Federal proposals thread:

[Machjo]

Where do you think we could save money? Here are some ideas of mine:

Money-saving strategies:

A: in the public sector:

1.Withdraw from NATO, NORAD,SEATO, and the OAS.

2. Reduce the UN's official languages from 6 to 5 by removing English and French and replacing them with an easy-to-learn language such as Esperanto. This would gradually reduce the translation and interpretation bureaucracy at the UN by at least 1/6, not to mention that the replacement of 2 difficult languages with an easy one would also reduce training costs for interpretors and translators slightly, not to mention cost savings from reduced confusion over mistranslations and misinterpretations.

Though it is true that the UN budget is separate from the Canadian federal budget, it does not change the fact that Canada funds it in part, and so inefficiencies at the UN do affect the Canadian budget too.

2. Try to renegotiate our membership to the Commonwealth of Nations and the Francophonie. Currently, they are inter-governmental organizations, thus requiring Canadian government membership in order for ordinary Canadians to participate. We could try to renegotiate membership so that they could participate in Canada as NGOs with funding coming strictly from the private sector. Failing that, we simply withdraw from those organizations or alternatively remain members as long as the private sector or provincial or local governments fund it. The moment others show no interest in funding it, then Canada withdraws.

3. Introduce an English-language passport and a French-language passport, and require all who are born as of one year after this policy is implemented to possess such a passport to enter Canadian space. Though this would not save money immediately, it would save money on our language-training programmes for immigrants later.

4. Adopt the proposal by Scott Reid, MP, to replace official bilingualism with regional bilingualism. Not only would this save money, but it's also one of those few areas where at least some Conservatives and the Bloc are likely going to see eye to eye.

5. Propose the gradual implementation of an international police force of a maximum of 100,000 well trained and equipped men, whose mandate would be to destroy governments that violate international law, the force itself being fully restrained by all applicable international laws of course. This pooling of resources would allow us and other participating countries to save money while still maintaining an effective fighting force. The savings would come from each country helping to fund a common force rather than each one having to maintain the redundancy of separate military forces each being independently funded.

6. Promote, via international agreements, freer labour movement between international boundaries; and, in collaboration with provincial and foreign national ministries of education, common educational standards for various trades and professions. This would reduce the cost of having to provide assistance to an unemployed person who is willing to relocate abroad to where his skills might be in demand should there be no demand for his skills domestically.

There is no contradiction between this and the proposed language passports, by the way, in that anyone who can pass the required language test could apply for such a passport.

7. Eliminate the long-gun registry.

8. Eliminate public funding for political parties.

B: in the private sector:

7. Propose the sharing of a common currency. Ideally we'd want to share some new international currency with the US, seeing that the US is our most significant trading partner. Failing that, we could look at sharing the Euro. Either option would reduce the need for money brokers, thus reducing the burden of the middlemen in international trade, thus bringing down overhead costs in international trade,thus helping to bring costs down for consumers, thus helping to control inflation in the marketplace.

 

[Corduroy]

You lost me at Esperanto. English is the international language. It's hard to learn but it's taught everywhere around the world. It's spoken all over the world already and spoken by several of the world's richest countries, making it economically important. There are millions of teachers, tons of resources and systems already in place in public, post-secondary and private education. Esperanto has none of this capacity.

No other language has a better claim to the international language in our time. Mandarin has the most speakers, but most of them live in one country. Spanish is more widely spoken, but mostly in poorer, less politically and economically significant countries. Spanish has a future. It's second largest population is actually in the United States. But I can't see Mandarin ever really reaching the status of English.

 

[El Barto]

The only way we can save money is to keep it out of the politician hands..... period !
Open accounting books , total transperency. Let the people see where our expenses are.
With the internet.... I don't see why they have to travel so much.
Let us see the contract estimates the Government are getting.
Start throwing MP's in jail when it would be breaking the law for any citizen.
If Medicare cost so much then stop playing with how much it gets per year.
The GST was to pay our debt....stop playing with it and deal with money is left!!!!
Cut on severance pay for high official that get paid more than the prime Minister

 

[BaalsTears]

...
1.Withdraw from NATO, NORAD,SEATO, and the OAS...

Withdrawal from NATO is fine. America should do so as well. Withdraw from SEATO? I thought SEATO was already dead. Withdrawal from the OAS is fine. America should do so as well. There will be no withdrawal from NORAD for Canada. A withdrawal from NORAD would irreparably harm Canadian-American relations. It's way too late for that.

