Renegade

I can't see any scenario in this case in which Donation can mean EI payments, welfare payments, or any public money. Are you alleging that public money has been used or is that just mindless speculation on your part?

Hmm.....reading ones own post and clicking the link the OP provided would answer that question. Begs the question...did he even read his own link? For the rest of the readers here it is.... "The temple’s construction cost $40-million, donated by “worshippers or well-wishers” of the BAPS religion. More than 400 volunteers gave their services on site. " Oh I think one can be sure. Not only was the temple built with donations, but so was the museum (from the link I previously provided)and the museum is open for the benefit of all Canadians (open-minded ones anyway)

Yes I agree and accept that their other motivations besides money for them choosing their healthcare profession, however their profession is hardly unique in that aspect The government plays several roles in the Canadian system: Insurer. Since we provide universal coverage we don't have the overhead a private insurer would Single Payor. No doubt a single payor system is more efficient Price Regulator. The is probably the most important aspect of keeping cost controlled The downside is even if the government doesn't have a mandate to create a profit, they do have a mandate to control cost. That means they can unilaterally delist medical procedures (not unlike a private insurance company can refuse to pay a claim). That also means in effect that they ration many medical procedures. As I have pointed out, profit as a motivation has not been completely taken from the system, and provides a useful incentive for the system to continue functioning.

I didn't mention any exclusion only inclusion as that was the criteria you specified. Why now do a flip-flop and specify exclusions.

Polls are not conducted by the Liberals nor are many of them comissioned by them. Polls are the best and most cost effective way to guage sentiment. Here is further evidence of sentiment toward the charter:Most Canadians like charterDespite being repeatedly asked, you have yet to produce one bit of evidence which suggests that the majority of Canadians dislike the Charter. Frankly your "grand conspiracy to deny you evidence" story is nothing but fantasy wrapped in self-delusion. Enlighten me. What does "the legal relationship between a person and his or her country" even mean? Does it mean your obligations as a citzen? What? What are those "common objectives and goals of this country"? How can you definatively say what they are since you have admitted you have no idea of the will of the Canadian people and can point to no evidence. Which kind of begs the question, why are you still here? It's been 20 some years since the Charter was adopted. You admit that the direction of the country isn't going to change. You acknowledge you have no political power to influence toward your way of thinking. So why exactly are you still here?Also, since you dislike the Canadian sytem so much, which western civilized country can you point to which you think best models how a democracy should work. I assume you are gratified because that is not the third you are in? Why wait? You could leave now assuming you find some country tolerant enough to accept you.

Ok if they worded it so the mandate was inclusive, then would you be supportive (ie how about if they mandated pro-government content on the airwaves)?

As far as I know, there are no governmental restrictions which prevent him from doing so. Are you aware of any? No, but as with many industries where the price is fixed by government regulation, he can skimp on the quality of the procedure to reduce cost. Yes, as far as I know he can. I doubt he would though because he'd want to keep the entire profit. So what. Even the banks and telcos have restrictions on price and ownership yet they are considered part of the capitalist system. Despite your denial, the doctor is indeed a capitalist. I don't know of any restriction in the Canadian system which prevents the opening of a shareholder owned healthcare facitilty (on any scale). The reason no shareholder would likely do so, is that the returns are not sufficient to endure the risk and more lucrative returns are to be found elsewhere.

Perhaps, perhaps not. You pose too simplistic a scenario. Perhaps because the manufacturing has been moved offshore, sales would increase due to increased cost advantage. This could also result in greater profitability of the company and thus increased tax revenue. You draw the boundries of "society" to equate to "country". Why are the low-paid hourly workers in Canada any more deserving of jobs than those in China or India? In our global"society" isn't the free transfer of wealth to less advantaged individuals, regardless of where they live, a net benefit? According to your scenario, it would be a logical conclusion that anti-poverty programs are not in the best interest of the economy as they lead to a disincentive to work.

They are not unformly overpaid at all levels: Cost of federal bureaucracy climbs 50%So do you think an orgainzation is efficient when it overpays its low level employees relative to the norm, but underpays its leaders relative to the norm?

Well I would say your legal choices are to change anything are fairly limited. Even if you could change things I see precious little support for your position from other "majority White English speaking Canadian Canadians". So I guess you are on your own buddy.

The question is whether those restrictions are an unwarranted intrusion. If the CRTC decided that criticism of government policies over any airwaves should be banned, should that restriction also be permitted?

I'm really not following your response. How is a self-employed doctor with his own practice, any different than any other small-business owner. It is just as much a capitalistic enterprise as is any other.

