What are Canada's biggest problems?

[taxslave]

In some water sheds. Near tropical temperatures in winter in Canada will wipe nearly all cold water fish. There may be a few isolated pockets where they can eek out a living, but most will be gone. For some people, that's not a desirable outcome...



That is a myth.

There is snow on my lawn in Qualicum Beach. That rarely happens in the middle of november. Way too much cold. I can live with a few degrees warmer.
Walter had some interesting material on global cooling a while ago that is far more worrying trend than a couple of warm winters. Don't know how accurate they were and I forget what thread he posted them in.

I think Miami is a tad warmer. :lol:

Yea but my understanding is that few speak english there except snowbirds and I have a block when it comes to learning languages.

 

[Tonington]

The last ice age was probably caused by orbital variations. The orbital parameters change with predictable regularity. And we should have been progressing towards another ice age, there's ample evidence that this was ocurring. It's not any more. The forcing imposed by orbital changes is small. But over time feedbacks build up and ice sheets will grow or recede. We've overcome that forcing with our release of climate modifying gases.

 

[petros]

We haven't had a warm winter since the last solar max that aligned with the nutation/el nino cycle 10 years ago and 7 years ago solar activity was extend as a large comet fired up solar activity from december 02- fb 03. Add all that in with a extreme low in the magnetosphere and it's rapid movement over the past 100 years and it's easy to BS people.

 

[Tonington]

There is snow on my lawn in Qualicum Beach. That rarely happens in the middle of november.

And Moscow had summer temperatures so warm that one would only expect those temperatures to be reached once every 260 years or so.

And according to climate data from Environment Canada station Qualicum R Fish Research, it's normal to see snow in November, and even October. In 1985, there was 27+ days with over 14 cm of snow in November.

 

[petros]

And Moscow had summer temperatures so warm that one would only expect those temperatures to be reached once every 260 years or so.

And cold as **** here...funny how displacement works huh?

 

[Tonington]

And cold as **** here.

Yeah, winter is approaching...that tends to happen.

 

[petros]

Yeah, winter is approaching...that tends to happen.

That's why it was hot in Moscow but cold here the last 10 summers? How much has Moscow grown in the past 250 years? How about the last 20 years?

 

[Tonington]

That's why it was hot in Moscow but cold here the last 10 summers?

No...the point of bringing up Moscow should be clear...you can't infer global trends from one location. A sample size of one isn't called a sample. It's called an observation.

 

[petros]

No...the point of bringing up Moscow should be clear...you can't infer global trends from one location. A sample size of one isn't called a sample. It's called an observation.

Then why did you bring it up?

 

[Herbert]

If Canada is situated on the edge of a tectonic plate - then it's a simple matter of having a series of atomic bombs buried along the fault-line and exploded in sequence so that it unzips your national homeland from the rest of the North American continent - whereupon it will then drift slowly in a south-easterly direction towards a warmer climate.

And needless to say - (and pardon me for pointing out the obvious) - Canada's second biggest problem is that the wilderness areas are stiff with homicidal anthropophobic bears.

What this means is that many millions of dollars in tourist revenue is lost each year to the people of Canada due to the fact that people are too frightened to holiday in your country in case their tourist coach should happen to break down in the middle of the woods somewhere.

The solution, of course, is to have an intensive, government-funded program of capturing bears and breeding hand-raised friendly cubs from these - to be later released into the woods close to the tourist picnic areas, roadside cafes, etc.

 

[Machjo]

I'd say our biggest problem is constantly watching what others are doing, and trying to live to that standard. Canada is not any other country. We are uniquely sparsely populated, and many of our issues revolve around that fact. Yet we don't want to live as if that's an issue.

What? Geographically more widespread cities and greater distance between cities raises the cost of buildin and maintaining infratructure to the same standards as more densely populated countries, and makes it more expensive on a per capita taxpayer basis? Ho so?

OK, I was being a little sarcastic there. But I think one solution is to wake up to reality. You want to live far from everyone, well then expect lower-quality infrastructure where you live. Simple as that.

 

[JLM]

What? Geographically more widespread cities and greater distance between cities raises the cost of buildin and maintaining infratructure to the same standards as more densely populated countries, and makes it more expensive on a per capita taxpayer basis? Ho so?

