only national, provincial, and municipal flags should be flown at municipal facilities or flagpoles

I know this is pretty off-topic, but I found this part funny when one of my municipal Councillors proposed a similar bylaw (which thankfully failed). In Canada, municipal governments are creatures of the province, and the provinces have entered into confederation. By their logic, we shouldn’t be flying Canadian flags as the country has no direct relation to the municipality.

I completely agree that alcoholism is a disease, and as with any other disease, we have to look at the survivability if she got the transplant.

Let’s be honest, while the article tries to be favourable to the patient, you can piece together the facts and see that her odds weren’t good. While she’s been sober since she got the diagnosis, it appears she was immediately hospitalised which tells us she was in very rough shape and has only been sober while in the hospital. Even if she was able to stay sober, it looks like the odds with a partial transplant aren’t great.

The comparison is apples and oranges. They only include the cost of the surgery itself, not the cost of after-surgical care, the potential cost of complications to both the patient and the donor, etc. Then there’s the cost if the partial liver donation doesn’t take, or if the patient relapses.

Obviously, there’s also a lot of potential upside to having the patient survive, I just don’t think the odds of that were all that high.

Because, it’s a risk-reward calculation. If the patient doesn’t qualify for transplant, then the expected risk outweighs the expected reward. In this case, the risk isn’t just to the patient, but also the donor, and by extension, the medical system itself.

Jesus Christ that’s fucked up. Only 36 too and stopped drinking…

From the article:

Amanda Huska died Aug. 15 after spending six months in an Oakville, Ont. hospital.

and:

Huska, he said, stopped drinking as soon as she was diagnosed with Alcohol Liver Disease on March 3

So that sounds like she was immediately admitted (which implies she was already very sick) and only was sober in the hospital. In my opinion, that doesn’t qualify for “stopped drinking” and unfortunately she didn’t get a chance to prove whether or not she was actually able to stop.

I think it’s less of “goaded him into it” and more of “predicted it”. As others have pointed out, messing with unions is a red-line for the NDP.

At least that means a less conservative (ie LPO OLP) Ontario premier…

Eh, I’m not sure Crombie is much less conservative than Ford. I feel if she becomes Premier, we’re going to have to wait another cycle of shifting right-then-left until we have a chance at an actual progressive government.

They should focus on restoring public funding to postsecondary schools, tightening future foreign student quotas and shutting down diploma mills.

“They” (the Federal government) can’t focus on two of these three since education is the domain of the provinces, and they’ve already tightened student visa numbers.

You mean buck-a-beer. Wait, what are beer prices?

Why have we barely expanded the system since the city consisted of 30% of the current population?

Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about the past. However, the current projects give me hope for the future.

TBF, the GTA is seeing the biggest transit expansion in their history, and by far the biggest expansion in North America. TTC has the Ontario Line, Line 5, and Line 6 under construction. GO Expansion is making huge improvements, from more frequent service to electrification to a lot of smaller projects that will improve travel time and reduce conflicts. Then there’s projects outside the core like the LRT projects in Mississauga, Brampton, Hamilton, and Kitchener-Waterloo.

At the same time, the Ford government seems to want to have it both ways with the 413, cutting tolls, eliminating registration fees, etc.

EDIT: Added some other projects outside the core.

This is a bit surprising because it’s already in place. Usually, push-back is because humans are naturally resistant to change and people can’t envision the benefits as easily as the drawbacks.

some residents expressed concern about cars and trucks clogging up side streets.

Maybe these concerns needed to be addressed, possibly by traffic calming the areas around the pedestrian zone? However, my money is that the “clogged up side streets” won’t get any better.

Wow. That is quite the vitriolic rant.

Then you have to allow me to wear a spaghetti strainer on my head as it’s the official wear for followers of FSM.

Let’s be honest, if you want to wear a colander, I’m not sure I see an issue with it. Just remember, by Quebec law, Pastafarians can’t follow their traditions, yet Christians can.

Are you going to sit at a government office in front of somebody you can’t even see because she is 100% covered, even the eyes? Should we allow it a step further, allow that in class rooms (yes, I’ve seen cases for that too)?

I’m not seeing how this is an issue, like at all. And even if it was, what’s the issue with other religious garb?

How about then the next step where they will demand that they can only interact with women because their god demands it?

You’re making a straw-man argument here. No, we do not allow people to hold positions if they can’t fulfill the requirements. Sometimes, we have to review whether the requirements are ethnocentric, but I think it’s good that we question rules and regulations to decide whether their accurate to the requirements. In the case you’re laying out, I’m almost certain they would be considered unsuitable for the job.

In general, your argument seems to be, “I hate religion, so I approve of any law that screws over practitioners.” That doesn’t seem very logical. Can you put your emotions aside, and actually explain why government workers should be banned from wearing religious garb?

Can I ask why?

I’ve heard some people argue it’s because religious views can conflict with a job, but if that’s the case, the issue is the employee’s not doing their job not their religion. Lots of beliefs can conflict with a job, and if that’s the case, a person has to decide whether they want to keep their job or not.

Another argument is that simply the presentation of religious symbols in public is offensive to some, but that seems to be an extreme version of “Safe Spaces” while just skipping over tonnes of preceding steps.

Also, it seems convenient the whiter the religion, the less likely their are to require their worshipers to wear expressions of faith. On the other hand, religions like Islam and Sikhism that just happen to be practiced by more brown people require outward expressions of their faith. So a Christian who is super faithful, goes to mass daily and spends all their free time in prayer can work for the government as long as they keep their cross under their shirt, while a Sikh who might not be all that religious has to decide if they want to risk being shunned from their community.

P.S. Separation of church and state means those organizations shouldn’t influence each other, not that individuals can only be involved in one or the other.

In addition to what @Openopenopenopen@lemmy.world said, if you look at the fleurs-de-lis wikipedia article, there’s a whole section titled “Religion and art”.

There is an argument that, “The Fleurdelisé is more cultural than religious,” but separating those two is extremely difficult. IMHO, it’s pretty ethnocentric to think symbols like that have become so ingrained in our culture that they are no longer religious, while assuming symbols like hijab are purely religious.

Given the Quebec flag is covered in Christian symbols and still flies at government buildings, no it’s not being applied fairly.

I feel like this article should probably at least note that we’re talking about “The National Bank of Canada which is the sixth largest commercial bank in Canada”, not “The Bank of Canada which is a Crown Corporation and Canada’s Central Bank”.