Of course you don't. When you don't have a credible response, any analogy would seem twisted. I don't blame you though; if I had as weak an argument has you've made, I would stop responding too. Clearly Leafless you have not consumed or understood any of my other postings. There are many, many things I am not happy about in our society. I'm personally not a supporter of funding to multiculturalism, but my reasons are far, far different than yours. As far as being part of a minority. I suppose I am. Evey single one of us are a minority of some kind, even you Leafless. You simply are too blind to recognize it. If one day you do recognize that you too are a minority, you may be indeed grateful for the very Charter you dispise as the only thing that protects your rights as a minority.

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. Do you agree that a system as we have now, the doctor who runs his own medical practice, is in fact the owner of his own business, and is incented to make a profit?

A lot depends upon your definition of contribution and your definition of society. You should distinguish between different concepts: 1. Contribution to the economy. A strip-joint may contribute to the economy but doesn't necessarily contribute to society. 2. Consumption of services relative to contribution. Arguably anyone contributing less in services than they contribute in taxes requires the other members of society to subsidize their cost. This is not just restricted to the poor, but the rich who through the use of tax breaks and loopholes may contribute less than they consume. 3. Contribution to the "greater good". In another thread I gave an example of the Canadian hockey team winning Olympic gold. It may not have a direct economic effect, yet contributes to the pride Canadians feel. One way to guage the contribution of the poor is (as in your first example) to ask would society be better off without them? If the answer is "no" then why is it we bother to do anything to eliminate poverty.

Tax wise, certainly, bigger group more tax expenditures too. No, I consider it an accurate reflection of your views and how you have come to those conclusions you have come to. I'm not sure what you mean. It is your views and conclusions, why would I question anyone but you since you have ZERO evidence or cites to point to. So again, no cites you can produce, because of the GIANT ALL ENCOMPASSING CONSPIRACY TO DENY YOU EVIDENCE?? Right... Of course you can't even cite them or quote anything.... Such is the nature of your weak "evidence"..So your only evidence is a talk show where any racist nut-case can phone in to voice his bigoted opinion. I have yet to meet anyone rational who considers opiinion to be fact. Yet you accept talk-show opinion as evidence to reinforce your prejudice. Thank-you, but if I wanted to listen to racist rantings, I'd visit a KKK rally. At least they put on a show. Now you are off in the lunatic region. Is that right? What does that make you, since you have already admitted that what I have said is consistant with your opinion. Too late, you have allready backed off with your use of "primarily" and "fundamentally" to try and qualify your original statement. Of course I agree that without the tax revenue from the majority, there are a great many programs the Government would not be able to implement. Then again if they weren't collecting taxes from the white Christian Canadians they wouldn't have expenditures for the white Christian Canadians either. BTW, you assume that white Christian Canadians are having their money taken to "finance all the socialistic aspects of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms". So what? How do you know white Canadians Christians arent in favour of this? Most polls I've seen indicate strong support for the Charter. By your own admission you have no idea what the will of Canadians is. Nope I'm not saying that at all. If the White Christian population were not contributing taxes, it would be because they are not part of Canadian society, and if they weren't it is really unlikely that mulitculturalism laws would even be passed. LMAO. In just the other thread you were calling me a homosexual because of my position. So now, I must be a homosexual "degenerate minority"??? The fact that you jump to incorrect conclusions without any evidence in this case doesn't surprise me, as it is a pattern of all your previous statements. As far as you getting sick. Too bad, so sad, go used the medicare system that no doubt according to you only the white christians paid for. Please cite those media reports you are referring to. Your observations are meaningless anedotes, and I have yet to see evidence of intelligent discussion coming from you.

Why is it you only look at the price to guage affordability? The interest rate plays a significant factor in affordability. If you look at Chart 1 you will see that housing affordability was as low in the late 90s as it was in the mid-80s. Even now while it is higher, it is not significantly so. Housing affordability in Canada

Even by the Concise Oxford definition Christianity is not common to the nation, since a signicant part of the population is not Christian. Is Roman Cathlolic the national religion since it is the largest deomination? I think your definition of betterment is too narrow. Certainly the team contributed to the Canadiaqn pride felt by many of the Canadians who watched. IMV, that is contributing tho the betterment of all Canadians. BTW, by your definition, there is no evidence to suggest that you or white christians contribute to the "betterment of all canadians" any more then any other groups. You sitting around shooting-the-shit with the rest of your racist buddies about how minorities are parasites on society is hardly conclusive evidence of anything. Since you claim that media reports to be one source of obversation, cite some. Has that conspiracy extended to every outlet of the media as well? Am I right in saying that your theory is that no only government has hidden these statistics, but has colluded with the media so that they too don't source the information? Regardless of how you want to spin it, you never initially used the word "fundamentally" or "primarily" and later had to backtrack and add it as a qualification when you were called out on the statement, because your originally statement is "fundamentally" wrong. Since it is a free country, you are free to hold any view you like, even one which is fundamentally racist and is fundamentally not supported by facts. So far the only "tools" you have supplied are your obversations. Only an individual pre-disposed to prejudicial opinions would draw conlusions based upon your limited obversations.

