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The census is important.

What are the big complaints with all social science data?
They are nearly all subject to selection biases; many are self-selecting and/or opt-in, etc. And the sample sizes are usually quite small.

This is pretty much the only source of data that is taken from the population selected at random, is mandatory, and the sample size is massive. Its good data.

Its taken once every 5 years, but only affects around 20% of the population. My household has never even been selected. Growing up my parents received it only once that I know of. It is not a "huge burdern".

Very little of the data collected is qualifies as 'secret' or 'personal'. Here it is; see for yourself.

http://www12.statcan.ca/nhs-en...

Very little of it is objectionable; who lives in the house hold, how are they all related to each other, what is their level of education, where do they work/what do they do, where are they from.

The objections stem from:

Religion. Well there are no questions about religion on this one at all. None nada zero zip.

Sex: The only questions on sex are gender; and if you happen to self identify yourself as a same-sex spouse in the relationships. I suppose some transgendered individual who has decided to identify as neither male nor female might object to having to pick one. That's hardly a valid reason to argue against the census though.

Medical: There are some medical questions that some might object to. Difficulty seeing? hearing? walking? slow learning? long term health problem? These are extremely vague and generic; and are clearly useful for allocating and planning health services and very basic health trends.

Race / Language: There's some questions asking one to identify people's origin. (where they were born in canada or internationally, ethnicity, etc.) first nations status, immigration status, etc.

There are some legitimate historical cases where this last was used to persecute. But realistically, if we're going to round people up from country X for concentration camps, we'll be able manage that just fine without the census. Immigration records, and birth certificates to id them and their descendents, then tax forms and drivers licenses to find them will catch them anyway; throw in a neighborhood informant program.

Meanwhile the census data provides a good clear picture of the countries changing demographics that has a lot of legitimate uses.

Well yeah, but that's only because you guys come from a place where it seems to be the norm to be married. Here almost all couples my age just throw a wedding after 6-7 years because it something fun and it wouldn't change much at that point. Many don't even bother.

This got me thinking and I consulted Stat Canada website. I realized that in my own country ( Canada ) my own province was a major outlier. In 2011, almost 38% of all couples were common-law couples ( meaning they just live together, not married ). The married couples were mostly an older demographic where marriage was still a thing. It's worth noting that the Canadian average for common law couples in other provinces was around 15% and we're almost exactly following the Canadian average for single parent families at 16%, so it doesn't seem to impact us negatively.

Source : http://www12.statcan.ca/census...

Wrong, the median family income is closer to 65K a year in Canada. http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil108a-eng.htm

Yes but don't forget, Canada is VERY sparely populated http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97-550/vignettes/m1-eng.htm Canadian ISP's don't provide service to anywhere with less that 10 people/km^2. So really that argument is rather moot.

Half? I think it's closer to 80%. maybe within about two hours I guess.

Like I said, my experience with muslims is not aligned with this data.

Such experience tends to be biased by region.

For example, my home country is Russia, where a significant percentage of population (15-20%, depending on who you ask) is Muslim. However, most of them are very moderate, largely because they have historically been living as minorities under Christian rule - so any violent fundamentalism would be rapidly suppressed. One of my grandfathers is a Tatar Muslim, in fact (and his father was imam) - yet my father didn't get any significant religious indoctrination in his birth, and is an atheist.

Also, most educated Muslims who reside - temporary or permanently - in western countries seem to be moderate-to-reformist. I've known a few personally.

Like I said, my experience with muslims is not aligned with this data. But I think you might be a bit deluded when you say that Christianity is defanged -- in reality hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Christians in the US are in support of our wars no more than the simple killing of Muslims for that fact alone.

If their support for wars was truly backed by this, then surely there'd be widespread beatings and lynchings of Muslims in U.S. as well?

I think the real story is more complex. Americans were fed an elaborate story of "evil terrorists bent on destroying their glorious homeland of the free and the brave" - some parts of which are true (terrorists are there, after all), and some are wholesale propaganda. The people who concocted the story have certainly masterfully played on xenophobia inherent in any human culture, and Islam was an aspect of that, but not the only one, and not the most important one.

To give a more specific example, even the worst war hawks in U.S. don't call for mass slaughter of Muslim civilian population - whenever civilian casualties happen, they instead try to pretend that those weren't really civilians. You do occasionally hear rallying cries to "turn the whole of Middle East into one big glass parking lot", but this comes from really fringe groups, who haven't, so far, acted on any of their hateful rhetoric.

In any case, U.S. is one of the worst countries in the West in terms of mingling of religion and governance - the recent tide against gay marriage and abortion is a good example - but it's still a far cry from e.g. the law of the land in Afghanistan (in "liberated" Afghanistan, I must add, not under Taliban!) by which apostasy from Islam is punished by death - and similar laws are in existence in many other countries in which Islam is the official state religion (because, well, Shari'a mandates death penalty for apostates).

Outside U.S., Christianity is mostly tamed. Okay, so one other notable exception would be Ireland, and one could argue about some Eastern European states (Poland, Romania, Greece would be the ones to look at), but elsewhere, it is simply not a strong force affecting laws and established customs of modern Western society.

