jacee

"Lots of attention" is overestimating SunNews' viewers who number only about 5000 on a good day. Coulter could have been a passable comedian with her over the top mocking of supposed "liberals". Unfortunately she takes herself too seriously.

The intent was to question Harper's choosing sides for us. The discussion of the democracy issue was informative. The discussion of Arabs/Palestinian protests, not so much. Or perhaps 'too much information' says it better. Nothing has yet clarified for me why Canada has taken such a polarized position when a more neutral position is more likely to support the apparently desired two state solution.

If UN participation depended on someone's (whose?) judgement of 'worthy of respect', the arguments would go on forever, at great expense. I expect that's why it's open to all, and committee chairs rotate alphabetically. There is value in having a forum for open discussions of human rights issues - exposing the good, bad and truly ugly in all countries and tracking and reporting on implementation of UN Conventions. Whether that's enough value for our money is likely also a discussion of many opinions that could go on forever.

The new terrorism law has to be tested in the Supreme Court in case it is flawed. It may just be a formality, or there may be an issue to be corrected.

Our public health insurance is cheaper than private health insurance in the US because there is less redundancy in administration and no need for profit. Break even not-for-profit service is always likely to be cheaper than for-profit.

You mean taxpayers subsidizing oil CEO pay and bonuses and stockholder profits? No, that's nonsense.

Except as comic relief.:-]

Regardless of laws, I think Chretien's actions reflected the will of the Canadian people. We simply don't call anyone "Lord" nor tip our hats to him. I expect Canadians may also feel enough compassion to let him back in, unless his status as an unrepentant criminal makes him too much of a threat to the public.

Where do they get the trained dancers to hire for major productions? Used to be only rich kids could dance. How do you feel about subsidizing Olympic athletes? Used to be only rich kids could be Olympians too.

I watched some of 'So you think you can dance Canada' this week and there's no question contemporary dance is a bit strange looking but it's also amazing to see what these young people can do and how committed they are. Have you never been to a major production like Hair, Cats, etc to see a finished product? The arts are supposed to take us out of ourselves for a while and refresh and challenge our minds. I con't help but notice that the naysayers seem like they could benefit from a bit of that. Of course for some it's fishing or watching sports that does it but for a lot of people it's the arts. Cheap at the price imo. Erikson looked like moronic idiot!

Isn't 1.2m/13 years pretty small potatoes compared to oil sands subsidies? It irks me greatly to see a company post 'profits' equal to its subsidies.

It didn't look like Canada to me, but it was Harper's warning of what is to come for any citizens who dare to oppose his control. Of course he will be the first PM in history to have to pay the price of lawsuits for violation of Charter rights, since the Supreme Court recently deemed that possible. That means that we the taxpayers will pay for such police violations, which may give some people (voters) pause for thought. Black Bloc tactics are intended to provoke violent reactions from police to expose the ugly underbelly of state repression against citizens. The G20 police were particularly compliant with the Anarchists' wishes, avoiding the BB themselves and attacking peaceful protesters instead. Clearly the Anarchists won.

Any other Canadian would have had to make the same choice. There are no Lords of Canada. Chretien knew the public's opinion on that.

He's grovelling because he's a politician and belatedly realized that he wants to keep his paycheque. What he does on his own time is his problem. What he does on our dime is our concern. We are the boss. It's not about his gender or sexual orientation. It's about unprofessional behaviour and clearly his constituents disagree with you and it's their call. If you want to hire him to ogle hot chicks and tweet you about them, go ahead, but the taxpayers don't. If you are looking for maligned hetero poster boys, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Are you saying he didn't break the law? The fact that he is an arrogant sob is irrelevant.

He's a politician at an official function, tweeting to us fools that elected him. We were paying him while he ogled the hot chicks and tweeted to us about it. It's a slippery slope he's on. Soon he'll be tweeting us his peter too . . . The second politician peter tweeter. :-)

Lord and Lady Black of Crossharbour just want to be home in Toronto, but they've left a trail of burnt bridges. Under Harper law his prison time would have been longer I expect. Eta . . . I doubt he'll qualify for immigration, being somewhat broke and a criminal.

