CanPol Megathread: Big Changus

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namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

https://twitter.com/jen_keesmaat/status/690546464511098880

Ok cool. How can I help?

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:44

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# ? May 18, 2024 02:47

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Eej posted:

I'm actually kind of curious as to what Canada could/should have done to diversify it's economy. I know there's the old story of Toyota preferring Canadian workers over American ones because we don't need a picture diagram on how to assemble cars or whatever but aside from big bulky things like cars (which has been gutted due to our currency being highly valued for such a long time anyway) what niche are we supposed to occupy manufacturing? You've got China making basically making everything from mundane plastic parts to iPhones and high tech manufacturers putting all their new fabs in South East Asia. We got brain drain because software dev is so much more lucrative across the border. It doesn't seem like there was anything we could've done anyway aside from make the pain less by lowering reliance on oil.

At this point the best we could hope for would be to incubate some new manufacturing that might be globally competitive in the coming decades. You can't just snap your fingers and create an innovative economy over night. A quick look at Germany or other northern European economies indicates that at least in theory it is possible to have a 21st century economy with high wages and globally competitive manufacturing. Of course Canada is really different from Germany both in terms of our trade relationships and our domestic economy, so the comparison only goes so far, but the fact is it's possible to be a globally competitive manufacturer without paying poverty wages.

Honestly though, our biggest problem is that we have a branch plant economy and a completely servile and cowardly political elite. Most of our manufacturing comes from foreign companies who stick a few factories in our territory. This provides jobs but it means that most technological innovation happens in countries like Japan or America where these companies are headquartered. Meanwhile our politicians make zero effort to encourage your companies to be more innovative or globally competitive. There are all kinds of export oriented strategies we could conceivably borrow from Germany or South Korea or Japan but it would require a comprehensive vision of economic development that our government just doesn't have.

The fact is that while Canada's "national champions" have never been particularly impressive corporations, it was utterly stupid of our country to let them all fold up or be bought out. If you look at the history of Korea or Japan it took them many decades before their companies were globally competitive: nobody in the 1950s would have imagined that Japanese cars would be considered better than American cars.

So while Nortel and Research in Motion and Alcan weren't anything to get super proud of, they were something we could have built upon. But instead the Liberals and Conservatives drank the free market cool aid and handed away control of the Canadian economy:

quote:

Olive: Innovation out of our hands in a branch-plant economy

Nortel Networks Corp. on Friday quietly shed the last of its remaining major businesses, selling its optical and ethernet networking operations to U.S.-based Ciena Corp. for $774 million (U.S.).

Nortel Networks Corp. on Friday quietly shed the last of its remaining major businesses, selling its optical and ethernet networking operations to U.S.-based Ciena Corp. for $774 million (U.S.).

There is a bounty of ironies here, of course. A mere decade ago Nortel had a $360 billion stock-market value, making it the 12th most-valuable corporate enterprise in the world. Nortel supplied world markets with its pioneering fibre optical gear that is now the backbone of the global Internet. For a time it nervily supplanted LM Ericsson as a telecom-equipment supplier to the Swedish government. The phones at the White House ran on Nortel's networking gear.

Ciena, meanwhile, was a start-up too small to appear on Nortel's radar when it went on its multibillion-dollar takeover binge in the late 1990s, which almost saw Nortel merging � and as the dominant partner � with the legendary Corning Inc. of New York State, maker of Thomas Edison's first light bulb.

We coulda been a contendah ...

Instead, the steep decline and ultimate dismantling of the 125-year-old Nortel roughly coincided with the loss to foreign owners of such other "national champions" as Alcan, Inco, Falconbridge, Stelco, Ipsco and Dofasco, the latter among the world's best-run and most consistently profitable steelmakers during close to a century of Canadian ownership.

"Canada for sale" was Ottawa's guiding principle, if one wants to dignify with a label the feds' lack of interest, under both the Paul Martin Grits and Stephen Harper Tories. Yes, commitments of continued employment were extracted from or offered by some of the foreign buyers. These were promptly reneged on come the recession by the new Swiss, Brazilian and U.S. owners of Falconbridge, Inco and Stelco, respectively.