In reality, many Christians are just as hateful, militant, and in support of killing others as these muslims in these polls.

As my post earlier in this thread pointed out, the issue here is that there still seems to be significanly "more many" Muslims than Christians.

If you don't see it, its likely you're christian and blind to criticism and reality. To the agnostic, it is quite clear.

I'm an atheist, and I'm happy to reside in a place where "no religion" is the single largest denomination.

I would also add that, to an agnostic, it should be quite clear that, at this time period, it would be much easier for him to live in a Christian state - even one like U.S. or Ireland - than it is to live in vast majority of Islamic states.

>because I can give $5 to every person I talk to on a normal day and still not spend as much as I earn in that day.

That's very nice of you. However, most of us with above average jobs are earning, after taxes, $24,682.50 per person, or $49,365 per household (How to calculate: $67,600 applied to tax cacluator, $1 added to result, divided by two).

Average spending in Canada is listed here. If you remove the following optional components, along with taxes (as we are working with tax free money):

$3,975 - Recreation
$264 - Books
$1,157 - Education
$1,475 - Vices
$258 - Betting
$1,087 - Slush
$1,505 - Gifts
$13,634 - Taxes
-------
$23,355

$67,736 (total) - $23,355 (optional + taxes) = $44,381 required to live an average lifestyle without any optional needs.

$49,365 - $44,381 = $4,984 in excess money.

$4,984 - $600 (My guesstimate of a yearly cost of owning decent home theatre equipment, a computer, iPod, etc, including TV, sofa, DVD player, receiver) = $4,384 remaining.

So, lets suggest you like to listen to music in your 8 hours of "free time" a day (which an average person should have). 8 * 365 - (52 * 2 * 8) + (52 * 2 * 12) = 5,000 hours free time a year.

$1 per song, and you only have $4,384, and just the basics to live on. Even if you got an hour of playtime out of each song (that's as many as 20 plays for some songs), you will need to find another $616 to pay for it that year. I guess you will be spending plenty of time at the library as an average person.

But hey, warp your reality as you like. I base mine on hard stats. Clearly, you base yours on some crazy idea that people earn $100k+ a year, and those that don't are broke bums, which is provably false unless you want to present the ludicrous notion almost all people are broke bums.

Music is worth about $0.10 to $0.25 a song, at max. With those sort of number, it at least brings the cost into line with already overpriced/overvalued cable TV subscriptions.

That's like saying you should wear a fireman's suit all the time in case the building you're in catches fire. Packing iron is just as extreme. My interpretation of someone carrying a gun is that they want to live unreasonably and be "prepared" when life catches up with them.

It's more like wearing a seat belt whilst driving. Most buildings must meet fire codes and they generally have fire extinguishers, alarms and escape routes. Life does not come with an alarm system and escape is not always an option when someone wants to take your life.

It is obvious you have not consumed as much Mountain Dew as I have because we have wildly different ideas of extreme.

See above. Your interpretation is a fallacy and you should do further research.

Insurance holds law enforcement accountable by higher premiums to their municipal government (city/town/county etc). If crime gets out of hand, the municipality is faced with a prohibitively high rate increase, and must either shape up or pack up. State and federal governments share in the responsibility and lend their support as needed. If law enforcement becomes ineffective, the economic pressure sorts things out.

So take money from a municipality and give it some insurance company? Sounds great. Where do they pack up to? Does the town becomes a ghost town? Please provide a citation for this program that seems to be working so well for Canada opposed to the gun ridden streets of the United States.

There are services available to victims of crime, more than just financial support, obviously no replacement for not having been victimized in the first place. But more importantly you should know it's your children that are more likely to be victims of gun-related violence. The age at which murderers are most likely to use a gun is 17. Guess what age group they're shooting at. Are you then going to send your kids to school packing? Of course not. You shouldn't carry a gun either FOR THE EXACT SAME REASONS.

Actually, there is a school district which allows concealed handgun permit holders to carry their firearms on school grounds. There is also legislation being introduced next session to allow concealed carry on college campus If my children decide to obtain their permits when they become of age I will support them 100% and I am encouraging my school district to adopt similar policy.

There are distinct differences between myself and my children. I am an adult. I am capable of making rational decisions under duress and I have a much better dispostion than most children. Therefore, the reasons that my children should not carry a firearm to kindergarten do not apply to me. Also, you have to be 21 to obtain your permit in Texas.

I don't buy it. A reasonable reaction for when someone believes their way of life could lead them into mortal danger is to change their way of life to avoid such a situation. By arming yourself, you knowingly accept the risk and in fact add to it by doing so. Your family comes along for the ride, and are more likely to b

Aboriginal make less than 5% of the canadian population. To give them 20% - or anything more than 5% - of the Parliament would be highly anti-democratic.

In Canada, GDP for "Information and cultural industries [51]" is $44,820,000,000, the majority of which is telecom and tv.

To contrast, the GDP for "Information and communication technology sector [T013]" is $58,266,000,000.

I'd expect the latter group to oppose DMCA style laws, and they're the larger group by GDP.

source

Long prison sentences don't really serve to deter criminals, if they did, Canada would have much higher violent crime rates than the US, but that is clearly not the case (pdf).

