[golodhendil]

I would point out that liberalism is about more than being tolerant of sexual preference. That's definitely part of it, but ranking how liberal a city is based around homosexual tolerance isn't really useful. You can't even sell street food here without going through some kind of Kafka-esque bureaucratic nightmare worthy of East Germany, so how liberal are we at the end of the day? I remember watching a 20/20 segment on Hong Kong where John Stossel actually set up a business selling 20/20 hats in under a day. That's liberalism. In Toronto you would probably get shutdown by some confluence of NIMBYistic neighborhood associations claiming your restaurant is an affront to moral decency or one of the dozens of bureaucrats who exist to enforce arbitrary standards. The entire strain of Toronto benevolent "we are smarter than you" bureaucracy that has banned everything from Sunday shopping to lane-way housing and private liquor sales is wholly illiberal.

I haven't watched that particular segment so I can't comment on exactly what happened (not that I would trust a lot of what John Stossel says anyway), but that is most certainly not a realistic portrayal of HK. HK is "liberal" to the big capitalists, big corporations and big real estate developers, but is much less liberal to the average "little guy" and certainly not culturally liberal or socially liberal in much of the North American sense.

In terms of setting up a business, the first hurdle would be to actually get a place. Rent in HK is infamously high, largely propped up artificially by government policies that favour the developers; even a 100 sqft store in the suburbs could cost $4-5k CAD in monthly rent, and a 50 sqft slither of space in the core could go for $1-2k per sqft. Even if you have the initial capital to enter the game, the licensing process in HK is actually one of the worst for world cities. Setting up a retail in one day is unheard of; you'll be lucky if it only takes a month, and if you're setting up an eatery you'll be going among multiple government departments for at least 3 months to half a year.

If you're looking at a street stall, sorry, HK has stopped licensing them for decades already and is still actively pushing to phase out street vendors. What you see on the streets today are either grandfathered, or illegal (the majority), and if the latter you can expect to be harrassed weekly, if not every few days, by the multiple law enforcement agencies that patrol the streets. I have personally been caught among stampedes of hawkers running for their lives with their carts (with oranges rolling and cooking oil splashing) when the anti-hawker units arrive, and many hawkers have actually died from tragic accidents resulting from this.

If Toronto has a "I know better than you" bureaucracy, HK has a "don't give me trouble or I'll throw you in jail; as long as Li Ka Shing makes money I'll be happy" bureaucracy. So much for a "liberal" capitalist paradise.

 

[vz64]

You have to be kidding me. Your trying to tell me that a facsist party is left-wing because it has the name socialist in it? That has to be about the most ignorant comment I have ever heard in my entire life! Next you going to tell me that North Korea is a democracy because it has the name Democratic in it's title!

To suggest that the Nazis are a left-wing party is shameful, and bordering on a hate-crime! Their policies have been well documented!

If we separate two dimensions of ideology, equality and freedom, the difference between socialism, communism, and fascism becomes clear:

 

[Tewder]

Everyone: I agree and feel that Toronto has become more Liberal over time.
I will begin comparing to the WASP Conservatism that Toronto once was back in the 50s era on back thinking of the United Empire Loyalist types there.

In the 60s and 70s Toronto changed with high immigration a contributing factor
and it became known as "The People City" and it gradually became a well-known major city - becoming #1 in Canada for its population and its influence.

Today it has become a haven for progressives in Canada and to me that's a good thing...LI MIKE

It's interesting and perhaps important to note that many of the immigrants that have come here are actually from very conservative and intolerant backgrounds themselves. In other words it was the mainstream WASP majority of the time that became more liberal and tolerant themselves, and not the influx of immigration that made them so.

 

[Marko]

If we separate two dimensions of ideology, equality and freedom, the difference between socialism, communism, and fascism becomes clear:

To suggest socialism offers both high equality and high freedom is a joke.

The level of equality is debatable, but freedoms would definitely be on the lower side.

 

[vz64]

To suggest socialism offers both high equality and high freedom is a joke.

The level of equality is debatable, but freedoms would definitely be on the lower side.

agreed; it is an oversimplified diagram of Wilber's ideology analysis. Here is a bit more realistic scheme:

At the same time, I would consider Sweden and Denmark as good examples of political systems with high freedom AND socialism...

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

To suggest socialism offers both high equality and high freedom is a joke.

depending in which era, you could say the same for capitalist nations such as the U.S. in regards to pay inequality for women and slavery. sometimes i think these charts and left-right sliding scales oversimplify issues such as freedom/less freedom. within a country you have soo many things at work that it's not so simple to declare a regime left or right. there's also paradoxical issues to deal with such as with libertarianism: small government (less people involved) = big government (less people have more control).

 

[GraphicMatt]

"Freedom" is an abstract concept that doesn't really mean anything. Do I have less freedom because I can't park my car on my lawn? Because I can't challenge my enemies to duels? Because I can't walk in to City Hall with a handgun?

 

[Roy G Biv]

"Freedom" is an abstract concept that doesn't really mean anything. Do I have less freedom because I can't park my car on my lawn? Because I can't challenge my enemies to duels? Because I can't walk in to City Hall with a handgun?

Those are all blatant infringements on the rights of others, so no.

 

[Archivist]

I remember watching a 20/20 segment on Hong Kong where John Stossel actually set up a business selling 20/20 hats in under a day. That's liberalism. In Toronto you would probably get shutdown by some confluence of NIMBYistic neighborhood associations claiming your restaurant is an affront to moral decency or one of the dozens of bureaucrats who exist to enforce arbitrary standards.