 

[Machjo]

You lost me at Esperanto. English is the international language. It's hard to learn but it's taught everywhere around the world. It's spoken all over the world already and spoken by several of the world's richest countries, making it economically important. There are millions of teachers, tons of resources and systems already in place in public, post-secondary and private education. Esperanto has none of this capacity.

No other language has a better claim to the international language in our time. Mandarin has the most speakers, but most of them live in one country. Spanish is more widely spoken, but mostly in poorer, less politically and economically significant countries. Spanish has a future. It's second largest population is actually in the United States. But I can't see Mandarin ever really reaching the status of English.

From statistcs that I've read from various countries, the success rate in English learning hovers anywhere from 4% (in India for instance) to 6% (in Germany for instance). In other words, for every 100 students who learns English in school, between 4 aqnd 6 of them will learn it well enough to be of any real practical use to them.

Even in Canada, only about 15% of Canadians consider themselves to be at least functional in both official languages!

Sure the rate of success might appear higher on the evening news, but consider that that's because journalists seek out localsthey can communicate with!

Keeping all of these facts in mind, is it realy wise to then put even more pressure on our English-language resources by having the UN also compete with the aeronautical, maritime, and private business sectors? Clearly if the rate of success is that low in English, you don't want the diplomatic sector sucking up teaching, translation and interpretation resources that are so badly needed in the private and public education sectors.

Add to that that there is no international law that says English is the official world language. The UN has six at the moment.

English is an officially recommended and enocouraged language of aeronautial and maritime communication, even required in international communications though not necessarily domestically. Also, not all international businesses function in English. Some do in French, Chinese, and yes, even Esperanto. I remember a few conferences in China that I'd participated in where the common language was either Chinese, English, Eperanto, or some combination. I'd also known international tradesmen in China specializing in small-scale import-export who did business in Esperanto and who could not communicate in English. I remember another article in China pointing out how Polish-Chinese interpreters could earn up to 5 times the salary of Engish-Chinese interpreters, and another about a Chinese company doing business with South America which had to advertise all over China to hire a Spanish-Chinese interpreter and then pay for the moving expenses. I'd also known a Chinese friend who was surprised at the poor English ability of German workers at a factory in China where he was working.

So while English may be amajor international language, it is certainly not the only international language. And again, when we consider how inefficient a language it is to teach, would it not be prudent to reduce competition for the limited resources in that language by allowing the UN to rely on a less precious resource?

Based on research in Italy, average primary school students who start to learn the language at the age of eight can become fluent in Esperanto by the age of 11 at the latest. Compare that to struggling students even after 9 years of Engish instruction.

To teach English effectively is expensive, and so while it might be a fine endeavour in the private sector, should we not be using our resources more efficiently in the public sector, which of course also includes the diplomatic sector.

Withdrawal from NATO is fine. America should do so as well. Withdraw from SEATO? I thought SEATO was already dead. Withdrawal from the OAS is fine. America should do so as well. There will be no withdrawal from NORAD for Canada. A withdrawal from NORAD would irreparably harm Canadian-American relations. It's way too late for that.

Whether the US withdraws or not is its business. As for NORAD, how would Canadian withdrawal harm Canada-US relations? Combine that with Canada opening its borders to US trade, and we have a mutually beneficial relationship. The US needs us, not as much as we need it, but it still needs us. Certainly it would not play hard ball with us as long as we don't play hard ball with it. If our intentions are good, and we're withdrawing from NORAD for strictly economical reasons and not out of any kind of anti-American sentiment, they won't retaliate in any way. And let's ive credit where credit is due. I think the US is smart enough to know when we are playing the anti-American card and when we're just trying to save money.

 

[McRocket]

BALANCE THE FRIGGIN' BUDGET!!!

Except for those areas that the poor depend on for their survival, cut EVERY SINGLE area by the same percentage until the budget is balanced. And put a law in that the budget can NEVER be in a deficit situation unless a state-of-war exists.

And set up a system so that every single bill can be voted on by Canadians. If less then half of a riding's voters actually vote on the bill, then let the MP handle it. If more then 50% vote on it - then their vote supercedes the MP's.

