Found on HackerNews. Kind of scary that merely ordering toddler stuff on Amazon can result in criminal charges.

FYI I’ve had a really good experience with using Headscale for a true open-source Tailscale experience. It helps that the Tailscale clients work with it too and that Tailscale (very unofficially) help support it.

I really like the positioning of the Incan and Korean one, as to me it really has the vibe of Gandalf blocking the way yelling “You shall not pass!”

It’s because there are numerous factors at play. Low interest rates combined with investors (some of whom are foreign), Airbnb hotels, along with record high immigration and minimal supply expansion all contribute to the problem. All play an aggravating role, but that means that there isn’t a single silver bullet to solve the problem.

It’s frustrating to me when people argue about whether it’s a supply side issue or a demand side issue - it’s both! There aren’t enough homes for people AND it didn’t help that people had to compete with investors with below-inflation interest rates.

So… why exactly does the government even have the power to control what varieties farmers grow? I’d understand if the potatoes were diseased or something, but banning farmers from growing something simply because it’s hard to harvest? That seems completely absurd and (knowing no more about this than this story) suggests to me that maybe those government departments have too much regulatory power.

Total speculation on my part - the Liberals are terrified of the polling numbers and the NDP have been a little more aggressive with their criticisms of the Liberals that the Liberals are worried the NDP will drop their support and we’ll have a spring election. By dragging their feet on these NDP priorities they’re trying to keep the NDP from withdrawing support.

Commenting here to add that there’s actually two versions of the TFW program, one for high wages and one for low wages. I guess I’m arguing for eliminating the low wage stream as I take issue with the idea there’s a labour shortage - it’s more a question of what price you want to pay.

I think people are upset because the temporary foreign worker program is often used not for specialized skilled labour (like the manufacturer is claiming) but instead for low-skill, low-wage jobs to just reduce labour costs.

I think there’s a simple way to fix the program and make it work for its original intention - set high minimum wages for temporary foreign workers (TFW) above the median Canadian income (ideally you could set this by industry and skill level, but then it’s less simple). So now your local Wendy’s isn’t choosing between hiring locally at $20/hr vs. a TFW at $15/hr, but rather hiring locally at $20/hr or a TFW at $25/hr (numbers made up). If there’s an actual shortage they’ll still have access to workers, but they’ll be incentivized to hire locally first.

This works especially well for hiring skilled and specialized workers you can’t find in Canada - like the manufacturer is claiming. Because they’re so skilled and specialized they’ll likely already be receiving a good wage, which means that the minimum wage threshold is already being met. A rule like this would essentially keep the program available for its legitimate cases while eliminating the abuses where it’s used to save a quick buck.

My first impression was gollum from the Lord of the Rings movie, although gollum’s head is rounder.

Keep in mind these averages are across all age groups - I’m assuming that (like me) you’re relatively young and still early in your working career where pay is generally lower.

I believe that’s only true if the countries have a reciprocal tax treaty. In practice I think the US has one with most countries, but I’m sure there are exceptions where both the US and that country would expect you to pay their full taxes.

Because it’s the law and is their actual legal responsibility? Take it up with lawmakers if you think that’s ridiculous, but generally most western societies have (rightly imho) decided that disabled people should have the ability to get around and that businesses need to accommodate that. Since the airlines won’t let passengers take their own wheelchairs on board, then they need to assist those passengers in getting to their wheelchairs.

It probably also made the moose feel safer.

Maybe in some narrow cases but I’d take issue with your use of ‘mostly’. Here’s an article about a study that looked at the environmental damage of different diets and a vegan diet is significantly, significantly better for the environment - and that’s not even considering animal welfare.

It’s about reducing harm. Are all crops grown the way I would like? No. But farm animals also have to be fed these same crops, so when you eat meat you not only contributed to the animal cruelty and substantial amounts of the crop-harms you identified, while a vegetarian or vegan only contributed to a lesser amount of the crop-harms.

It’s not practical to live without causing any harm somewhere, but that’s not an excuse to pretend that all lifestyles are equally harmful.

I do think the author used a bit of hyperbole at the end there with that statement, but I can see three ways it could negatively affect pensions outside of Alberta.

1. My understanding is that the law specifying how much a province gets if they withdraw is a bit vague. Alberta used the most possible optimistic interpretation to lay claim to over half the fund and would probably fail, but it’s not entirely impossible that they get more than they deserve (and thus shortchanges everyone else).
2. Many of the CPP’s investments are meant to be held for long, long periods of time (like a skyscraper in Australia that earns money through charging businesses rent). If they’re forced to sell some of that in a short time period to hand Alberta a wad of cash, they might have to compromise and accept low-bids than they’d otherwise get if they could wait years to find the right buyer.
3. This is more minor and theoretical, but many great investment opportunities only show up once you’re big enough that you can start buying private companies wholesale (this is how Warren Buffet makes most of his money). A smaller CPP will naturally have less of these investment opportunities and be forced to invest more in easily-accessible investment opportunities. Worth noting that any Alberta fund would also suffer from this same issue to a greater extent, and may be part of why existing Alberta public pension plans have under-performed relative to CPP.

I should clarify I’m not in medicine. The panel was formed by a random sample of British Columbians and then we talked with different experts, but we ourselves aren’t experts or meant to be experts.

I was actually on this panel! A few things:

1. BC already has a few community health centers already (always pilot programs that succeeded but were never expanded).
2. They are actually non-profits - the idea is that they can focus on hiring experts for their specific area. So for an area with lots of physical labourers the center might offer physiotherapy, while an area with drug addiction might specialize in that support.
3. They’re super desirable to work at for family physicians. Right now in BC to be a family doctor you essentially also have to run your own business, handle payroll, handle billing MSP, etc. Vacations are a pain to take - what if a patient needs to see you? With these centers the doctors can focus more on patient care and less on administration.

One recommendation in the report which I pushed for but only got as one sentence is to allow family doctors to supervise nurses as physician assistants and let them handle more basic care. Basically in the same way that a dentist has dental hygienists to handle cleaning or an engineering firm uses junior engineers under supervision, a doctor could use nurses to investigate symptoms and handle basic care, and then bring up items with the doctor. I know that’s initially concerning from a patient perspective (“I won’t see my doctor directly as much”) but right now a huge proportion of people in BC can’t get a doctor at all, and this seems like a more immediate way to expand care versus some of the other recommendations that will have more marginal improvements (like better document keeping methods).

I don’t think the Liberals want to do electoral reform unless it’s ranked ballot choice (where of course everyone’s #2 choice is the centrist Liberal candidate …) - they want to be able to govern with majorities which they’d never get under a proportional representation system.

This is unfortunately one of the frustrating things about getting electoral reform - only the winners can change the rules that made them winners, so they don’t want to change them!

I’ve read that Facebook has actually been trying to reduce their reliance on news in all their products, so the answer is actually a possible “yes”, they would do a global news block.