What a load of right wing bullshit! Sometimes I see this stuff and I just can't not react to how ill-informed and whiny it is. Canada in fact ranks second in the world in ease of starting a business (after New Zealand). Hong Kong was above us in some categories, but way below in others. If you want to register a property in Hong Kong, good luck, they are 75th in the world in that process. Hong Kong is ahead of Canada overall in the ease of doing business, but we are hardly worth the scorn and bile you needlessly hurl.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Those are all blatant infringements on the rights of others, so no.

Yet in some places, it would be an infringement on your rights for someone to prevent you from doing that. It's all relative, and I totally agree that it's impossible to describe "freedom" or "liberty" without it either taking up at least a page of writing, or oversimplifying it to the point that the truth is nothing like what's being described.

 

[Whoaccio]

What a load of right wing bullshit! Sometimes I see this stuff and I just can't not react to how ill-informed and whiny it is. Canada in fact ranks second in the world in ease of starting a business (after New Zealand). Hong Kong was above us in some categories, but way below in others. If you want to register a property in Hong Kong, good luck, they are 75th in the world in that process. Hong Kong is ahead of Canada overall in the ease of doing business, but we are hardly worth the scorn and bile you needlessly hurl.

How is wanting decent street food right wing bullshit? Since when has approaching liquor sales like Mormons been a hallmark of social liberalism? Seriously, stuff taken as cultural norms elsewhere on Earth (drinking at a football game) are taken as signs of the end times in Toronto. You can go outside any football stadium in some podunk town in the USA, and there will be people drinking and socializing. The Bills come to Toronto and we surround the Skydome with enough police to invade a small country and force the spectators that dare to want to drink into a tent where they can get scammed by Molson. There is nothing liberal about it. Even Rick Salutin has joined the "right wing bullshit train", apparently.

Wednesday night, I attended a joyless meeting in a windowless room in North Toronto. It was about granting a liquor licence to an ebullient French chef named J.P. Challet and his two partners, who want to open a charmant 22-seat restaurant called Ici in a downtown neighbourhood (mine) that could use and clearly wants it. The sort of boîte you find all over Paris, not just on the entertainment strips, but rarely here: modest, with excellent food and no tablecloths. To perform this public service they must fight City Hall, literally.

Local NDP councillor (and deputy mayor) Joe Pantalone snuck a motion opposing the licence through council on an urgent basis, without telling the chef-owners or giving them a chance to make a case. He won't return their calls even though they're now his constituents. They stand in their window in their whites each day beckoning people in to snack and talk about it. They're the ones doing local politics and making community real. But deputy Joe acts as if they're the old dope peddler trying to lure teens into a lair with video games. Believe me, the stuff on their menu would make adolescents retch.

This is how Toronto always shoots itself in the foot and makes the rest of Canada wince. It can't lighten up and have fun. That was once based on WASPy prudishness. It's why Westerners used to come for the Grey Cup and show locals how to have a good time. It's why Toronto is a joke in Quebec.

Read through actual liberal literature, there is nothing that says liberalism is about being prudish and acting like Maude Flanders. It's just a Toronto (or at least Ontario, given our dear Premier's fondness for banning things) phenomenon which views people as inherently licentious and hence in need of control to prevent some theoretical apocalypse of sin and depravity. Over the weekend there was an article in the Globe about how "sketchy" the Annex is. Of course, there was the requisite puritanism from Adam Vaughan about how UofT students are ruining everything with their desire for cheap drinks. Who would have expected a campus with some 30k 19-24 year olds on a budget would have attracted some kind of low-cost drinking establishment? The horror of it all!

 

[Whoaccio]

"Freedom" is an abstract concept that doesn't really mean anything. Do I have less freedom because I can't park my car on my lawn? Because I can't challenge my enemies to duels? Because I can't walk in to City Hall with a handgun?

It's not really that abstract... To your first example, yes you are definitely less free. Its (presumably) your lawn and your car, it should be your prerogative to treat it like shit. And you can challenge your enemies to duels, just like they are free to refuse the challenge. Look, I Whoaccio challenge you, GraphicMatt, to a duel at noon on November 24th at Yonge & Dundas Square. I suppose it's hard to see, but the police have yet to bust down my door.

 

[Archivist]

Uh, you were talking earlier about setting up a business. After I debunked that, you bait and switch.

Though I admit our liquor license laws are crazy, it's clearly a non-right-non-left issue - because Harris did nothing much to change them. On that front, I agree with you, and if I were Premier, you would be buying scotch at Wal-Mart (or anywhere) one day later.

 

[Whoaccio]

^
Believe it or not, street food and bars are a business. Banning them makes it hard to set up a business. I thought that was sort of obvious.

EDIT: Toronto also isn't Canada, or vice versa. Canada's average is buoyed by the 92-93% of the Country that isn't Toronto. You could almost set off a nuke in parts of Canada and nobody would know. The CFIB just released their "ease of doing business" survey and while I wouldn't take it's results clinically, it quite clearly showed Toronto is among the most problematic places for small businesses in the Country. So showing Canada does well on ease of doing business is quite different from saying Toronto does well when there is so much variance within the country.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

How is wanting decent street food right wing bullshit? Since when has approaching liquor sales like Mormons been a hallmark of social liberalism? Seriously, stuff taken as cultural norms elsewhere on Earth (drinking at a football game) are taken as signs of the end times in Toronto. You can go outside any football stadium in some podunk town in the USA, and there will be people drinking and socializing. The Bills come to Toronto and we surround the Skydome with enough police to invade a small country and force the spectators that dare to want to drink into a tent where they can get scammed by Molson. There is nothing liberal about it. Even Rick Salutin has joined the "right wing bullshit train", apparently.

i think that if people should be allowed to drink in public, they should also be allowed to have sex in public.