I assume "UPC" above was a typo and you meant to write "UCP".
Fair point, and yes that is a typo on my part. It's also an error on my part, I have not voted UCP. I thought they were around for one election prior to the most recent one, they were not. I stand corrected.
Politics has changed overall. You used to be able to have discussions with people and disagree. Afterwords, you could hangout and be good friends. One of my very best friends and I have that relationship where we argue over politics respectfully, never agree, and move along as friends anyway. Politicians used to be that way also.
Now it’s a fight to the death. When you look at things during Covid and the divisions it’s caused/causing, it’s not a good thing for society. It needs to become acceptable that people disagree and have differing opinions. Instead we have this “gotcha” mentality and the other people are “brainwashed” or “stupid”.
I agree with you, politics has changed. I teach social studies in a rural Alberta high school. In 2020, I had students coming to me asking me if it was true that Obama, Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden were satan worshippers who drank the blood of children. Also the kids asked if it was true that all democrats were pedophiles. This wasn't a single incident. Other times kids asked if it was true that the UN was trying to turn the world into a single communist nations controlled by globalists. It happened several times, and I needed to spend entire classes discussing this issue with some of my classes.
I eventually found out that an educational assistant were telling the kids these things, along with some parents. There was also another social teacher who was fully into Qanon that was telling the kids some crazy stuff. The educational assistant told the kids in our school lots of things (some of which has been repeated on this forum) like all mainstream media in Canada is controlled by Trudeau, or that Trudeau is trying to turn Canada into a communist dictatorship. What's stupid, is the EA worked in the shop class as an extra set of eyes so the kids didn't hurt themselves, but I guess she also took the opportunity to teach them about her beliefs. Anyways, she was eventually let go for doing this. About 6 months later she was elected as town councillor in this community and affiliates herself with the UCP.
I guess my point is, am I to take this person seriously? Am I to look at her beliefs/views which are easily refutable and still respect her? I mean, I see her humanity and respect her as a person on this planet but her beliefs are absolute garbage.
There are posters on this forum who post things along the same vein, but maybe not to the extreme that she was doing. But any suggestion that Rebel, WS or TN or somehow anywhere close to the equivalency of other news sources (CBC, CTV, Global News, Globe and Mail, etc.) is just wrong.
We live now in an age where anyone (literally anyone) can start a website and call themselves a journalist and produce garbage. And then we as a society are supposed to accept them as 'different opinions'?
People from all parties used to accept universal truths, like Russia/Putin is not to be trusted. Now we have people in the USA and Canada arguing that Russia is the good guy? Wow. 5 years ago no one would have questioned that, regardless of if they were right or left leaning.
Last edited by b1crunch; 10-18-2022 at 02:03 PM.
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What could possibly be bad about universal dental care?
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What could possibly be bad about universal dental care?
I know that many may not be sympathetic to it but when you put it under health care you end up with a situation where you are at he mercy of the government every 3-4 hrs to raise what they pay out for an examination. This is often miniscule even vs. inflation.
Here is an extreme example from Ontario Optometrists where the government only raised what they would pay for an eye exam from $37 to $44 over 32 years. However the cost to the Optometrist to do the exam was actually higher than that due to staff costs/overhead.
Essentially, it become completely reliant on glasses/CL sales to be sustainable.
In Alberta there is coverage for Under and 19 and Over 65 for. Even then the Government will pay out $80.70 per exam for Seniors and $56.17 for Kids. These have remained pretty stagnant since 2008. We are allowed to bill extra over an above ($50 at our office) but that still does not reach the $165 exam fee for someone 19-64. Ontario refused to allow Optometrists to balance bill anything out of pocket.
Completely public sounds like a good idea but it erodes the quality of care quite a bit. The top of the line equipment can cost a Quarter Million or more and patient expectation is to get the best care. Not to mention the increased tax dollars that need to go toward the care.
I do think there is a reasonable compromise tied to income level though. As it is now there are government paid eye exams for AISH, AB Works, Indian Affairs and Refugees.
