So this poor traveller at least had sufficient mobility left to be able to drag himself out of the airplane, undignified as that is. What would have happened if he didn't? Don't they have procedures for e.g. unresponsive patients?

And trying to blame a subcontractor doesn't cut it. The passenger was an Air Canada customer and Air Canada should have resolved the issue one way or another without forcing a disabled man to drag himself out of an airplane like an extra in The Walking Dead.

I saw the effects of a real estate bubble in Spain 25 years ago, whose effects still ripple today. It started with young people feeling squeezed out of the housing market, staying with their parents for longer and either having child's late or not at all. Then came the lines at the food banks.

This appears to be where we are today in Canada.

Next, foreclosures and a major recession. It is hard to overstate how painful this was to watch even as a bystander, you will see why in a moment. In most cases it goes smoothly and simply contributes to raising rent prices. In other cases, the police would get involved to evacuate people from their (former) homes. Tightly-knit communities would rally around the home that was being foreclosed to stop the police and delay the inevitable.

Sometimes the people whose home was being foreclosed, especially older people, would jump out of their windows to their death as the police were entering. This happened dozens of times, to the point where you become numb to the horror.

Sooner or later extremist political parties emerge and gain popularity, both extreme left, extreme right and regionalist. They offer "obvious" populist solutions to the crisis, from wealth redistribution to clamping down on immigration and a return to "traditional values". The status quo parties may form temporary coalitions with the extremists in order to form a government.

Once they reach power and and are still unable to solve the underlying economic crisis with their "obvious" solutions, citizens become disillusioned and revert to the former status quo parties.

Nothing lasts forever, and over time the economy starts to limp forward again. It can take a decade or more -- see what happened in Spain and Japan at different points of the last forty years. The lasting result is a long period where few babies are born while the remaining population continues to age as usual, placing public pensions in a tight spot unless immigration is increased. The country's infrastructure, education and healthcare will have seen better times.

Will things unfold somewhat differently in Canada? Without a doubt. But history tends to rhyme, and what I've described above is hardly unique to one country.

Changing zoning laws to facilitate the construction of more than single family homes is great, but I hope they also allow for mixed-use buildings by default. A development that doesn't have e.g. a place to buy milk and eggs within walking distance is still car dependent.

First they scan for CP, but the next time a corrupt authoritarian leader is elected, what will stop them from using that conveniently pervasive infrastructure to silence journalists, dissidents or political opponents?

Children steamrollers do not belong in cities.

Edit: Can you think of a better backronym for SUVs? Street Unsafe Vehicle? Super Unsafe Vision? Severely Unsafe Vehicle? Striking Unsuspecting Vulnerables?

Didn’t realize it was so controversial!

If by controversial you mean dangerous, then yes, it is. It is one of the main ways in which pedestrians are killed in North America. In most developed countries it is illegal.

Blaming the victim is very easy to do when you don't fear that the next victim could be you.

Good job! I find it hilarious because I am disabled and can ride a bike just fine. Not all disabilities stop you from riding a bike.

But as you point out, public transit looks to me like the most accessible means of transportation, not cars.

Require vehicle safety standards to test for pedestrian and cyclist survivability first and foremost.

Require a commercial license to drive large and/or heavy vehicles such as pickup trucks. Take it away when a driver gets caught driving unsafely.

Require vehicles to provide better visibility through the windshield, like Europe does.

Design street lanes to be narrow and winding, so that drivers intuitively choose to drive at speeds that are safe for people outside the vehicle. Raise pedestrian crossings at the same level as the sidewalk so that drivers habitually slow down when they see a crossing.

In other words, value the safety of the people outside the vehicle above the speed and convenience of the drivers.

How many pedestrians and cyclists must die in order for us to take car licensing requirements more seriously?

They want freedom to do what they want, not freedom for you to do what you want. To be fair, we are all a bit like that.

Having a small penis doesn't make you a bad person and being a bad person doesn't shrink your penis. Let's stop shaming people based on things they have no control over, such as skin color, sexual orientation or penile length.