Renegade

Hmm, All these people who worked for 20 years in relatively high-paid jobs, without putting enough aside for a rainy day? And now the expectation is that other taxpayers should bail them out??

If it was simply case of the woman expecting something based upon an unreasonable religious belief, I would agree with you, however, the husband AGREED to that condition PRIOR to the marriage and signed a contract to that effect. If he felt that the condition was an unreasonable infringement of his religious freedom he should have not agreed to that term in the contract to begin with and possibly not gotten married. The fact is the woman had reason to believe that the husband would live up to the condition he agreed to. The fact that he did not, makes him liable for damages for not fulfilling that condition. It is irrelevant whether that condition is a result of a belief system you or I would consider rational. It only really matters if the condition is legal and consent freely given.

Again it depends what you mean by "Religious contract". Sharia Law is not a legal contract unless both parties have willing entered to such an arrangement AND the actions promised in the contract are legal under law.

What distinguishes a "religious contract" from a legal one? If two parties of consenting age formally agree via a signed contract is that not a legally binding contract?

I agree with the SCC's decision, though not necessarily their reasoning. The SCC should not get involved in religious disputes, however when religious obligations are agreed to contractually, IMV they tranced religous obligations and become legal ones. In this case the parties signed a contract. There are not a lot of details on the contract, however I'm concluding that it is a legal one in the same way a modern prenuptual contract is, and thus is a valid contract for a court to have jursitiction over. Here I completely agree with you. The State should not be dictating morals. If gender equality was the only reason the SCC got involved, then I think it did so for the wrong reasons and overstepped its bounds. Unfortunately the SCC being the highest legal authority there is no way to redress this short of a constitutional change.

That the SCC would show such a bias is deplorable. It is, however, hard to speculate on what they would or would not have done had the genders been reversed. Regardless of the gender however, the ruling has set a precedent which no doubt will apply to both genders.

No, the majority were correct to enforce a contract between two parties which was violated. If the man did not agree to the contract, I might agree with you.

I'm not sure what the threshold of unfairness which would be acceptable, however it is clear to me that the current proposal shoudl be rejected by Ontario. Perhaps one way to address the unfairness to Ontario is to incrementally add (or redistribute) a few seats each election toward the province who's representation is the most skewed out of balance.

Yes it provides the same "correction" but it doesn't bring them up to the same level of "unfairness". By your own admission Ontario started off further off behind. How about if BC and Alberta got sufficient seats to keep them short-changed to about 1.5% and Ontario got sufficent to bring them up to being short-changed by 1.5%? We both know that BC and Alberta would never accept this.

Far better for Ontario to refuse to accept an unfair proposal than to accept one just because it is better than the status quo. Do you think BC and Alberta would accept a few more seats but still be underrepresented just because it is better than the status quo? If they would, fine, switch some of that seat allocation to Ontario. If not, why should Ontario settle for a position that BC and Alberta would not adopt?

Actually it is idotic if somewhat amusing!!! Actually idiot is (was) a technical term used to describe IQ levels. IOW, a moron is smarter than an imbecile who is smarter than an idiot. IQ Basics

Isn't it the parent's responsibilty to look after their kids instead of hoistng the responsibility to the government?

What specificly constitutes a company "taking advantage of them"? If there was a labour shortage and employees put the screws to the company to drive up wages, would that constitute them taking advantage of the company?

If we were to resort to force, yeah we could. IMV part of accepting the responsibility of having children, is the responsibiliby of providing for them. Since it is the parents who choose to have children, it is they who bear the responsibility for having children raised in poverty. Why would we want to encourage such actions through subsidies?

I guess if you mean allowing the governement to have the power to dictate who is allowed to have children, then yes the Charter would need to be modified. I was simply pointing out the the power to break the cycle of poverty was within the control of those who experience poverty.

What issue do you have with the way poverty is measured? Perhaps, the cycle of poverty can be broken if those in poverty avoid excerbating their poverty by having offspring which they cannot afford.

Probably because I give people more credit to act rationally than they deserve. Difficult, possibly but not impossible. It is worth trying to make that separation because only if you understand the weight of each force, can you act to influence the forces which are truly under your control.

We discussed a similar topic some time ago: "Thy're far above average", Racial impact on academic performance What never fails to amaze me is not what Watson claims, but people reaction to it. It would seem the issue is so sensitive that it is much easier to attack the claimant for daring to make the claim, than to use evidence to refute the claim.

It is true that borrowing is the same as tax revenue, just deferred. IMV, the state should not be allowed to borrow except in case of dire emergency (war, disaster, etc) I'm not sure how it is limited either, but some thoughts are: Defining the specfic programs it can spend on. Requiring larger majorities of MPPs to agree for any budget increases (over inflation) Limiiting the size of the public sector as a percenage of GDP or population.

Why does the source of the weath matter to you? If someone gets rich buying stock at the right time or by winning the lottery is that any better or worse than someone who has "worked" for the money?

If someone earning $250,000/year should nt be collecting EI, they should also not be paying EI premiums. BTW, why do you stop at EI and welfare, why not make the rich ineligible for publicly funded schools, medicare, and other programs?

Not only should the state's power to spend be limited, so should its abilty to raise revenue through taxes.

"Agnostic" is about as non-religious a term as I can think of. It does not specify any god nor does it presume one. If you have a better term, let's hear it.

Not at all. It is more like state sanctioned agnosticism, which is exactly how it should be. IOW, the state should not presume it has the "right" religious answer, and should stay silent on the issue.

Of course the separation of state and religion can become tricky in practice. We can't change history. You are no doubt correct that in much of our history religion and culture has been intertwined with government and public institutions, however we are not the same society as we were decades or centuries ago. Attituides and expectations have changed as has the expectation of the separation of church and state. I don't think anyone expects that we ignore the fact of influence of religion or culture in the past, however I don't see it as necessary to maintain that same connection for the present or the future.