BHS

I like where you're going with the tax credits idea (especially since I pay about $800 a year in gym membership fees) but I think you're being a little bit too enthusiastic here. You're really just moving the goalposts. Assume the government successfully uses carrot and stick measures to coerse the population into a more active lifestyle. You're probably right that heart disease stemming from obesity would fall and people would live longer (though the Lipitor people would probably argue about falling cholestorol rates). But an older population will inevitably find a host of other ailments to suffer from as they age, meaning the money you save not treating middle aged heart disease will be spent treating old age cancer, Alzheimers, etc. (and even geriatric heart disease). At best you're going to see a couple decades' window where overall healthcare costs drop slightly as the demographic trends shift, but it won't have a long term impact and may even increase costs in the long run. For instance, one of the arguments against smoking is that it invariably leads to big ticket health care costs, chiefly cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Well, not invariably, but you get my meaning. And the feel-good assumption is that if people quit smoking these health care costs will all go away. But studies have shown that while smokers do tend to develop expensive ailments they also tend to die from them rather quickly. It's the tee-totalling nonsmokers languishing away their platinum years in long-term care facilities who soak up the really big bucks. And increased physical activity also means increased risk of injury. So not everything about physical activity is economically positive. But I digress. (Sorry I'm such an ass - I'm enjoying this conversation.) I'll have to look that up. I don't have a lot of faith in alternative fuels at this point though. Ethanol is expensive to produce and has a lower energy/mass ratio than petrol. Same thing with biodiesel. I'm guessing that advances in the coming years will be derived from using nanomaterials to increase efficiency in both production and consumption. Also, there's a company in the States called the Scuderi Group that is set to produce a new air-hybrid engine that promises to vastly increase fuel efficiency. I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out. Follow the link and tell me what you think.

For those interested in what Rumsfeld actually said and why he said it, here's a blog post that recounts the whole story.

Barriers will be eroded away untill surveilance on every person in the US is legal regardless of the context. Who better is qualified for this job than Hayden? Being the former NSA head. What aspect of the NSA wiretapping program places it lower in terms of morality (or whatever it is you mean by "down") than what CSIS does? Don't bother answering that, because you can't possibly know the details of what the NSA is doing, because it's still a covert operation and everything that is being said about it is still speculative. Just as CSIS's program is covert. Comparing two covert operations with unknown operational parameters is pointless, unless you're trying to make political hay for the opponents of the Bush administration. And such a concern not entirely the same as protecting the putative privacy of average citizens, is it?. Also, Hayden hasn't got the ability to change laws, so whether he's open to the idea of changing them or not isn't really of any concern. I'm sure there are cops out there who'd like jail time for speeders, but they can't change the law either. The technology required to keep a surveillance tab on every citizen in America is beyond what is presently available. When, in some future era, the technological capability to maintain such a surveillance program is available to the governments of the world, America will be the last country to adopt such a program. If you believe otherwise you have no idea how America works. The whole kerfuffle about the NSA wiretapping scandal is mildly ridiculous. What it boils down to is "Bush could have gotten warrants and everything would have been above board, but he didn't so BUSH IS A CRIMINAL WHO INTENDS TO USE THE VAST POWERS OF THE STATE TO TOTALLY CONTROL ALL ASPECTS OF AMERICAN LIFE." Getting worked up about Bush breaking the law in a way that amounts to not more than a foregoing of procedural niceties is like getting worked up about the Presidential motorcade speeding through red lights in downtown Washington. Because he does that too, on occasion, and it's also illegal. And it's also true that he could obey the law and get where he's going just the same. Actually, that's a pretty good analogy. Last year, when torture was the topic with all of the pundits, it was pointed out that should the McCain definition of torture become law, it would still be within the President's power to authorize the use of information extraction techniques that were definitively forms of torture under extreme circumstances. It would be up to history and the American people to decide if he had made the right call in breaking the law. The NSA wiretapping scandal is essentially the same. The people who have the ability to call Bush to account for the program are the Democrats, especially if they regain part or total control of Congress in November. But I seriously doubt they'll try. They're only riding the story as a method of bringing Bush's approval rating down. They have no intention of making a legal case out of this and binding the President's hands.

