I believe I made clear that my position was that democracy can only thrive when the population is homogeneous with a common goal and the only thing that is to be decided is the path. When the population is on the same wavelength of the government, then all the people believe the government is going in the right direction. When the population is diverse, there will always be the majority that thinks the government is going in the wrong direction, although this majority will never agree to what the right direction is. Thus, the majority who feel the government is not going in the right (their desired) direction, will consider that their vote has no effect on public policy. This is inevitable in a diverse society.

I am sure that your denial of what is actually happening in China is so persuasive to you. I can see how this would happen. You confuse an autocratic leader with a decisive effective leader. I can see how you might think that a leader that oversees the implementation of the will of the people in a decisive manner as 'autocratic', but you miss my point. If the homogeneous society as a whole wants exactly what Xi is delivering, and Xi is delivering exactly what the society wants, and the society is solidly behind him, that is not autocratic, that is completely bureaucratic in its efficiency. When the destination is completely agreed upon, the most efficient way to get there is through bureaucracy, and Xi s the penultimate bureaucrat in the penultimate bureaucratic system. But bear no illusion, when Xi stops delivering what the people want and demand, he is toast.

White Europeans (Irish, Italian, French, Greek, Slavic, etc.) were historically racialized and marginalized incidentally in this country, experienced systemic disadvantage, but certainly do not experience racism today

I really can not get my head around the American census breakdown of the population into Black, White, and non-Spanish-speaking White.

Carney is decidedly NOT a Corporatist. He is 100% a Banker, tried and true.

A Banker is what makes a Corporist possible.

I am afraid that the only thing this would result in is even more political posturing and politicking by three times as many politicians. The more diverse the political spectrum represented in the HoC, the less likely that any decisions would be made. How do you get that many MP's to decide on anything? Toronto suffered this fate when the number of counselors rose to unmanageable levels.

Is there anything in your response that is not standard political anti-establishment trope?

A multicultural population becomes a multicultural democratic population when the various multicultural factors are given the right to vote. If you can not vote, you can not participate in the 'democracy'.

George Soros certainly thinks there is a socialist destination for America. Bernie Sanders pretty much considers that there is a socialist destination as well, if only Americans would vote for it.

The democratic multicultural nature of America is strongest at the local level. City mayoralty, for instance.

I am not surprised you don't agree with my appraisal of China. To do so would mean that you have taken the time to research and study modern China, not just accept the American propaganda machine as the truth. They have a well defined democratic process, strongest at the local level. Their election process is hierarchical in nature, progressing up from local to national.

Can a non-homogeneous democracy compete with a homogeneous? Do you think the US has competed successfully considering they have been non-homogeneous for awhile now.

There is a difference between a multicultural population, and a democratic multicultural population. The difference is in the degree to which the enfranchised voting list is multicultural, the degree to which the multiculturalism can be expressed at the voting both. Israel is a case in point - multicultural to the extent that Palestinians can live in Israel, but definitely not a multicultural democracy since they can not vote.

America grew stronger in the early 1900's, a time when the voting franchise was effectively limited to 'white males'. Women did not get the right to vote until 1920, and America had a singular destination - pure Capitalism. There was also really only one party that was allowed in America during this time - the Capitalist party. It had, however, two divisions that differed in how Capitalism was to be achieved.

Now in America, capitalism and socialism are different destinations, espoused by different parties. They are a distinctly different culture. Trying to determine which destination to aim for in a democratic electoral process, in my opinion, will result in a non-productive society. As the two cultures of socialism and capitalism became voting issues in an America with an expanded voting franchise, democracy faced an inevitable stalemate and the country descended into political polarization and now economic stagnation. If you don't think it is cultural, just tale a close look at the breakdown of American voter characteristics and how each demographic votes.

A society that is almost exclusively capitalist, but determines the economic policies that drive that capitalism (such as policies on competition) through voting, is a workable democracy in my opinion. That was America in the early 1900's.

China today has a common destination (universal socialism) but the population can determine the path to move towards that socialism (exclusively state ownership or limited private investment) through the electoral process. That is a homogeneous population with a common destination, but a democratic process to determine the path.

And the cost of implementation would be enormous. You are talking about a huge supporting infrastructure, the cost of just the MP salaries alone would be triple the current expenditure. The Law of Diminishing Returns gone ballistic.

Perhaps you should research the term 'Autonomous Chinese Province' with respect to regional boundaries in China. That would seem to make these regions of China a 'Republic' as in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Statehood is more than just a political boundary. Being a Republic is no guarantee of anything related to the term 'democracy'. But making broad accusations of what is happening in China without actually knowing what is truly happening in China is certainly not conducive to intelligent discourse.

The situation regarding the Uyghur population in China is a lot more nuanced than 'they are trampled on by China'. There is a lot more to the Uyghur narrative than the one driven by the Chinese response to a minority of Uyghur Islamic Terrorists within the general Uyghur population, yet the Western media goes no further than the popular mischaracterization of painting all Uyghurs in general with the same 'oppressed population' brush.

It is said that humans are essentially a herd animal by nature. The followers of the winning side are just that - followers. The herd leader determines the direction. Steve Jobs was once reportedly asked if he used focus groups to determine what features to include in his products. The story goes that he responded with a resounding "Never. People do not know what they want until I tell them."

I believe that the herd instinct is based on genes, but more importantly that whether these genes are expressed or not depends on the environment of the individual, particularly the socioeconomic and educational environment. There is a reason why the 'entitled' faction implement every policy they can to denigrate the importance of education. I posit that the more uneducated a person is, the stronger their herd instinct, and the stronger their herd instinct, the more blindly their devotion to their leader. There is also evidence that, especially related to cult behavior, the amount and type of protein in the diet is a factor. Google "cults and the limitation of protein".

