cannuck

You need to allow for the fact that Canada has 1/10th of the population of the US - thus our counter-investment is similarly proportioned. HOWEVER: it is the preponderence of US investment here, plus the very unfortunate charactaristic of the Canadian econmy being seconded to banking and finance (as is the case in the US) that results in very little value added processing - thus wealth creation is extremely limited to resource extraction. Sadly, we copy the US by letting finance have our cash to play with, but since Manhattan sucks up most of that money, it goes to work South of the 49th. The exception of course is in Ontario, where 70% of all Canada/US trade takes place in the automobile industry. In my case, US investment (in real business, not Casino Capitalist Wall Street crap) is about the same ratio as to population - 10x more to the US side than Canada. It remains to be seen how much China will change that picture - as that is where there are still new markets emerging that we can service.

What does the US owe Canada? Simple: tit for tat in free and open access for investement and trade. US companies own HUGE stakes in Canadian resources, which we have allowed it to do with relative freedom from restrictions and unfair taxation. Doing so has resulted in stifling the value added production that SHOULD have happened in Canada (that's not on the US, that is what Canadians did to themselves by giving money to Wall Street and Bay Street instead of investing directly in Main Street.) As for Canada not contributing to NATO: Yesterday we had a parade adding theatre honours to the colours of Canada's oldest volunteer regiment - as did 64 other Canforce units for Afghanistan. This was the longest military engagement for Canada in its entire history and was done simply because our closest ally was attacked. It was initiated with considerable political capital at risk by a Liberal government and similarly sustained by the Conservatives. I also recall very well allowing American military forces to have free and complete access to Canadian territory to build the Distant Early Warning line - all on Canadian soil. We were quite willing to paint a great big target on our chest in support of the country with which we share the longest unprotected border in the world and a fully integrated economy. It is an insult and piss off when an American ignorant of such things cannot recognize and respect such contributions to their defense and well being.

very large paper route before 10, picked fruit and did odd jobs until 12. Moved to different part of country, shot gophers for farmers when I got there. First contracting when 14 (assembling grain bins). For the next 50 years after high school, have been usually self employed. My work and investment supports many families in 5 companies in 3 countries. Used to work 3x4hrs 7 days, now usually 8-10hrs x 6 days, but that will change this year as we bought a farm on which I need to set up a business, build barn, shops, greenhouses and house. I still remain on call for one former JV for emergency callouts to any one of 16 offices in Canada and the US (thus in declared emergencies, no hours of service limits apply). Yeah, we right wing capitalist pigs are a layabout lot. But, you are right. It WAS an assumption - but referring not to employment but to the left wing attitudes of entitlement and use of social services, government as a master, etc. I should have made that clear, my appologies (tax time, so visits here are break from true madness).

First of all, just because something is in law, that does not in any way mean it is right. While those of you who seem to think the world owes you a living and you can just sit back and take a free ride, that is your privilege that is there because some of those who went before had the courage to challenge and change the law to what it is. That also means law and policy must be changed to crrect the increbible abuses that politicians, and in this case terrorists as well have inflicted on their privilege to use the law as it either exists or is being interpreted. I will claim some high ground here, because I HAVE spent the time, money and other sacrifices to contribute to changing law in this country. The next change I wish to see is the totally irresponsible government that we have in Ottawa be relagated to a dark page in our history. Your comment about being "racist" is simply the stock reply from the left wing of the politically correct movement. I have stated before, and will repeat that EVERYONE is "racist" to some extent. That is not some kind of sin or flaw, it is simply reality. To throw that around simply because you assume I am caucasian is just what I would expect from you. I pity your myopia but welcome you expressing your view as an example of what is the status quo today . BTW: terrorism is not a racial thing, in the case of Omar and his family, it is the crime that they were (and probably still are) engaged in.

It's my country, with which I do NOT agree on accommodating, encouraging and supporting terrorists. You are free to leave if this doesn't suit you.

The Yanks kept a terrorist out of circulation for eight years. they should have sent us a bill

That is probably true for value added (manufactured) goods, but I suspect our resource exports knock that out of the ballpark.

When Americans learn to invest their money on Main Street, where it can create wealth and jobs instead of throwing it all at Wall Street where the Casino Capitalists add no value at all, create no wealth, and create no jobs, maybe things will change. While Yanks are so busy rolling the dice at the casino, waiting for their lottery win or trying to sue their neighbour - while consuming vast quanities of scrips, OTC and recreational drugs, it is left for the productive part of the world to meet the consumer and business demands of the USA.

We share culture, language, border, transportation and economic systems with the US - thus why it make all of the sense in the world to prefer trading there. For example: Euroweenies drive cars, Canadians drive pickups, SUVs and other slovenly pigs made and driven by the US. We sell parts to make those things from here, and buy the value added end product. We don't share technical standards with Europe or Asia, and South America is too socialist and Africa is too screwed up to have any money, so why would we want to trade there?? Our problem in business is not too much trade with the US, it is not nearly enough. Try to manufacture anything here, and you will quickly learn that you can buy the same inputs South of the 49th for half the price.