Even a public system needs to consider the cost of the procedure. You are implying that in a public healthcare system that cost of of a procedure is irrelevant. It is and hard decisions will be made regardless of if it is visible to the public or not. I do agree however that where profit is the incentive, checks need to be in the system to make sure that the profit doesn't unduly influence the medical decison. No, what I've repeatedly said is that incentive system needs to be in place or the system will not provide the best results. That incentive doesn't necessarily need to be profit but must be substituted with something equally powerful as a motivator. Money is frequently used as the motivator because it can reasonably assumed to appeal to a broad segment of the healthcare providers. I don't believe altruism, pride in work, (ie self-motivation) provides the same incentive. An example of a public system which a subsititue incentive is provided over profit, is the military. The military uses patriotism, machoism, and even racism as motivators. It has a tangible incentive system of medals, parades, which reinforce this incentive system. It has taken centuries to create this system because it would be unaffordable rely on money as a motivatior. A similar powerful motivator is requred in order to provide an effficient and quality healthcare system. When a doctor operates an office, collects the revenue from the government for services rendered, and pays out office expenses is that any different from profit? You seem to be fine with profit as a motivatior at an individual level or at a small level but have a problem with it at an organization level. When you say that "Doctors and nurses should be paid well", are you agreeing that doctors and nurses shoud be paid incentives for adding efficiency into the system? If not why would they bother to do so? In your view, what is the motivator to get the head administrator at a non-profit hospital to improve the efficiency of the system? I would argue that even in a public system, as an obligation to the taxpayer, there needs to be a motivator for constant improvement and efficiency. It is clear what the motivator is in a for-profit hospital.

IMV, it is not sufficient that the majorty of Canadians are Christian to call Christianity the "national religion". IMV for any area to be accorded with the designation as "national", it needs to be officially adopted. (eg national anthem, national sport). Interestingly our summer "natonal sport" (lacrosse) is one which is only played and watched by a small minority of Canadians. Your definition of "contributes for the betterment of all Canadians" is quite different from mine. When the Canadian Women's hockey team won the Gold medal over the US at the 2002 Olympic games do you not think they contributed "for the betterment of all Canadians"?In any case as you admit below, there are no stats which show that any minority group pays in taxes more or less than it consumes in services. So you have no evidience for the conclusions you have drawn, save for your own anedoctal evidience. If I poke my head into the UI office and only see 5 white men in line, can I conclude that the ranks of the unemployed are made up by only white men? What brought us to this point was your allegation that "White English speaking Christian Canadians" "pay all the bills". This is a statement you have rapidly backed away from by adding qualifications. Minority groups pay taxes and even contribute to the culture of society. IMV the temple discussed in this thread is a beautiful structure and its very existance is a benefit to society. Then it makes no sense in the context you have used it. The first dollar of a bill paid is just as important as the last dollar of that bill paid.To see how nonsensical your statement I have substitued "primarily" for "'of the first importance" Do you thnk that is a defendable statement? Your link provides no such information. I agree that white christians are the majority. That likely means that they contribute the bulk of the taxes, but that likely also means they consume the bulk of the services. Your stats provide no backup of your claim. You agree that these stats don't exist, but yet you have no problem jumping to the conclusion that minorities don't pull their weight, and that white christians pay "all the bills"?

I don't think anyone disputes that Canada was founded by the English and French, both of whom were Christian. I also agree that we have inherited traditions and culture from those peoples. (For example, many establishments close on Sunday), and we have statutory holidays such as Easter and Christmas. However, depsite these we have defined ourselves as a secular state. We value the separatiion of church and state and value freedom of religion. I can see nothing in your post or cite which contradicts this.