This sounds vaguely sinister to me. Do you mean that citizens should persue active lifestyles by whatever means, or that the government should encourage them by whatever means? Lucky for you, we're going to get them. Man, I wish there was a cheap and easy way to refine hydrogen. Perhaps this is true in Alberta, but not so on the cusp between Southern and Northern Ontario. It's the main artery between North Bay and Sudbury, and it's got more traffic than even some of the 400 series highways.

The government tracks all kinds of information about you besides how many guns you have, including detailed financial information that you update for them yearly. This is a pretty poor comparison. I can picture gangsters sitting around saying, "Gee, I wish I could get my hands on a gun. Who's next on that list?" I can't picture insurers saying, "Gee, I wish I could deny somebody insurance. Who's next on that list?" I take it to mean that an insurer will check the DNA registry after you've applied. But is a DNA profile designed for identification purposes really detailed enough to indicate the presence of genetic abnormality, other than the obvious extra/missing chromosome issues that would be visibly apparent anyway? If the CSI shows are in any way accurate, an identity profile is your DNA sample parsed down to something akin to a serial number. Which, really, isn't enough information to indicate whether or not your suseptible to lymphoma. I don't disagree that the firearms registry was a bad idea that shouldn't have been impemented, for your reasons and a number of others. But are you really against all government data collection? Think about it. A fair system of taxation would be impossible without collecting supporting data. Tracking beef herds (and other similar forms of food production) would no longer be possible. Tracking cross border shipping would also be impossible. There is a long list of things we expect (demand, actually) that the government will keep track of. Your last sentence has a ring of truthiness to it, but it's equally true that every unregistered firearm is also one break in away from being used in a crime. Which kind of moots your statement. I understand that you're intending to indicate that because the registry can be hacked there is an increased likelihood that a registered firearm will be stolen, but I think you'd have a hard time proving that anywhere but on paper.

That's not the point I was making - I was countering a specific statement made in the post I was replying to about being able to know everything about a person's physical status from a DNA sample, which currently isn't possible. Again, I don't doubt that insurance companies and employers will express all of the interest in the world in having access to a government DNA database, but that doesn't mean they should get it. That's not something I support at all. I support using such a database for identification purposes only, and it would be easy enough to codify that distinct and limited purpose into the laws that create the database. As to your own example, I'm willing to be you supplied the blood sample upon a request made by your insurance company, which is a pretty standard practice, especially if your purchasing life insurance. Willfully allowing an insurer to screen your blood is not what we're talking about at all, even if it is painfully intrusive. (It's really no different than the civil liberties you willingly forego every time you board an airliner.)

"No connection with reality". Are you saying that he isn't a Holocaust denier, and that he hasn't threatened to nuke Israel given the chance? I mean, I know you're no fan of Israel, but do you really think nuking the place is appropriate? The second part is pretty funny, coming from you. Shady didn't mention the Anchluss of Czecheslovakia at all, only that both Mein Kampf and this letter were written with a similar degree of literacy. By juxtaposing the two works there is the implied notion that Hitler and Ahmadinejad have a similar notion of how Jews should be dealt with, but that isn't stated explicitly in Shady's post (even if it's true). But wait - aren't you the guy who's defended the "Bush = Hitler" comparison ad nauseum? Meaning, I guess, that a pathetically weak and endlessly debunkable howler from the fringe carries more weight with you than a legitimate comparison of two men whose stated goals vis-a-vis the eradication of an entire race are practically identical. That's interesting, but not really unexpected. We argued in an early thread about "taking sides" and you argued that there weren't any sides to take. But when you support the notions that "Bush equals Hitler" and that "Ahmadinejad does not equal Hitler" you really are painting yourself into one half of the house. And it's clearly not the half of the house that I'm in.

I am not religious either, but it means 'praise be upon him'. http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/glos.../term.PBUH.html Islam recognizes Abraham, (the progenitor of the Jews, referred to by them as 'Ibrahim') and Jesus, as holy figures. Prophets, though, without the 'abject holiness' attributed by their respective followers. In his novel Skinny Legs and All Tom Robbins writes a section of dialogue between two friends, a Muslim and a Jew, both from Jerusalem. In that dialogue they discuss how Abraham was the father of the Jews through his son Isaac and the father of the Arabs through his son Ishmael (Isaac's older half brother, born to Sarah's maidservant). I don't know if that's entirely reputable, being that it comes from Tom Robbins. Oh wait, here's a link that seems to back the theory up. Also, I haven't read through this entire thread, but I haven't seen anyone mention another possibility for the letter: according to a blog I was reading earlier there's a commandment from Mohammed in the Koran stating that it is a Muslim's leader's duty to offer conversion to his enemies before making war on them. This letter would certainly qualify as that sort of gesture. Can someone look this up and confirm it?

