Good times.
Face it Canadians, your country sucks*. A right-wing necrophiliac on some message board said so, and if he says it’s so, it’s gotta be so.
*except for Jane Siberry, Mary Margaret O’Hara and Holly Cole. Credit where credit’s due, even though you’re a bunch of deluded socialists.
Yep, still pretty excited, considering I picked the most recent (March 2010) number. I like to live in the present. Do you think we didn’t have a recession here? It was just not as bad, because our “socialist” policies made it so we did not fall as far.
So, I guess this would be also be your answer to the IMF’s prediction that Canada will grow the fastest of all G7 countries in 2010, and 2011: “but but but… In the past, I can find a lower number”
However, the fact that Canada is doing so well economically NOW, definitely throws a wrench in your crappy theory that “More social programs mean higher taxes, which means higher unemployment, less innovation, brain drain, and slower growth.” If you were anywhere near the mark, Canada would be on a downward trajectory on these for the past 40 years. It is clearly not.
I guess it only applies to the past then? We should ignore the present economic facts? Or to certain periods that you can cherry pick?
Try to look at the present times, mkay? I’ll be looking at you in my rear view mirror.
Are Canadian school children required to worship the Dark Lord and Celine Dion, or just encouraged to do so?
So what’s the price, Rover?
Here on the West Coast, they are required to worship Diana Krall. I believe we traded Celine to Vegas for two dozen slot machines and a case of Bud Light.
Why would any Canadian want Bud Light? Canada, home of some of the world’s finest skunk beers with enough alcohol to make it worthwhile, importing Bud Light?
Odd.
Basically the NHS is a regional and local structure. Trusts have their own budgets.
All make own spending decisions. This means that not all procedures are available from all hospitals and new high cost procedures might not be funded.
And of course this is rationing - but rationing to use the resources elsewhere not rationing to increase someone’s bottom line and bonus.
And if it is funded by the NHS where she now lives then I don’t understand why she is not getting the treatment.
something about this story (apart from it being in the Mail) doesn’t smell right.
Then define ‘health-care’.
As has been explained again, again and again, with a lot of (easily found) evidence spoon-fed to you over and over, Canadian unemployment rates historically are NOT as high as you’re claiming (e.g. as high as they’ve been in the U.S. recently.)
You’ve been shown the numbers over and over to the point that your continued insistence otherwise is going from ignorance to dishonesty.
Well, now, to be strictly fair, if one places fingers in one’s ears and shouts “La, la, la, I can’t hear you!” loud enough, they are being entirely truthful, in that they cannot hear you.
And I’ve responded to those posts. And you have ignored my responses. I don’t see why another go-round would make anything any different.
Well, I will dare to try again:
Here are stats from Statistics Canada and the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the past 20 years.
Year Canada US Gap Can - US)
1980 7.5 7.2 0.3
1981 7.6 7.6 0
1982 11 9.7 1.3
1983 12 9.6 2.4
1984 11.3 7.5 3.8
1985 10.6 7.2 3.4
1986 9.7 7 2.7
1987 8.8 6.2 2.6
1988 7.8 5.5 2.3
1989 7.5 5.3 2.2
1990 8.1 5.6 2.5
1991 10.3 6.9 3.4
1992 11.2 7.5 3.7
1993 11.4 6.9 4.5
1994 10.4 6.1 4.3
1995 9.5 5.6 3.9
1996 9.6 5.4 4.2
1997 9.1 4.9 4.2
1998 8.3 4.5 3.8
1999 7.6 4.2 3.4
2000 6.8 4 2.8
2001 7.2 4.7 2.5
2002 7.7 5.8 1.9
2003 7.6 6 1.6
2004 7.2 5.5 1.7
2005 6.8 5.1 1.7
2006 6.3 4.6 1.7
2007 6 4.6 1.4
2008 6.1 5.8 0.3
2009 8.2 9.3 -1.1
Jan-10 8.3 9.7 -1.4
Feb-10 8.2 9.7 -1.5
Mar-10 8.2 9.7 -1.5
For a visual representation up to 2008, please see the graph on this page:
In addition, Canada reports unemployment differently than the US. This leads to the Canadian unemployment rate being reported as 0.9% higher than the US reporting rate So really, you can subtract 0.9% from the gap, in order to make it comparable.
The unemployment gap peaked in 1993 at 4.5%, and has been trending downward ever since. The smaller gap is clearly not entirely due to the recent recession.
The question is - can a reasonable person look at this data and conclude that “More social programs mean higher taxes, which means higher unemployment, less innovation, brain drain, and slower growth.”
How could someone explain that Canada, with it’s social programs, has shown a clear pattern, over many years, of reducing unemployment in comparison with the US?
How could someone explain then, why Canada after so much spending on social programs, has been in a better budget deficit position (per capita, per GDP) for compared to the US for over a decade?
Rand Rover, your position is not backed up by factual evidence.
EP, perhaps this whole “debate” thing is not for you. I said that Canada’s policies have lead and will lead to higher unemployment than in the US. You then produce a graph showing exactly that.
And then you declare victory.
At this point, I guess you are just hoping for your own entry on Fail Blog.
Hey little fellah, did you see the numbers on the left hand column? They are called “years”. And perhaps you noticed that the difference between the unemployment rates is getting smaller and smaller, as the years progress. Canada’s unemployment rate is now LOWER than that of the US.
How you think this somehow shows that Canada’s social programs are leading to increased unemployment is a mystery, not only to me, but to pretty much everyone else.
That’s pretty stupid, Rand, even for you.
FAIL
To make it work, you have to copy the data into Excel and sort the columns in a certain way----look, it’s extremely complex, and something you really have to be an ostensibly highly paid alleged tax adviser to even begin to understand. I prefer to take his word for it, based on his incorruptible character and history of conscientious research.
Do I detect a faint note of sarcasm?
Wow. I don’t know what to tell you guys. Click on the graph in EP’s post. It shows that Canada has historically had higher unemployment than has the US. It took the current huge recession for the rates to match up.
EP’s own cites prove my point.