CalPal

You know, I work a pretty stressful job, and I think a lot of that stress and anger came from, in some twisted way, a misguided faith of sorts. I did believe that people were, at the very least, capable of making the most sensible decision when given overwhelming evidence of good vs. bad choices; that they intentionally make bad choices either because they weren't given enough information or were acting intentionally selfish or duplicitous in some way. So whenever I had to deal with someone trying to exploit a loophole or arguing about how they swear they are going to x and such place and will pay at a later time (when you know they won't do so), it would frustrate me, because I did believe that they were capable of making better choices.

This election is proof that people are just genuinely dumb and hopeless, to a far and large extent. Choosing to omit your own vote, or willingly voting for him, is beyond imagination. We have seen so much of what he has done in the past 8 years now, at minimum. They know what he will likely do in the next 4 years. And they still chose him. Or chose not to participate.

So I'm choosing not to feel angry at people anymore, to not give a shit if they break the rules for whatever reason they justify. Because why be angry at something if you have lost faith in it being better?

As I understand it, because she is the Deputy PM, she wouldn't be allowed to replace Trudeau unless she lost her position first, which would basically mean the Liberals would have to lose government this next election. Only afterwards could she possibly run for party leader afterwards.

I have the distinct feeling that this movie could have been produced in the US, which, let's be fair, they would not really understand how a succession crisis would work in Canada (Also, we have another Trudeau in office, so it's not entirely unrealistic for a son to take over). Or if it is a Canadian producer, they likely over-simplified the process by which a son could suddenly be elevated to the position of PM, which... yeah, a movie isn't really gonna cover how difficult that would be.

More than anything else, my biggest concern is real simple:

Drunk driving is going to go up WAY MORE.

Based on all the drivers I have seen on the road, too many of them lack the restraints to actually follow the rules and not do dumb shit, such as texting while driving, following the rules of the road and giving proper space / signaling, road rage, etc. And we know that there already is a bad enough problem as it is with drunk driving, and how so much of our infrastructure is designed around the necessity of having a car, rather than alternatives for getting around (public transit, primarily).

But now you can drive down to whatever 7/11, gas station, Mac store in your area, grab a six-pack anytime between 7am to 11pm, even on Friday nights? Good luck having all those corner stores trying to enforce the same "no-serve" policy that LCBO and Beer Store employees are expected to follow. You'll have a lot more bad sales being made where people who shouldn't be mixing booze with driving (as bad as their latter skills may be, alone) will absolutely be able to do that easier and being far more of a danger on the roads. That is where the biggest costs of drinking is going to come from. And Canada, much like other North Americans, do not have a responsible relationship with booze and drinking.

It is going to be a shit-show for whichever government has to follow in the steps of Ford. Hope you like taxes going up to deal with the consequences of more drunk drivers on the road!

So Indexes are supposed to be a little more rigid than just having companies being "removed on a whim" - you would more likely find that on a mutual fund, which are individually managed, versus an index. That being said, I did look into the difference between Dow and S&P 500, and... well, yeah, the former is selected by a committee who generally pick for the top 30 performing companies, while the latter is just a list of the 500 largest publicly traded companies. I think it is generally not used as a good indicator of economic health, as opposed to the S&P (based on a quick Wikipedia read).

I think a few people might consider it only because it's been running since 1896, and there haven't really been a lot of changes as to who gets on / off the Dow (58 since inception). So honestly, more than anything else, it's just really bad PR for investors who might care that Intel is doing so poorly that it's being kicked off one of the longest-running indexes, which is never good news. Might rattle them enough to where they start demanding big changes, which is likely what Intel needs.

Confiscating their drugs, forcible confinement... you serious? They'll just get more when they get the chance; they're addicts, and there are markets for them to find drugs, there's no easy way of stopping addicts from getting what they need. Confiscating or 24 hour confinement just ends the immediate risk of use, there's no saying that won't stop them from getting another hit by the next day (or even guarantee that they haven't already used it by the time they're confiscated / confined).