No, the English WERE Christians, they didn't IMPOSE Christianity on its subjects. As an aside, if you look at Englands colonial past you will see that the reason for colonialization was almost completely economic. Many other countries with Roman Catholic populations had other motivations such as the conversion of conquered peoples. In any case, what Canada is today is what we CHOOSE it to be and what we enshrine in law. There is no legal document I know which imposes Christianity on Canadians. Virually all laws who's only basis for being was Christian docterine, has been shunned. I agree with you that there was a time when state and church were not easily separated. But what I am talking about is Canada as it is now. As it is now it is a secular state. Prove me wrong. This is one the dumbest statements I have ever heard anywhere. Can you prove what your saying? Lets first agree on what you mean by "contributes". Does paying taxes mean "contributes"? Does holding a job mean "contributes". Please do tell. Let the backpeddling begin, oh wait, it's been going on already. Here is what you said: You did not say "primarily", you did say "all". There is a big difference between paying "primarily" the cost and paying "all" the cost. Please show me where you said "primarily" in your original post. Now that you introduced the word "primarily" what does it mean? Does it mean they pay 51% of the cost? Pretty soon you'll be saying that all you meant was that they pay "some" of the cost. I have no idea if this is true or not because no statistics I know track welfare and hospital cost by minority status. Your anedotal evidence is no means to come to any conclusion and simply serves to reinforce your own prejudices. Do you have any evidence of what you are stating besides your anedotes?

I have no idea what example you are talking about. So what steps have been taken to ensure that the only people in the profession are "people genuinely interested in helping people and who take pride in the work they provide". How do I know I won't get one of the doctors who took up the profession to get rich and is now demotivated because his incentive has been removed. Most government run systems provide at mediocre service because there is very little incentive to improve it. Government bureaucrats don't get fired and will get paid regardless if the system runs well or badly, so why bother to put in the effort to improve it. I'll skip the other response because this gets to the heart of the issue. The Canadian system does use profit as a motivator. Doctors and health-care providers are not employees of the state. For the most part they are self-employed individuals who essentially run a business who's motive (at least one motive) is profit. The only thing the state does, is pay the bills. IOW, profit has not been taken out of the system because it serves a useful purpose.

How so? Did the Pope set up Canada as a religious state? Did the founders forget to mention to the citizens of Canada that they did not have freedom of religion but in fact were part of a Christian religious state? And what of those natives who happened to be here first but were not Christian? Ah yes, the double-standard shows up again. If it is a foreign religion, it is " sabotaging national interest" but if it is a Christian religion, well that is in the national interest, right? Leafless, I cannot illustrate you bigotry and intolerance any better than your own words do. Yes I can see clearly now how those Hindus stole the white culture. I'm sure that temple was designed by white Christian archtects and the Hindus stole the plans and built it and called it theirs. Your insistance at dragging the Charter into the discussion is getting tiresome. This really has nothing to do with the Charter, even though according to your thought process the Charter is the instigator of all evil in the world today. We is any reader of your post trying to make any sense of what you are saying. If "we" offends you, substitue "I" for "we". When anyone contributes to society they contribute to the betterment of all Canadians. If you do some research you will find that they have in fact been both participants and contributors to society. As far as them coming from "societies with few diversities", you clealy have never been to India and know virtually nothing of it. The diverse culture there predates Canadian culture by many many generations. While it is true that white Christians did conquer the native and basically stole the land, there is no need to characterize all of them as selfish and acting in there own self interest. Just so I'm clear on your claim, these "main income generating provinces Ontario and Alberta are primarily, White, English speaking, Christian Canadians" and they are paying ALL of the costs in Canada. That's what you said right? And so, non-White non-Christians are paying NONE of the cost, right?

First you are quite wrong. It is quite easy for a mechanic to make life threatening repairs. Unless those actions are due to negligence or criminal intent, any recourse the customer has is through the courts. Show me some evidence of the government shutting down automobile repair shops in advance before the cause safety to be at risk. The extent of government intervention is at best to mandate what the level of training is required, and minimial standard of the result, but it leaves it to profit-motivated private enterprise to actually implement. You are not answering the question asked. I asked "why doesn't the profit motive work", your response is "it's too important to trust to the profit motive. You still havent shown that the profit motive doesn't produce superiour care, you have simply stated over and over that you don't trust the profit motive. So under similar market conditions, what does government takeover do to prevent the problem? You seem to believe that the government can somehow "mandate" good care. It can't. It can simply set up a system which is best suited to deliver quality care. If it could mandate good care, state-run hospitals in Russia would be exemplary in the care they provided. Of course there is poor service in the private industry, but as a consumer of that service, you have the ultimate weapon. Go find another service provider. If you police department provides poor service, what is your option? Despite the government intervention and regulation all that poor service still did occur. According to the theories you advance that the poor quality service shown by the NY city police system should never have occured, yet it did. You statement about how it improved is completely irrelevant to the point. You don't like profit as an incentive. I get that. But you have yet to offer any alternative incentive or are you offering altruism as the ony incentive in your model system?