It's in that context that we're warned again that Canada lags the world in industrial innovation, this time in the Conference Board of Canada's latest report card, which ranks Canada 14th among 17 peer nations.

"Canada is well-supplied with educational institutions and carries out scientific research that is well-respected around the world," said Gilles Rh�aume, vice-president for public policy at the think-tank.

"But, with a few exceptions, Canada does not successfully commercialize its scientific and technological discoveries into world-leading products and services. Canadian companies are rarely at the leading edge of new technology and find themselves a step behind the leaders."

That's an understatement. We're not a step behind, we're nowhere to be found in most industrial sectors. There are no Canadian-owned automakers (South Korea has several).

We have no major players in heavy equipment; chemicals; industrial wiring and electrical controls; motors; prescription and over-the-counter drugs; hygiene, make-up, fragrance and other personal-care products; breakfast cereals, snack foods; liquor; diapers; greeting cards; laundry and other cleaning products; hotel and resort chains; industrial and household tools; pet food; tires; office and home furnishings; or heart stents, Stryker beds and other products of the medical-industrial complex.

The decisions about shape, size, variety, colour, pricing and regional availability of all those things are made beyond our borders. Canada has always been a branch plant, since its first brush with European fur traders. How can we complain that we suffer the backward attributes of a branch-plant economy when we are, in fact, a branch plant?

Innovation is a key to productivity gains, the principal means by which we raise our standard of living. But innovation is largely out of our hands. Industrial R&D for companies that sell their goods in Canada is largely conducted elsewhere. So is the critical decision-making about new-product development and investment in more efficient capital equipment.

With notable exceptions like the auto sector, branch plants rarely have a mandate to export. The entire point of most branch plants is to focus on serving a national or regional market.

We know from the examples of Bombardier Inc., now building China's inter-city rail system; engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, also of Montreal; Magna International with its hundreds of plants in North America and Europe; and BlackBerry developer Research In Motion that Canadian firms are capable of developing world-class products and conquering global markets.

But in contrast with many of our industrialized peers, we have not devised a national industrial strategy that incubates cash-strapped yet promising start-ups that might someday have the required heft of a Bombardier, Magna or RIM; strengthening the bond between universities and teaching hospitals with commercial enterprises; and confronting the dilemma of Canadian owners of world-class firms selling out to foreign interests.

If it feels at times that we're living in someone else's country, in some degree we are. With one of the least domestically owned economies among our industrial peers, it's long past time we confronted the implications of foreign ownership on our lack of control over productivity, on which our prosperity very much depends.

There was a moment in the 1970s when a left wing NDP (which was itself being pulled to the left by the existence of The Waffle as a leftist faction within or on the periphery of the NDP) pulled the reigning Liberal government into a more economically nationalist direction. But the West had a freakout and Trudeau eventually burned enough bridges that Brian Mulroney came into power, and after Mulroney we got the Chretien / Martin liberals (probably the worst post-war government we've had, in retrospect).

And the result is that we're locked into an economy that relies on a mixture of Finance, Insurance Real Estate and raw resource extraction. None of those are sectors that are going to innovate or produce any usable spin offs. And rather than address this problem our politicians time their economic policy to match the electoral cycle, and mostly end up wasting money on boondogle projects like the Ontario Liberals throwing all that money as Samsung.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:48

Eej: Jun 17, 2007; HEAVYARMS

Well one thing to consider is that Germany and Japan are 3-4x as populous as Canada and crammed into a much smaller area. Would protecting our Nortels and RIMs really have led to an innovative industry? Or would it have just led to a Bombardier situation where the only company that our population could support is so clearly inept at surviving on its own?

I guess what I'm saying is, do we have the population to support multiple companies with global reach? Or is the idea that RIM could have encouraged other tech companies to form in Canada and then those ones would attract skilled workers from outside the country and then actually been a good company that can fend off predation by Silicon Valley and also not be poorly managed?

