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2019 Canadian Federal Election - general discussion


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#5361 Awaiting Juno

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Posted 21 February 2020 - 01:45 PM

Well according to polls, you are in a radical fringe minority of Canadians with that opinion

 

I'm comfortable with that and have arrived at my opinion after much thought.  Note - its not that the right to an abortion should be completely unfettered, rather it is that the decision is very individual and medical in nature and as such must be the domain of the woman and the doctor who has been entrusted with her care.  Uninformed, blanket infringement on that right comes at a tremendous cost that cannot be justified.


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#5362 Awaiting Juno

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Posted 21 February 2020 - 01:47 PM

If you discover your pregnancy is incompatible with life, you're saying that woman should be forced to carry to term, knowing full well the outcome - merely because that discover happened after the 6th month?  What if the woman's life is at risk - is it right to trump her right to life?  It is a very nuanced decision and everyone should be very uncomfortable treading into those waters.


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#5363 RFS

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Posted 21 February 2020 - 01:48 PM

I'm comfortable with that and have arrived at my opinion after much thought.  Note - its not that the right to an abortion should be completely unfettered, rather it is that the decision is very individual and medical in nature and as such must be the domain of the woman and the doctor who has been entrusted with her care.  Uninformed, blanket infringement on that right comes at a tremendous cost that cannot be justified.

 

I don't think the majority of people are for a complete blanket ban in all cases, even in the third trimester.  Most people are just uncomfortable with the total access to abortions at that late stage, which is what we have in Canada, hence why 7/10 think it should be "Mostly illegal".  Anyone with any experience with a premature baby born in the 3rd trimester can easily understand why.


Edited by RFS, 21 February 2020 - 01:53 PM.

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#5364 FogPub

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Posted 22 February 2020 - 01:53 AM

The opportunity is ripe for conservatives to take a principled stand for Canada and all they have to do is proclaim - love is love, women deserve bodily autonomy, science and facts are good, and we don't care what colour or creed you are - will you work towards building Canada?

They can give lip service to the other three clauses and maybe even live up to them, but where they'll crash and burn is the "science and facts are good" clause.

 

Harper and co. did huge amounts of damage to science and research in Canada...and it's worth noting that despite some promises the Libs really haven't fixed very much of it.



#5365 Mike K.

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Posted 22 February 2020 - 10:28 AM

They can give lip service to the other three clauses and maybe even live up to them, but where they'll crash and burn is the "science and facts are good" clause.

 

Harper and co. did huge amounts of damage to science and research in Canada...and it's worth noting that despite some promises the Libs really haven't fixed very much of it.

 

The Liberals didn't fix "very much of it" because there was nothing to fix.

 

A scientist does not speak for a laboratory or a government agency, just like a police officer doesn't speak for the VicPD, or a City of Victoria planner for City Hall. Proper communications protocol in a litigious, social media-dominated world is crucial, and the changes Harper introduced were what any reasonable government would introduce. The Liberals know this, and knew this, but they still supported the theme of 'muzzling scientists' in their bid to overtake the Conservatives. And it worked. But the proof of the seriousness of their concern, as you rightly say, is in the pudding.


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#5366 tanker

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Posted 22 February 2020 - 11:39 AM

Yeah if only conservatives adopted all the liberal positions. That'd be great. Democracy with one party to vote for which is the left's dream.
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#5367 FogPub

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Posted 22 February 2020 - 02:54 PM

The Liberals didn't fix "very much of it" because there was nothing to fix.

 

A scientist does not speak for a laboratory or a government agency, just like a police officer doesn't speak for the VicPD, or a City of Victoria planner for City Hall. Proper communications protocol in a litigious, social media-dominated world is crucial, and the changes Harper introduced were what any reasonable government would introduce. The Liberals know this, and knew this, but they still supported the theme of 'muzzling scientists' in their bid to overtake the Conservatives. And it worked. But the proof of the seriousness of their concern, as you rightly say, is in the pudding.

That's just the speaking bits, and one would think a scientist should be able to speak to the research s/he is doing.

