Riverwind

They are still blocking the passage of the gay marriage bill in parliment. The issue was dumped on parliment by the courts and all parties suddenly had to take a side. The fact that the conservatives decided to make a wedge issue out of it and came up with a proposal that will likely require the not-withstanding clause is what made it important. Frankly, I do not care whether gays can get married or not. What pushed me over the edge is was some group based in Alberta that called my home (in BC) to urge me to call my MP and tell him to 'protect the family'. I did call my MP and told him to support the bill in order to protect gay and straight families. It really bothers me that anyone can be so bigoted when it comes to gay people that they would spend so much time and money trying the manipulate the political process.

I think there is enough evidence that extremists on _both_ sides use underhanded tricks to try and make sure the vote goes their way. The only difference is the tools at their disposal. Federalists use the federal gov't treasury. The seperatists use the Provincial gov't treasury and manipulate the electoral system in Quebec. Both sides make heavy use of propoganda. Bottom line is dividing a country is a nasty business that will bring out the worst in everyone. It is much better to work to reform the existing structures.

The mistatement of financials at Nortel was another form a corruption that 'stole' money from investors. Does that mean that no one should buy Nortel products today? You do the country a deservice by automatically disqualifying many people from office who had absolutely nothing to do this corruption. Personally, I want to see everyone who took part in the fraud thrown in jail (including Paul Martin evidence comes out that he did participate). I do not think it is something we should take lightly. However, as I have said, I also think it is wrong to lynch every member of the liberal party for the wrong doing of a few. Most importantly, I reject idea that the conservatives should be given a blank check to govern the country just because they are not liberals. The conservatives who go around calling people 'dupes' or 'idiots' because they are are willing to give the liberals the benefit of doubt are, frankly, quite annoying. The conservatives need to show us why we should vote them. Running around talking about Liberal corruption is not enough and the polls seem to indicate that I am not the only person that feels this way.

Great, then Harper needs to be out there repeating that over and over again. It takes awhile to change entrenched opinions. It is a problem for the conservatives because it makes them seem like that they are closely associated with the evangelical right wing in the US. In other words, even if Canadians are evenly split on the issue it is a very bad issue for the Conservatives to even be talking about. In the US, gay marriage was a wedge issue that benefited the republicans. In Canada, if it is a wedge issue that will most likely benefit the Liberals. My point of view is there are too many more important issues to talk about. The Conservatives should pass the SSM marriage bill and forget about it. One person's 'opportunism' is another person's 'listening to the voter' or 'willingness to compromise'. The Liberals are a party of the center and, by definition, the location of the center changes over time so a party occupying that space must be able to adapt. I see that as a good thing. I think it is a bad idea to give any party with strong ideological underpinnings power because they tend to be too unwilling to compromise when the facts require a response that opposes their ideology. The NDP serves a useful purpose in Canadian politics because it give the ideological left a place to go where they cannot do much damage. Maybe we need something like that for the ideological right.

I don't mean to say that people are not entitled to their opinion. I am only thinking of what the CPC needs to do if it wants to be a national party that has seats in Quebec. The CPC needs to tell their socially conservative MPs that issues like abortion and gay marriage are non starters and that the leadership of the party will not change any laws related to these issues even if the conservatives get a majority.

Unfortunately, this is a fundamental weakness of our political system. What the electorate wants (based on current opinion polls and the last election) is a coalition between the conservatives and the liberals. We are going to have minority governments for the foreseeable future - all parties have to do a better job of making the system work. The conservatives could change the tone of parliment and work to get their priorities implemented in the next few months - they have enough seats to do that.

Strangely enough, I agree. However, right now the conservatives have no hope of winning any seats from the BQ in Quebec (they could potentially get a seat or two from the liberals, however, the would most likely split the federalist vote and hand even more ridings to the BQ). Furthermore, the new party funding system which is based on number of votes cast would give a huge financial advantage to the seperatists in future elections. For that reason, an election right now is a very bad idea. I would rather see the conservatives focus on changes to the accounting system that would ensure abuses like what occurred could never happen again. There are enough honest liberals in ottawa that the conservatives should be able to work with them. However, as long as the conservatives keep calling them all crooks any sort of positve change is impossible.

And your point is? Just because you can dream up scenarios were Paul Martin could have been involved but the evidence can't be found does not mean it is true - it is just more unfounded innuendo. If actual evidence shows up that Martin is involved I would expect him to step down as leader and call an election. But for now I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and that is what many other Canadians feel as well. Harper and the conservatives seem to think that these allegations of corruption should give them a free ticket to power. The fact that Canadians at this point in time are not willing to give the conservatives that free ticket makes the conservatives condescending and self-rightous. The conservatives should look in the mirror and ask themselves why they are not sitting at 50% polls. Blaming the media or calling voters stupid is not enough.

