Renegade

Our generous CPP, OAS, GIS, and senior programs make this point moot however if they didn't exist I suppose then you should forgo retirement and continue to work else you'd be forced to look to the kindness and charity of family, friends and strangers to sustain you.

It was. Such as?

No, I'm expecting even if it was government run, it would still be a toll road, and the cost to buid and operate the highway would be based upon toll fees collected. I suppose it is always an option that the government could buy it back from the 407 corp, but I doubt they would do so.

Throw the baby out the window of the maternity ward unless he comes out with a bag of gold. Interesting thought but it's just not in the cards. No, not really. The baby is the parents responsibity to fund and care for. Isn't that what they signed up for? If they can't step up to their responsibilties, its the parents who shoudl be replaced.

I'm confused. Aren't LIFs and LIRAs covered by Federal legislation? What power does the Ontario Finance minister have to change that?

Get real. Exactly how long do you think access to the highway would last if no one payed? Lets imagine you could get all 407 users to agree to use but not pay for the highway. The 407 corp would soon implement a system whereby you would need to post funds in advance from an account which would be debited upon use. A similar system is used by some utilites if you have no credit record. Don't have funds to post in advance? Too bad, so sad, go wait on the 401 like everyone else.

This argument illustrates why some essential services should never be run by a private company. If the gov't needs to act as a collection agent for a private business to avoid inconveniencing the public then the gov't should be providing the service. Personally, I would have no issue with the government providing the service itself, provided that the non-user was not forced to fund the building or subsidizing of the highway.

That's exactly what I said to the owner of the dilapidated shack we discussed earlier.

Yet, that is exactly what you advocate. If I'm using a state-subsidized school, yes I am. I'm simply using government as my coercive agent to collect the funds. If they realize that, then they will voluntarily give. We call that charity, not taxes. If people realize they are able-bodied for half their lives, they should save for the other half. They shouldn't be expecting to be taking money from other during the half they can't work.

Some have, some havent. Even those who haven't, benefit from programs directed at seniors. Even those who paid taxes through their lives, have had those taxes expended for services. In fact for many of the years the now seniors were working, (ie the 70s's, 80's, and early 90's) so much money was spent on services that it was not even covered by the taxes they contributed. Their gift to us is the debt Canada now posesses and slowly has to pay off. I agree with you. The young are not owed anything, but then neither are the old. If they worked and saved for their old age, their retirement would now be secure instead of having to depend upon government hand-outs. Age discrimmination cuts both ways. If they expect not to be discrimminated against because of their age, they should not be entitled to prefrential treatment because of their age. It is an absurd justification to say someone should be more entitled to programs simply because they were born some years earlier. Your statement makes about as much sense as saying the young are more entitled to jobs simply because they are younger.

Personally I can't wait until it is challenged, though I have no idea what issue could possibly cause the preamble to have legal context to the interpretation. Let me ask you, if you think that the preamble has legal weight, why didn't the SCC justices use the "supremacy of God" to override any notion of discrimmination against homosexuals by only allowing OSM, since clearly God hates homosexuals, as he said so in the bible.

What major change are you referring to? There has been no change since it was implemented. I'm well aware of your complaints about the Charter. Thankfully, most people don't feel this way and there is no support to remove the charter. I don't even ask for proof. Show me some surveys taken with a representative population across Canada which shows Canadians don't want the Charter. I accept this. But as a society we have evolved to be tolerant of a variety of religious beliefs, so even laws which have a religious origin must be re-examined to see if they accomodate all belief systems, not just Christian ones. There was a time where Galileo was branded a heritic for statiing that the earth revolved around the sun. If you look back to the Inquisition you will see the folly of having a Church dictate laws. Thankfully, execpt for a few like you, we have progressed in our thinking and no longer expect to impose our religious beliefs on others. If you think the bible should dicate what is permissable and not, and the punishment, here are some actions for which the bible deems to be acts so henious that they deserve capital punishment: link

If they bought properties cheap, good for them for recognizing the opportunity and capitalizing on it. As I have already said, this problem could have been avoided by taxing farms and houses both based upon the services they use. People will naturally look for and use "loopholes" when you start to use the tax system as a way to promote a prefrential way of life.