It is my understanding that the system that is proposed will detect a launch and destroy the incoming missile before it reaches cruising speed, meaning that unless the missile originates in Canada itself there is only a slim chance that the radioactive mass will fall on Canadian soil. But even if that's not the case, it doesn't change the fact that if missiles targeting the US come over the pole they're going to cross our territory first, regardless of our public policy decisions. It was always the case that our reluctance to participate was based on crude anti-American pandering by the Liberals. It's not surprising that a crudely pro-American government would be more agreeable to participation.

Firstly, this article is about a NATO agreement to protect Europe from missile attack using the same system design as the US has proposed for NORAD. It isn't about Canada opting into the older scheme as you appear to have infered. Secondly, the Americans are going to protect North American airspace whether we like it or not. Trial and Error's point of view in August of last year was that if we opted out politically this would somehow magically change our geography to keep us out of harm's way. (Somehow I missed his reply, because there are a number of other points I'd like to counter to his (ahem) argument. But I digress, unless you want to take up his talking points as your own to defend.) It isn't really an option for us to refuse their protection, because they intend to protect the entire continent. At most we can refuse to participate in that defence, which as I noted is pretty much par for the course. Thirdly, how do you propose to achieve your concensus? I'm assuming here that merely electing a government to make decisions on our behalf is insufficient. Perhaps you'd like a national referendum on the subject. Or perhaps not - missile defence is an easier sell than you might think, especially when it's pointed out that it's going to happen anyway, under the auspices of an international agency that we already enthusiatically participate in.

"Hitler" and "Nazi(s)" have come to mean "He or that which is unacceptable to the Left". Which is ironic, in that said lefties have a tendancy of exhibiting more in common in word and deed with the Brownshirts than the targets of their slurs. Think: insistance on adherence to an orthodoxy of thoughts and ideals, street brawling and riots, attacking the police and private property owned by a scapegoated "other", all of which is justified by a perceived sense of possessing an innate moral and intellectual superiority. I'd hate to wander accidentally into a beerhall full of these people. Al Gore refered to right-wing bloggers as "digital Brownshirts" for pointing out that Dan Rather was using forged documents to slander the President in the immediate runup to an election. Apparently he was too blinded by his own rage and political impotence to notice that the vast majority of genuinely slanderous digital smear campaigns get their starts on websites with names like The Democratic Underground.

Ever wonder why the people putting forward the idea that, to win, the Dems need to be more like Republicans are usually Republicans themselves? Hmmmm.... Not necessarily more like Republicans, just less like the Kos crowd. There simply aren't shrill reactionary voters in America to carry the Electoral College, or if you prefer, a majority vote. The Dems need some sort of consistent philosophy that holds a broad spectrum of party supporters together. It's needn't be a right wing philosophy, just something that a hefty majority of the party can buy into and that looks reasonably presentable to the entire American body politic. The Kossites do the opposite, breaking supporters into tiny, marginalized identity clusters. As long as they continue to exert their current level of influence on the party, the party will fail.

Thanks Liam. Those were good examples of McCain being a suck up. Both examples are pretty obviously transparent attempts to gain support among the people who've already written him off and I don't think they made much of an impact. It's going to take more than that to get him through the primaries and nominated this election cycle. It's hard to say what the GOP will do this year. After two terms of the Bush administration their political capital is pretty much spent. The party's leadership might decide that 2008 is a right-off, and maybe they'll push to nominate McCain afterall, if only to see him lose the election and retire as a politically spent force. Same for Frist. If he'd taken the tough stand against judicial filibusters, and even used the nukular option, he might have a shot. As it is, it seems to me that he's wasted the current senate majority and he looks weak. I don't think he's well regarded outside of Tennessee. I think that if the Democrats were working from a strong (proactive) policy platform the Republicans would be in real trouble this November. But the Dems have spent the past five years reacting to Bush without offering any solutions of their own devising other than "the opposite of what Bush / the Republicans is / are doing". The most eggregious example of this phenonmenon was the Kerry campaing in 2004. Kerry's approach to every single major policy issue was to say Bush was doing everything wrong and then take both sides of the argument. And really, if you parsed his too-long oratory down, he didn't seem to be proposing much different from what Bush was already doing, while claiming to be dead against all of it.