You're advocating for punishing people effectively for being poor and addicted to drugs. That's kind of a fucked up opinion, and opening SCSs does not mean you aren't thinking of the children - it's also keeping addicts off the streets and away from exposing that lifestyle to children, but on a more humane and practical level.

To be fair, yes, Canada has the second-largest land mass on the planet. ~90% or more of that landmass is largely inhospitable for larger communities though, whether it's the Canadian Shield and the fact we can't grow any crops on that or dig through tough rocks, the Tundra and Arctic (where it is way too cold to grow anything, much less settle), vast distances of forests - it is a lot tougher to build infrastructure in most of Canada, leaving it pretty much to the places already with larger population sizes. And even then, most people are still choosing to go to the three cities and immediate outlying areas where the most economic influence and possible social connections are - Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal.

It would seem deceiving, given how large Canada is, but there are very few places outside of those major metro centres where people want to live, or can even live comfortable lives and be productive. Honestly, given how little good land is available in Canada, it would make far more sense to cut down on suburban developments and focus on higher-density, transit-minded communities. Single-family homes are way too inefficient for what we actually need, and having politicians and citizens who demonize quadplexes and other high density options do not help at all.

Bus driver here. Our transit commission finally got it's first EV bus to start the transition to the electric system! But we still need to build the charging stations for it and other EVs to use, not to mention the bureaucracy and other normalities that go in certifying any vehicle for the road, plus our one garage did kinda burn down, so that has set things back a wee bit...

It's coming, but do expect it to take a long-ass time.

Average Canadian: "Oh yeah, I got this one easy bud!"

Alright, for your final test: how do you spell Quebec?

AC: "Oh, for sure, that one there is easy! It's, uh... Q, for... uh..."

...

AC: "Q... for... Kay-beck..."

Oh it's definitely a great city builder, I quite enjoy it myself! Even when it comes down to putting down housing, you can adjust the size of the plots to perform different functions, whether it is to grow large veggie crops, whether you need housing for specific specialized individuals, whether you just need to cram as many families as you can into one housing unit, assigning specific families to work at nearby locations, I could go on and on!

And there is a peaceful mode if you want to avoid the wartime strategy bits, but even those seem to be rather enjoyable, at least from the initial experience I have had with it. Very much looking forward to seeing what the expanded final product is going to look like, it is definitely a game worth all the praise!

Well, think about it this way:

A standard house for 4 people is probably in the range of 200k - 400k. Then you would need supporting infrastructure for each house - sewage and gas pipe connections, electrical connections, road infrastructure, all that jazz. That's probably another 100k right there. And then public infrastrcture for things like schools, parks, firefighters, police, road equipment, etc. It's easy to see why the costs would add up quickly to roughly $1 million or more per person. Managing city infrastructure is really damn expensive, especially for more ineffective housing options (hellooooooooo, suburbia!).

Maybe they don't explain it in the article, but I'm gonna posit my own two cents: Alberta's economy is quite big, relative to how much it contributes to Canada's GDP as a whole, but the overwhelming majority of that is in oil and hydrocarbons, and a lot of the overall economy is geared towards that particular industry. Without it, Alberta would be in a significantly worse position. I would wager that we are seeing a good example of Dutch Disease.

What Ontario and Quebec lack in oil, they make up for in a more diverse economy, especially being the economic financial and trading hot-spots a la Toronto and Montreal. They have a robust enough economy that they can basically support their own dedicated Provincial police force and not have to rely too much on one singular economic output to fuel the entire thing.

With the EV market looking to expand faster and faster, Alberta hitched its economic future on a product that people actively want to turn away from. To create their own police force would mean they'd need their economy to be capable of funding this police force permanently, no Federal assistance, and if the demand for oil craters out because more and more people start getting off gas and going towards EVs, heat pumps, nuclear / solar / wind, etc., well, then Alberta would be quite pooched. Also, worth pointing out that neither Canada nor Alberta have enough weight in the global oil markets to guarantee that oil is a prime economic benefit, especially if new sources of cheap oil start popping up in the US.

I can't speak to all of the political reasons for wanting to create a new Provincial police force, but economically? Alberta is better off relying on the RCMP rather than trying to do its own thing, just in case funding becomes a problem in the future.