Renegade

I somewhat agree. Anyone we let immigrate to Canada should be on balance a benefit to Canada. If despite having HIV there are deemed a net benefit then by all means allow them to immigrate, if however they would be a net burden, I would deny them immigration. It is irrelevant where they got the disease. Unless you can somehow show that the Canadian government was responsible for deliberately infecting them, the government is under no obligation to provide them anything. It really doesn't matter if it is fatal or not. What if it were simply a chronic condition which cost $1m per year to treat?

Maybe it is just me, but I find your responses so cryptic that I can't tell who you are responding to, much less the subject of your post. So again, what exactly are you inferring about single welfare mothers and their connection to shootings?

What exactly does cheap labour have to do with the shootings? Are you somehow infering that if there was no cheap labour in Toronto somehow the shootings would stop?

Absolutely! For my daughter and me this day is not commertialized at all. Sometimes gifts are given, sometimes not. It is never expected but always welcomed. But we always spend the day together and usually the one day of the year she fusses over me. I love it.

The Catholic Church, (or any religious organization for that matter) has the absolute right to advise its members on where or where not to donate. However, I don't beleive that any religious group should be stage-subsidized through tax-exempt status.

Who determines "good" discrimminaiton vs "bad" discrimmination? IMV, ALL discrimmination is bad, because it sets a precedent for subjetive determination of what is allowalble discrimmination or not.

"excellent discrimmination" is disrimmination that is in our favour, "loathsome discrimmination" is when it is not.

Are you saying a norm which probhits discrimmination isn't "fair"? Who defines what is "fair"?

geoffrey, I agree with your position, however let me play Devil's Advocate for a moment. Your position would indicate that there are society should have no mandate to regulate any contract between private parties. Can I rightly infer this is an extension of your positon? Do you think that in return for being able to operate within a society, a private business implicitly agrees to conform to the norms of that society? Why change your position if it is the only bar in town? Afterall it is not the owner's fault that no other bar owner has catered to that segment. I fail to understand why you would restrict the owners behaviour based upon the existance of other similar establishments. To use your analogy, if you are the only one in town holding a poker game, does that mean you need to open it up to whoever wants to play, or is it still your discresion?

Well with a name like "Le Stud", it would seem logical to assume it is a gay men's bar. Even if she was gay, she wasn't a man, so she was excluded. As to why, who knows? There doesn't seem to be much logic to the situaiton.

Well in my view, discrimmination is discrimmination, and people who stand up against discrimmination should be commended. If two people who took a stand against discrimmination are compared, and that offends your sensibilities, you will need to deal with it. I see nothing wrong.

So if she was kicked out of the library she has a valid point but if she is kicked out of a nightclub, she doesn't, is that right?

The letter seems to ignore the key issue that there are discrimminatory benefits offered based upon marital status. It is irrelevant that there are other benefits such as Supplementary Death Benefit which are not discrimminatory.

weaponeer, you show several examples where the military discrimminates between single and married soldiers. Sometimes for one, sometimes for the other. Who determines how far can the discrimmination go and woudl be acceptable? For example if the DND exempted married soldiers from going on dangerous missions on the basis that they had famlies who depended on them, would you consider that acceptable discrimmination?

Well, at least your position is consistent. I would suspect that most of Canadian society would disagree with your position however.

Why do you limit it to nightclubs? It is your OPINION that this woman's point is spurious. It is not MINE. I feel she has a valid point as clearly she is being discrimminated against and is taking a stand. I stand by my comparison to Rosa Parks.

Yes true, if the pool for payouts is constant the widow ends up with less, yet she still ends up with her proportionate share. I don't call that discrimmintion against her.

It has been mentioned that this is a VA benefit and not DND. Unfortunately this is not justification because they are two arms of the very same organization who happens to be the employer of the soldier. They could also have achieved the stated aim of providing coverage to families, by making the insurance coverage mandatory.

Yes it sounds perfectly fair and reasonable to me. The same purpose served by having anti-discrimminatory statutes in our charter of rights. How so?