Sorry, I don't buy any of this. It's easy enough to legally limit the uses to which the government can put your DNA sample, such that it can only be used for identification purposes. If you're concerned that the government won't limit itself to what it's own laws allow then you're opening a whole new can of worms that really needs it's own discussion thread. The government, by running the healthcare system, already has access to your medical files. It's not like your family doctor keeps that information in a locked vault. Under laws as they currently exist, that information can't be used against you in the manner you postulated above. I find it hard to believe that a DNA profile would be more susceptible to abuse. Furthermore, the government goes out of its way to hire people who suffer from handicaps and medical conditions without regard to the potential for excessive sick time, in the name of "diversity". I don't believe that the government could suddenly justify the refusal to hire a healthy person because of a potential for illness down the road. If anything, they'd end up putting such people into their own little identity group and setting up a hiring quota for them. Leaving aside that it's so far in the future as to render our current conception of laws and rights and civic responsibilites moot, your last paragraph proposes what I believe to be an impossible situation - a future where our knowledge is so advance that a DNA profile can be read like an simple instruction manual, yet genetic flaws and defects remain unpreventable and untreatable, and therefore a burden for the government and other employers to avoid. We'll all be long dead from bird flu or glaciation before then anyway.

I don't see why having a DNA profile on file with the government is more intrusive than having to have a social insurance number, assuming it's used for identification purposes only. It should be a requirement of citizenship.

I disagree with almost every statement you've made, except the parts right at the beginning and the end about the Republicans running an outsider, which is at least plausible. Colin Powell won't run, because he'd never make it above 5% support in the primaries and everybody knows it including him. It's not a questions of race. It's that he has zero electoral experience and walked out on the administration before the end of the first term, and in the middle of a war that he played a large part in justifying. (Before you object, let me qualify that by acknowledging that he stayed through to the end of the administration but publicly declared his intention to leave before a contentious election, which is as good as leaving.) If he takes another job with a future administration (even a Democratic one) he stands a shot of rebuilding his public image. There's absolutely no hope for the guy in 2008. I don't have any idea where you get this notion that John McCain is sucking up to the Bush people. You don't cite a single example, and I certainly can't think of anything that qualifies. Maybe it's because he hasn't been in the news trying to rip the President a new orafice over foreign policy in the past couple of months, and that's confused you into believing he's gone soft. You're right in that McCain won't make it through the primaries, but for exactly the wrong reason. It's not that he's a liability because of any recent moves he might have made to support a struggling administration. It's that the Republican base despise him on a national level. He's essentially the Ted Kennedy of the Republicans - a loudmouth ass who's willing to sabotage party platforms and unity for personal prestige, and who's therefore popular enough on his home turf that he can maintain a senate seat. (And too, I don't get where the Republican base is "incredibly unpopular" among the nation as a whole. The Republican core is certainly more popular and representative of the average American than the enraged lefties currently driving policy for the Democrats.) There's plenty of dirt on Giuliani, including things you haven't mentioned from his days as a prosecutor. Doesn't really matter. All of that stuff goes out the window when people recall the stuff they love him for. He made some bad calls on nomintations? So what, he told the Saudi Prince to take his cheque and shove it. He had an affair? (By the way, I'd love to see a Clinton campaign try to use this smear. Really.) So what, he led the charge against public funding for sacreligious artwork. I don't think Rudy has enough electoral experience to run as a presidential candidate, but he could easily slide through as a VP. As a matter of fact, I'd be surprised if he isn't asked in 2008. Like Powell and Giuliani, Rice doesn't have the electoral experience to run as a presidential candidate. (Really, name one Secretary of State or one Mayor who've successfully made the jump to President.) You're right in that she's almost as poor at public speaking as Bush himself. And the venom the Dems have cast her way indicates she almost certainly wouldn't pull any soft Democratic votes as a VP. I'd say she's an unlikely player in 2008. So your prediction about an outsider to the current adminstration is highly likely. IMHO the Democrats have three options: predictable, reckless or winning. Predictable is nominating Hillary. I don't have a clue who she'd select as a running mate, but it won't be anyone from the reckless category. It will be some relative unknown with a clean past, because the Democrats don't need superstars to beat the Republicans in 2008 and the Clinton people are too smart to have a VP stealing Hillary's thunder. Barak Obama's name pops up, but he's a neophyte in federal politics and he's still quite young, too young to end his Senate career by moving to the White House. Hillary's been positioning herself very carefully for a 2008 run since early 2005, and I'd say she's the most likely candidate for nomination. (Hillary also falls into the winning category as explained below.) Reckless is running any of the slate of losers who vied for the job in 2000 or 2004, or any new candidate who could have fit in nicely with that lot. This isn't to say they won't all try again, just that they won't succeed. I can't believe that people still think highly of Wesley Clark. All I can say is, it ain't gonna happen. No matter how hard the dead enders on the Democratic online talkshops push, the reliably sane folks who make up the bulk of the Democratic supporters aren't going to go there again. They picked the likliest winner from a lousy lineup last time, and he was just terrible. And he continues to prove how terrible he was every time he opens his mouth, to this very day. Talk about dodging a bullet. If the Democrats manage to nominate another one of these losers all hope is lost for them. By all rights they should win the Presidency in 2008. The surest way to fail is to be overconfident and reckless. A winning candidate would be either [a] a known commodity like Hillary who's had dung flung at her by the masochists at Kos that didn't stick or a lower profile candidate like Phil Bredesen (Governor of Tennesee) who's managed to stay clear of the internacine warfare that occupies most of the Kos crowd's time. In either case, the winning Democratic candidate has to have appeal among independants and soft Republicans. Hillary has been working on pushing her rhetoric to the right side of the Democratic spectrum. Bredesen already has cred among Bush supporting bloggers like Glenn Reynolds. Unfortunately for the Dems, I think that Wesley Clark has a better shot than Bredesen does at this point. Maybe a few more losing election cycles will clue them in to what needs to be changed.