Last edited by Knut; 10-18-2022 at 02:18 PM.
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Fair point, and yes that is a typo on my part. It's also an error on my part, I have not voted UCP. I thought they were around for one election prior to the most recent one, they were not. I stand corrected.
Regardless of who you eventually voted for, why was dental care such a "no vote for you!" moment in your personal evaluation of political party options?
I agree with you, politics has changed. I teach social studies in a rural Alberta high school. In 2020, I had students coming to me asking me if it was true that Obama, Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden were satan worshippers who drank the blood of children. Also the kids asked if it was true that all democrats were pedophiles. This wasn't a single incident. Other times kids asked if it was true that the UN was trying to turn the world into a single communist nations controlled by globalists. It happened several times, and I needed to spend entire classes discussing this issue with some of my classes.
I eventually found out that an educational assistant were telling the kids these things, along with some parents. There was also another social teacher who was fully into Qanon that was telling the kids some crazy stuff. The educational assistant told the kids in our school lots of things (some of which has been repeated on this forum) like all mainstream media in Canada is controlled by Trudeau, or that Trudeau is trying to turn Canada into a communist dictatorship. What's stupid, is the EA worked in the shop class as an extra set of eyes so the kids didn't hurt themselves, but I guess she also took the opportunity to teach them about her beliefs. Anyways, she was eventually let go for doing this. About 6 months later she was elected as town councillor in this community and affiliates herself with the UCP.
I guess my point is, am I to take this person seriously? Am I to look at her beliefs/views which are easily refutable and still respect her? I mean, I see her humanity and respect her as a person on this planet but her beliefs are absolute garbage.
There are posters on this forum who post things along the same vein, but maybe not to the extreme that she was doing. But any suggestion that Rebel, WS or TN or somehow anywhere close to the equivalency of other news sources (CBC, CTV, Global News, Globe and Mail, etc.) is just wrong.
We live now in an age where anyone (literally anyone) can start a website and call themselves a journalist and produce garbage. And then we as a society are supposed to accept them as 'different opinions'?
People from all parties used to accept universal truths, like Russia/Putin is not to be trusted. Now we have people in the USA and Canada arguing that Russia is the good guy? Wow. 5 years ago no one would have questioned that, regardless of if they were right or left leaning.
Ya, but Marxist Albertan teachers are teaching kids that capitalism might have some flaws, and the oil industry may not be perfect. Both sides!
Did I make this up? No, sadly, Danielle Smith actually wrote an article on it...in the LAMESTREAM MEDIA!
Obviously any thinking person can see that b1crunch's experience is harmful to students because it is all lies and conspiracy theories, yet Danielle Smith thinks what needs fixing is that reality needs to be hidden from kids.
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Exp:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lubicon
I didn't say I voted UPC. They also had some personal deal breakers.
Well you did say you voted "some form of conservative",
The other options don't look great:
Alberta Independence?
Freedom Conservative (AKA Derek Filderbrandt's party)
Alberta Advantage (AKA former Wildrose)
Reform (I guess you could be one of teh 79 people that voted for them)
Unless I'm missing something, those are all the conservative options in the last election.
So if you voted for a conservative party, which one of those didn't have a deal breaker that rose to the level of free fillings for poor people?
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Last edited by Bring_Back_Shantz; 10-18-2022 at 02:49 PM.
I know that many may not be sympathetic to it but when you put it under health care you end up with a situation where you are at he mercy of the government every 3-4 hrs to raise what they pay out for an examination. This is often miniscule even vs. inflation.
Here is an extreme example from Ontario Optometrists where the government only raised what they would pay for an eye exam from $37 to $44 over 32 years. However the cost to the Optometrist to do the exam was actually higher than that due to staff costs/overhead.
Essentially, it become completely reliant on glasses/CL sales to be sustainable.
