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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • I don’t think we’re that far apart in views but we are very different in terms of who we think needs to lead the change.

    I’m putting the onus on societal level changes in the built environment and acceptance of children and persons with disabilities.

    You seem to be putting the onus on individuals to drive the change by personally overcoming barriers.

    You are proudly talking about how you personally have overcome barriers but not everyone can. With 30% or the adult population identifying with at least one disability, it’s not a small or isolated issue.

    As is said in the disability community, not everyone has the spoons and certainly not every day. Don’t shame others for what they may not be able to accomplish that you can.

    The 15 minute journey problem is primarily evidence of a problem with where stores and services are located in relation to residences.

    Affordability notwithstanding, bike and public transit as a person with visual, hearing or mobility limitations remain deeply challenging in most communities.

    Wonderful that your children and grandchildren have been able to meet expectations or haven’t faced needs that couldn’t be accommodated. Most persons or families experiencing disabilities wouldn’t have your experience or might put their limited spoons to other priorities.


  • It’s not a small minority who cannot manage as pedestrians, with active or even better public transportation.

    Easily said, for a healthy young adult who doesn’t have to support young children.

    Having been entirely car free until we had young children, it was a true eye opener to have to confront how difficult it is to get kids to medical appointments and activities without a car.

    Urban design doesn’t provide infrastructure for families in the core. It’s not just a transportation choice issue. Cities would need to be designed very differently and greater physical and social accommodations for children and persons with disabilities and neurodivergence would be needed.

    When kids became part of our lives, we deliberately chose to live as close to the core and public transit as we could and still be near schools, community centres and hospitals. It still put us in a semi-suburban style older neighborhood where some reliance on a car became necessary.

    Unreliability of public transit is much more problematic when you have to transport young children who chill quickly when not moving in deeply cold weather.

    Also, many children cannot consistently meet the behavioural expectations adults on public transit or elsewhere.

    Adults aren’t shy to tell parents that they shouldn’t bring their kids into public spaces when they can’t meet behavioural expectations, but getting a kid having a meltdown home or a sick kid to a physician or hospital without a car is nearly impossible.

    We made the choice to be a single car family to limit our environmental impact but that in itself was very challenging.

    By the time our kids were independent teens, we found our own physical limitations with ageing reduced the viability of active transportation as our main approach. We could choose to move to another area but not without pushing our kids out to find their own housing.


  • Fair enough. I mentioned Marcelle as they have truly been the hypoallergenic North American brand for a half century. One used to only see their line at compounding pharmacies.

    Single ingredient lines are very difficult, or even ones that just exclude the top allergens. There have been some smaller Canadian lines, but they seem to come and go - or like Ilia, a originally Canadian brand manufactured in the EU, they go big and move their head office to the US.





  • We rotated treatments to kill them off. No single one could do it.

    The mineral oil one was fairly successful.

    There was a great herbal product called Quick Nits from Australia that could be applied and left in a cap overnight but it seemed to come and go from the Canadian market in just a couple of years.

    One thing worth knowing is that heat and drying them out is effective. While there are protocols for blow dryers, old fashioned bonnet hair dryers are an another good way to kill them and the eggs as well as avoid infections.

    After the first lice infestation, we literally tracked one down and had our kids our kids use it once a week while playing on a computer or tablet. It cut down the reinfections.




  • Surprised by some of the comments here.

    Whether or not the solution being proposed is the best or only one is the question.

    Instead several users are taking any discussion as being anti-democratic.

    The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada raised concerns about how these long ballots were impeding the democratic process, including by presenting barriers to accessibility by voters.

    This has become an increasing problem, with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s riding being targeted in 2019.

    There seem to be two kinds of barriers:

    • physical barriers to finding and marking the ballot of their choice
    • becoming informed of the positions and intents of candidates when there are so many candidates that do not actually intend to serve as MPs.

    The underlying issue seems to be that a small group of qualified voters in a targeted riding are nominating a very large number of candidates.

    That is 60+ candidates put forward by the longest ballot group were all nominated by the same small number of voters.

    Is this reasonable?

    Democratic rights are balanced with responsibility under the Charter. Is it reasonable for a single voter to sign the nomination papers for 50 candidates or even 20.

    Only being able to sign the papers for one candidate in one election period may be too limiting as not all candidates obtain enough signatures to be minor drop out later for other reasons.

    Would limiting the right to sign nomination papers to 2 or 5 candidates be a reasonable balance under the Charter?

    While this specific solution being proposed by this CPC member may be too restrictive, it seems worth a debate.

    And perhaps the second issue of voters being able to reasonably obtain information about the intent and positions of candidates would be resolved if there were not so many nominated candidates.

    The Rhinoceros party position that their candidates would resign if elected was well known so voters could make an informed choice. The current long ballot situation doesn’t offer that choice.

    A proactive referral to the Supreme Court of Canada might be the best way to get an understanding of the balance of democratic rights. It would be best to have a read on what would be a reasonable limitation on both those who sign nominations and those who put themselves forward vs the responsibility to have accessible ballots with candidates who intend to serve before any changes to the the elections act is brought forward.




  • I feel as though the entire point of this was to make Canadians feel ashamed and discouraged on the day before our national holiday.

    And in that Trump was successful. It’s brutal and bullying propaganda.

    No success of realpolitik in negotiations can undo that.

    The business community and media were calling the digital services tax an unforced error.

    But the real unforced error is Carney getting played to do something destructive to national unity heading into Canada Day.

    This is one of the few cases where his lack of political experience is showing. I’m wondering if his team will let him understand that and see the polling impact.





  • My point is that the principle of existing homeowners funding infrastructure for new homes is only tenable when

    • developers are not creating huge externalities by creating ever larger suburbs with infrastructure funded by the core (take Ottawa as an example for that dynamic)
    • when the base of established homeowners is large enough to support the rate of growth.

    In the first case, development fees based on lot size for new sprawling burbs are a reasonable way to push the market towards density.

    In the second case, with a high rate of growth in a specific market, other means of redistribution such as government subsidies may be a better way to redistribute.