 

[taxslave]

I would withdraw from the UN long before NATO. NORAD is a none starter as well. We could do without bilingualism. Actually there is more than enough money in the budget for everyone to be healthy, wealthy and wise. Unfortunately there are vast multitude of bureaucrats that are little more than parasites and make their political masters look like misers by comparison. If you look at the Indian and Northern Affairs budget alone there is no reason while all status indians are not millionaires except that the bureaucrats eat up about 60% of the budget just in administration then the bands gobble up a bunch more in administration.

 

[Machjo]

I would withdraw from the UN long before NATO. NORAD is a none starter as well. We could do without bilingualism. Actually there is more than enough money in the budget for everyone to be healthy, wealthy and wise. Unfortunately there are vast multitude of bureaucrats that are little more than parasites and make their political masters look like misers by comparison. If you look at the Indian and Northern Affairs budget alone there is no reason while all status indians are not millionaires except that the bureaucrats eat up about 60% of the budget just in administration then the bands gobble up a bunch more in administration.

I suppose we could withdraw from the UN too, though then the question becomes via what channel does Canada maintain relations with other countries? Again, I'm not against the idea per se, but rather just questioning what we'd replace it with?

 

[BaalsTears]

...
Whether the US withdraws or not is its business. As for NORAD, how would Canadian withdrawal harm Canada-US relations? Combine that with Canada opening its borders to US trade, and we have a mutually beneficial relationship. The US needs us, not as much as we need it, but it still needs us. Certainly it would not play hard ball with us as long as we don't play hard ball with it. If our intentions are good, and we're withdrawing from NORAD for strictly economical reasons and not out of any kind of anti-American sentiment, they won't retaliate in any way. And let's ive credit where credit is due. I think the US is smart enough to know when we are playing the anti-American card and when we're just trying to save money.

Canada and America are like an old married couple. When one spouse says she wants start sleeping alone, the other spouse knows there's trouble.

 

[Machjo]

Canada and America are like an old married couple. When one spouse says she wants start sleeping alone, the other spouse knows there's trouble.

I don;t see how it compares in any way. If Canada decided to withdraw from NORAD, the US would likely welcome it as a chance to save money itself.

A better example would be one I'd experienced once in China. At a dinner I'd refused to drink alcohol, and my host then expressed his appreciation for my having done so because as it turns out, he didn't really like drinking himself but merely did so to be a good host.

Honestly, probably both sides would like to save money on NORAD, but neither side wants to walk out of it out of fear of offending the other when in reality the other would appreciate it.

 

[Corduroy]

From statistcs that I've read from various countries, the success rate in English learning hovers anywhere from 4% (in India for instance) to 6% (in Germany for instance). In other words, for every 100 students who learns English in school, between 4 aqnd 6 of them will learn it well enough to be of any real practical use to them.

Even in Canada, only about 15% of Canadians consider themselves to be at least functional in both official languages!

Sure the rate of success might appear higher on the evening news, but consider that that's because journalists seek out localsthey can communicate with!

Keeping all of these facts in mind, is it realy wise to then put even more pressure on our English-language resources by having the UN also compete with the aeronautical, maritime, and private business sectors? Clearly if the rate of success is that low in English, you don't want the diplomatic sector sucking up teaching, translation and interpretation resources that are so badly needed in the private and public education sectors.

Is this low success rate because the language being learned is English or is it because learning languages isn't easy? What are the success rates of other languages? Learning a language is hard. Many of us, myself included, I'm sure can attest to this from experience. It takes a lot of work and practice and most importantly motivation. People have low success rates in learning languages in public education because they don't need them. The vast majority of people can function in their community, even in region multilingual communities without English. They don't need it, they know it, so who cares if they ever learn it?

On the subject of English learning resources. You're arguing as if using English as the international language is something that would need to be implemented. It's already been done. English is the international language. Resources aren't taxed and they couldn't possibly be. It's not like we're extracting English from an offshore platform. Language education is just a service. All it requires is a market and it will always be able to grow to meet its market.

Add to that that there is no international law that says English is the official world language. The UN has six at the moment.

Totally irrelevant. As is the rest of your post really. Who cares if people can learn Esperanto faster? It's a useless language. We're supposed to be saving money by switching international communication to a language no one speaks? People already speak English. Any change that will happen will happen organically and out of necessity.

To teach English effectively is expensive, and so while it might be a fine endeavour in the private sector, should we not be using our resources more efficiently in the public sector, which of course also includes the diplomatic sector.

We should be using our resources more efficient. But teaching Esperanto isn't efficient. It's not even inefficient. It's pure waste.