And it all falls apart as predicted, but maybe not before raising the issue of electoral reform. Sweet irony indeed.

and with more senators come more pensions, because of the shorter term. Do we want to pay more?

Here's some irony . . . The senate reform bill lays out senate election requirements as first-past-the-post, providing an opening to discuss whether we want to perpetuate that system. This is becoming interesting! This is from Fairvote Canada: >> Harper government ?modernizes? Senate ? into the 11th Century >> >> Minister of State for Democratic Reforms Tim Uppal Tuesday introduced >> legislation into the House to provide a ?voluntary framework? for >> provinces to elect nominees to the Senate. The nominees named by the >> provinces would then be appointed to the Senate by the Prime Minister. >> >> Astonishingly, the legislation specifies the same antiquated voting >> system that has a history of delivering false majority governments, >> including the current one. Although the Conservatives received less >> than forty percent of the votes cast in the recent election, Minister >> Uppal describes this as a ?strong mandate? for Senate reform. >> >> ?We are stuck with first-past-the-post voting in the House of Commons >> through an accident of history,? said Shoni Field, newly-elected >> President of Fair Vote Canada (FVC), Canada?s citizens? movement for >> electoral reform. ?In recent history, no country designing a voting >> system from scratch has chosen the winner-take-all system that we >> use.? >> >> ?Fair Vote Canada has no policy on whether the Senate should be >> elected, appointed, or abolished,? she added. ?The first and most >> urgent priority at the federal level is to give Canadians a truly >> representative House of Commons. Consideration of Senate reform or >> abolition should be addressed after citizens have chosen a fair and >> modern system to elect their MPs. >> >> ?But if the Senate is to be elected, then surely it must be elected >> using a modern, fair, proportional system. Choosing this antiquated >> system cannot be considered progress. What a missed opportunity to >> move Canadian democracy forward!? >> >> ?It used to be Conservative policy to that the Senate should be >> elected by proportional representation,? said FVC Executive Director >> Wayne Smith. ?It is extremely disappointing that they have abandoned >> fairness in favour of winner-take-all. >> See more at fairvotecanada.ca --

Ok let's flip this a bit: You are a married businessman, a communications/public relations professional representing your company at a public event in a community where you want to do business. Later you tweet to the world including the media that you particularly enjoyed it because of the "hot chicks" there. Would your boss or the shareholders be impressed? How bout your wife? Would you still have a job? Would any businessman be that stupid?

It wouldn't hurt to plant the idea in their heads. There's a reason for having a Senate that is outside the electoral process that can tackle issues that elected reps won't touch.

I think you are quite right and we should be asking ourselves what issue all this "sound and fury signifying nothing" is designed to evade. To me it is clear that all political parties want to distract us from the more popular issue of reform of the House of Commons via consideration of proportionate representation. It makes too much 'common sense' that the number of MP's in the house should accurately reflect each party's proportion of the popular vote. Can't have the public cluing in to that and disrupting the well oiled party machines! Let's throw the dummies a red herring! How about we do an end run and we convince the beleaguered Senate to study and introduce legislation on PR! :-);-)

There wouldn't be international conventions on human rights, children's rights, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, rights of indigenous peoples, etc, nor international courts to back them up. It's the one place where countries come to agreement on issues that might otherwise cause wars.

I think that's very true. I also think it's quite suspicious that our elected representatives of all political parties got a sudden urge for senate reform or abolition just when a popular movement for electoral reform - proportionate representation - was gaining steam. I strongly suspect that diverting our attention to senate reform is politicians' way of avoiding any change to the first-past-the-post method of election that they are trained for. You can bet that any changes to the senate will increase the power and control over it by politicians, and decrease its independence from the House of Commons. I think a fuller public discussion is necessary since most people don't understand the functions of the senate at all. In particular, we may regret losing it's ability to investigate long term issues of national importance without political interference or pandering, and to bring forward relevant legislation that doesn't have enough vote-getting power to interest politicians.