# The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 1, 2012, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014 "2012-01-01T03:31:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/581 "2012-03-05T04:33:01Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Of course speakinjg the language is necessary, but the quote to which I replied stated that the best way **is just to speak it**. I’m sorry but I just don’t believe that the best approach to learning _anything_ is ever that simple. Just jumping in and speaking a new language is a great way to beat your fear of embarrassing yourself. Which is a major barrier when learning a language. Rick, you said you went to French immersion, but you probably had regular French as a second language classes in addition to the immersion. What helped you the most in learning the language? Or did it work at all? ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/582 "2012-03-05T05:15:56Z")
Hi Guys I haven’t been on this board in almost two months, and haven’t dropped by this thread in a while, but our robo-scandal made me do it. That and a couple of anecdotes. Anecdote the first. My boyfriend actually worked for RMG in Thunder Bay, not during the federal election, but for the Ontario campaign this fall. (Stop gap income between doing contracts of his own for businesses.) Again RMG had a Conservative phone contract. He worked a total of 9 shifts before quitting in disgust. The spin on the foreign workers program was incredibly misleading, and he said he felt completely disgusting doing it. (To say he is not Conservative is a bit of an understatement.) Also they had trouble with their equipment, servers, etc, spent part of every day twiddling thumbs and waiting for the dialers to be working again. He is bilingual, and the day he ended up calling his home town…a small mainly French city in Northern Ontario and talking to people he had known all his life spouting misleading rhetoric was the day he found another contract and quit RMG) The training and caliber of the staff at that place tends to be really bad and retention low, so when you hear that about RMG it is the truth. Lets just say we know some of the employees personally and some he had let go from his business a few years ago. Anecdote the second. Last Friday Dalton McGuinty was in Thunder Bay, showing up at among other places, a biotech firm where the boyfriend is currently doing a call contract. I drove him to work, he discovered he had forgotten his keys, we left, backtracked a block to get a coffee and go to the gas station. I was followed by an ugly old pickup truck, which was in front of two black sedans. There was no logical reason anyone would ever take the route I did, and 4 cars, (me, truck, two black sedans) followed me. I didn’t care, I realize there was some kind of security in place before the Premier’s visit, but it was funny. About as subtle as a sledgehammer and twice as graceful. We were some bagpipes and clowns short of a parade. Combining that with the fact I got a traffic ticket, had my BC nursing license criminal record check completed, and crossed the boarder, I wonder how many times either myself or my license plates were checked this week. I hope its not like a credit score where too many checks is bad for your overall rating… Thirdly, I am moving to Vancouver next week, so to all my doper friends look for me in the ROC soon… ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Doom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Dr\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/583 "2012-03-05T16:30:44Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > Anecdote the second. Wow! Someone really thinks they are very important, don’t they? I wonder how many/often death threats are lobbed in the direction of the Premier of Ontario? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/584 "2012-03-05T16:48:53Z")
Not enough. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/585 "2012-03-05T17:58:42Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > And so, relatively unnoticed, Canadian imperialism marches on. > > Will no-one save the world from this creeping menace? > > 😉 Turks and Caicos – just a matter of time. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/586 "2012-03-05T18:01:20Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I’m a blizzard. I’m a skier, and we’re in Canada. Too bad neither of us is gay. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/587 "2012-03-05T18:36:06Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > Just jumping in and speaking a new language is a great way to beat your fear of embarrassing yourself. Which is a major barrier when learning a language. > > Rick, you said you went to French immersion, but you probably had regular French as a second language classes in addition to the immersion. What helped you the most in learning the language? Or did it work at all? Why would I have taken “French as a second language courses” if I was in an immersion program? What would have helped me would be, you know, explaining what the hell was going on. Simply instructing history, georgraphy et al. in French, and teaching French as if to Francophones, worked for some kids but not at all for me; it tooks years to catch up. What would have helped me was an explanation; “here are some basic rules.” A good example would be conjugating avoir and etre. We had to memorize that and I managed to do that… _without actually knowing what avoir and etre mean._ It took me months to figure THAT out, so what I had were a set of words that had no meaning to me and so couldn’t be used in a way that was anything more than random. Had someone started off saying “Okay, look; `avoir' means to have, and `etre’ means to be. Think about how those words change in English depending on whether you’re saying I am, you are, and it’s like that in French. Okay, here we go” I would have been weeks and weeks ahead. To me, immersion was like handing someone a set of equations to solve without explaining arithmetic. But that’s how I learn; give me a reason, a concept, and I’ll take off with it. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/588 "2012-03-05T19:03:24Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Why would I have taken “French as a second language courses” if I was in an immersion program? > > What would have helped me would be, you know, explaining what the hell was going on. Simply instructing history, georgraphy et al. in French, and teaching French as if to Francophones, worked for some kids but not at all for me; it tooks years to catch up. What would have helped me was an explanation; “here are some basic rules.” > … Interesting. I learned French the scholarly way, and always thought I’d have been better off just speaking the language instead of learning tenses and conjugations, etc. I will admit though that I still have a very good foundation and if I was immersed in French now I would pick it up reasonably quickly. I’ve been on the north side of Montreal a few times this winter on business and even asked for directions once, but I did feel rather uneasy about it. My son is in immersion and is really struggling, not so much with French, but learning what he’s supposed to be learning, because it’s being taught in French: geography, for example. We may pull him out next year. Certainly we all learn differently. Unfortunately schools seem to have an even bigger “cookie cutter” approach now than they did when we were in school. ---
**Author:** ![perfectparanoia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a5b964/32.png) [@perfectparanoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perfectparanoia)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/589 "2012-03-05T19:05:53Z")
> [@Dr\_Doom](#): > > Simcoe County School Board (Ontario) is out of control with tax dollars. > > School buses, and therefore school (pretty much) were cancelled Wednesday morning because they \*expected \*freezing rain **in the afternoon**. It snowed. > > School buses, and therefore school (pretty much) were cancelled Thursday morning for reasons immediately inevident to me. Maybe because it had snowed (gasp!) Wednesday night? > > Infuriating, to many a parent who had to make special arrangements, or miss work for the care of their normally-in-school-all-day child, and also to taxpayers who aren’t best pleased with the Board simply finding a reason to use some secret snow-day quota before they missed their chance. > > What a waste. In the school board’s defense, they have to make the decision to cancel buses before the first child is picked up in the morning. If they bus them to school, they have to bus them home. So, sometimes they have to cancel buses with incomplete information. And the weatherpeople have gone insane in calling things ‘storms’ when they are mild snowfalls or ‘freezing rain’ when it is well above zero (we had a 9 degree day last week that called for freezing rain). It is also perfectly reasonable to cancel buses but not school depending on the school. At our school only about 10 kids are bussed in grades K-6. So, it makes sense for the kids who can walk to school to do so (since walking in the snow is pretty safe whereas driving less so). ---
**Author:** ![Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dread_pirate_jimbo/32/3897_2.png) [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dread_Pirate_Jimbo)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/590 "2012-03-05T19:43:02Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > Have I mentioned that I really admire Calgary’s mayor, [Naheed Nenshi](http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/politicians%2Breally/6238983/story.html)? I couldn’t agree more with him in this case. > > Better still, I’d love to find a way to get rid of the politicians who _are_ trying to con us. Have I mentioned recently that I’m on a first-name basis with Mayor Nenshi? > [@RickJay](#): > > I’ve commented on this to a few friends recently; it seems that as the winters get milder, our reaction to any degree of inclement weather is becoming hysterical. It’s becoming routine now for school buses to be cancelled for weather that no reasonable person would define as dangerous. Indeed, I would suggest that school bus cancellations probably increase the danger to students. The children will probably end up being driven to school, or somewhere, and they are in vastly more danger in a car than in a bus; a school bus is just about the safest mode of transportation you can ride in. > > It’s not just buses. We’re now getting EXTREME COLD WEATHER ALERTS for anything that hits -10, which is, lets be honest, historically a pretty routine temperature to reach in winter. I actually heard an announcer breathlessly note that “skin will freeze in ten minutes” in -10 weather, which is utter idiocy; if that were true then every person who took a walk or a run when it was cold would have serious frostbite. I couldn’t believe an adult would say something like that. > > When I was walking about half a mile to a bus stop in the early 80s these sorts of temperatures were perfectly expected and a little snow was no big deal. The entire time I took a bus to school in elementary school, a span of four years, the bus schedule was changed once to account for weather. In case you think I’m just being an old coot, I actually looked up a random range of days in Winter 1982 for my hometown, Kingston: > > Day: Mean, Low Temperature > February 2: -8, low -18 > February 3: -1, low -2 > February 4: -4, low -7 > February 5: -13, low -20 > February 6: -11, low -20 > February 7: -9, low -15 > February 8: -6, low -15 > > I mean, this was just normal stuff. Now people go positively apeshit. I’m not sure why this phenomenon is happening, but it does seem to be inversely proportional to how much bad weather we actually get. We had a formal storm warning the other day for an expected \*\*two centimetres \*\*of snow, an amount that I wouldn’t even bother to shovel off a driveway. This was also back in the day when fights in hockey were twice as common as they are now. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/591 "2012-03-05T19:44:19Z")
A further problem is that in some cases the various boards/schools may be sharing buses based on a staggered start/end school day. An initial 10 minute delay due to weather could easily propagate across the entire network and result in delays far in excess of the original slow down. My wife and I just have the kids walk on days the buses are canceled but school is open. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/592 "2012-03-05T20:15:32Z")