In Alberta there is coverage for Under and 19 and Over 65 for. Even then the Government will pay out $80.70 per exam for Seniors and $56.17 for Kids. These have remained pretty stagnant since 2008. We are allowed to bill extra over an above ($50 at our office) but that still does not reach the $165 exam fee for someone 19-64. Ontario refused to allow Optometrists to balance bill anything out of pocket.
Completely public sounds like a good idea but it erodes the quality of care quite a bit. The top of the line equipment can cost a Quarter Million or more and patient expectation is to get the best care. Not to mention the increased tax dollars that need to go toward the care.
I do think there is a reasonable compromise tied to income level though. As it is now there are government paid eye exams for AISH, AB Works, Indian Affairs and Refugees.
suspect this is the issue that is faced (maybe I'm simplifying it) right now by family docs (mostly, other docs too esp in some circumstances) who are bound by negotiated coverage rates that can get stale dated
suspect this is the issue that is faced (maybe I'm simplifying it) right now by family docs (mostly, other docs too esp in some circumstances) who are bound by negotiated coverage rates that can get stale dated
Yup and not being able to bill multiple billing codes in one day.
In Optometry we have Medically necessary billing for 19-64. So pink eye, double vision, injuries, Fb removals, potential detached retinas we can bill health care for as an emergency visit. There are ways for emergency coverage to be covered perhaps but routine visits not.
This one is a....lot. I'm not pulling out nearly as many things as I could, because, well...
Quote:
Where did Smith get the idea that this spike is from non-COVID deaths? Well in her newsletter, Smith links to ZeroHedge, an infamous conspiracy website affiliated with Infowars. The U.S. has called out the website for laundering Russian propaganda.
Quote:
A feature of Smith’s newsletter was a running competition to pick the best libertarian and conservative cause to support.
Smith encouraged her followers to chip in $100: The money would go into a prize pot. After weeks of voting, six top-listed organizations would plead their case over a Zoom call, and two winners would split the money.
Some of those candidates were at least semi-mainstream: Including True North News and Canada Strong and Free (formerly the Manning Centre.)
Others are…less so.
On the list is Action4Canada, an organization that thinks the COVID-19 vaccine is being used to microchip us for 5G surveillance.
Quote:
Meyssan’s essay was republished on a blog site called Algora, which Smith links to directly. Algoa is, in a word, very antisemitic.
Even if you were to take a cursory scroll through this one essay, you would likely notice the list categories on the sidebar: One of the most popular, with 77 posts, is “It’s All About Jews.” The website features some stunningly blunt Holocaust denialism and anti-Jewish content, including the assertion that “world jewry on March 24, 1933 declared war on Germany.” Another post, entitled “For Its Security and Survival, China Must Understand Rothschild Zionism,” proclaims “China is not the enemy. China is a friend. Humanity’s enemy is the international banker.”
How Smith wound up on this website is a mystery for the ages.
But however she got there, she kept coming back!
Smith also linked to Algora in February, when she posted a rundown of “FAKE NEWS Stories Coming out of Ukraine.”
Quote:
Danielle Smith is media illiterate.
Put another way, in her own words: "When I was in politics, my staff said, ‘Danielle, you have no crazy radar.'“
When Danielle Smith seeks out news from the pro-Kremlin Centre for Research on Globalization; or The Gateway Pundit, always on the hunt for the fabled Antifa false flag attack, she underscores the fact that she cannot separate truth from fantasy.
We can’t expect that everyone thoroughly vet every single source they encounter. But ask yourself: How often do you share antisemitic blogs? I hope the answer is “never” or as close to “never” as you reasonable achieve.
Smith does not do any due diligence when someone sends her a link, or even before she shares it with her tens of thousands of followers — not even a cursory look to see if she is receiving her geopolitical news from a website that proclaim our true enemy is “the international banker.” She internalizes the information and passes it on.
Quote:
How can any person trust that Danielle Smith is going to read memos, prepared by her deep state bureaucracy; or listen to briefings from public health officials, whom she believes are responsible for administering a murder vaccine?