# ? Jan 24, 2016 22:03

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Looking at Bombardier specifically, it's clear we have the capability to have world-leading aerospace companies, and they are just very poorly managed. My own namesake is a wonderful piece of Canadian technology, valued and used the world over. The DHC-6 Twin Otter has re-entered production because it's so capable, too. The problem is that Bombardier's recent products are wretched piles of poo poo trying to compete in extremely crowded markets.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 22:12

Hexigrammus: May 22, 2006; Cheech Wizard stories are clean, wholesome, reflective truths that go great with the marijuana munchies and a blow job.

Cultural Imperial posted:

https://twitter.com/jen_keesmaat/status/690546464511098880

Ok cool. How can I help?

Throw it back in the autoclave, clean it out and re-inoculate?

# ? Jan 24, 2016 22:19

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Eej posted:

Well one thing to consider is that Germany and Japan are 3-4x as populous as Canada and crammed into a much smaller area. Would protecting our Nortels and RIMs really have led to an innovative industry? Or would it have just led to a Bombardier situation where the only company that our population could support is so clearly inept at surviving on its own?

I guess what I'm saying is, do we have the population to support multiple companies with global reach? Or is the idea that RIM could have encouraged other tech companies to form in Canada and then those ones would attract skilled workers from outside the country and then actually been a good company that can fend off predation by Silicon Valley and also not be poorly managed?

We were actually part way there before the late 1990s / early 2000s double whammy of NAFTA coming into effect and the commodity / housing booms sucking up all the investment capital.

Check out these graphs

Taken from this paper, an extended exerpt of which I'll post:

Jim Stanford, STAPLES, DEINDUSTRIALIZATION, AND FOREIGN INVESTMENT: CANADA�S ECONOMIC JOURNEY BACK TO THE FUTURE, Studies in Political Economy, Vol 82, 2008 posted:

Without much fanfare, Canada�s economy is experiencing a profound structural change that will define and limit our national prospects for decades to come. Canada�s economic trajectory has become increasingly dominated by the production and export of unprocessed or barely processed natural resources � especially petroleum and other minerals. Higher-stage export industries (especially manufacturing, but also tradable service industries, such as tourism) are declining rapidly. This structural regression largely originates with extremely high global prices for natural resources (including energy, nonenergy minerals, and agricultural products). Those prices partly reflect growing world demand, especially from rapidly industrializing regions like China and India, and concerns about the adequacy and reliability of future resource supplies. The dramatic rise of resource prices may also reflect the influence of speculative financial pressures and the growing involvement of hedge funds and institutional investment vehicles in commodity markets. Record prices for natural resources have had multiple and complex impacts on Canadian financial indicators, exchange rates, and the sectoral allocation of real investment and production. The resource-led restructuring of Canada�s economy has been ratified and facilitated by the laissez-faire stance of neoliberal economic policy in Canada, the reinforcing role of free trade agreements (especially the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which explicitly assigns Canada a special role in the continent as energy supplier), and the daunting political influence of Canadian resource elites (especially over Canada�s Albertan-led Conservative federal government).

Staples Dependence, Revisited This resource-led sectoral restructuring of Canada�s economy taps into some long-standing themes and concerns in radical Canadian political economy. The staples tradition of Harold Innis, of course, emphasizes the leading role of successive waves of resource-led development in Canadian economic history.(1) Those waves (from fish, furs, and forestry to agriculture, minerals, and now energy) were always oriented around exports to (and, generally, incoming foreign direct investment (FDI) from) colonial or neocolonial metropolitan powers. This analytical approach received modern application in the 1970s from writers such as Mel Watkins and Kari Polanyi Levitt, who analyzed the structural underdevelopment of Canada in the context of the economy�s continuing dependence on resource exports and incoming foreign direct investment.(2) This stream of thought influenced radical political economy in Canada for decades, among other things influencing progressive opposition to the Canada-US free trade agreement (FTA) in the late 1980s (on grounds that the intensification of free trade links with the United States would likely reinforce Canada�s latent specialization in resource industries and its dependence on incoming foreign direct investment). More recent versions of this staples-like analysis have emphasized the effect of the FTA and the NAFTA in narrowing Canada�s economic specialization, and the ideological dominance of US-oriented ideas in Canadian political debates.(3)

