I don't have much use for the UN in general. It does little but give permission for invasions and corporate takeovers of entire countries. I undertand your point but why not just refuse to pay. We have 2 of their official languages as our official languages so let those that need interpreters bring one or pay for one.
Of course there is the option of simply resigning from the UN. Besides, Canada already has a UN Association which operates as an NGO, so even if Canada did withdraw from the UN, that would not stop Canadians from participating in the UN Association of Canada if they cared so much about it. You do have a point there.
Are we not a soveriegn country, do we need someone elses permission to do what we want...just say no thank you, goodbye.
It's not so simple as that. Should Canada withdraw from the Commonwealth and the Francophonie, it no longer has a vote in those organizations. But now that I think about it, it should e easy enough for form some kind of Canadian Commonwealth Association and its Francophonie equivalent which could function as NGOs which could participate in those organizations to whatever degree those organizations allow. I guess in that sense it would be no different from the UN example above. SO I stand corrected.
Personally I lean more in favour of retaining UN membership and promoting its reform, but I could accept withdrawal should there be significant support for such action.
We should really just change the application of the refugee laws. If someone comes here to visit family and all of a sudden claims as a refugee it is 99.9% bogus. Start rejecting obviously bogus applications on day 1 and reduce the right to appeals. Make the family they are visiting responsible to pay for any bogus claims and their airfare back. When someone applies for a visitors visa make them sign off that they will not make a claim. Make it as tough as possible on any bogus claims.
That's fine, but that alone would require a significant bureaucracy. Honestly, your proposal would be more effective than the 'passport' proposal I'd proposed, but more expensive too. Once in the country, it's easy enough in a large liberal country to evade immigration officials for a long time should one wish to do so. And by the time they are caught, they're getting married with a Canadian citizen, or pregnant, thus just making things messier legally. One advantage with my proposal (though granted it would not necessarily be at odds with yours in that both could be adopted) is that it assures that should a person still enter the country, break their agreement, and cause us problems by then trying to marry a Canadian, get pregnant by a Canadian, or get a Canadian pregnant, etc. etc. etc. at least they'd know the local language and so we could integrate them a a last resort.
Your idea does have some merit but...we would still have to pay for our military right? So just stop being 'world police'.
Actually, my idea was to gradually
replace our military over time. As for playing world police, such a force could have strict enough rules of engagement that for the most part it would engage only in those wars that are unquestionably just and agreed to be so by pretty well all countries except the the ones we're fighting. So I wouldn't be talking about a gung ho fight every war kind of force.
I don't buy it. China is not likely to import Canadians for labour but it would certainly export cheap labor into Canada. Same with Mexico.
That's why I used the word 'agreement'. it would have to be mutual.
I also don't want to have me or my kids competing against 100 million americans for a job. Canda first...if we have no one here for the job and can't train one then invite a qualified applicant from elsewhere.
Such a labour movement agreement would remove much of the bureaucracy surrounding all the required documents for such workers. Also, as for competition, considering the 'language passport' proposal above, this alone would limit may Chinese and Mexican workers, though granted not many Americans. But overall they'd actually create more jobs by spending their money here, buying food and clothing here, and renting apartments here, etc.
Let's face it, they're not likely to travel from the US each and every day of the week unless of course they live and work just across the border.And even then at lunch time local restaurants are likely to benefit. Not to mention Canadians could benefit from their markets too. It's a cratch my back and I'll scratch yours kind of agreement.
I'm not against the american people, I'm against their government and foriegn policy and until it changes dramatically that won't change.
A labour movement agreement has nothing to do with the governments beyond establishing the agreement itself, Once it's in place, the workers make their own decisions. As for US foreign policy, clearly Canada would not play much of a role in it should we have already withdrawn from NATO, NORAD, and the OAS, and reduced our military spending as we would increasingly share a force with other countries.
Legislation costs money, so does enforcement. Kind of couterproductive to saving money. And no guarantee any employers would negotiate anything. The people at the top got there through greed and that won't change.
Seems to have worked in Germany where the gap between rich and poor is certainly narrower than it is here.
Most studies show that legalization would not really increase use so there would be no significant change in health care costs. If anything it would reduce because you would not have the violence associated with drug dealers in govt pot shops.
You might be right, plus we get to tax it too.
I would prefer to see 'None of the above' and have that counted and reported. If it happened to win it would raise some issues but it would also send a message.
Unlike a blank ballot or blank space on the ballot, it still wouldn't solve anything though.