This isn’t just about a politician who believes bad and wrong things — this is about a politician who has decided to live in her own world, with her own facts, with her own sources of reality.
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I just can't comprehend, no matter what your politics are, how you can possible support having someone who can so obviously fall into conspiracy theories lead one of the biggest economies in Canada. Is "owning the libs" so important that you sacrifice all sanity and logic to someone who will not listen to subject matter experts, but follows the wackiest clearly provable false theories on the internet?
Like, take a step back Conservatives, and really really think this one through. One of the biggest assets of a leader is knowing what they don't know, and heeding the advice of those that do. Daniele Smith seems incapable of that, and for that reason alone is incredibly dangerous. How she wasn't shot down before becoming Premier points to a massive failure within the UCP.
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I just can't comprehend, no matter what your politics are, how you can possible support having someone who can so obviously fall into conspiracy theories lead one of the biggest economies in Canada. Is "owning the libs" so important that you sacrifice all sanity and logic to someone who will not listen to subject matter experts, but follows the wackiest clearly provable false theories on the internet?
Like, take a step back Conservatives, and really really think this one through. One of the biggest assets of a leader is knowing what they don't know, and heeding the advice of those that do. Daniele Smith seems incapable of that, and for that reason alone is incredibly dangerous. How she wasn't shot down before becoming Premier points to a massive failure within the UCP.
Just don’t call anyone brainwashed or stupid because that’s just RUDE.
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Nah, he voted for the numbers underneath barcodes.
I presume this is the application to provincial politics of that "Dave Nonis vs. a Potato" concept from years gone by.
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I agree with you, politics has changed. I teach social studies in a rural Alberta high school. In 2020, I had students coming to me asking me if it was true that Obama, Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden were satan worshippers who drank the blood of children. Also the kids asked if it was true that all democrats were pedophiles. This wasn't a single incident. Other times kids asked if it was true that the UN was trying to turn the world into a single communist nations controlled by globalists. It happened several times, and I needed to spend entire classes discussing this issue with some of my classes.
I eventually found out that an educational assistant were telling the kids these things, along with some parents. There was also another social teacher who was fully into Qanon that was telling the kids some crazy stuff. The educational assistant told the kids in our school lots of things (some of which has been repeated on this forum) like all mainstream media in Canada is controlled by Trudeau, or that Trudeau is trying to turn Canada into a communist dictatorship. What's stupid, is the EA worked in the shop class as an extra set of eyes so the kids didn't hurt themselves, but I guess she also took the opportunity to teach them about her beliefs. Anyways, she was eventually let go for doing this. About 6 months later she was elected as town councillor in this community and affiliates herself with the UCP.
I guess my point is, am I to take this person seriously? Am I to look at her beliefs/views which are easily refutable and still respect her? I mean, I see her humanity and respect her as a person on this planet but her beliefs are absolute garbage.
There are posters on this forum who post things along the same vein, but maybe not to the extreme that she was doing. But any suggestion that Rebel, WS or TN or somehow anywhere close to the equivalency of other news sources (CBC, CTV, Global News, Globe and Mail, etc.) is just wrong.
We live now in an age where anyone (literally anyone) can start a website and call themselves a journalist and produce garbage. And then we as a society are supposed to accept them as 'different opinions'?
People from all parties used to accept universal truths, like Russia/Putin is not to be trusted. Now we have people in the USA and Canada arguing that Russia is the good guy? Wow. 5 years ago no one would have questioned that, regardless of if they were right or left leaning.
BCHS? If not BCHS (Brooks) then you are not alone.
As for the bolded, could it simply be strategy for them to have an easy class for the day? I remember back to my childhood and we would often do/ try this.
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Last edited by Derek Sutton; 10-18-2022 at 04:14 PM.
So, in other words, we have our very own little Donald Trump for a premier. Too lazy or stupid or self involved to verify anything she reads. This is gonna go well.
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