Indeed, it could be reasonably postulated that longer prison terms lead criminals to kill their victims so that they can't be identified and sent to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

It's not a joking matter when refusal to answer more than 50 questions leaves you looking at threats of $500 x50 in fines, plus 3 months in jail x 50, as stated here. ($500 per question falsely answered +/or 3 months jail). This is the 5-year federal census, btw.

is, for every refusal or neglect, or false answer or deception, guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to both. 1970-71-72, c. 15, s. 29.

Since I've refused to answer the long form twice, I'm looking at a total of over $50,000.00 in fines and jail time of up to 25 years.

I told them quite bluntly, after receiving both verbal and written notices that it's an offense with possible fines and jail time, that I'm quite ready to argue my side in court, but I refuse, as a matter of principle, to give in. The whole slippery-slope argument applies here.

And yes, they HAVE fined others, and made an example of them in the media, so its not a completely idle threat. They don't want the general public to know that they can "get away" with refusing to answer, since more and more people would then not cooperate.

Even so, Canada's adult obesity rate was significantly lower than that in the United States. While 23% of Canadian adults were obese in 2004, the rate was nearly 30% south of the border.

Er, no. You might want to look at your sources next time you suggest other people do. Overall, the murder rate has been pretty stable.

The number of murders (not the rate) increased about 3% from 2002 to 2006, peaking at 663 before dropping again. The population also increased by about 3.4%. The rate per 100,000 has remained around 1.8, but jumped for a while to about 2.1. I reamember hearing some expert on CBC call 2005's murder rate a statistical anomaly.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal01.htm

The majority of violent crimes, almost 2/3, are perpetrated against family members; most are minor:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/85-570-XIE/2006001/figures/figure34.htm

"Canada's overall national crime rate, based on incidents reported to police, hit its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006, driven by a decline in non-violent crime."
"The total violent crime rate remained virtually unchanged from 2005, mainly due to the stability in the rate of minor assaults, which account for 6 in 10 violent crimes.
The national homicide rate fell 10%, halting two years of increases. However, increases were reported in many serious violent crimes such as attempted murder, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, robbery and kidnapping/forcible confinement."
"Police reported 605 homicides in 2006, 58 fewer than in 2005. This resulted in a rate of 1.85 homicides per 100,000 population, 10% lower than in 2005. The national homicide rate has generally been declining since the mid-1970s, when it was around 3.0."
"Robberies involving a firearm increased 4% in 2006, although they are still well below their peak in 1991."
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070718/d070718b.htm

Total violent crime declined about 1% between 2002 and 2006.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal14a.htm

The gun registry was a mismanaged waste of money, but it didn't affect the murder rate in any meaningful way.

Er, no. You might want to look at your sources next time you suggest other people do. Overall, the murder rate has been pretty stable.

The number of murders (not the rate) increased about 3% from 2002 to 2006, peaking at 663 before dropping again. The population also increased by about 3.4%. The rate per 100,000 has remained around 1.8, but jumped for a while to about 2.1. I reamember hearing some expert on CBC call 2005's murder rate a statistical anomaly.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal01.htm

The majority of violent crimes, almost 2/3, are perpetrated against family members; most are minor:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/85-570-XIE/2006001/figures/figure34.htm

"Canada's overall national crime rate, based on incidents reported to police, hit its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006, driven by a decline in non-violent crime."
"The total violent crime rate remained virtually unchanged from 2005, mainly due to the stability in the rate of minor assaults, which account for 6 in 10 violent crimes.
The national homicide rate fell 10%, halting two years of increases. However, increases were reported in many serious violent crimes such as attempted murder, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, robbery and kidnapping/forcible confinement."
"Police reported 605 homicides in 2006, 58 fewer than in 2005. This resulted in a rate of 1.85 homicides per 100,000 population, 10% lower than in 2005. The national homicide rate has generally been declining since the mid-1970s, when it was around 3.0."
"Robberies involving a firearm increased 4% in 2006, although they are still well below their peak in 1991."
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070718/d070718b.htm

Total violent crime declined about 1% between 2002 and 2006.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal14a.htm

The gun registry was a mismanaged waste of money, but it didn't affect the murder rate in any meaningful way.

Er, no. You might want to look at your sources next time you suggest other people do. Overall, the murder rate has been pretty stable.

The number of murders (not the rate) increased about 3% from 2002 to 2006, peaking at 663 before dropping again. The population also increased by about 3.4%. The rate per 100,000 has remained around 1.8, but jumped for a while to about 2.1. I reamember hearing some expert on CBC call 2005's murder rate a statistical anomaly.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal01.htm

The majority of violent crimes, almost 2/3, are perpetrated against family members; most are minor:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/85-570-XIE/2006001/figures/figure34.htm

"Canada's overall national crime rate, based on incidents reported to police, hit its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006, driven by a decline in non-violent crime."
"The total violent crime rate remained virtually unchanged from 2005, mainly due to the stability in the rate of minor assaults, which account for 6 in 10 violent crimes.
The national homicide rate fell 10%, halting two years of increases. However, increases were reported in many serious violent crimes such as attempted murder, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, robbery and kidnapping/forcible confinement."
"Police reported 605 homicides in 2006, 58 fewer than in 2005. This resulted in a rate of 1.85 homicides per 100,000 population, 10% lower than in 2005. The national homicide rate has generally been declining since the mid-1970s, when it was around 3.0."
"Robberies involving a firearm increased 4% in 2006, although they are still well below their peak in 1991."
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070718/d070718b.htm

Total violent crime declined about 1% between 2002 and 2006.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal14a.htm

The gun registry was a mismanaged waste of money, but it didn't affect the murder rate in any meaningful way.