> [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](#): > > This was also back in the day when fights in hockey were twice as common as they are now. Back in the day, my mother, as a toddler, made a daily grocery trip from Milltown to St. Stephen and back by dog cart and dog sled. Just her and Jinx the dog, who knew where to go. It appears that times have changed, what with busses for everything and kids under constant supervision. Of course back in my day, one of my fellow students drove off with us in the intercity Grey Coach bus when the driver stepped out briefly, and kids routinely jumped out the back door of the yellow school bus when it slowed for turns, so perhaps not all hope is lost. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/593 "2012-03-05T20:24:14Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > \ > It appears that times have changed, what with busses for everything and kids under constant supervision.\ How far do you think I’d get with a campaign to get rid of school and playground zones, on the basis that kids are never allowed to set foot on a public sidewalk without a parent with them? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/594 "2012-03-05T21:03:18Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Having been put into French immersion for years, I can assure you… it doesn’t work for a lot of people. Actually learning some of the systemics might be a good idea. But I’ve had lots of systemics. What I didn’t have was actual use. And Benny admits that he studies the language every day. It’s the hardcore immersion that’s new to many. ---
**Author:** ![Ibanez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a4c791/32.png) [@Ibanez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibanez)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/595 "2012-03-05T22:25:13Z")
Best way to learn French in Canada is to surround yourself in French. Same goes for any language really. I was lucky, I grew up in Quebec the kids were friendly and when your one Anglophone with 10 other kids playing street hockey who are Francophone, majority rules. Then dating a women who spoke very little english later on for 2 years helped a lot. When I watch hockey I try to watch it in French to make sure I don’t lose it. My written French isn’t that strong however. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/596 "2012-03-06T00:30:12Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Why would I have taken “French as a second language courses” if I was in an immersion program? I don’t know, Rick. I don’t know how French immersion programs work in Ontario. I’d assumed that your classes would have been in French, but that you’d also have had French language classes _intended for non-native speakers_ to help you get up to speed. I guess it’s not the case, since your complaint is that your French classes seemed to be built on the assumption that you already spoke the language. > [@](#): > > A good example would be conjugating avoir and etre. We had to memorize that and I managed to do that… _without actually knowing what avoir and etre mean._ It took me months to figure THAT out, so what I had were a set of words that had no meaning to me and so couldn’t be used in a way that was anything more than random. Just one question: did you start French immersion in a later grade than the other students? This could explain why they didn’t do basic vocabulary with your class. Anyway, it’s probably a good idea to teach vocabulary even to immersion students. What I wonder is how you managed to follow your other classes if you didn’t know what _avoir_ and _être_ mean. But in any case, if you’re an adult and go the “just jump in” method of language learning, and are motivated, you’ll learn the vocabulary you need as you go along. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/597 "2012-03-06T01:25:49Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > Just one question: did you start French immersion in a later grade than the other students? This could explain why they didn’t do basic vocabulary with your class. Anyway, it’s probably a good idea to teach vocabulary even to immersion students. What I wonder is how you managed to follow your other classes if you didn’t know what _avoir_ and _être_ mean. No, I started like everyone else. It’s French IMMERSION. The idea is that you just are dropped into a place where French is spoken and you learn from that. We were just expected to learn the hard way, and we struggled along being incessantly corrected by the teacher. [QUOTE=Leaffan] Certainly we all learn differently. Unfortunately schools seem to have an even bigger “cookie cutter” approach now than they did when we were in school. [/QUOTE] I am pleased to note my child’s experience is precisely the opposite of that. Her classroom, school and teacher are almost absurdly more varied, encriched, and skilled than anything I ever saw in elementary school (in the immersion program or out.) The improvement is positively amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/598 "2012-03-06T04:33:59Z")
Hey, Calgarians, my brother-in-law is going to be on the CTV 6:00 News tomorrow, on a Lea Williams-Doherty segment talking about the dvd scam of having the digital copy you paid for expire without your knowledge! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/599 "2012-03-06T05:32:16Z")
[Céline Schwartz.](http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/06/celine-dion-schwartzs-deli/) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014/600 "2012-03-06T06:25:39Z")
[Rob Anders embarrasses western Conservatives again.](http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Veterans+continue+press+resignation+Tory+Anders+from+committee/6254075/story.html) Please believe me when I say this waste of skin does not speak for most westerners; I honestly can’t tell you why his constituents in Calgary West keep voting for this idiot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-canadoper-cafe-2012-edition-of-the-great-ongoing-canadian-current-events-and-politics-thread/608014.md?page=31)