 

But there's also the destruction of records and archives, the neutering and gutting of Environment Canada*, the gutting of Stats-Can, and so forth; and while the Libs can't magically make destroyed material reappear they can certainly move to fix what can be fixed.

 

* - there's a very subtle example of this that I can describe if anyone wants, but it's a bit in-depth.



#5368 Mike K.

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Posted 23 February 2020 - 04:31 AM

Yeah, I dunno. Seems rather unexceptional. People just make a big deal out of things when the government they don’t like does something different or institutes a change. Nothing bad actually happened despite it all, despite the “gutting” or what have you.

I mean today in year five of the Liberals we’re in crisis mode on so many fronts. Quite a contrast to Harper’s era.

As for scientists, they are just people. They have their political biases, they have their opinions. They also conduct research paid for by someone, and sometimes that someone doesn’t want a scientist speaking on their behalf, just because they’re a scientist. It’s not a big deal if there are proper protocols to be followed for scientists to discuss whatever they’re working on.
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#5369 Mike K.

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Posted 23 February 2020 - 04:40 AM

Oh and for sure, the Environment Canada info would be great.

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#5370 Awaiting Juno

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Posted 24 February 2020 - 10:47 AM

Yeah if only conservatives adopted all the liberal positions. That'd be great. Democracy with one party to vote for which is the left's dream.

 

Our problem is the Liberals adopted all of the NDP policies and then through out the door all of their fiscal conservatism to boot.



#5371 Stephen James

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Posted 24 February 2020 - 05:56 PM

https://nationalpost...ore-complicated

 

Seven in 10 say abortion should be generally illegal in the last three months of pregnancy. Only 57 per cent believe abortion should be generally legal in the second trimester.

This is a pointless comment that accomplishes nothing.  

90% of abortions happen in the first 12 weeks and late abortions happen only to protect the health of the mother.  There are no service providers in Canada that will perform an abortion past 23 weeks.  I'm a man, with little to no right to an opinion about this and even I know this...


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#5372 Stephen James

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Posted 24 February 2020 - 05:57 PM

Well according to polls, you are in a radical fringe minority of Canadians with that opinion

Care to quote a source for this?


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#5373 Stephen James

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Posted 24 February 2020 - 06:03 PM

The Liberals didn't fix "very much of it" because there was nothing to fix.

 

A scientist does not speak for a laboratory or a government agency, just like a police officer doesn't speak for the VicPD, or a City of Victoria planner for City Hall. Proper communications protocol in a litigious, social media-dominated world is crucial, and the changes Harper introduced were what any reasonable government would introduce. The Liberals know this, and knew this, but they still supported the theme of 'muzzling scientists' in their bid to overtake the Conservatives. And it worked. But the proof of the seriousness of their concern, as you rightly say, is in the pudding.

This is not true in my experience.  I have many academic friends in Ontario, Quebec and the midwest who all said the mood changed dramatically when Trudeau took over.  It's true that funding didn't return to the same levels for all things but it was absolutely clear that Harper muzzled any voice that was inconvenient.  This, and the 19th century social values, is the reason I wouldn't vote for them any more.  The Harper government is not the first to do this, but they took it farthest, happy to execute any play he thought would work from Bush.


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#5374 Stephen James

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Posted 24 February 2020 - 06:04 PM

That's just the speaking bits, and one would think a scientist should be able to speak to the research s/he is doing.

 

But there's also the destruction of records and archives, the neutering and gutting of Environment Canada*, the gutting of Stats-Can, and so forth; and while the Libs can't magically make destroyed material reappear they can certainly move to fix what can be fixed.

 

* - there's a very subtle example of this that I can describe if anyone wants, but it's a bit in-depth.

this is true and there's much more



#5375 Stephen James

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Posted 24 February 2020 - 06:05 PM

Yeah, I dunno. Seems rather unexceptional. People just make a big deal out of things when the government they don’t like does something different or institutes a change. Nothing bad actually happened despite it all, despite the “gutting” or what have you.

I mean today in year five of the Liberals we’re in crisis mode on so many fronts. Quite a contrast to Harper’s era.