Er, no. You might want to look at your sources next time you suggest other people do. Overall, the murder rate has been pretty stable.

The number of murders (not the rate) increased about 3% from 2002 to 2006, peaking at 663 before dropping again. The population also increased by about 3.4%. The rate per 100,000 has remained around 1.8, but jumped for a while to about 2.1. I reamember hearing some expert on CBC call 2005's murder rate a statistical anomaly.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal01.htm

The majority of violent crimes, almost 2/3, are perpetrated against family members; most are minor:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/85-570-XIE/2006001/figures/figure34.htm

"Canada's overall national crime rate, based on incidents reported to police, hit its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006, driven by a decline in non-violent crime."
"The total violent crime rate remained virtually unchanged from 2005, mainly due to the stability in the rate of minor assaults, which account for 6 in 10 violent crimes.
The national homicide rate fell 10%, halting two years of increases. However, increases were reported in many serious violent crimes such as attempted murder, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, robbery and kidnapping/forcible confinement."
"Police reported 605 homicides in 2006, 58 fewer than in 2005. This resulted in a rate of 1.85 homicides per 100,000 population, 10% lower than in 2005. The national homicide rate has generally been declining since the mid-1970s, when it was around 3.0."
"Robberies involving a firearm increased 4% in 2006, although they are still well below their peak in 1991."
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070718/d070718b.htm

Total violent crime declined about 1% between 2002 and 2006.
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal14a.htm

The gun registry was a mismanaged waste of money, but it didn't affect the murder rate in any meaningful way.

Our murder rate has been on a steady rise here ever since they started cracking down on gun ownership back about 5 or 6 years ago. You can check statistics Canada( http://www.statcan.ca/ ) if you want. The economy is even getting better in most cases and in most area's, violent crime is up by a lot. So are most other crimes from east to west coast.

Other points have been covered by other posters.

As a fourth generation Canadian, I too have met a large number of Canadians. While I have no intention of defending the AC, I resent the absurd generalization that Canadians are uneducated and racist. With any large sampling of people, you will encounter the good and the bad. I am sorry to discover that you have clearly encountered only the bad, yet you are a sample of one.

I work at a company with fifteen employees, representing eight distinct nationalities and we operate in perfect harmony. This place is not anomalous; I have lived through several similar situations at other companies.

However, I am also a sample of one. Let us look at statistics. Immigration accounted for two-thirds of Canada's population growth in 2006/2007 (http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070927/d070927a.htm/) and has always been a significant contributor to our population (http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo03.htm?sdi=population%20growth/).

Does this trend pose difficulties? Certainly. However, were such a policy not embraced by the majority of Canadians, it certainly would not persist. The tolerance is real. Join us and see for yourself.

As a fourth generation Canadian, I too have met a large number of Canadians. While I have no intention of defending the AC, I resent the absurd generalization that Canadians are uneducated and racist. With any large sampling of people, you will encounter the good and the bad. I am sorry to discover that you have clearly encountered only the bad, yet you are a sample of one.

I work at a company with fifteen employees, representing eight distinct nationalities and we operate in perfect harmony. This place is not anomalous; I have lived through several similar situations at other companies.

However, I am also a sample of one. Let us look at statistics. Immigration accounted for two-thirds of Canada's population growth in 2006/2007 (http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070927/d070927a.htm/) and has always been a significant contributor to our population (http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo03.htm?sdi=population%20growth/).

Does this trend pose difficulties? Certainly. However, were such a policy not embraced by the majority of Canadians, it certainly would not persist. The tolerance is real. Join us and see for yourself.

Ontario is third in land area if you only count provinces, after Quebec and BC. That, combined with your poor spelling and grammar, would suggest that your school needed as much investment as gp's.

Canada is generally a sparsely populated place, with almost the same area as the USA but nowhere NEAR the population, OR the multiple ethnicity. French and English speaking WHITE PEOPLE can barely get along, and just imagine what will happen if they had the multiple ethnicities we have down here up there. I recall a friend of mine who is very pro gun restrictions (weapons in general) who had this joyful period where she hid in her house. Why? Because the Ethiopian immigrants were causing all sorts of trouble up in the Medicine Hat area... seems the meat packing plant where they were working was shut down for some period. Amazing how a simple thing as rampant unemployment or mass firings can ruin the "peace" of a semi rural place, especially one as "gun safe" as Canada.

Oh well, not my problem.