I don't really see the relevance of your response to the issue. The government in this context is an employer. It is great that it provides this benefit, but should be applied accross the board. Saying the government, pays for it or they make the decision doesn't make it right. The government has had discrimminatory policies before, which took a court challenge before it was changed. The question is why is discrimmination permissable, and if it is, who gets to decide how much to permit? Is it soley up to the discretion of the government or employer? If an employer decides that it wants to encourage families and so decides to give married employees every Friday off, is that permissable discrimmination?

Despite what its original intent, if its implementation creates discrimminatory behaviour it should be changed. Are you saying that married soldier pay something for this benefit which single soldiers do not? Perhaps not, but they can be offered in such as way as to not unnecessariy discriminate. In this particular case, there are precedents. For example, my employer thinks that I should have Long Term disabilty coverage (LTD) to replace part of my income in case I can't work. It makes it availale to all employees. If I have greated LTD coverage need, I can purchase more coverage and it comes of my pay. There is no reason the death benefit could not be offered in a similar fashion. Those too are discrimminatory practices and should be changed. If a married soldier wants an almost free trip home, he should be entitled. A single soldier may miss his girlfriend, dog, parents, friends, whatever, and should also be entitled to the same separation allowance. The reason why many consider it an insurance plan, is because it is indistinguishable from and insurance plan. It doesn't need members to pay into it to be considered insurance, employers can fully cover the member's premium.Despite the question being asked, no one has yet provided and explaination of why it is different than insurance. All I've heard so far is denials that it is insurance without explainations of what makes it different. Sounds suspiciously like the language used by life insurance companies don't you think?

Of course it does. "mouths he has to feed" is a euphemism for dependants. It is a binary dependancy. 0 dependants = $0. >1 dependant = $250K. By your reasoning it should be permissable to pay a married soldier more than a single soldier because he has greater "needs" (read "dependants to support"). The dependants aren't employed by the state, the soldier is. The benefit is as a direct result of his employment and so should be considered as part of his renumineration. So yes it is very much a case of unequal pay for the same work. If a company provided life insurance benefit to its employees would that be considered part of their pay? My company certainly considers it part of the overall compensation they provide. I believe CCRA does as well. What distinguises this benefit from life insurance? Even with life insurance it is not the policy holder who collects the benefits, it is the beneficiary. Absolutely the married soldier should be allowed the same choice of designating their beneficiary as their single counterparts, and yes, it can be someone other than their dependants. If his dependants aren't happy with the designation, they can challenge it in court just as they would a will which did not leave them the estate. How is it that the CCRA wants to tax me on the life insurance benefit my employer provides? If you are right, shoudn't that benefit be taxed in the hands of my dependant?

My point isn't about expanding the scope of who is cosidered a dependant. It is, that it shouldn't matter who a soldier designates as beneficiary. It can be a dependant, a relative, a charity, or complete stranger. Afterall shoud an insurance company care who they pay out the death benefit to on an insurance policy? I don't see it as a prize either, and they way you have described it, I don't see it as any different than life insurance. Yes of course, but despite it's intended purpose, you don't seem to acknowledge that it is a benefit provided to one group buy not another. You never did answer the questions. Do you believe in equal pay for equal work? And, should soldiers pay be dependant upon how many mouths they have to feed?

Cybercoma, apparently you either aren't reading all of my posts or are misundersanding what I am saying. I am NOT saying that the Rosa Parks situation is comparable to this one. What I AM saying is that Rosa Parks was a woman who chose to make an issue of an injustice, based upon the principle alone. This is in response to betsy who said that the only reason in this situation for the woman to make a fuss was to make a point. What I am saying is that Rosa Parks too was trying to make a point. There, is that clear enough now? IMV, what is "completely asinine and an insult" is the behaviour by some posters to hurl denegrations based upon an incomplete understanding of other posters comments.

Agreed we do disrimminate in many situations, but some forms of discrimminaton are deemed permissable and some arent. WRT this specific situation are you saying that it is permissable for homosexuals to discrimminate against hetrosexuals, but not visa versa?