My two cents: the Conservative Party is obliged by political reality and by the traditionally effective snarking of the Liberals (think of all the "rump" party jibes) to develop a respectable presence in Quebec if they want to form a majority government. This means throwing Quebec a political bone every once in a while. No one should take these favours as being more than convincing Quebecers that a party with deep Western roots is not hostile to their province. My hope is that Harper et al have the brains to know where to draw the line. I personally disagree with taking this concept into the realm of international relations, but I'm no big fan of the UN in any case, and if shoop says it's cool I'll take it as given.

No, but I equate it with him saying "the next premier of Ontario." Besides, she was a backbencher nobody ever heard of. He's the PM who must negotiate with the Premiers. It just shows he's not really cut out for the job. Call me cynical, but somehow I have the feeling you're going to be spending the rest of the duration of this government pointing to every piddling little squabble and burp as "proof" that Harper isn't fit to govern. I get that from you.

1) I've never, ever heard anyone mention the 407 in negative terms. Except for you. It's not an issue. 2) Blaming gang violence in Toronto on a dearth of afterschool programs that affected the entire Province is ridiculous, unless there was a sudden upswing in shootings in Temagami that I didn't hear about. Hell, blaming gang violence on any one cause is ridiculous. You might as well say it's a lack of proper nutrition in their diets.

I mentioned my reasons for voting for McGuinty as opposed to Eves on another thread this morning, and I mentioned that for me it wasn't enough that the Conservatives under John Tory merely accuse the McGuinty Liberals of breaking their promises. But I didn't go any further than that mention. So, why should it be important, to a conservative voter, that a Liberal government keep it's promises? Wouldn't that necessarily involve enacting laws that and regulations that are contrary to the conservative agenda? (maybe not the best) Example: conservative supporter of Mulroney supports his decision to shuffle the taxes and introduce the GST. Said supporter then bitterly complains about Liberal platform promise to get rid of the GST if elected, noting that the new tax system is more open, etc., etc. Does it make sense, in other than purely partisan terms, to complain a couple of years later that the Liberals haven't kept their promise to revoke the GST?

(Threadjacking in progress. Sort of.) Good post. I've been woefully negligent following Ontario politics since the last election, but your second (and third) points sound correct to me. As I've mentioned before, I supported Mike Harris but voted for McGuinty to get rid of the Eves regime. I saw the difference between Harris and Eves as the difference between the Republican Congresses of 1994 and 2004 - newly elected idealists with a mission versus entrenched wastrels protecting their personal interests with mountains of pork and poll surfing. I took some heat for that too, from a member who thought it was crazy to vote against your own party no matter what the circumstances. But I'm an independant for the very reason that it allows me to remain true to my ideals. I haven't yet decided whether I'll vote Conservative or Liberal in the next election. It depends largely on how John Tory (who hasn't ever impressed me) performs in the runup to the next election. As you've stated, McGuinty isn't exactly a lefty within the Liberal spectrum, even as he surrounds himself with socialist squishes like former rival Gerard Kennedy (who may well soon be involved in federal politics anyway). If the Conservatives can't do any better than to complain about how the Liberals didn't fulfill all of their election promises, or if they resort to vague ad hominem attacks about "ethics" etc. then I'll probably vote Liberal again. Just calling yourself a conservative isn't good enough - you've got to have some genuine, positive ideas that you espouse too.