As for scientists, they are just people. They have their political biases, they have their opinions. They also conduct research paid for by someone, and sometimes that someone doesn’t want a scientist speaking on their behalf, just because they’re a scientist. It’s not a big deal if there are proper protocols to be followed for scientists to discuss whatever they’re working on.

trust no-one because trust is gone



#5376 Mike K.

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Posted 25 February 2020 - 06:42 AM

This is not true in my experience.  I have many academic friends in Ontario, Quebec and the midwest who all said the mood changed dramatically when Trudeau took over.  It's true that funding didn't return to the same levels for all things but it was absolutely clear that Harper muzzled any voice that was inconvenient.  This, and the 19th century social values, is the reason I wouldn't vote for them any more.  The Harper government is not the first to do this, but they took it farthest, happy to execute any play he thought would work from Bush.

 

Harper established protocols for speaking to the media. Those protocols turned out to be so useful/important that Trudeau, despite running on a platform that raised the issue of muzzling scientists, hasn't unmuzzled them, and we're in year five.


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#5377 Stephen James

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Posted 25 February 2020 - 04:08 PM

Harper established protocols for speaking to the media. Those protocols turned out to be so useful/important that Trudeau, despite running on a platform that raised the issue of muzzling scientists, hasn't unmuzzled them, and we're in year five.

yes. but that has nothing to do with the defunding, or the muzzling.  the government in power is not the only voice we pay for and expect to hear from.  this isn't my opinion, it's law and common sense.  there's message management and there's message denial.  the difference was clear to the scientific community that I know and the dozen odd people I'm thinking of are unanimous that the fog lifted when Harper was gone.  

 

look, i'm not a tribalist...  long past caring who's party wins because I think the dogma is pure bs and brought us to here.  but facts are facts.  Harper had to cater to the cray-cray group and, no matter how hard they work to convince us otherwise, that hasn't changed.  there's still too many in that party that think, as example, gay people made a bad choice and caning them would help, among so many other loathsome things, haha.


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#5378 Mike K.

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Posted 25 February 2020 - 04:18 PM

Help us out here with some examples.

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#5379 FogPub

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Posted 25 February 2020 - 11:58 PM

Oh and for sure, the Environment Canada info would be great.

Weather data and recordkeeping.

 

If you look at the long term weather data for Victoria (Gonzales or Airport, either will do; and the same pattern repeats in other stations elsewhere) you'll notice a few things if you look closely.

 

1. There's some sort of changeover in or around 2012-2013.  I'm not sure if it's a data-collection method change or a recordkeeping change (or both?) but the end result is that if one wants to compare data before and after this changeover one has to do one's own digging; some parts of the system almost treat pre-2012 and post-2012 as separate data sets where in theory it should be one continuous set.  Call me cynical, but as there was a strong undercurrent of climate change denial in the government of the day, making it more difficult to compare current and past data seems just too coincidental.

 

2. Weather data is collected hourly; and time was, missed observations were almost unheard of.  A single missed observation puts an asterisk on the data for that day and - depending what it is - for that whole month; and pre-2012 it would be considered most unusual to have even one missed observation of any kind in a year (even back when those observations were done manually!).  More recently, again since this changeover time, missed observations have become more frequent - more like one or two every few months; and this affects the purity of the data for those who demand such.  In fairness this may be due to tighter controls, but - again - cynical me rather doubts it. :)

 

Also, as of July 9 2013 at the Airport actual observed conditions are now only captured every three hours; though the numeric data is still caught hourly.

 

This points to one (or both) of two possible causes: lowering of data collection standards (bad) or switching over to inferior equipment (worse).  One would think that with the advent of better and more reliable automated equipment the data quality would improve rather than regress, but I guess there's still no substitute for actual people doing it.

 

I won't pick on the sub-stations (Hartland Rd., UVic, etc.) as their function is generally seen as supportive.

 

These may seem like trivial things (and to most people I'm sure they are) but to me they represent just another small piece of evidence supporting the science-suppression trend of that government.  And it's fixable - the pre and post 2012/3 data could be combined. for example, were the Libs inclined to do so.  I'm still waiting...



#5380 RFS

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Posted 05 March 2020 - 04:53 PM

Kenney has endorsed O'Toole


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