At the same time, however, it is also clear that Canada�s economic structure progressed in qualitative terms through the later decades of the twentieth century, despite the constraints of staples dependence on both the economic and the political spheres. This visible qualitative economic development refuted more extreme, unidimensional expressions of staples analysis (which implied that full fledged capitalist development was impossible in the Canadian context) and sparked an alternative stream of thought within Canadian radical political economy that criticized the staples approach and emphasized the structural strengths of Canadian capitalism.(4)

Various pieces of empirical evidence supported the thesis that Canada�s economy was gradually escaping its traditional staples �trap.� Beginning in the late 1960s, Canada�s manufacturing sector developed both quantitatively and qualitatively (producing a greater quantity of more sophisticated products). The rapid development of the Canadian auto industry (in the wake of the Canada-US Auto Pact), and similar progress in the aerospace and telecommunications equipment sectors, were important in motivating this forward progress. During the 1980s and 1990s, manufacturing investment was stimulated in Canada (from both domestic firms and through foreign investment) by an undervalued exchange rate, the pro-competitive effects of Canada�s public health care system (which reduces employer-paid health benefits relative to US levels), and strong productivity and technological performance inside Canadian plants. Canada�s manufacturing sector outperformed those of most other developed capitalist countries in the 1980s and 1990s (despite enduring a painful restructuring in the early 1990s as a result of the Canada-US FTA). By the end of the century, Canadian manufacturing was a significantly larger share of total production and employment than manufacturing of the United States, the United Kingdom, and some other OECD countries.

Simultaneously, the relative importance of incoming foreign investment also began to wane: the stock of foreign direct investment in Canada shrank significantly as a share of Canadian gross domestic product (GDP) through the 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, Canadian-based companies (led by Canadian minerals companies and Canadian banks) were expanding their own foreign direct investments abroad. Indeed, by 1996 a watershed turning point was reached when the stock of Canadian-owned FDI in foreign countries exceeded the stock of foreign-owned FDI inside Canada for the first time in our national history. By these varied indicators, therefore, for a time it appeared as if Canada were escaping its traditional niche as a �hewer of wood and drawer of water.� The Canadian economy was becoming more capable of providing a full variety of products and services into international markets, and more self-reliant (on a net basis) in capital markets. Again, for some theorists (both orthodox and radical), this motivated a new emphasis on the multidimensional strengths of Canadian capitalism (rather than highlighting its structural weaknesses). However, it was also clearly true that, despite this qualitative development, Canada remained uniquely dependent on resource extraction and export, and demonstrated a higher reliance on foreign investment than other developed capitalist countries. In this regard, neither a simplistic staples model nor the countervailing view that Canada had become a fully fledged and independent capitalist power in its own right was accurate. The reality lay somewhere in between.

Since the turn of the present century, however, whatever forward structural progress Canada was able to attain in earlier decades has been clearly reversed, and sectoral structure and ownership patterns more typical of a resource-dependent past have reasserted themselves strikingly quickly. This article describes this process of structural regression, which dates back to 1999�2000, and considers policy options that might help to slow or reverse this trend. The article is organized as follows: the second section summarizes the major qualitative aspects of Canada�s structural regression. The third section reviews a selection of empirical evidence to describe Canada�s structural U-turn in more detail. The fourth section focuses on the deep and rapid decline in Canada�s manufacturing sector. The fifth section discusses the relationships between global commodity prices, the boom in Canadian resource industries, the appreciation of the Canadian currency, and deindustrialization. The final section discusses some policy implications of this important change in qualitative economic direction, and proposes several possible policy alternatives that could be advanced by progressive forces and movements concerned with the long-run economic, geopolitical, and environmental implications of Canada�s renewed reliance on staples production and export.

