By middle school, I was making magician type smoke pyrotechnics from things I found in the drug store and corner store. Based on sci-fi shows I was watching. This led to me read more about science.

I had middle aged drunk neighbor that let me use his blow torch, and my father let me alone in the garage to use whatever tools I wanted. I had to opportunity to build what I wanted.

If there is a maker-space in your area, maybe try going the nights they have an open house. When there start a 1960s kids project, that you’d like to do as well, perhaps using molten tin metal to make figurines, building some classic plane models, firing model rockers. The people there would help you, and teach the kid not to go down the road of toxic masculinity.

All I can think of at the moment.

Getting rid of phones in schools has no effect on grades.

Things like this bug me. That’s the property tax for 20 people. That’s a month’s rent for 200 people. That’s a yearly wage for 5 people in Ontario.

I don’t think that there is much of a biological difference between girls not being fidgety and boys being fidgety. That line of argument tends to degenerate quickly into pseudo-science eugenics. I believe by grade 6, the heavy amount of gender marketing just means boys and girls have different interests.

I really don’t think that many female grade 6 teachers have any knowledge or interest in guns/cars/planes/programming and can’t even answer the most basic questions that a young male child might have.

I think that the solution is starting from grade 6, schools should have a specialized math/physics teacher. This would help both girls and boys. To teach physics properly you really need to be very well versed in it, that same with mathematics if not more. So many students fail to gain an interest in math because of a bad teacher, a teacher that was typically just winging it in math lessons.

Without shop classes schools have really suffered. They were a good way to get kids to learn to measure properly, and do applied mathematics. From that you had a natural way of teaching classical Greek geometry, then into sine tables.

I think that is the key issue.

Boys just aren’t interested in school at an early age because it isn’t really geared to them. Then they fall back, and can’t catch up.

Boys are marketed things like cars, guns, and motorcycles from a very early age. If the boy doesn’t have a teacher that has any knowledge of these things, they just aren’t that interested. I doubt that many female grade 6 teachers could tell a young boy the different between a V4, I4, and flat 4 engine. Or even fain an interested in discussing things like how a jet ski works vs. a regular propeller driven motor boat.

I think that the solution is that schools should have a specialist math/physics teacher starting in grade 6. Just like a regular classroom teacher can’t really teach music, a regular classroom teacher can’t really teach things like math/physics properly. These are specialty disciplines.

With all the quick technological changes we’ve had since the Internet, this would be a great time to experiment with classrooms.

In large cities try many different types of classroom education and see what works best nowadays.

Like you I’m not a huge fan of religious boards. But, I do think a city like Toronto needs to leverage language courses to be productive.

Ideally the TCDSB and the TDSB should be merged.
Then the trade colleges should be merged into the TDSB, like Humber and Seneca.

That way there is no gap for students. Kids don’t have to apply to enroll in a trade like truck driving, or car mechanic, or carpenter. These are just extra courses starting in high school. This way the entry into the trades is streamlined.

In a large city like Toronto, one of the city’s strengths is how many languages are spoken. This should be encouraged.

The TDSB and other large school boards in Ontario should really be expanded to teach truck driving. They already have the administrative faculty in place, so offering an extra course is not a big challenge.
Push the bad career colleges out.

Thanks for that write-up. It’s not an area of geopolitics I’m familiar with.
I’m sure that blocks are establishing themselves, and with everything happening now, alliances and such will accelerate.

In this scenario who is Archduke Franz Ferdnand?

It’s not just trucking…we got degree mills spew out fake students. Ruining Canada’s reputation in education, and the ‘students’ working as Uber drivers driving down wages.

TFW staffing Tim Hortons, making it hard for people to start competing cafes. Same with other franchises.

Also, all commercial trucks should be limited in speed to 80kph on the highway, and 30kph in the city, using geo-fencing. All tucks should have front/back/side cameras always on and linked to a blackbox in case of an accident.

Canada should have a good high-speed train network.

We also need run-off elections to prevent vote splitting. Political ridings should be reduced from the ridiculous 100,000 people to 30,000 people.

Pickup trucks need to be smaller, and like sedans, have sloped hoods to minimize pedestrian deaths in an accident.

Cities should discourage car use through tolls. While driving 100cc motorcycles for 14years should be legalized for northern communities as means for kids to get to school.

But all we get is a stupid cultural war.

We need high speed electric rail. Not private airports trying to stop high-speed rail, because it is a competitor.

The airline industry is a disaster. Everyday some airline is on the verge of bankruptcy. Selling the airports is going to make all it worse.

I find that comment disturbing “Quebec social programs and subsidized university tuitions”, it’s so specific in what it hates, subsidized higher education. Basically the person is saying that they are miserable, and they want everyone to feel as miserable as them.

Quebec separatism would good bad, but at least they have a chance of France bailing them out. The USA would not be kind to Alberta, the USA does not extend constitutional legal protection to its territories.

LOL, the US is not going to create another state, it’s too political. Best the USA can do is create another territory, similar to Puetro Rico. Under US law for territories, “fundamental rights apply as a matter of law, but other constitutional rights are not available”, meaning that the US gets to determine what laws apply and what laws don’t. Being a legal backwater means no one will be directly investing into Alberta but into the American companies that can legal do whatever they please in the territory.

If Alberta becomes the 51st state, all the Newfies will head home leaving a large labour shortage in the oil fields. Being an American state, Alberta will have to follow American immigration practices. It would be a real shock for people in Alberta. Lots of Americans would flood in and take Albertians’ jobs, just by the shear volume of people in the States, they have almost 350million people.

I’d never thought I’d see electric cars replace gas cars, even up till last year. Now I’d think that most gas cars will be gone in 15 years. When tech revolutions happen, they happen fast. Europe, Asia will quickly go all electric, as well as India, Pakistan, Egypt, S. Africa. Followed by S. and then N. America.

Look at pictures from the 1980s and 90s, it was all medium sized sedans, and small hatchbacks; times change.

Venezuela will start to pump oil. The Middle-East war will end. Europe is going to structurally cut down how much oil it needs. The war in Ukraine will end. Oil from Africa will flow.

These capital investments aren’t expensive. A $1billion investment into something is nothing nowadays, internationally, so we should be really suspicious as to why these are not getting invested into. I don’t think they have a chance of turning a profit, just money pits.

Carney needs to start a loud public investigation into foreign money. Expose these jerks.