According to a rabbi I saw on some A&E documentary the actual translation from Hebrew is "Thou shalt not murder." Which explains why the bible is full of killing that is okay with God.

I watch Colbert fairly regularly. He and Jon Stewart and Rick Mercer are probably the three funniest guys (well, loosely-scripted pundits anyway) on TV, though I admit to some psychological pain over my urge to argue with their implied viewpoints as related to politics. I caught Colbert's Monday night show and it was clear that his rabidly partisan fans in the crowd had a deep love and appreciation for his take down of the administration. He played a short clip and made light of the situation, joking with Stewart at the end of the Daily Show that after his speech he'd run a 215 mile mega-marathon in wingtips. I've read a number of reviews about his speech, many of them bad. Even the good ones seemed muted. Althouse suggested that perhaps his schtick doesn't carry well outside of the studio. He's a hugely talented comedian, and on his show he's an absolute magician. I'm still predicting President Hillary in '08, and I'm quite keen to see what Stewart and Colbert will do with a Democratic administration. Bush has been an absolute goldmine for both of them, and I'm sure they will, at least, be sad to see him go.

This kind of thinking relies on a fallacy that I'm surprised to see anyone from the right side of the spectrum commit: that is, that the government can be trusted to do its job efficiently. I have to ask: if the people being spied on are "known terrorists", why is the government not arresting and prosecuting these people? the NSA program is supposed to have tapped into the communications of thousands of people: you're telling me with absolute certainty that all these people are either "known terrorists" or terrorist sympathizers? I think one need only look at the case of Maher Arar and others just like it to know that the government doesn't always get it right (indeed, they seem to miss more than they score). In my post I specifically premised that the known terrorists were to be found outside of Canada (with supporters/sympathizers or possibly cell members being parties of interest within our borders). It follows that the terrorists are beyond Canadian jurisdiction for the purposes of arresting them and prosecuting them as criminals, under "international law". Such an action would be "illegal", and I'm surprised you'd advocate for it. I'm sure that's not what you intended. I reread my post and nowhere do I use the word "efficiency". The fact that investigators follow more bad leads than good is just the nature of investigation. And unfortunately, people like Maher Arar do get arrested and deported without good cause. I didn't suggest perfection, and I don't think that it's fair of critics to expect it. The benefit of investigating both actual crimes and potential threats to our security is not made less desirable by the fact that innocent (though suspicious) people may be investigated along with genuine perpetrators, and that sometimes these investigations may lead to incorrect conclusions about an individual's activities or intentions. It's a risk that I believe we should take, doing our best to ensure that miscarriages of justice are rectified in the long run. Arar brings up an interesting point, and one that perhaps supports both of our positions: as in the case of Bill Sampson and Zahra Kazemi, the Maher Arar case made plain that a Canadian citizen falsely imprisoned abroad can't rely on the Canadian (and distinctly Liberal) government for protection or even useful advocacy. Our ambassadors and Foreign Affaris Ministers regularly took the word of terrorist sponsoring rogue governments at face value, even when confronted with visible evidence that torture was occuring and therefore any confessions that had been obtained were highly suspect. If they can't see evil when it's as plain as the noses on their faces, why trust that they could detect terrorism effectively now? And why trust that they would act appropriately if they did?

Do you really believe that it's a bad thing for the Canadian government to be spying on communications between known terrorists outside of Canada and their cohorts in-country? Did you really think that Canada wouldn't be doing this in any case? What's more import to you - protecting the privacy of terrorists or the lives of the people they intend to kill? If your answer is the former, don't complain that the government didn't do enough to prevent terrorism the next time terrorists strike. And don't for one minute conflate targetted spying on the communications of known terrorists with a program designed to spy on the population in general. Bringing Big Brother fantasies into this is partisan bull.