Our own past record indicates we could be doing a lot better than we currently are doing.

It's really astonishing that we don't even discuss these issues any more. We could blame the political establishment in general because they're all complicit, but really that's how we should expect the Liberals and Conservatives to act. So mostly I blame the NDP because they should know better.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 22:32

cowofwar: Jul 30, 2002; by Athanatos

You need a lot of people in a dense area for good innovation since 99.9999% of people are worthless and you need a critical mass of non-worthless innovative people in the same area to really start cool poo poo.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 00:37

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

You are aware that most Canadians live in a few concentrated areas right?

I'm pretty sure that if Norway or Finland or various other countries in Northern Europe that have populations roughly the size of the GTA can develop globally competitive manufacturing then Canada can as well. Or at least, if we can't, then the barrier is politics and history, not our population's size or density.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 00:45

Tochiazuma: Feb 16, 2007

Yeah worrying about population density as a factor for innovation makes it sound like it's transmitted like a respiratory disease

# ? Jan 25, 2016 01:24

Furnaceface: Oct 21, 2004

Tochiazuma posted:

Yeah worrying about population density as a factor for innovation makes it sound like it's transmitted like a respiratory disease

No, that would be conservatism.

:downsrim:

# ? Jan 25, 2016 03:50

mila kunis: Jun 10, 2011

Rime posted:

We produce some of the best software devs, they don't stay in Canada. There are no incentives for high tech outfits to operate in Canada.

Btw, how do software engineers get across the border? I was under the impression that the TN visa specifically excludes em.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 08:21

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

#FeelTheKwan

# ? Jan 25, 2016 09:10

Evis: Feb 28, 2007; Flying Spaghetti Monster

tekz posted:

Btw, how do software engineers get across the border? I was under the impression that the TN visa specifically excludes em.

It excludes programmers, not software engineers. I'd suggest finding a good immigration lawyer. Crafting a successful application for a TN can be a little complicated.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 10:45

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

And if your employer fucks it up, you're banned from entering the US for several years without a whole lot of hoop-jumping. Friend of mine found that out the hard way.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 11:12

more like dICK: Feb 15, 2010; This is inevitable.

You get a lawyer to draft an application that says you're definitely not going there to program computers pinky swear. Good software companies will be able to refer you to one who specializes in getting programmers across the border.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 14:48

EvilJoven: Mar 18, 2005; NOBODY,IN THE HISTORY OF EVER, HAS ASKED OR CARED WHAT CANADA THINKS. YOU ARE NOT A COUNTRY. YOUR MONEY HAS THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND ON IT. IF YOU DIG AROUND IN YOUR BACKYARD, NATIVE SKELETONS WOULD EXPLODE OUT OF YOUR LAWN LIKE THE END OF POLTERGEIST. CANADA IS SO POLITE, EH?; Fun Shoe

Hahaha lawyers are coyotes for white collar gringos.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 15:06

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

EvilJoven posted:

Hahaha lawyers are coyotes for white collar gringos.

This is especially true for people with criminal records, who are ordinarily banned from entering the US but can hire predatory and incompetent lawyers to get themselves a pardon or US entry waiver so that they can visit their kids or whatever.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 15:09

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Also, you don't "program", you "analyze computer systems."

# ? Jan 25, 2016 15:24

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Im a former Bombardier employee. I confirm that the company was ruined by MBAs. Once Laurent got too old to run the show his son ran the company into the ground.

The rot in that company is institutional and thorough. They suppress young talent and keep them from making any reasonable change and managers run their departments like their own private fiefdom in rivalry with other departments. Everyone is trying to cover their own asses, hide their incompetence and avoid responsibility by pointing their fingers in opposite directions.