As for your organized crime comment. Recall that Canada doesn't have even have one quarter of the USA's population, nor population density, nor the ethnic diversity. This is out of date, but round up by 10 to 15 million, and they still barely have less than 1/9th of the USA's "recorded" population last year. Canada isn't even catching up, they're still way ahead, density wise, in "crime statistics". I forgot where I read it, but they're proud of their serial killer count being less than a third of that of the USA. Interesting pride, given that by density alone, they should have less than a ninth of the USA's active killers, but don't let something like "per capita occurence" bother them.

I use arms ownership (not necessarily guns) as a statistic to study when studying how easy a people will be to bully over using force. As I understand it, police routinely bully people protesting in any area with a low occurrence of arms ownership/carry. I routinely read reports from alternative media (only credible media anymore) detailing how a protest or get together or whatnot was busted up using SWAT teams and riot tanks, they either lacked a license to protest against some injustice or lacked the RIGHT license... riot tanks in "free countries", licensing a non violent protest?? I've heard these arguments before, but back then I was hearing them in Eastern Europe during the 1980's... guess the "free world" is fast catching up. At least the sheeple are kept safe until their time to be butchered is decided upon.

One word :) As the sheeple say, I say. "Not my problem. They want it, I won't deny it to them, in fact I won't lift a finger except to enjoy the irony, as I am doing now."

Yes. And because the Canadian Government is swimming in cash from its record surplus each year (remember when "Conservatives" repeatedly demanded resignation of Liberal's Minister of Finance when they were in power because surplus meant they weren't doing enough to cut taxes? Will the current minister then resign?). Money means pork. And Conservatives or Liberals mean nothing in terms of ideology. It is just "Blue Party" and "Red Party".

If Conservative party was any conservative, they would not cut GST but Income Tax first and stop increasing gov't spending at much more than inflation or growth. Oh well....

http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/govt49a.htm
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/govt49b.htm

Yes. And because the Canadian Government is swimming in cash from its record surplus each year (remember when "Conservatives" repeatedly demanded resignation of Liberal's Minister of Finance when they were in power because surplus meant they weren't doing enough to cut taxes? Will the current minister then resign?). Money means pork. And Conservatives or Liberals mean nothing in terms of ideology. It is just "Blue Party" and "Red Party".

If Conservative party was any conservative, they would not cut GST but Income Tax first and stop increasing gov't spending at much more than inflation or growth. Oh well....

http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/govt49a.htm
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/govt49b.htm

"In 2000, there basically was NO oil export coming out of Alberta."

A half million barrels a day was "NO oil"?

http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11-621-MIE/11-621-MIE2006047.htm

Sorry man, even in the 90's when I worked at Syncrude, they were pumping 100k barrels per day. So was Suncor. And that's not counting conventional Oil.

Semi-seriously. I'm not sure the services-dominant model is sustainable.

Hasn't the West had a services-dominant economy for the past 40 years? In Canada, Goods-producing industries: $336e9, Services-producing industries: $781e9 (Jun 2007, using 1997 CA$). If you are a university student, take a course in macroeconomics. It's very interesting stuff (unlike microeconomics).

Who said that there weren't? I'm just pointing out that being poor doesn't automatically bar you from getting care in the US - that's not an opinion, that's a fact. Thus your assertion that being poor means that you must do without is false.

Not even close to being enough to meet demand.

Canada has some similar problems. Also, with only 1/4 as many MRIs and 1/3 as many CT scanners per capita, it isn't surprising that Canada's system is known for its long wait times. Long wait times are a result of not having enought to meet demand.

You are under the wrong impression.

No, my details are just a bit off:

In June 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General) that Quebec's prohibition against private health insurance for medically necessary services was unconstitutional

Not that this law was the government of a Canadian province trying to keep people from having an alternative to the state-run system. The only reasons I can think of for the law are 1) people might find that a 2-tier system works better and 2) they just hate the idea that the other guy might get faster/better care.

No take it as an admission that you are an ignorant, uninformed fool.

That's it! If you don't have a valid argument, just insult! It's fun and it makes it look like you're 'winning'!

>$30K is more than enough to put food on the table in most areas.

It is? Okay, let's work this out:

Rent: $800 a month in most areas for something not considered a health hazard. I will not consider owning a home, as few to no banks will legitimately approve a mortgage for a $30,000 income.
Utilities: $200 a month in most areas for water, electricity, etc.
Vehicle: $500 a month for gas, repairs, cost of the vehicle, insuranceetc. All but required in the vast majority (>75%) of the US and Canada, by area, and it wouldn't surprise me if more than 50% of the people by population have to drive to work.
Savings: At $30,000, about 9% of your income should be saved for retirement.
Food: $123.76 weekly, or about $530.40 monthly for 2.57 people. This works out to $206.38 monthly for an individual. Accounting for inflation (those were 2001 numbers) and that 1 person doesn't receive the same bulk discounts on merchandise as 2.57 people, and accounting for 14% sales taxes, this would be closer to $290 monthly now.
Entertainment: $3,537 yearly for an average household in 2002. Dividing by 2.57 for one person, then accounting for inflation and taxes, this becomes about $160 monthly. This would include TV and internet charges.
Telephone: The minimum is about $30 per month nowadays.
Other: $200 monthly to replace/upgrade goods, such as furniture, computers, etc.

