Security vs Freedom

The United States as well as Canada are looking to install new full-body scanners which will probably in the near future be standard. People can opt out of this machine, in exchange for a thorough pat-down. My co-blogger has said that the ends justify the means. I do not agree with him. So it's either letting Joe the surveyor see us naked, or let someone feel our body over. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. This full-body scanner intrudes into our private life too much. We shouldn't need to go through them.

Caught between complaints that airport screening has become too intrusive and threats of new terror attacks on aviation, Obama administration officials said on Sunday that they were sensitive to criticisms that security measures go too far, but insisted that the measures now in place are justified by the risks.

Read more at the New York Times.

Related articles

• U.S. tries to quell uproar over invasive pat-downs, scanners (calgaryherald.com)

Doctor Discrimination in Quebec

The Globe hits the bullseye on this one. In today's paper, there is an editorial criticizing the way foreign applicants for residency programs are accepted and rejected. In fact, of the foreign doctors who had passed medical equivalence exams in Quebec, two thirds did not get residency positions. This is unacceptable when there were 85 positions free and there is a shortage of general practitioners. Quebec should move to have more and more foreign-trained doctors working in our hospitals. We need them.

Quebec, a province with a critical shortage of family doctors, discriminates against foreign-trained physicians and makes it difficult for them to become medical residents, the final step to gain a licence to practise medicine. It is a habit that needs to end. In the global competition for talent, Quebec will lose out.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Related articles

• Foreign-trained MDs hit wall of bias in Quebec, rights agency finds (theglobeandmail.com)
• Que. schools deny foreign-trained MDs residencies (cbc.ca)

Security vs. Incovenience

The new Scanners in Canada and all around the world have been given much criticism about it being to invasive. The criticism may have regrown with a recent passenger telling airport security during a pat down "Don't touch my junk". Now people should know these scanners are very important for people's security. People should understand that we have to have strong airport security if we want to stop terrorist attacks, but in the future the world will have to ask ethical questions on how far will we go to keep people safe. In the case of these scanners I find that they are necessary, and a majority of people agree with this in the U.S. In order to maybe stop future security measures countries across the world have to stop terrorism activities in some countries including in our own.  I am not supporting military action, but rather create more democratic systems in these countries to stop allowing these terrorist groups to continue to grow. put pressure on these countries to get there act together on terrorist groups or create sanctions on the government or dictatorship of that country.

Canadians Support Training Mission

A new poll shows that a slight majority of Canadians support a training mission in Afghanistan after our combat troops leave in July 2011. I feel that we should have a continued presence in Afghanistan, but non-military. We should focus completely on humanitarian aid and development of the country. I don't see the training mission as a big monster: I can live with it. We just need to make sure that we don't end up on a slippery slope. We simply cannot abandon the civilians in that country. Humanitarian aid and development will allow us to help Afghanistan without putting a large number of Canadians at risk.

OTTAWA — An narrow majority of Canadians support keeping upwards of 1,000 troops in Afghanistan until 2014 to train Afghan forces, says a new Ipsos-Reid poll that also shows the decision is most popular with westerners and men.

Fifty three per cent of respondents said they support the revamped and extended mission, although there is a caveat. Slightly more than six in 10 said there should be a debate and vote in Parliament even if the new mission involves only training, said the poll, which was released Friday.

Read more at the National Post.

Related articles

• Afghanistan 'training' mission not 'strictly civilian' (cbc.ca)
• Canada to pull civilian staff from Kandahar, base trainers in Kabul (theglobeandmail.com)

Take Away Senate Veto

The Canadian Senate should no longer have its veto right. The surprise vote on a bill calling on the government to act on climate change is great evidence why it should no longer have that right. Unelected officials should never ever have the right to completely reject proposals already passed by our MPs in the House of Commons. However, what they should be able to do is delay the passing of it, maybe send it back to a commission in the Commons. This would encourage further thought over bills that Senators don't really like. However, it should remain possible to pass a bill without the support of the Senate.

But alas, the kind of Senate reform I'm thinking of probably won't happen for a long time. The Globe says that taking away the Senate's veto would require reopening the Constitution, which no one wants to do. However it does agree with me that we should take away the undemocratic veto right of the upper house.

The Conservative senators were fully entitled to vote against the Climate Change Accountability Act on Tuesday, but the power of the Senate to reject Commons bills should be limited, in the same way that the British House of Lords is restrained.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Related articles

• Tory senators kill climate bill. (thechronicleherald.ca)
• Killing bill without hearing a first: senator (cbc.ca)