rtwngAvngr said:
Sorry Isaac, to throw your kind words back in your face like that. That was a little uncool.
Where do you see the main disagreements? Socialism vs. capitalism? Stopping nuclear proliferation in the hands of terrorists vs. allowing it to get worse?
Apology accepted.
Disagreements?
Universal Healthcare is something very close to the Canadian psyche and it works and is important that it is universal. It is not perfect and I do not pretend it is. Nor do I pretend that it would be necessarily feasable in the US. It does however have some main advanatages:
- Remote/Arctic towns would not have the economic climates necessary to provide user pay systems
- Given the reduced income discrepency between rich and poor compared with the United States it is more economical on a per capita basis to provide healthcare as a social program. For proof, see past threads in which I provided a few independant reports. Canadians pay less per capita for socialized healthcare than the US.
Cultural assimilation is very different between the US and Canada for both ethical and historical reasons. Canada's cultural diversity was a matter of straight immigration. The US's cultural basis also included slavery and Mexican migrants. As such Canada's diversity is spread more evenly because more immigrants came from more countries and we're much more geographically spread than that in the US, where ex-slave and migrant states have huge pockets of immigrants of a given ethnicity. Since Canada's cultural minorities were more spread out, the concept of multiculturalism in regards to a more liberalized stance on education, faith, language, etc was much easier and necessary for Canada to bear and why it is possible for two official languages.
Post WW2, to the end of the Cold War, Canada and the US had essentially identical foreign policies. With the end of the cold war, the lack of a new superpower has changed the world political climate. US is the sole superpower, and its foreign policy is geared towards maintaining its influence around the world and ensuring the stability of US institutions both at home and abroad. Canada does not have the world influence and as such, the same pressures or needs. It is indeed this reason why Canada introduced the concept of Peacekeepers in the 1950's. It wasn't exactly a completely alturistic motive. Canada cannot project force in the world, but it could project its values in populations through Peacekeeping. Whether we have been entirely successful is certainly open for debate, but the values are the same.
Until the War in Iraq, the policies were essentially one of the same through values were perhaps different. The US saw the War on Iraq as an extension of the War or Terror. The case was simply not made to the international community on either that connection or the connection to weapons of mass destruction.
In addition, there is a disagreement on how to wage the war or terror ties into the previously mentionned Canadian foreign policy. Without going to deep into debate on how to wage the war on terrorism, the skinny is that the US believes the best method is to use force to root out the terrorists unconventional forces. The prevailing Canadian sentiment is that Terrorism cannot be fought with force alone due to unconventional element of the Terrorists.
The main line the government is portraying is to eliminate known terrorists by conventional forces, but also attempt to remove the underlying social factors that breed terrorists. Unfortunately this is all hot air, because Canada has neither the ability nor the means to provide the resources or influence necessary to carry out its strategy. Canada wished the international community focussed on the re-building of Afghanistan to make Afghanistan a successful model of westernization of a failed terrorist state.
Other disagreements include Kyoto protocol, environmental management, social policy and energy management. Though they may seem like many, the similarities far outweigh the differences. Canada is a democratic, capitalistic state with equality and fundamental human rights for every citizen, just like the United States
Most harsh criticism for dumb things said by your officials has come from Canadians-which of course brings you to nearly American standard of bashing politicians! 