So yes, I believe that many political leaders today look upon the voters as 'election fodder' and consider them simply as a means to get elected. Also that the politicians in our current system that are best adept at mobilizing the 'herd' have the best chance of getting elected. This is particularly evident in America, where the education level of the population tends to fall into the lower tiers.

Our concept of the 'Party System', Party Loyalty, and blind obedience to the whims of the Party that the voter identifies with is all part of this.

It must be remembered that the original form of 'democracy' in the American constitution was limited to white male landowners, who would be less inclined to conform to a 'herd mentality'.

And many would say that you haven't really been 'poor' unless you were a poor citizen of China in the last century. Yet socialism has pretty much eliminated abject poverty in the country.

Read what I said carefully. I said the breakdown of democracy was due to polarization. I did not say what the cause of the polarization was. The American system of democracy, and to a large extent our system, is based on an adversarial winner-take-all, loser-maybe-next-time system. An election simply determines who will be the authoritarian dictator for the next election cycle. But now, the two sides have completely vacated the middle, leading to a complete polarization (no middle ground) of their policies. Thus, no matter who wins, democracy loses, because it is no longer governance of all the people, for all the people, by all the people, but governance of the winning side, for the winning side, by the winning side. The ideals, goals.ideology of the other side are completely ignored.

No, I am entirely serious. Are you trolling?

You said yourself he is favoring his rich buddies. Policies that promote economic growth. You can not say he is going 'those things' and then say 'he is doing none of those things'. Which is it?

He is implementing fiscal policies that promote economic growth. Protecting the less fortunate and disadvantaged is a social, not a fiscal, policy.

It begs the question be asked, 'Can democracy survive in a multicultural society, or can democracy only exist in a homogeneous society?' And a supplemental question, 'Can democracy in a multicultural society compete and prosper when confronted by democracy in a homogeneous society?'

A lot has been said about 'white elitism' and 'white entitlement' with reference to the decline of democracy in Western society. However, this misses the point. American 'democracy' (and indeed the beginnings of democracy in Britain) began as a system based on homogeneity. The original voters list in America was limited to white male landowners who believed in God. Freedom of religion originally meant 'the freedom to worship God in the religion of your choice'. It was assumed that this restricted group of voters had the same goal, they just differed in how to achieve it. Under this system, 'democracy' was seen as a way to determine the path, not the destination. (Yes, this is over-simplistic, as even at the time that American statehood began there was a North-South divide, with each faction having a different destination in mind, but the destinations were variations on which entitled male landowner faction would dominate).

But as the voters list expanded in scope (more and more groups were added - females, non-whites, renters, indigent populations), the 'destination' was no longer homogeneous. Each faction that was added came with a divergent goal, and the original faction could no longer guarantee that democracy would just determine the path, not the destination.

Today, Western society now represents such a huge divergence of factions, with greatly divergent destinations, that the main thrust of 'democratic' elections is now to determine the characteristics of the destination, not just the pathway to achieve it. Unfortunately, many of these destinations are mutually exclusive of each other, and what we call democracy has now become a battle between entrenched positions, winner-take-all.

But it will be interesting to see how the global situation evolves.

The West does not have exclusive rights to elitism and entitlement, just the rights to 'white male' elitism and entitlement. Let us not forget that there are other locusts of power in the world, and many are still primarily homogeneous societies, with their own sense of (definitely not 'white') elitism and entitlement. Further, with modern weapons systems, they are becoming militarily powerful loci of entitlement.

China, for instance, is an extremely homogeneous society, with a growing sense of Chinese entitlement, that is getting stronger every passing year. Rather than growing more diverse, the Chinese society is actually growing more unified and consolidated in their sense of destination. Democracy in China is very alive and well, contrary to Western public opinion. It is just that they are not voting to determine the destination so much as they are voting to select the path. China, in fact, does not have a 'one party' system, so much as they have a 'no party' system. With a common destination, no need to differentiate by 'party' but by 'path'. It begs the question be asked, 'Is the rise of China's power and the decline of American influence due to the homogeneity, and thus the singular nature and the goal directedness, of the Chinese society?' That is, Chinese society today is driven by a singular common societal goal and the entire resources of the state are directed towards achieving this goal; whereas the concept of democracy in the West has evolved into trying to implement a divergent set of goals, depending on who wins the election. Since the goals of each faction have become so mutually exclusive, whatever progress is achieved by one party in one election cycle is destroyed by the next party in the next election cycle.

This century will be defined by this conflict between and within world political systems and nation states regarding the degree of homogeneity versus diversity of their society, and the nature of their democracy. I suspect that the result will be a shift in the nature of statehood towards a world of smaller, but more homogeneous, states where democracy determines the path, not the destination. Trump is not the cause, but the symptom, of this clash.

I believe America's future can only be sustained when America breaks up into two or more nations, each progressing towards their own mutually exclusive destination. How Canada evolves will be determined by whether or not Canada can define its own workable common destination, and shape manageable power sharing schemes between federal, provincial, and municipal jurisdictions to allow different paths towards this common destination.

Overall, I supported Carney as well, last election (but voted Green). But I said at the time, here in this community, that although I completely agreed with his economic and fiscal policies, the jury was still out regarding his social and humanitarian policies. If you think back, Carney ran almost entirely on his financial policies, and remained silent on social policies.

The single factor that is leading to the breakdown of "democracy" is the extreme polarization of the population into two adversarial camps. The more entrenched in their ideology the sides become, the more antagonistically aggressive they become towards each other. Expecting that democracy could survive in this quagmire is like expecting a devout religion to be democratic.

Recognition that America, at the government level, uses and sanctions the use of forced labour.

Of more importance than WHAT can be used, is WHO can use it.

How does this bill address the issue of the general public having access to these deadly poisons?