 

[Machjo]

We should be using our resources more efficient. But teaching Esperanto isn't efficient. It's not even inefficient. It's pure waste.

Then how aobut reducing the official languages of the UN from six to one: English?

Somehow I doubt that would happen. Another option would be for Canada to promote a reduction from six to four: the cuccrent official languages of Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese after removing English and French. Seeing that English and French are Canadian languages, it would be difficult to criticize Canada on it.

While this would save some money on translation, it would also mean that the easiest language of the list for most Canadians would likely be Spanish, still not very easy.

But again, if we could somehow manage to reduce the official languages to English only, so much the better. or another option would be to withdraw from the UN with the ultimatum that we would rejoin it once it's managed to cut spending on redundancies such as translation and iterpretation. The General Assembly itself spends about 12 million US dollars a year on interpretation alone. This does not include all other language services throughout the UN. I can see at the grassroots, where there is often no choice. But certainly we could expect educated diplomats at the UN to agree on a language, no? 12 million isn't nickles and dimes.

 

[Corduroy]

Then how aobut reducing the official languages of the UN from six to one: English?

Somehow I doubt that would happen. Another option would be for Canada to promote a reduction from six to four: the cuccrent official languages of Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese after removing English and French. Seeing that English and French are Canadian languages, it would be difficult to criticize Canada on it.

I don't get it. Do you have a problem with English or something? Removing English, the most widely spoken second language in the world, the third largest language in terms of native speakers, the language of the largest economy and most politically powerful nation in the world, the language of three G8 nations and two permanent security council members, would be one of the stupidest things you could possibly do in terms of language policy at the UN.

While this would save some money on translation, it would also mean that the easiest language of the list for most Canadians would likely be Spanish, still not very easy.

Dumping all the other languages in favour of English would save money too. It would also make the UN significantly less accessible.

But again, if we could somehow manage to reduce the official languages to English only, so much the better. or another option would be to withdraw from the UN with the ultimatum that we would rejoin it once it's managed to cut spending on redundancies such as translation and iterpretation.

Or, we could focus on something that matters.

 

[Machjo]

So what's your proposal to balance the budget? No ideas of your own? I'd presented a list of possible ideas and you could only attack one. What about your budget ideas? Any?

 

[Corduroy]

I take it you're conceding the point.

 

[JLM]

First of do we really need 308 M.P.s?
Reduce that number by 30%. Per diem allowances are criminal- like $25 for breakfast - come on. What about this B.S. of flying from Ottawa to the constituency every weekend? Cut that back to once a month. Meetings and conferences should be greatly reduced and they don't have to be held in the "Taj Mahal". If a conference is absolutely necessary hold it in a depressed area, where accommodations are cheap and at least any money spent there will be a boost for the local economy. How much is squandered on things like valets and chauffers? I'm sure Ottawa has an efficient bus system. Does each M.P. have to have a whole menagerie for staff. With computers, fax machines etc. and phones can be set up to have calls forwarded, do they each need a secretary full time? I could go on for hours but that should save a couple of $million right off the bat.

 

[damngrumpy]

Some of these things could be done I suppose but it wouldn't save that much in the
long run. Not when you consider all the money we spend and all the programs we
have. Secondly we have international agreements and it would take a long time to
get it done and cost you a hell of a lot of money to get out of.
A common currency with a country that will be a backwater withing another generation
all because to their own short sighted views of the world.
Then there is the language thing, you don't want to go there. You see talking about
languages, means opening the Constitution and we don't want to do that no no no no.
You see to open the constitution in and of itself is not so bad, but when you open the
constitution, everything gets to be talked about. We did that in the 1980's and we spent
tons of money and pitted Canadians against each other. We ended up having those
lovely referendums and other threats of referendums and in the end we were likely worse
off than before and more in debt.
Life is a game of cards in this country so maybe for now we should just pay and deal
until we can find the smarts to behave like adults.
Besides it is not how much money our current government has, it is how it spends the
money we give them and to date none of them have done a good job.
We don't solve problems we just move them around when they don't move we have an
election hoping the problems will go away or maybe we can find new one to replace them
with. Yes its hard to take any of this seriously, I have been trying to for decades.
Governments are like babies, not matter how many times you change them they keep on
making a mess.

 

[JLM]

1399369Governments are like babies, not matter how many times you change them they keep on[/B]
making a mess.

Yeah, but babies only do it for a couple of years and then they improve. :lol:

 

[damngrumpy]

JLM not these particular babies is seems

 

[Machjo]

I take it you're conceding the point.