It read as biased the second time as the first, nevertheless it is nothing but opinion of the author. The author while paying lipservice to a separation of morality and the law ("the government cannot and should not try to impose morality in people's private lives") then goes on to opinion that examples of morality in law are robbing and stealing. He is completely misinformed. Theft is prohibited in law because it is infringes on a person's right to own property. Not because it is immoral. Some of his examples are laughable. He goes on to say that killing is prohibited in law, because it is immoral. He convieniently ignores the fact that in Texas (the article is titled "Bernard: Why Texans should not support homosexual marriage"), execution is the law and is condoned. How is it the morality of murder doesn't apply?? Hmm, the author is strangely silent. Even this author acknowledges there are many instances where society does not let morality influence laws ("Our pluralistic society has decided not to regulate what two consenting adults do in the privacy of a home, because their action does not seem to affect anyone else directly. Therefore, we no longer have laws against fornication, adultery or homosexual behavior (even though these actions can drastically affect a family).") So this whole article you post for support of your "fact" is nothing but an opinioin of one author, and an opinion that is very poorly supported by evidence. I have no doubt that many countries in the world are influenced by religion. Those are theocracys. We don't live in one. As far as the ten commandments. I know of now state which bases their laws upon the 10 commandments, and I see that even in our law, at least some of the commandments are ignored when convienient to do so. ROTFLMAO. Leafless, you crack me up. Now you quote from the Charter which you hate so much as proof that "God" dictates the laws? Personally I think it was a mistake to include the mention of God in the preamble. Earlier drafts of the Charter did not. Regardless, most legal experts think that the preamble carries no legal weight. link

What kind of proof are you looking for? Even if there was a national referendum at the time the Charter was adopted, that would not be proof the Canadians today support the charter as a whole generation has come and gone. I suspect the kind of proof you are looking for is not feasable to get. It is not practically possible to survey every single Canadian in the world and determine if they support the charter. My statement is based upon evidence of surveys. Surveys which you choose not to believe. It is true that evidence cannot be considered proof, however I think I made a reasonable statement based upon the evidence. Now, how about you PROVE that laws should be dictated by religion?

Let us think for a moment what would happen if there was no cheap mechanism to recover unpaid charges. The company would either have to enforce stricter access policies to the highway (ie the camera system which allows any car to enter would need to be changed). One possibility would be toll gates based which only allowed credit-approved drivers (ie one's carring transponders) to pass. Can you imagine the impact to traffic flow? The other choice is that the company would have to hike rates to recover the increased recovery costs of having to take scofflaws to court and then collect. Those rates would impact all drivers on the 407, Face it, it is in the interest of all drivers (except the scofflaws) to ensure that there is a cheap and efficient payment recovery mechanism for the 407 corporation.

Sure they can. In fact the shack could consume more. For example what if the shack had garbage pick-up, sewer infrastructure, and snow-clearance of the road but none of those services existed for the waterfront property. What if 10 people lived in the shack but only 1 in the waterfront property? What you are saying is that you think real-estate taxes should be used as wealth transfer mechanisms to confiscate money from those percieved richer to those percieved poorer. Your original premise may not even be correct. There are seniors who have downsized into much smaller condos, and have accumulated wealth through a lifetime of savings. There are newly started couples just having kids who have large mortgages on houses. The new couples are less able to afford the house and are less wealthy than the seniors in the condos, yet you would redistribute wealth to the seniors in the condos because they are percieved to be poorer. Using the value of houses as wealth redistribution mechanisms seems to me unjustified. My neighbour can have $3M in the bank and I can have $1. We don't force him to redistribute wealth to me simply because he has more in the bank. There is virutally no other asset which we try and redistribute wealth based upon its value. Why should houses be different? If she doesn't have the money, she can't afford to stay in the house. What if it were rent we were taking about instead of real-estate taxes? If she couldn't afford to pay, she'd be out regardless of the consequences. Mrs. Smith can apply to the available charities or programs to help her pay her taxes. There are municipal laws which regulate the care of the lawn and the overall state of the house. In many cities if the property degrades to a certain level the city can hire contractors to bring up the level of the property to appropriate standards and add the bill to the taxes. If they can't pay the city can seize the property and auction it off, ultimately it will end up with an owner who can afford the property, thus benefiting the entire neighbourhood and city.

