5 ms·

Looking at the chart of largest reserve nations, you really have to commend Canada for being as free and fair as their society is.

• personjerry 10y ago
  Canada's oil is very difficult to extract
• guyzero 10y ago
  Most of Canada's reserves are tar sands which are about as pleasant as the name describes - tar mixed with sand. There's a lot of it but it's expensive to extract. So for one thing these reserves are somewhat hypothetical based on the price of oil. The Saudis are profitable at almost any price while new oil sands projects have a break-even cost of somewhere around $90 per barrel. (http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/how-high-break-even-costs-are-challenging-new-oilsands-projects http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/how-high-break...) Even with the normal oil plus tar sands, oil is only Canada's #2 export behind vehicles, 16% of exports. Canada has a well-diversified economy quite unlike Venezuela, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Iran isn't terrible but oil is still 2/3rds of their exports.
  • astrodust 10y ago
    Saudi oil comes out of the ground in a form that you can pretty much barrel and ship, they have it so easy. Canada's oil isn't even oil, it's more like ashphalt.
• ue_ 10y ago
  Canada is not a free society. There are various restrictions on pornography, just like the US for example. They have no problem with censorship. Edit: to be clear, I am referring to written or drawn pornography depicting fictional minors engaged in sexual acts. Not photography or video of child abuse, or rape porn, or even bestiality (although I am against the lattermost item being illegal too).
  • whytaka 10y ago
    I can say with experience that access to pornography produced by consensual adults is largely unhindered here. If this is how you draw the line between free and not-free, I can only imagine that your definition of freedom is anarchy.
    • ue_ 10y ago
      >I can say with experience that access to pornography produced by consensual adults is largely unhindered here. Then you're wrong. Drawn pornography that appears to show fictional characters who appear to be under the age of 18 is illegal, and there have been prosecutions under this law. Even such written material is illegal. My definition of true freedom is anarchy (which is why I am an anarachist), but I accept that there is a different definition under the current liberal democracies of the world, and even by those standards, Canada is not free.
  • astrodust 10y ago
    Canada has some pretty minor restrictions. It's not as liberal as Japan but it's not as conservative as Australia.
    • ue_ 10y ago
      I wouldn't class being put in prison for mere possession of a drawing to be pretty minor.
      • astrodust 10y ago
        These cases are astonishingly rare in Canada. Meanwhile Australia makes large swaths of the internet illegal on the off chance cartoon pornography might show up.
  • edblarney 10y ago
    Of all the 'freedoms' we can worry about, as a Canadian, not having the right to see 'hand drawn child porn' is not remotely one that I am concerned about. The 'real' issue of freedom in Canada is that it's basically the only country in the world wherein it's illegal to pay a doctor to help you. That's actually pretty crazy when you start to think about it.