn't going to step down as MP though, which pretty much means that she is still going to be the public face of the Green Party.

All I'll say about that is that backing one side completely isn't a viable solution, because the ideal on both sides is kicking out everyone on the other side, which is a terrible idea for myriad reasons. Displacing that many people would just end terribly for everyone.

Minor Cabinet shuffle today; Bardish Chagger (MP for Waterloo and Minister for Small Business and Tourism) becomes the first woman to be House Leader. She's replacing Dominic Le Blanc (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans after Hunter Tootoo resigned due to a sex/addiction scandal).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cabinet-shuffle-house-learder-1.3728243

I see the logic here. Fisheries and Oceans is quite an active portfolio right now, with the Coast Guard fleet getting gradually replaced. Le Blanc needs to be focused on that job.

Stephen Harper is expected to resign his seat in Calgary today.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calgary/harper-quits-seat-1.3736732

Everything after your first paragraph was a bit off topic....

edited 26th Aug '16 5:38:03 PM by Rationalinsanity

Given that she was considering quitting over the Green Party supporting BDS, understanding why BDS is a issue seemed relevant.

edited 26th Aug '16 6:41:35 PM by Galadriel

Chinese Canadians are under pressure to express loyalty to Beijing The same thing is happening in other countries. Canada in particular has it bad, what with Vancouver basically being a Chinese colony and Truedu bending over backwards to suck up in the name of getting a free trade deal. (Seriously how stupid do you have to be to want a free trade deal with China).

OK, while China going after expats/their descendants/Chinese language media in Canada (I believe Eritrea pulled this shit as well) is definitely a problem, calling Vancouver a Chinese colony is flat out wrong and fucking offensive.

edited 27th Aug '16 7:52:44 PM by Rationalinsanity

Why not, the city's economy basically depends on China. And the price of real estate is ski high because rich Chinese keep investing their.

Maybe the fact that Vancouver is very Canadian in terms of culture? And, don't forget, there's a ton of Japanese and Korean people living there too. I think there's a big-ish Thai population as well.

The housing price bubble in Canada (which is hardly limited to Vancouver) is a bit more complex than that. And businesses owned by Chinese citizens and especially Canadians of Chinese heritage hardly equals colonization.

Unions and Employees hit by Phoenix fiasco

This is kind of old but it was never brought up before, so here it is.

I thank my lucky stars every day that during my four month public service internship (ending tomorrow), only my first paycheck was off. And that got corrected a few weeks ago.

Its a mess, but typical growing pains for new software I suppose.

So, apparently Saskatchewan has an HIV crisis on their hands, with an infection rate double the national average and people cases going untreated/undetected longer leading to earlier deaths. Its also begin to cost an awful lot of money.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saskatchewan-doctors-state-of-emergency-hiv-1.3768183

Localized outbreaks, I assume? A little more than one promille of the province's population does not look like a crisis to me.

A Canadian-Iranian professor, Homa Hoodfar, was released by Iran yesterday after being imprisoned on ambiguous charges ("dabbling in feminism", which was only released to the press). Ottawa leveraged relations with Oman (along with Italy and Switzerland, who have helped Canada since the embassy in Iran was closed) to secure a deal. It probably had something to do with Trudeau's plan to reopen (if not normalize) Canada-Iran diplomatic relations.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37477020

It was a mistake to ever have closed the embassy. It's important to have some idea of what's going on, even in 'enemy' countries.