I'm not gonna mention any names but there's guys that used to just sleep all day in my office and they hauled in 100k+ salaries while I got a measly 45k with minimal pay raise or training opportunities. There's other people who are apparently engineers but their job is clerical in nature. In fact any real engineering talent that bombardier hires end up leaving because their job basically consists of writing product documents and making clerical changes to documentation. They don't get paid well either which stirs up serious resentment. The only people left in Bombardier are the "lifers" who've been there since the 80s-90s and are "disabled" from years of not using their engineering skills and are there for the paycheque. There's also some true believers who fight the good fight and understand the significance of what Bombardier represents but they're repeatedly frustrated by poor decisions from the business end.

We've gone through so many changes to executives and management and nobody has gotten anything done. They all just talk the talk but no one has balls to make any serious change.

There was an incident where a plant worker got transferred to another work centre and when he reported this to his new boss, his boss told him he had no knowledge of it. As a result he would spend months walking back and forth between two work centres being turned away from both. The only reason he was discovered was because he bumped his head and when the accident report was filed nobody knew who his manager was.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 16:45

Ambrose Burnside: Aug 30, 2007; pensive

having gotten caught up on the last 10 or so pages, it seems clear to me that the only succinct answer to "how do we fix our transit/economy woes" is "we need a transit/economy stalin"

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:04

Risky Bisquick: Jan 18, 2008; PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.; Buglord

Kraftwerk posted:

There was an incident where a plant worker got transferred to another work centre and when he reported this to his new boss, his boss told him he had no knowledge of it. As a result he would spend months walking back and forth between two work centres being turned away from both. The only reason he was discovered was because he bumped his head and when the accident report was filed nobody knew who his manager was.

So he was on payroll but was essentially unassigned to any team, sounds like a well managed company.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:10

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

jm20 posted:

So he was on payroll but was essentially unassigned to any team, sounds like a well managed company.

Bombardier also has this "high potentials" list where particular employees who perform well and show initiative are put on it so they can get fast tracked into key positions.

In practice all it means is you get a ton of extra responsibility for the same pay and no promotion. Those things are more decided by who you know and your connections rather than your merits. Most people on that list ask to be taken off it because they know it's bullshit.

It's still a good company to work for because you get the highest pay for the lowest effort if you get in.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:16

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

https://twitter.com/CP24/status/691655047084638208

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:22

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

http://www.cp24.com/news/federal-government-to-sign-trans-pacific-partnership-1.2750826

quote:

OTTAWA - The federal government says it will sign the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal at a meeting next week in New Zealand.

International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland says signing the 12-country treaty doesn't necessarily mean Canada will ultimately ratify it, however.

Freeland has conducted public consultations on the wide-ranging accord and says she's heard both opposition and support for the deal.

She also says the Liberal government is committed to hearing from Canadians before a ratification vote is held in Parliament.

Freeland has indicated the massive accord, which includes major economies such as the United States and Japan, cannot be renegotiated.

Trade ministers from the TPP's partner countries have been invited to sign the deal on Feb. 4 in Auckland.

The former Conservative government announced an agreement-in-principle on the pact in October during the federal election campaign.

lol yeah you guys we're totally signing this but fingers crossed we might not ratify it in the end!!

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:23

Risky Bisquick: Jan 18, 2008; PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.; Buglord

What a crock of crap, just set fire to canada now were done.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:33

Postess with the Mostest: Apr 4, 2007; Arabian nights
'neath Arabian moons
A fool off his guard
could fall and fall hard
out there on the dunes

jm20 posted:

What a crock of crap, just set fire to canada now were done.

I'll bring the marshmallows

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:37

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Ikantski posted:

I'll bring the marshmallows

To be fair, that's a parody Gerald Butts account (note that it's gmbutts_, not gmbutts).

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:50

Postess with the Mostest: Apr 4, 2007; Arabian nights
'neath Arabian moons
A fool off his guard
could fall and fall hard
out there on the dunes

Dallan Invictus posted:

To be fair, that's a parody Gerald Butts account (note that it's gmbutts_, not gmbutts).