Thanks for catching that. Yes, Hellyer was indeed one of the Red Torries under that nitwit Pearson, but nothing was really done to impact the forces until Trudeau was in with Cadieux as Minister (some gift!!). I think it was '69 when the crap really hit the lilly pad.

Impact: I can't tell you the volume, but I can give you a pretty good idea of how things work: someone in procurement calls up Bombardier and based on their largess at the time to contributing to the well being of political parties and politicians, they will be asked how they would like to take a simple $x value piece of equipment, get involved with assembling and/or modifying that proven design to the point where it becomes a proper POS at a value or $3xxx - and the forces will have yet another extremely expensive and ineffective solution to a real need. Ever since PET, the armed forces have nothing to do with defence and 100% simply a tool for social engineering and propping up PQ for votes and "benefits". Doesn't matter who is in power.

You have been looking at transverse mercator projections. Russia is right on the other side of the Arctic Ocean, and summer or winter, they don't need to drive or float, they just need to hop into some airplanes (that they have in abundance). Problem is, they are ALREADY "invading" (violating Canadian sovereignty) in the arctic, as has the US on many occassions. Having a bunch of nukes is not the solution, but having a presence IS - and an appropriate role for our military,

That lap dog is very much a Pekingese. What seems to be ignored in spades is that while Canada does not have literal "enemies", we have massive exposure and violations of our sovereignty throughout the Arctic. We REALLY need a much larger military budget, equipment and presence to even be able to maintain our legal claim to that region. BTW: that job is done by Rangers - who deserve far better training, equipment and support. If you want to inlcude the Innu population in Canada, that is how we can do so. What Trump has pointed out correctly is that we also have formal comittments to our allies - and we are not living up to those obligations. Instead of destroying our own country by importing a million potential terrorists and parking them right on the most undefended border to the US (no doubt to SQUEALS of joy from PETs mentors), we should be ponying up to what has been decided by many nations to maintaining world order.

I agree, but I did happen to notice that there was a lot more budget to be raided under Harper. I was raised in the military, and we have a brigade officer in the immediate family serving now, so I get to have a peek inside the kimono regularly. Things were not great under McKnight, but IMHO MacKay did really well at it. Much to my surprise, Sajjan is pretty much ineffective - in spite of being a reserve colonel who has served in combat.

Canada's military is weak and decimated because of Pierre Elliot Trudeau and his minion, Paul Hellier. When our dearly beloved fellow traveller tucked his Communist Party card into his wallet and came back to Canada, he remained resolutely on a path that seems to have been more beneficial to his ideological heroes than Canadians. What a stroke of political genius: take the soft underbelly of the US (i.e. Canada) and take the institution that defined us as a new and strong nation at Vimy Ridge and turn it into a social experiment. Not more than a few weeks after the White Paper, I saw francophone junior NCOs who had virtually no prospects of ever having more than two hooks on the sleeve be solicited to become officer candidates. Once they removed the uniforms from the various services, the Trudeau job of destroying the morale of the forces was complete. The acorn did not follow far from the tree (although it did not seem to inherit much of the gray matter - how Kardashian of it). Rewarding terrorists for killing allied soldiers and depriving the services and veterans of what they need to be effective is page right out of the old man's play book. Embarrassing the rest of the country with his buffoonery is just a bonus.

Yeah, things do seem to be improving....he didn't sneak $10mm into this murdering terrorist's back pocket (yet).

If a criminal wants to buy a gun, you REALLY think he gives a rat's ass if he can obtain it legally or not???

You obviously have not been around agriculture. Big agribusiness is deeply involved in supplying services and consumables, and even deeper into the value added side of crops once they leave the farm. Not very many large farms belong to corporations that are not simply the farmer himself who has incorporated his enterprise. Since 50% of all farmers and 70% of all farmland under cultivation in Canada is in Saskatchewan, pretty much ANYTHING to do with ag has to do with SK. Land ownership IS a big deal here, and there is some controversy, but by and large, it is very difficult for non-residents to own it. Here is a good summary: http://www.albertabeef.ca/content/saskatchewan-changing-farm-ownership-laws Single (cultivated) farms of 10,000 acres and up are not uncommon here at all, but they very much belong to the farmer who farms it. I am a small farmer, really a hobby farmer but it is hard not to know what is going on in the mainstream of agriculture if you live here. BTW: to get closer to the thread topic - I used to manufacture ag equipment, principal market was aboriginal.