This brings us to $2150. Now, let us adjust the $30,000 to reflect income after taxes and to reflect the 9% dedicated to a healthy retirement fund (a necessity, since I've never seen a $30k job include retirement).

$30,000 income leaves $25,493 in your pocket. Reducing this by 9% savings leaves you with $23,198.63. Per month this is $1933.22. You are left with a net deficit of $216.78 per month if you wish to live the lifestyle of an average person. This could, of course, come from any single thing, but that reduces your lifestyle to below average. Normally, this is recovered by not saving money. The fun part about this is that that is usually the best bet, since you can usually mooch off the government once retired if you are broke (you will be since all you own is furniture, computers, and a TV) and own no home (which you won't because we made no plans for that).

In the end, you're right, it puts food on the table, but it doesn't offer a sustainable lifestyle. The deficit incurred from this pay level comes at the expense of higher taxes for everyone else. Fun how that works, isn't it?!

Some countries have a national statistics agency that is in charge of setting standards for methodology for things like this. Some countries statistical agencies regularly get rated as the best statistical agency in the world. And some countries get a patchwork of statistics, completely non-standardized across departments and set up by partisan appointees in the pocket of big business. Thank God you guys believe that the Federal Government can't do anything right (I'm not implying they can).

Some countries have a national statistics agency that is in charge of setting standards for methodology for things like this. Some countries statistical agencies regularly get rated as the best statistical agency in the world. And some countries get a patchwork of statistics, completely non-standardized across departments and set up by partisan appointees in the pocket of big business. Thank God you guys believe that the Federal Government can't do anything right (I'm not implying they can).

Just recently I ran across this at statscan: Page 7-9 of pdf. There is an interesting table on "Religiosity", part of it compared religiosity to parental religion Look at the low religiosity category. If both parent have the same religion (more consistent message) only 32% have low religiosity, if both parents just have different religions (less consistent message) low religiosity jumps to %50. If neither parent is religious, it jumps to %85. This has always made sense, but this is pretty clear statistical evidence that it is more a learned trait.

http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/downpub/listpub.cgi? catno=11-008-XIE2006001

Religion of parents (vs outcome Lo Med Hi religiosity )
Both parents same religion 32 34 33
Parents from different religions 50 28 22
Neither parent religious 85 6 10

I like to think I was just born very skeptical and would have been a non believer no matter what circumstance I was born into, but it may just be that neither of my parents was religious and I was left to form my own ideas without being indoctrinated. Naturally many people will buck the trend but I think the correlation is clear.

Religion is just the brains legacy OS many people got stuck with.

What if this "equipment" you speak of is actually a Windows Server System cluster? Containing dozens, if not hundreds, of old hosts. Some of them could be eliminated if the memory/CPU is used more efficiently (or turned off, and used later if a software system needs more juice).

Also, have you thought for even one second that the government has used computing longer than you have? They have records of births, deaths, census data, driver's license information, criminal records, statistical data (at least in Canada) and more, and these records span many years. Many computers used by the government run software systems 24/7 and are used until the end of their useful lives; they are very old.

Some of them are also just used for data entry and such tasks. Surely a supercomputer isn't needed here, so the oldest available system is used. Windows 98 is not exactly readily available nowadays (unless you have a backup CD somewhere still, and it's not scratched to death or something, and you haven't lost your license after an upgrade to 2000; if so, power to you), so the taxpayers have to pay up for licenses of Windows 2000 or XP for the government. And hardware upgrades.

Or the government can use Linux and squeeze more out of their systems.

That's a strange definition of "decentralized".

Compare with: United States Population Density Map.

Canada is far more centralized than the United States.

Here's a reference, but it hardly supports your argument.

From the article:

But ongoing maintenance, development and support costs rocketed out of control. Between 1996 and 2001, about $688 million was spent on the program. Of that amount, $250 million went to the computer systems. Support, such as call centers, accounted for $300 million. The remaining $138 million went to advertising and public outreach programs to encourage compliance.

Although it was originally planned that the CFIS II development phase initiated in April 2002 would take nine months, after three years it is still under way......The cost of CFIS II was originally estimated at $32 million but is now expected to be at least $87 million.

It is a rather polarized issue, and I don't fully trust the numbers from either side of the debate. For a firearm owners perspective, look here. The numbers should be verifiable, as they reference government websites in Myth's #5 and #6, so if you're going to do any research, please try to find the sources they referenced first. I should note that the next reference corroborates most of the myths.

I thought that it would take me most of the day to try and pull together semi-reliable information on how many of the firearms used in crimes are handguns instead of long rifles (I'd guess mostly handguns), and even more time to determine how many were registered (likely most were stolen or imported from the US by criminals). I got lucky, though, from a Wikipedia article, here's a PDF from Statscan.

Between 1997 and 2000, there were 365 homicides committed with handguns. In 30% (110) of these homicides where the handgun was recovered, more than two-thirds (69%) of the handguns were not registered.

