RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:What a beautiful Picture :-)Yup, Conrad Black...all you say, plus he has written some impressive biographies.....so smart ...plus he prides himself on his knowledge and use of big words.....
But he is no longer as influential as he was...he was only given Canadian Citizenship again in 2023. He gave it up to become a British Peer....he had to due to Canadian law.....but to my knowledge he is not exercising any associated rights...and that he got his Canadian citizenship back means the Government seens no issue...so I am not sure The House of Lords wants him back. But his conviction caused him to lose his Order of Canada (highest civilian award) and his membersip in Her Majesty's Privy Council (a position that allowed him to exercise lots of influence.
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Bill C18 was enacted to force FB and Google to reimburse Canadian content owners for content linked to by these two companies, then selling advertising to those following the links
This bill was enacted to set up a fair system...Australia does it, EU does it...so not censorship at all...just trying to get Facebook and Google to pay for what they simply steal now
PLUS I can tell you we access all kinds of international media here...via cable TV we get all US networks and Canadian networks. I live in Toronto, and for awhile I was getting free over the air HD tv signal straight from our CN Tower...34 free stations, including all US major networks. We are very well served here by our cable and phone providers, (all provide phone, cable, internet)
Guess we are lucky that Buffalo is just down the road, Rochester is just across Lake Ontario....
Via the internet, we can access all media we choose. Myself I don't use FB or X or social media for any kind of news. Simply cannot trust it. To me FB, X, etc are a cesspool of misinformation.
Google News is my home page, and if I can't access something, well, I am directly linked to a number of highly credible news sources.....like BBC, Reuters, Associated Press, our own Globe & Mail...and for anything important I always go to multiple sources....including by the way Al Jazeera. Between them all, I can form a good picture of what is happening.
Bottom line is we have a very rich ecosystem of real news sources available to us in Canada...
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And I see no danger of authoritarian rule here...we are not "hard wired" for it. We enjoy a multi party system with a House of Commons and independant (moving toward a non party affiliated) Senate and an independant Supreme Court that guards our Canadian Charter of Rights.
We are forced to compromise. And that Trudeau may not be liked is simply natural in Canada. All governments outlive their welcome and freshness, and the next major party takes over until they too are turfed out. All in all, when in power, every party here tries to occupy the "radical middle, the extreme centre" when in power. They want to be re elected.
Our Federal Provincial relations get strained at times, for valid reasons, but so far we have been able to deal with it as a country. But we are set up so that our provinces will simply not accept a central authoritarian government in Ottawa, and Ottawa and our provinces would unlikely accept any kind of authoritarian provincial government.
We also have begun recognizing the power and authority of our Indigenous peoples over their own lands and destinies. An interesting side story to our 1995 Quebec referendum...Quebec held a referendum to separate from Canada. It never did, but our news reported at the time that all of Quebec's indigenous poeoples were saying "not with our lands you are not"
We are also lucky in that most of the time our parties stake out policy decisions, but are not idealogues. They know that one, workable, practical plan is worth a dozen grand ideals.
Oh and finally, we have a law that Federal elections MUST be held every 4 years, PLUS governments can fall before that via what is called a Non Confidence Vote.
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WRT our Covid mandates. We will have to agree to disagree here. I am surrounded by medical professionals and am married to a doctor....and I know vaccines work. I also know lockdowns and quarantines work. The fact this was done on such a massive scale is a first, but we are through it.
If I am right, you live in Florida....did you know your government is trying to buy prescription drugs out of Canada because of our lower prices? Our government essentially told Big Pharma that their high prices were unacceptable for certain drugs....now FLA wants in on our supply instead of tackling BIG PHARMA...but you won't because of free enterprise capitalism and because they are huge political donors. So you pay on average 218% MORE for prescription drugs than we do (a 2021 study)
Unchecked Big Capitalism is a detriment to the USA IMO. Big sectoral companies buy politicians, write legislation, and due to Citizens United, actually enjoy far more privileges than normal citizens.
Still, there are big corporations that are good corporate citizens, so I won't taint them all
Lastly...I am Northern European in background, as well as Canadian. Interventionist government and social welfare working toward compromise is in my DNA. We can all say a BIG THANK YOU to our Tommy Douglas, who gave all Canadians medical care that is paid via our taxes, and care that does not bankrupt us when catastrophe hits. It has its flaws, but it also works.
Oh and GO KC
nukester wrote: Question 1:
Guy on the right: Appears to be Conrad Black
Former Canadian citizen
Old school conservative newspaper baron.
Born wealthy.
Old School Neo-conservative.
Hated by liberals.
Lots of powerful friends at various times.
Pardoned by Trump for creative accounting fraud and related obstruction convictions.
Type of guy that is eager for the United States citizens to fight and die for Israel.
Type of guy that speaks out loudly against Liberal ideas.
While I do not agree with many of his thoughts and actions, he is firmly against the liberal insanity enveloping much of western civilization.
Question #2
Free elections do not prevent totalitarian governments.
Adolph Hitler was elected prior to his becoming the dictator we all hear about.
One of the first steps to totalitarian government used by the newly elected Nazi regime was to censor free speech in newspapers, magazines, movies, and even art.
Does Bill C-18 ring a bell?
Ostensibly designed to "Protect" Canadian publishers, C-18 effectively prevents Canadian citizens from accesing global news on Google or Facebook etc.
In other words... Canadians news seekers are limited to only "Approved " content by the Trudeau regime.
How about the covid mandates?
Many Canadians were forced to take an experimental vaccine to save their jobs and put food on the table. Forcing a experimental concoction into someones body is about as totalitarian as it gets in my book.
How about free speech in general ?
OK, now my soap box is put away, back to GameHost :-)
Cheers,
Nukester