Not necessarily. Considering that proposing Esperanto as a replacement for English and French at the UN General Assembly was but one of many possibly cost cutting measures proposed in this thread, I really don't know why that had caught your attention so much. But since you asked, I will give you this:

I refer you to the Grin Report of 2005 (presented by the Swiss economist Professor Grin) on the official website of the Haut Conseil de l'Evaluation de l'Ecole (an official French government site):


http://www.hce.education.fr/gallery_files/site/21/104.pdf

Unfortunately, the Report is available in French only. But I'll quote you a few tidbits:

"due to the current dominant position of the English language, the United Kingdom gains € 17-18 thousand million each year, which is more than three times the famous British rebate, or 1% of its GNP."

And he goes on to state that introducing Esperanto into the school systems of European countries could save the EU up to 25 thousand million Euros annually!

Additionally, not only can Esperanto save money in economic activities, but also in second-language education. I refer you to the rationale of the Springboard2Languages project introduced to some UK schools starting in 2000:

http://www.springboard2languages.org/documents/springboard_rationale.pdf

There has been plenty of research demonstrating the propaedeutic benefits of Esperanto to the learning of other languages. Just to take one of many examples, a study in Italy in 1993 demonstrated that the prior learning of Esperanto before learning English accelerated English learning by 30%. This meant that a student learning Esperanto for one year followed by English for 3 years could achieve better results in English than one who'd learn English for four years, as counter-intuitive as it might seem at first glance.

This study resulted in the publication of a decree by the Italian Ministry of Public Instruction to add Esperanto to the list of languages pupils could choose from since 1993:

http://www.internacialingvo.org/public/study.pdf

Not only did Esperanto ensure that even an average, or even poor pupil could learn the language to fluency before the end of his compulsory education, but also that it increased his chances of success in a third language (his first language being his mother tongue of course, and the acceleration allowing him to learn his second and third languages in less time as it would otherwise have taken to learn the third language as a second language).

Then again, it should be of no surprise that non-English-speaking countries are leagues ahead of native English-speaking countries in applied linguistic research.

This gives plenty of evidence not only of the fact that Esperanto is in fact far easier to learn than English, but also that it is already being taught in public schools in Italy, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, the UK, and Australia that I know of.

Consider too that there are a few internet radio stations in Esperanto too, along with a profitable publishing industry already.

Sure it may be marginal, but the point is that its economic advantages owing to its comparative ease of learning ought to be obvious.

Yet I did not even suggest anything so grand, but rather merely that Canada, via its ambassador to the UN, try to reduce the number of official languages in the UN so as to save at least a couple million US dollars a year. That might not be much, but every little cent counts, you could do a fair bit with a couple million dollars a year.

But considering that proposing Esperanto as a replacement for English and French at the UN General Assembly was but one of many possibly cost cutting measures proposed in this thread, I really don't know why that had caught your attention so much.

JLM not these particular babies is seems

But before we blame the politicians, let's ask ourselves who's voting them in?

First of do we really need 308 M.P.s?
Reduce that number by 30%. Per diem allowances are criminal- like $25 for breakfast - come on. What about this B.S. of flying from Ottawa to the constituency every weekend? Cut that back to once a month. Meetings and conferences should be greatly reduced and they don't have to be held in the "Taj Mahal". If a conference is absolutely necessary hold it in a depressed area, where accommodations are cheap and at least any money spent there will be a boost for the local economy. How much is squandered on things like valets and chauffers? I'm sure Ottawa has an efficient bus system. Does each M.P. have to have a whole menagerie for staff. With computers, fax machines etc. and phones can be set up to have calls forwarded, do they each need a secretary full time? I could go on for hours but that should save a couple of $million right off the bat.

I likes it. I'd especially love to see them sharing offices with others from different parties. Can you say cat fight!

Dumping all the other languages in favour of English would save money too. It would also make the UN significantly less accessible.

Not in the least. As for grassroots actions, they tend to use the local language anyway regardless of official languages. That just makes sense. So in fact this would only affect communication with in the General Assembly itself. And consider that even with the current six official languages most ambassadors will have to learn one of them as a second language anyway (remember there are hundreds of languages in the world, with probably well over fifty of them being official national languages). So in fact the only difference in reducing the number of official languages is the number of languages to choose from to learn as a second language.

We're not talking about the regufee at the grassroots here, but supposedly highly educated diplomats.