OK, I was being a little sarcastic there. But I think one solution is to wake up to reality. You want to live far from everyone, well then expect lower-quality infrastructure where you live. Simple as that.

It's probably a trade off- more people may need better infrastructure for certain facilities like highways, sidewalks, so the increased cost is spread among more people. Things like postal service can really suffer, when we all have to bear the cost of hauling a dozen letters a thousand miles by dog sled. :lol:

 

[Cannuck]

What? Geographically more widespread cities and greater distance between cities raises the cost of buildin and maintaining infratructure to the same standards as more densely populated countries, and makes it more expensive on a per capita taxpayer basis? Ho so?

Ummmm because there is more miles of road per capita in Canada than the US or just about any country in Europe....for starters.

 

[Machjo]

It's probably a trade off- more people may need better infrastructure for certain facilities like highways, sidewalks, so the increased cost is spread among more people. Things like postal service can really suffer, when we all have to bear the cost of hauling a dozen letters a thousand miles by dog sled. :lol:

Are you sure it's a dozen and not half a dozen? How is it possible that it would be less expensive on a per-letter basis to haul a hundred letters to the highrise next door than half a dozen letters a thousand miles by sled?

On a serious note, I think one solution would be for governments to put an end to subsidization of those who choose to live apart. For example, about a decade ago Quebec and Ontario underwent urban amalgamization. BC didn't. This would mean that a suburb in BC has to raise funds to maintain its own infrastructure and can't count so much on urban subsidization, whereas in Ontario suburbanites can sponge off the urbanites to subsidize their roads more owing to a common local government and local taxes.

Any subsidies to the gas and automotive industries have got to go (e.g. the auto bailout during the recession, and comments I've heard that supposedly we're subsidizing the petroleum industry). We need to cut subsidies to bus passes too. And I'd say let postal services and so on charge according to local costs too. If you did that, the real market costs of living in the middle of nowhere would quickly surface, and suddenly living there wouldn't be so appealing anymore. Now if the cost of living goes up in an area but the local resource industry is so profitable that it's still worth staying there, then it will survive. But we should not be subsidizing people's mountain shallets. In some more isolated areas, I could see highways charging tolls for intance. But we have to stop such subsidies.

Ummmm because there is more miles of road per capita in Canada than the US or just about any country in Europe....for starters.

Oops. I thought my question above so stupid as to make it obvious it was tongue in cheek. But you do have a point. Some people probably really do not get it and just can't understand why we can't have infrastructure of the same quality as Europe, Hong Kong, or Japan without our taxes skyrocketing.

 

[JLM]

Ummmm because there is more miles of road per capita in Canada than the US or just about any country in Europe....for starters.

A true statement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There's hope for you. :lol:

 

[Machjo]

Ummmm because there is more miles of road per capita in Canada than the US or just about any country in Europe....for starters.

Oops. I thought my question above so stupid as to make it obvious it was tongue in cheek. But you do have a point. Some people probably really do not get it and just can't understand why we can't have infrastructure of the same quality as Europe, Hong Kong, or Japan without our taxes skyrocketing.

 

[Cannuck]

... If you did that, the real market costs of living in the middle of nowhere would quickly surface, and suddenly living there wouldn't be so appealing anymore....

Then who would grow the food? This may come as a surprise to you but the majority of food production in this country is done in the middle of nowhere and city folk are not willing to pay the real cost of food production. You need to sell that concept to the urbanites before you cut off the flow of money to the people that feed them.

 

[JLM]

"On a serious note, I think one solution would be for governments to put an end to subsidization of those who choose to live apart."

Up to a point. If we could talk half the people living in S.W. British Columbia to parts of the interior it would drastically cut costs of infrastructure, and many services, not to mention law enforcement would be much cheaper.

 

[petros]

Quote: Originally Posted by Cannuck

Ummmm because there is more miles of road per capita in Canada than the US or just about any country in Europe....for starters.
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But at the same time there are enough golf courses in Saskatchewan that if you were to golf them all it would equal golfing your way to the moon.

We waste too much money on entertainment.

 

[Cannuck]

But at the same time there are enough golf courses in Saskatchewan that if you were to golf them all it would equal golfing your way to the moon.

We waste too much money on entertainment.

Spending money on having fun is not a waste.