It is indeed VERY socialistic when the state requires that farmers participate. It is also an incredible distortion to markets and screws up our ability to trade. BTW: it is illegal to sell dairy unless you own a quota, period. I don't think there is ANY option available. Not sure about eggs and chicken. The CWB started as a voluntary deal during the depression, and that was fine. Participation became mandatory during WWII to guarantee supply to England. However, once government realized that they could play the politics of food, they just left the mandatory part in place. The original idea was adopted during one of the bleakest periods in the history of modern economies. Canadians were looking at all kinds of political, monetary and economic alternative systems in the hope of getting out from under their problems. BUT: when the Wheat Board was in its younger years, the average farm was tiny by today's standards. Viable grain farms are at LEAST one section today, but normal is several. Someone with tens of millions of dollars invested in land and equipment is not likely to want to entrust their business to a bunch of bureaucrats. When this was tested by vote ten years before it was wrapped up, the problem was that it was one vote for one farm, when it really should have been one vote for one acre. The little farmers and hobby farmers tended to want someone else to handle the sales, but the people that actually produced significant quantities as a real business wanted no part of it. If the laughing stock of "constitutions" was ever applied, the forcing of someone to do this and especially the discrimatory application of location would keep anything so stupid from lasting a minute.

You clearly don't know much about Goodale and surprisingly the whole business of the government of Canada imposing monopoly on wheat (barley and oats) on farmers. Did Sawatsky, McMechan, Cairns (and Ken Dillen, but being a former NDP MLA and aboriginal, never charged for his participation - see the Jay Treaty to understand why) break the law? Yes, no question. Were those laws in ANY way written in the interest of anyone but government? Clearly since they are all struck down now (thanks to Sawatsky, McMechan, Cairns, Dillen and especially Creighton) it should tell you the answer. I get it: you are from the extreme left and believe the state should have control over every facet of the lives and business of the people. SK is the perfect example of the good things and the bad of socialism. To begin with: there is no such thing as functioning government anywhere in this world that does not use some of the elements of social policy, some originated right here in Sunny Saskatchewan (universal sick care, for example). Where it breaks down is when the state goes from social policy into Marxist economics and that simply doesn't work. SK had the same population from 1925 until roughly 2005. Results of the Depression and the "cure" - i.e. Marxist economics. As soon as this fell apart, the big "boom" that we experienced over the last 15 years was simply catching up to the rest of the world that had the sense not to dabble is such things. The fallout is that SK was left with no value added industry and no culture of investment and development of value added processing. (think of the Crow Rates and the companion legislation for CWB). Economies are built upon the productive work of entrepreneurs and their employees. Kill that and you cripple the country. The CWB was one of the most egregious examples of that failure - and farmers are some of the most freedom conscious and independent people in the country. Saskatchewan needs to be more like (and for the last 15 years IS more like and more part of) the Western world and shed its fascination with Russia and Eastern European ideologies. I am not exaggerating, read the Regina Manifesto and understand that is exactly what hobbled this place for 1/2 a century. BTW: just to help you appreciate how ridiculous the CWB was: it was actually illegal (and subject to imprisonment) for a MB/SK/AB farmer to take wheat from his own harvest and bake bread to feed his family. Meanwhile, no such idiocy was inflicted upon farmers from the rest of Canada. I can guarantee you there were literally thousands of other farmers who broke the ridiculous laws that support the subjugation and beggaring of Western farmers.

Andy grew barley, not wheat. He had farms on both sides of the border So, he hauled it to his farm in the US and sold it there. On the way back, Canada Customs (I think it was then) seized his tractor at the border, and Andy simply got in and drove it home. He and Cairns had, however, moved several cargos of wheat into the US for neighbours. Here is an excutive summary: http://www.farmersforjustice.com/access/1998-07.htm After getting a similar case cleared up in Winnipeg (Sawatsky), another farmer (NOT a lawyer) Dan Creighton stepped up and halped Andy represent himself far more effectively than any lawyer had managed to that point. In his research, Danny discovered that barley (and oats) were brought under the Wheat Board Act by an order in councing in IIRC 1952. However, no further order-in-council was issued since that time - thus EVERY sale of oats and barley since 1953 was illegal - as the CWB had no such jurisdiction or right (Charley Mayer testified to that). To make it worse, that '52 order extended only the sections of the Act concerning pooling and licensing - not penalties, so even if it WAS legal, there would be no penalty. That is, if we lived in a country where there was rule of law. It was these three trials that finally (or I should say eventually) took down the CWB. Goodale was the Minister when the final McMechan trial was conducted...with different results from exactly the same charges from which Sawatsky was acquitted. You will never convice me there was not a serious amount of influence applied. Rember, we don't elect judges, we appoint them by politicians.

The nitwit politicians who spewed more of their thoughtless blather could not interfere with the trial that was concluded, but COULD be considered to have prejudiced both juries and courts (don't doubt it, courts in Canada are EXTREMELY political - refer to Ralph Goodale managing to have Canadian citizens jailed for commiting no crime at all - Andy McMechan and 12 other Western farmers) that may have to deal with an appeal or the weapons charges that Stanley still must face.

Nor do you know. I said "conceivably". You need to hone your comprehensive skills. Maybe put down your copy of the Regina manifesto and join the real world.

By George he's got it! Thus, concievably why Stanley found not guilty by a jury that heard almost all of the evidence/facts.

The inuendo seems to be the Boushie was somehow just another typical teen. He was not (well, not quite accurate, he WAS typical of a teen from a certain clearly visible minority around the Battlefords).