There is a lot of evidence that people close to Jean Chretien were involved. It appears that Gagliano was certainly involved. However, both of these people and almost everyone that worked with them are out of power replaced by Martin's people. The entire 'Liberal's are corrupt' mythology rests on the idea that Paul Martin must be guilty until he proves himself innocent. However, there is no evidence that Martin was involved - only hearsay from people who cannot really be trusted such as Chuck Guite. Accusing Martin of being involved is pure opportunism on the part of the Convervatives and the Bloq that many Canadians can see right through this. People who believe that people are innocent until proven guilty are not stupid: they are being reasonable. All of this would be a moot point if the CPC would find a way to pull their act together and make it clear that social conservatives are not welcome in their party and they will not backrupt the country by making ideologically driven tax cuts that create massive deficits. Frankly, I am disgusted with Harper he had the power to keep the Liberals in line and decided to piss it away in mindless grab for power.

An excellent way to put it. I am hoping that the delay is a sign that the court plans to rule that way but it is waiting for a less tumultuous political time to drop the bombshell. Other the other hard, the court did rule that early retirement is discrimination but justified - I am concerned we will get that result.

And lets have the liberal resign immediately that said he'd go higher up the gene pool than the Chinese Inky Mark. Apologies should be sufficient for these kinds of mistakes no matter what their political stripe. People are way too quick to call for resignations.

Economic Left/Right: -0.38 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.26 I found my real answer for many of the questions was 'none of the above'. Regards

No doubt that would explain the yearly ceremony at their shrine. The shrine is a tribute to all Japanese who fought for their country - the fact that 14 war criminals are buried among the thousands is an awkward situation which the Japanese gov't is trying to find a way to fix that is less crude than digging their bodies up and dumping them in trash. Sorry, I confused 'apologized' with 'compensated victims'. The Japanese gov't has spent billions over the years building infrastructure and supporting other development projects in the countries they invaded. The money spent is a significant portion of the Japanese gov'ts budget. Most Japanese consider this money to be more than adequate compensation even if it does not come with media attention. I agree totally.

This is another fiction propagated the conservative party. I say this because: 1) The annual federal budget is $140 billion/year. The misappropriated sponsership money may add up to $100 million over several years. It is completely unreasonable to expect someone responsible for so much money to know where every penny is spent. 2) The people doing the misappropriation went out of their way to hide what they were doing. It is unreasonable to expect anyone in authority to immediately discover such activities. In fact, the audit process which involves the auditor general _is_ one of the mechanisms that the Finance minister relies on to discover fraud. 3) The Minister of Finance is responsible for allocating budgets to different categories. The responsibility for ensuring the money is spent correctly falls on the minister over seeing the department spending the money. In other words, it was not Paul Martin's job to know where the money went. People making the accusations that Paul Martin "should have known" seem to be expect gov't to set up a secret audit process that can find fraud before the auditor general does. This would be a pointless duplication of functions. The fact is the fraud can happen in every organization and there is no evidence that Paul Martin or any other capable person in his position could have detected the problem sooner. Nor is there any evidence that Paul Martin knew what was going on and simply ignored it. Regards

This is unmitigated balderdash. The Japanese people most definitely DO NOT consider Toto and the other war criminals to be heros. They hate them for what they did to Japan. Far right fringe groups that you may hear about are no different than the Nazi groups you hear about in Germany - wackos that have no support from the vast majority of the people. The Japanese government HAS apologized over 18 times for the the acts of the military government during WW2. The problem is Japan's neighbors, particularily China, see WW2 as a way to undermine Japan politically. Unfortunately, our media has decided to treat the Chinese propoganda as fact. This is not a fact it is an opinion: would you agree with the statement that "Germans were a xenophobic socity bent on imperial conquest and genocidal racial cleansing"? Mostly likely not. You would probably say the Nazis were responsible for highjacking the social institutions of Germany and starting a war that most Germans felt powerless to stop. The exact same thing happened in Japan. Too many people seem to feel it is ok to make broad all inclusive statments about Japanese but would not make the same statements about Germans. That is why these kinds of statements are racist and must be condemned. Regards

What goes around comes around: The Llberals are not corrupt: a small number of Liberals are guilty of criminal acts, however, this does not mean that every Liberal is crook. You really have no right complain about conservative opponents calling the the conservatives a bunch of angry white men if you are willing to make comments like that. Regards

Your question was why Harper is seen as scary: the majority of Canadians find someone who would try to limit access to abortion as scary. Harper is free to advocate changing the laws on abortion but he has to acknowledge that those views hurt his public image. If he does not like that reaction then he need to change his views. Blaming the voter for not agreeing with you is quite childish. Every comment I made quite measured and backed up with details. I don't have time to go and develop a university thesis on why Harper is his own worse enemy - if that is what you are looking for. You did not even address my point on the economic dishonestly of US republicans and how Harper has not made it clear that he would not make the same mistakes if given power. Regards

Does the fact that US soldiers torture prisoners in Iraq, Guantanamo and Afganistan mean that all Americans are 'bastards'? I don't think so. Similarily, it is racist to imply that abuses of Japanese soliders during the WW2 mean that all Japanese living during WW2 are bastards. The fact is the vast majority of Japanese were victims of a military dictatorship that controlled information and gave them a very distorted view of reality (much like the Chinese gov't is doing today). Regards