Handguns were used in about 3 in 10 firearm homicides until 1990. Between 1990 and 1992, homicides using handguns increased significantly, representing half of all firearm homicides during those years. This proportion has remained relatively constant until 2000, when handguns accounted for six in ten firearm-related homicides. In Australia, some researchers have attributed increases in the use of handguns in homicides to the introduction of new, more restrictive firearm regulations - "offenders tend to use firearms that are easily concealable and available on the black market, such as handguns".

What a tard you are.. according to StatsCan there are just over 1 million unemployed in Canada, half a million fewer than your "fact". The unemployment rate has fallen over the last year to a 30-year low. http://www.statcan.ca/english/Subjects/Labour/LFS/ lfs-en.htm [statcan.ca] And almost all the employment growth has come from Western Canada, which mostly votes Conservative.

What's up with the use of the word "tard"? You realize this doesn't make you sound very bright? Of course, that would make sense since you seem to have totally missed the part where those bullet points were quoted from Stephen Harper. Or were you actually calling your apparent hero (Harper) the tard?

Harper cut the GST by 1%, to offset the income tax rate hike. He allowed seniors to split income, to make up for the income trust decision. He hasn't gutted social programs, as the Libs/NDP alleged, but he has ended public funding for politically driven advocacy groups, such as the SoW council. (I have no problem with the SoW existing, but I'll be damned if my taxes are used to support them, while no conservative women groups get funds.) He's given more tax points to the provinces, which pushes power down to lower levels, something most business gurus have been preaching for years. He got an agreement on softwood lumber which the Liberals failed to get in over 13 years; yes, it wasn't a perfect agreement, but then hasn't the hallmark of a good compromise been that neither party is completely satisfied? He gave parents cash to fund their daycare needs as they see fit, instead of creating a massive new child care bureaucracy to impose their statist agenda on our kids.

All in all, he has taken incremental steps that seem like perfectly reasonable compromises. Even on the environmental file, on which I'll agree his recent change of heart is as sudden as Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, he still refuses to accept the Kyoto pile of doo-doo, which will penalize Canada by billions of dollars, throwing people out of work, and causing all of us to live poorer lives, while allowing China and India to create more new CO2 emissions than Canada would cut, and thus do absolutely nothing to affect climate change.

It saddens me that tards like you get a vote.

Interesting that for Canada, the only place that has a gun problem is with the six nations reserves. Notice that this same group of people that have an 28.8% illegal level of education (it is not legal, outside reserves, to deny children an educational level of below grade 9, I can honestly say out of the thousands of Canadians I have met, every single one has at least that level of education), twice as many children live without two parents, more than 50% of reserve indians in the North of Canada are illiterate, I don't even need to discuss the abject poverty, substance abuse, rates of suicide, etc, etc. A simple search for this on google will return you a myriad of pages from reputable sources like statistics Canada and the CBC.

I could go on, but indians in Canada know that living on a reserve is not just a death sentence, but it assures you will be ridiculously undereducated and incapable. Your living conditions will rival those of the poorest third world countries (In fact, due to Canada's reserves being now counted for quality of living, Canada dropped from first to eigth place for best place to live). That's not to say indians in Canada as a whole are like this (I've met plenty are they are as intelligent and capable, if not more, than many Canadians), but reserve indians are, more often than not.

If I were forced to live on a reserve, I'd buy a gun to shoot myself (like a lot of people there do, sadly).

The kicker is, though, that you actually support the anti-gun lobby, as indian reserves in Canada don't have to follow Canadian law! In an indian reserve, the cheif has every right to make concealed guns completely legal! Considering the awesome illegal fireworks you can buy at an indian reserve, well, of course guns are legal there.

I don't know about the other countries, but if the stats are as cherry-picked as that one, well, you're probably in for a lot more flaming. What's next? Can I claim most people in the US don't speak english if I just link to studies about illegal immigrants?

What are you smoking? The minimum wage in B.C. is double that. I'm graduating this month with a mediocre GPA and will start as a developer at $48k. Our co-op department at school has way more tech jobs than students to fill them. People at the company I worked at who'd been there 6 months threatened to leave and got 20k annual raises. Don't make Canada sound like the economic wasteland everyone in the US seems to think it is just because you're willing to work for peanuts.

I'm graduating this month with a mediocre GPA and will start as a developer at $48k.

Our co-op department at school has way more tech jobs than students to fill them. People at the company I worked at who'd been there 6 months threatened to leave and got 20k annual raises.

Don't make Canada sound like the economic wasteland everyone in the US seems to think it is just because you're willing to work for peanuts.

Americans are not the prob with the world it's the floks that think the U.S. owes them something

Universal claims stand so long as there are no counterexamples, generalizations stand so long as counterexamples are comparatively rare.

No, neither of them stand in the absence of adequate evidence. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

Oh, and I'm still waiting for you to cite even a single police station on the entire planet that wouldn't cover up the crimes of its officers. Can you name even one counterexample?

Every police department in the world that hasn't been accused; every police department that has been accused, investigated and cleared. But you're setting a dirty trap. You've already implied that due to internal cover-up, we can assume they're all guilty.

almost all police forces have criminal members (you know this)

No, I don't, and neither do you.

almost all police forces protect those members (you know this)

No, I don't, and neither do you.

