Got something to say on this one. First as you can already see, most of the productive Europe's already gone in terms of the demographic crunch but to argue this would be to ignore the summer trends in France, and the overall birthrate in declining nations such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, or Germany. We're not too far away either. As with France, Denmark has also recently had its say in terms of the immigration, especially considering that every influential person there has to live with hired security or risk ending up like Van Gogh...
Sadly, I'm a strong believer that while the rest of the world is in a position to suffer from climate change, the northern nations are in a position to prosper as the permafrost heads up further north beyond the continent to the pole. Previously the edges of permafrost have been a strong impediment to development as the freeze-thaw cycle makes things as shit simple such as streets or housing a pretty epic challenge up north. While there will be a period of bad luck for all the territories, the ice will be gone for good sooner than later.
Add the fact that as of this summer, the buffers that ensure the creation of first-year sea ice are not around (google the team "Ice arches"), most of the insulation this year is gone. I'm willing to bet that by 2012, the Northwest passage will be fair game to the non-icebreakers in the summer months. This means as much as we wish to continue mediocrity, we may not have that option much longer as far as the North is concerned. After all if we want to have all our rules such as "no oil tankerz" in Canadian waters, we need to enforce that. Currently the only enforcers are
American submarines, but they're not really there (so forget that I said that). Either we man up about certain areas, or we will lose the north in no different a fashion than how the Spanish lost the pacific northwest in the days of colonization. As much as we would like to believe that agreements written on paper and transnational courts will protect our mineral rights up north, in desperate times the one with the gun usually gets the say. If you have any questions on how that works, please see the origins of piracy in Somalia. While you may be wondering how some wahabbis and Eritritians influencing dirt poor Africans has anything to do with this, but keep in mind that you will have a larger proportion who are currently unemployed by the standards of western civilization, but have also lost their hunting grounds as well. While some people may poo-poo this on account that there are no weapons nearby, keep in mind that they are closer to Russia than the rest of us, and their arms factories really could use the business (while the concept of a netural nation mucking with our lives may shock you, keep in mind that there are no longer any war relics in Afghanistan. The rockets and arms captured over there are increasingly Chinese)...
That being said, we cannot go about just immigrating our woes away, otherwise we will end up like Toronto and Ottawa with a large proportion of partially-qualified, yet unemployed youth. After two machete incidents in my city this year, I personally wouldn't mind a ban of immigration from states without a functioning society myself. Preferably one with the secret-police "you fuck around and you and your families will disappear" type will do nicely, but I would even settle for tribal areas which are historically apolitical, such as the Kurds or Druze among others. I'm sure the Coptic Christians and Sufi's in places like turkey and Iraq would be more than thrilled at the prospect of preferred immigration, given 2006 for Iraq, and the way things are currently going in Turkey... As far as BC, while the Sikhs are still a major issue as The Honorable Mr Dosanjh quietly points out this year (the last time he did, he was sent to the ER and a India-bound plane from Canada was bombed by sikhs the next week), the Chinese didn't really get the clue the other century when we sent them as suicide bombs to build our tunnels for the railway and since then they've done a great job immigrating and integrating. Between the composition of the mil reserve units in Vancouver and the fact that the scouting movement is still strong and proud even in the "If you're white you're a minority" areas. Heck, was in a chinatown for robbie burns day a few years back out of coincidence, and there was a place where I had stirfry, haggis and scotch in the same meal. What can I say, I'm a sucker for traditions like that, and for people who while refusing to give up their own traditions, will more than gladly pick up the host nations up to the point where they compliment. Yes, the crime is an issue with the drug and bootleg trades, but how else am I going to afford Tommy Hillfiger and SK on a post-grad's budget?
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As far as governmental accomplishment goes, I dispute that government's effectiveness is measured in just laws past. If that was the case, you'd end up with a city like Ottawa where because some whale-petting tree-hugging, save the world councillors decided to get bored, and wanted to look like they were doing something I now can be a criminal or ticketed trying to walk home from downtown (I live about a good 10km yomp west), or walk my dog in an unoccupied field without a leash in a suburban setting where no appropriate areas exist within a reasonable distance. Fuck the bills. Fuck the laws, if anything time needs to be spent also scaling back a lot of the more idiotic laws on social conduct which would have made sense in the past. I don't expect anything to get done in the meantime between the format of Question Period, as well as other procedure's I've seen on the hill...
Lets talk real progress and something that isn't can't be defined by laws and something dear to me: The Navy. The navy is in it's centennial and I'm sure if anyone follows the Canadian news, they'll have noticed the procession of the fleet in my old stomping grounds, or as I like to call it: home. Yet in this great time of honor, the navy has nothing to show for it except the return of an old British tradition:
The executive curl. The navy is right now not in it's better days due to sacrificed made by all the forces to continue the expensive, but lawful and just counterinsurgency in support of our greatest ally, the states. In fact, it got to the point, where the CNS
had to politically humulate the CDS in order to ensure that his frigates didn't go to mothballs. While there is a general money issue, what is even more strange (and another relic of years of horrible fiscal policy) is that there are a couple billion dollars which sit untouched every year for the creation of new ships, let alone the parts. However, the problem is that between the treasury board and the rigmarole of "fair contract bidding" and the legal costs of lawsuits from the losing companies, we have not seen a new ship since the Halifax-Class anti-submarine patrol frigates which finished off in the mid nineties. This despite knowing that our trumps and minesweepers are long gone, and that our replenishment ships are next on the decommissioning line. And as much as I want to blame the Tories for the current state, the navy of today was built ten years ago, and the 90's were called the "dark decade" in defense lines for a pretty good reason...
The Conservative government's framework on long-term shipyard designation helps there in creating a contract that "for ten years, you will build this size of vessel, you over there will build that size, and you guys will do parts". This way, there is a saving on cost in assembly line because it remains in the same location over a long period of time. This is important because the companies were too afraid of impending lawsuits government side which would have caused the shipyards to lose contracts that
no one bid on the joint support shift the Tories were dreaming of alongside the Leopard-2 tanks.
Yes I understand that I present only one example in a sea of mediocraty, but that's because I pay more attention to the military and geoscience sides than the average person can. Otherwise all I have is bell media, some government-funded elites who have an axe to grind, and canwest global and all they're interested in talking about is how the PM is doing skullfuckery to ensure that names of detainees that were awaiting trial in the sandbox weren't made public (while explicitly ignoring statements about the
operational reasons why they weren't), the amplitude of Baird's yell, or how the PM shitkicked one of his cabinet when she became too much drama and not enough effectiveness or how the PMO is a concentration of the power (no change from previous gov'ts). No, I'm through and pretty tired of that lot. To solely measure the effectiveness of the government based on criteria by approved columnists in the media is to fail to judge the government based on their actual merits and flaws.
Executive Summary- Immigration en masse is not working for the progressive nations incl EU OZ UK Etc. We require to increase birthrates to sustainable levels, of which only the US has. We should figure out which states have high levels and emulate those techniques
- In addition, government needs to be more selective of people to allow immigration. Choose from only nations with a civil society, secular regions where society is failing, or in special cases in which individuals and their families have assisted Canadian Gov't abroad
- The north will be open no later than 2015: We are going to have to man up there or lose sovereignty. Progressives need to learn that in cases of the frontier and within that this sovereignty will have to be enforced at places by the barrel of the gun.
- While the tores could be doing much better in office, their progress and work should not be measured by just the laws past.