All currencies were backed by gold reserves up until the 1970s. The need to have these reserves is what ensured that the 'free' money was not abused. We could go back to the system you describe if we bring back the gold standard, however, that is likely completely impractical. My original point is still valid: allowing to BOC to give free money to gov't will encourage abuse and will eventually create serious economic problems. The last 30 years have brought a lot of changes that have created hardships for many people. However, I would argue that these changes were caused by globalisation and that montetary policy has little or nothing to do with it. It is a fallacy to believe that $CDN is weaker than the $US simply because the 1$CDN buys less that $1 US. Using that logic you would say that Japan must have an extremely weak currency because it takes over 100 Yen to buy $US. Today, at .80US, the Canadian dollar enjoys a lot of confidence both within and outside Canada. Regards

Mulrooney is a Francophone.

The Liberal party consists of thousands of workers and volunteers. Maybe 10 are implicated in the sponsership scandal. There is also evidence at the Gomery inquiry that some Liberals attempted to clean up the mess long before it became a public necessity. In short, there is no evidence that the Liberal Party itself is a corrupt entity - this is a fiction created by the Bloc and the CPC to satisfy their own lust for power. Convervatives were thrilled to have her join the CPC party - her personal background was not an issue until she decided to join the Liberals. Face it, if ambition was the only thing driving Stronach she would have been better off waiting until Harper loses another election and then push for the CPC leadership. Even, if Harper won she would have been given a cabinet post. The only logical explaination for Stronach's move is that she truely believed that the CPC was risking the country with its push for a quick election. You may disagree with her opinion but you should at least acknowledge that her feeling were likely sincere. Regards

Every political party has its extremists which have views that are way out of line with what the majority of Canadians want. However, the Liberals over the years have done a reasonable job of keeping them in line by showing leadership. Even though many Liberals voted against the same sex marriage bill, all of the cabinet ministers were told to vote for it and Paul Martin at least tried to persuade his caucus to support it. On the other hand, Harper choose oppose it which may get him votes in Alberta but makes him look like a right wing radical to the rest of the country. The fact that he was willing to expend his political capital on such a irrelevant topic shows very poor judgment in my opinion. Harper also seems too willing to let the extremists in his party control the agenda. On abortion he says that the CPC would not introduce a bill but he would allow a private member to introduce one. That is a huge red flag - he should be saying that he would actively oppose any attempt to limit a woman's right to abortion from within his caucus. His failure to do so means he either he supports the idea of restricting abortion (which would be the proverbial hidden agenda) or he is not willing to be a leader. The second issue I have with Harper is his views on taxation. The Republican party in the US has made a mess out of the finances of the country by making rediculous ideology driven tax cuts and then refuse to actually cut expenses because everyone wants the programs that taxes pay for. This philosophy has to be among the most intellectually dishonest philosophies out there. Harper comes across as someone who want to bring this type of economic mismangement to Canada. He creates this impression by: 1) Constantly talking about how we need to have more tax cuts even though our tax rates are not that bad any more. 2) Constantly promising to match every spending commitment the Liberals make. Harper has to choose 1) or 2) he can't have both. People are smart enough to know this. Furthermore, Harper's personal background make it clear that 1) is his personal preference which leads many people to believe that he is just saying 2) to get elected and then he will slash programs to pay for the tax cuts. The proverbial hidden agenda shows up again. Regards

Your analogy only makes if there are other carpet installers around that can do the job. Political parties are not interchangable and that is the problem. Hell would freeze over before I voted NDP and the CPC has failed to convince me that they are capable of being the fiscally conservative but socially liberal. That means I have no choice but to trust that the Liberals have learned their lesson that they will make sure the guilty are punished and that systems are put in place to make sure this kind of thing does not happen again. I know there are enough 'well intended' people in the Liberal party that they will likely be able to fix the problems if given a chance. That said, if the CPC wants my vote then they are going have to do a lot more than run around calling the Liberals crooks (You just admitted yourself that most of them probably aren't). The Harper could start by dropping his opposition to gay marriage - it would be a powerful sign that shows he is willing to keep the far right wing nuts that fill the CPC back benches in line. Regards

You are correct to point out that certain economic problems (the Great Depression, 70s Inflation, et. al.) tended to occur all around the industrialised world because central bankers tended to follow the accepted wisdom of the time and only a crisis would cause them to rethink their ideology. The current ideology requires that central bankers do not finance government debt but instead require that government finance their debt at prevailing interest rates. Their rational probably has to do with the first principal of economics: if you give sometime away for free it will get abused. Furthermore, central bankers can point to 25 years of stable inflation and normal business cycles (i.e. no great depression). In short, there is absolutely no reason for central bankers to abandon their polices today since these policies are protecting the stability of our fiat currency system. You must keep in mind that BOC has only one job: maintain faith in the currency. It is not something that should be used to implement any social policy. Regards

This is a red herring. Stronach can argue that she is representing the wishes of the majority of her constituants since over 50% voted Liberal or NDP. http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/riding/160/ Regards