Darth Wong wrote:That's part of it; Quebec has more seats than it should really have. The other part is official bilingualism. Bilingualism is a prerequisite for most forms of federal service, and while most French-speakers must learn English just to get along in North America, most English-speakers don't learn French.
This means that the vast majority of federal civil servants are from Quebec. Therefore, even if the leader were not from Quebec (although they usually are; the power structure is so heavily loaded with Quebeckers that it's hard to climb the ladder otherwise), the vast majority of advisors and staffers still are, and they will all exert constant pressure to service Quebec's self-centred agenda. Think of it as the biggest, most influential fucking special-interest group you can imagine.
In short, official bilingualism is ruining the country.
Heh, there's a similar system in Finland as well. We too are a bilingual country, which means that Swedish is mandatory for every Finnish speaking person to study at high-school and vice versa. Sounds fair, doesn't it? Well, the problem is that the Swedish minority comprises only six percent of our population. I don't know any other country in the world which forces its people to learn a language spoken by only eight million people in the world. A large part of the Swedish minority, especially the older people, don't speak a word of Finnish.
The Swedish minority is spread across the western coast and some larger cities, so that they don't have a consolidated power like the Quebecs. There is an island off the western coast where 30,000 people live - all of them Swedish speaking - and they have an autonomity. The Swedish speaking minority has several special advantages. For example, it's easier for them to get into universities with a lower score. Thery have their own digital TV channel and 25% of the programs on the non-digital state-owned television channel one are their own, funded by tax payers of whom 94% are Finnish-speaking. Many of my ancestors were Swedish-speaking and I have no personal grudge against our Swedish-speaking minority. Our system is just fucked up in some places.
Sorry for going OT, I just thought to mention that Canada is not the only country in the world with problems of official bilingualism.
Ted wrote:We fly CF-18's, the Canadianized version of the Hornet. It's al;l built in Canada, too.
I've asked this a couple times before, but every time the question has killed the thread... How does the CF-18 differ from the F/A-18? Is it based on A or B?
Sea Skimmer wrote:TrailerParkJawa wrote:The F/A-18 is only flown by the US Navy, so they have to practice dissimilar combat in Top Gun.
The F-18 is flown by the Marine Corp too. Also there are several other foreign forces that fly the F-18 as well.
Finland, Spain, Malaysia and Kuwait come to mind.
...and Switzerland. I don't think that there are other non-American countries who use Hornet. F-16 is a lot more popular in NATO countries, probably because of its slightly lower cost.