Oh I feel silly, totally fell for it.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 17:54

Jordan7hm: Feb 17, 2011; Lipstick Apathy

You didn't think that it was maybe a bit over the top for a politician?

At 3 in the morning, sure, they're drunk, but during the day ...

# ? Jan 25, 2016 18:13

brucio: Nov 22, 2004

It's almost as if confirmation bias is a real thing.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 18:19

Furnaceface: Oct 21, 2004

vyelkin posted:

http://www.cp24.com/news/federal-government-to-sign-trans-pacific-partnership-1.2750826

lol yeah you guys we're totally signing this but fingers crossed we might not ratify it in the end!!

Oh man remember when the Liberals promised real change and they totally arent like the CPC. These chucklefucks backed both this and C51 up when Harper was in power and I dont know why anyone at all thought they suddenly wouldnt once in power.

I eagerly await their election "reform". :allears:

# ? Jan 25, 2016 18:43

cowofwar: Jul 30, 2002; by Athanatos

Liberals libbing

# ? Jan 25, 2016 18:49

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Remember when Canadians got sick of that corrupt liberal sack of poo poo Jean Chretien?

I love how you loving retards lionize him for being a great pm for having the balls to choke people in public

# ? Jan 25, 2016 18:49

Risky Bisquick: Jan 18, 2008; PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.; Buglord

Forcillo chat:

Guilty on attempted murder
Not guilty on manslaughter
Not guilty on 2nd degree murder

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/01/21/judge-interrupts-forcillo-jury-deliberations-to-correct-legal-instructions.html

quote:

THE POSSIBLE VERDICTS

Forcillo is charged with two offences: Second-degree murder for the first round of shots, and attempted murder for the second round of shots.

There are three possible verdicts for each:

Guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of manslaughter or not guilty.

Guilty of attempted murder, guilty of aggravated assault or not guilty.

ATTEMPTED MURDER OPTIONS

First, the jurors will have to decide if Forcillo intended to kill Yatim. Then they will have to determine whether firing six times at Yatim from 12 feet away is an attempt � not just preparation for an attempt. Lastly, they would have to find Yatim was still alive at the time.

If those three criteria are met, then they must convict Forcillo of attempted murder.

If they find that he lacked intent to kill Yatim, they can convict him of aggravated assault.

If the jurors do not find his conduct constitutes aggravated assault, they must find him not guilty.

Risky Bisquick fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jan 25, 2016

# ? Jan 25, 2016 18:59

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

jm20 posted:

Forcillo chat:

Guilty on attempted murder
Not guilty on manslaughter
Not guilty on 2nd degree murder

Guilty of attempting to murder a man who subsequently died, but not guilty of killing him.

Good thing that first volley of shots was a freebie.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:03

Jordan7hm: Feb 17, 2011; Lipstick Apathy

Beats the alternative of not guilty on anything.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:05

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

The first round of shots was justified, the second was not. If the first killed him, the second did not and therefore the only crime was that Forcillo intended to kill someone, unjustifiably, but did not actually do so. Seems like the correct verdict.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:06

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

PT6A posted:

The first round of shots was justified, the second was not. If the first killed him, the second did not and therefore the only crime was that Forcillo intended to kill someone, unjustifiably, but did not actually do so. Seems like the correct verdict.

Assuming you take that first premise for granted, yes. Some people don't.

Evidently, including the other police brought in to testify on Forcillo's behalf, because they all lied about the incident multiple times, while under oath.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:09

Risky Bisquick: Jan 18, 2008; PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.; Buglord

It may have been a hung jury on that specific charge, but they agreed on the intent of the 2nd volley and just went with what was unanimous. He is still facing up to life, however there is no mandatory on parole ineligibility.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:09

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# ? May 18, 2024 02:47

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

infernal machines posted:

Assuming you take that first premise for granted, yes. Some people don't.

Those people are wrong. He was a whacknut who was brandishing a prohibited weapon and failing to follow police instructions. You can't do that and then be surprised when you get shot; at best, you should be extremely thankful if you don't get shot.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:12

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