Your 'you know this' is just a variant on the 'everyone knows this' mistake, which is essentially an argumentum ad populum.

You're making a knowledge claim. You're saying that because you've read some newspaper articles and seen a lot of corruption first hand, you have knowledge that all or almost all police, everywhere, are corrupt. The evidence you're citing doesn't support that conclusion.

You're not just being sloppy about your general reasoning; you're being sloppy about your facts, when you bother to mention any. For example, your claim that the RCMP and OOP constitute about 90% of all police officers in Canada is completely false (unless 'about 90%' means 'a lot and I haven't bothered to find out how many'):

http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/legal05a.htm

I guess your statement that So at the very least, I can tell you that Canadian police officers are mostly criminals just fell apart.

Your entire argument also rests on a host of unstated (and unsubstantiated) assumptions. For example, your claim that if there is corruption in a department and it is covered up, then all officers in the department are corrupt, assumes that every officer in the department knows about the corruption (possibly false) and hasn't reported all of their knowledge about the corruption to their superiors and to appropriate external agencies (possibly false). Without that assumption your argument falls to pieces, and you have no evidence whatsoever on which to base the assumption.

You're drastically oversimplifying because the conclusion you already think you know is true doesn't stand if you reason correctly. You hand-pick your sample, you assume that every officer in every department has full knowledge of everything and always responds inappropriately, and you make up your statistics as you need them without actually knowing the truth. You invent statistics to support your argument. You're terribly biased and you're fudging your reasoning to cover it up.

I know the comment was meant to be funny. But Canadians have some of the highest connectivity rates in the world. In 2003 approx 64% of households in Canada were connected.

On another note, using the same link there is a subsection on decline of Music Downloading in Canada. Since this was published in 2003, I can only say that this slashdot article is old news.

Most Canadians live on the southern boarder of Canada near the state of New York.

http://geodepot.statcan.ca/Diss/Maps/ThematicMaps/ population/National/pop_dens_colour_e.pdf

thus it is only a few 10's of miles to the south to get to another country.

Me? I live in central California and it is about 900+ miles to the nearest boarder, so it is a major trip to get out of the US.

I however, have been out of the US many times, to the Pacific Rim, Canada and Mexico.

We had our Census 2006 a few months ago online ...

Of course, paper still works today, one can't assume EVERYONE has internet access or want to use it ...

Beat ya to it aussies ...

http://www50.statcan.ca/census2006/settings_1-0_e. htm
You're right Linux was not supported. A bit of a stink was raised on NewsForge about this at the time.

The only software you need is a compatible browser and java : "Notice: You must have a browser with Java virtual machine (JVM) from Sun Microsystems Inc. (Version 1.4.2_3 or higher), Microsoft virtual machine (any version), or Apple JVM (1.4.2_5 or higher) that supports 128-bit encryption." http://www50.statcan.ca/census2006/settings_1-0_e. htm As someone that is working for the census there are not allot of people that don't have the software needed to complete the census.

Here are the software requirements

http://www50.statcan.ca/census2006/settings_1-0_e. htm/

Which looks fairly inclusive. The only "special" things that I can see is that you must have any one of several Java virtual machines installed and support 128 bit encryption. It all seems reasonable.

The Canadian online census form required a web browser and Java. While that's a step up from being a plain HTML form, I think calling it "special software" is a bit of an exaggeration.

To take the online census in Canada I did have to use IE on a Windows computer.

Actually, you could have used Firefox on Windows (like I did on census day) or Safari on Mac. And as of May 13th, you could have used Linux. And in French, they even said they decided to support Linux due to "grande demande" (great demand). Just another example of enough people requesting support for Linux and getting it.

To take the online census in Canada I did have to use IE on a Windows computer.

Actually, you could have used Firefox on Windows (like I did on census day) or Safari on Mac. And as of May 13th, you could have used Linux. And in French, they even said they decided to support Linux due to "grande demande" (great demand). Just another example of enough people requesting support for Linux and getting it.

"These are sufficiently serious problems that the fact that they happen at all is too common. I won't pretend that Canada has a perfect record in this regard -- but compared to the US we're orders of magnitude better. The only reference to a race riot in the 20th century in Canada that I could find was from 1933 (although I do wantt to note that there was a riot in Toronto in 1992 that coincided with the Rodney King riots in LA, it seemed more opportunistic and involved people of all races. It's hard to see what the motivation would be for it, considering Canada has no say over the laws, courts, or police forces of the United States. But who ever said a riot has to make sense?). "

Wow...I make a very innocent remark about Canada..and not one intended to put down Canada mind you...and you cunucks get your shorts all up in a wad. I guess that since Canada has less than a 2.5% black population and less than a 30% minority population overall (source: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo52a.htm) and the United States having around 12% black population and 37% overall minority populations (source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html (2001)) makes them easy to compare. Not that it matters really what our different percentages are...but heck, our minority population alone constitutes almost four times your entire population. I hardly think you can compare Canada's racial issues with the United States. I am not excusing our race issues, but man..you took an innocent supposition about Canada and went all crazy with it.

Besides, I wasn't attacking Canada at all...I just thought that free speech would be protected, under and governed by the law. It evidently is..thanks for the info!