SpankyMcFarland

You don't need me to go back through all the clueless Ministers of Health we have had in this country etc. etc.

I think the Tories did well enough on the economy. We have had decent leadership for thirty years on such matters, trying to do the right thing, and our federal governments have been about as frugal as the electorate has allowed them to be. The last 'balanced budget' was a silly gimmick that most people saw through. Governments should show a little more respect for the intelligence of the electorate. A big problem is productivity. We can't blame the guys in Ottawa alone for our collective failure to do more to diversify beyond resources and manufacturing.

Harper chose not to renovate, which was silly. False economy. I would tend to favour knocking it down and having a competition to replace it. There must be loads of young Canadian architects who would love that chance.

I would be very surprised if no new facts at all are found by this inquiry.

I'd like to see this from every party but particularly from the party in power, now the Liberals. This is how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work.

Since when did Ministers have to be experts on their porfolios? There are so many counter examples to pick from. This MS treatment sounded dodgy to me from the start but was backed by a lot of doctors in Canada.

Harper kept such a tight hold on this ship of state, our parliament lost consciousness. A great grey cloud has lifted.

Chantal Hebert? She has always has something interesting to say, from a viewpoint I wouldn't come across too often. Can I be very superficial for a moment, though? That hobo look is a bit distracting. She could do with a major makeover. Even her hair parting is never quite right.

It's partly a question of quantity. What did 'the whole country' mean then? What did they know? Some rumours. They did notsee him staggering around, slurring his words, Lord knows what else and probably breaking somelaws in the bargain. The detail of what we have about everybody has massively increased, and our higher expectations also come from the fact that we think we deserve more now from our 'betters' than we used to.

The medium changes the game regarding deference. We can hear and read decisions as they are being made, every casual comment is reported, dissent is immediately picked up and magnified.How were politicians questioned about their decisions back then? They did not live under constant scrutiny as they do now. A drunken Prime Minister would not last long these days. There'd be a hundred stories in the media after a few days of that carry-on and an invitation to Jimmy Kimmel. Many of us today regard the monarchy as a quaint anachronism, too much trouble to dump. THAT opinion was not widely held in MacDonald's time.

I want to see debates like this within the Conservative Party: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/11985483/EU-referendum-David-Cameron-sets-out-his-demands-to-Europe-live.html

More puritanical perhaps today, but less deferential, and the examination is different. You would have to admit the media environment is very different now. Every inflection, every look is seized upon as signs of dissent. During WWII, Hitler and Stalin spontaneously adopted eeerily similar daily routines as the war ground on. Circumstances impose themselves on leaders. Trudeau is in for the fight of his life to transform governmental culture. I wish him all the best.

Unless Harper had an alternative plan, he was only postponing the inevitable. He hardly deserves credit for dumping the problem on somebody else's desk.

Ministers of the Empire did not have to respond in a 24/7 news cycle. They had a much easier time of it, really. These days, every minor inconsistency is seized upon and magnified, even more so than it was in Chretien's time. One sign of the challenge ahead - Bains discussing the census. He seemed to be still in campaign mode, unable to mention the penalties for not filing as the reporters barked the question at him again and again. I will be looking for independence of ministers, committees and MPs. In Britain today, parliamentary committees are still independent of government. I'd much rather see Trudeau try and fail than follow the Harper route. It will take a few years to see how he has done.

I'll personally sing you a song if anybody goes to jail for the census. If that happened, the happy victim would have instant fame as a martyr of the right for life and would have all sorts of lawyers wanting to help him with his ultimately successful Charter challenge. A lot of shady people have come out with the line about 'if you are innocent, you have nothing to fear'. It's a sinister claim. I am not a terrorist and yet I fear that privacy as we have understood it for centuries is rapidly disappearing. The information that corporations and governments have about us should be a cause of deep concern for all.

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thehouse/meet-your-new-government-1.3305229/donald-savoie-government-by-cabinet-will-be-a-major-challenge-1.3307747 It may be far harder now than it was in PT's time to allow Mnisters to plot their own course. Minor differences in policy are instantly detected and made into a major issue within minutes, rather than days to weeks, or never, in the good old days. That's where I want us to go but it is going to be a challenge.

Now, now. Just because you didn't get any seats here. What did your mom tell you about being a good loser?

One question is whether the current media environment will force the PMO to take a stronger role than Trudeau says he wants in controlling the message. How much diversity of opinion from different government spokespersons is politically acceptable? We are about to find out.

So you fear a paper form more than a large government agency devoted to mass surveillance and completely unaccountable to Parliament? What can I say? The attitude of self-described conservatives on this issue is a real eye opener. There seems to be no concern about liberty and privacy from many of them. If the government wants it, who are we to question seems to be their attitude, except when it comes to the census for some barmy reason.

The first press conference by Ambrose was not promising. She is going to have to be a lot more media friendly than she has been. A new standard has been set by the government.

Do you really think we are going to see Snowden-like revelations about massive misuse of census data down the road, as we have seen with CSIS surveillance of citizens already? To me, the threats are not even remotely comparable. We have a security establishment within this country that is not accountable to Parliament and snoops on us as it sees fit. It has also allegedly designed software that, in conjunction with GCHQ, has been used to spy on businesses across Europe, in countries like Belgium and Ireland, that have no discernible links with terrorism at all. The situation should be of serious concern to any sensible person. BTW we are talking about this in a forum where CSIS could easily be spying on us right now. Of course, I fear CSIS far more than the census.

Community care can work if properly resourced, which it usually is not. In the US, individual rights have trumped concerns for health and safety and psychiatric care has been neglected. The pendulum has swung too far away from institutional care because it is expensive and unpleasant to think about. Some patients still need hospitalization and there are nowhere near enough beds available, even in Canada. In the specific matter of mental illness and homicide, the key group is a tiny fraction of mentally ill people - young, male, paranoid schizophrenics who are not taking their medication and are showing evidence of aggression. For such patients, a more paternalistic approach is justified, in my opinion, to protect them and society.

Is there a link?

In the end, Carson and Trump will be discarded as candidates. They have no knowledge of the job they applied for. Rubio, Bush, Kasich, even Christie will gradually move up the field as reality bites.

I have the opposite take on that. The intrusion into our privacy posed by the long-form census is clearly delineated and is balanced by the benefit it brings to us. However, government surveillance as typified by C-51 seems to have no proper oversight at all and its full extent is only revealed when there are leaks like Snowden's, mainly from other countries. As far as I can tell, the threat posed to my privacy by such surveillance is much greater than that of the census.How many people will go to jail for not filling in the census, do you think?