I have zero faith in the market - especially when it comes to issues of justice. A free market in justice would be run by criminal mobs and the super wealthy - the vast majority of people would be screwed. And don't bother responding with comments about how the gov't operates like a mob - there is huge difference between a democratically elected gov't and a criminal gang because democracy gives the average person control over who has the levers of power. An anarchy/mobocracy would encourage vigilantism, violence and lynchings because that would be the only option available to average people when they are screwed by a free-market system controlled by criminals and the wealthy. RW, I was being somewhat facetious in my response to CA. I'm not an anarchist, nor do I believe there is any chance we will ever devolve to anarchy. I also do believe that government does have a role, especially in the administration of justice. But government itself should not have unchecked power to define laws and enforce them.

Yes, I agree. As I've said as long as they are involved, they can be forced to not discrimminate. It is quite possible that if this is an ongoing issue, at some point the state's position will become so uncomfortable, it will force them to butt out. I do promote more freedom rather than less. However I'm practical enough to realize what can be changed immediately and what cannot.

Correct! Since the 90s contribution rates have been upped substantially. Those who are now collecting, contributed at low contribution rates but yet collect substantial payout. The same won't be true of future contributors.

So assuming the dilapidated shack and waterfront property consume the same level of services, you'd agree then is what you are asking is, that those with a waterfront property to subsidize the services provided to those in the shack?

I don't know if I'd term it entitlement. It is a fact that seniors get a lot, possibly far more than any other group in society. For some of them, they feel they are owed it, and that would certainly give credence to the statement that they feel a sense of entitlement. Others, however are grateful for what they get. What should be beyond dispute is that seniors enjoy many advantages which the rest of society does not. The only program which they can legimitately claim to "have paid into" is CPP, and even then, the current CPP payout far outweighs what was contributed. Other programs such as OAS are nothing but a welfare system targeted specificly for seniors regardless of contribution.

Yup, the government could invoke the Nothwithstanding clause, except that the people generally support the Charter and would abhor the use of the clause (even those who may disagree with SSM). The other little problem with the Notwistanding clause, is it is not indefinite. It must be periodically renewed evey couple of years.

Laws would be defined based upon protections of rights, not by morals. IOW, if I don't trangress anyones rigths by not going to church on Sundays, then I should be free to do so regardless on if it is moral or not. The only objective way of deciding whether a set of rules is "permissible" or "unpermissable" is based upon transgression of rights. We DO have a commonly agreed set of principles. They are called rights. Rules which trangress rights must be thrown out regardless of what the government feels. The inclusion of SSM into the umbrella of marriage was based upon a determination that the government rules violated rights. Unlike your example above, we do have an agreed set of basic rules. Even if Leafless choose not to validate the Canadian Charter of Rigths, he has already acknowledged the UN Charter of Rights. He just chooses to interpret it in a completely illogical way (such as "the word "everyone" doesn't include homosexuals"). You have me mistaken for someone else. I don't cling to the righteousness of state coersion at all. It is my view that the state should compeltely stay out of decideing who gets married and people should decide themselves. Since the state chose to butt in, they are bound by a set of commonly agreed rights which say that they cannot discrimminate. I have complete faith in the free market. What I don't have is patience to wait for Hugoland to arrive. We could all be long dead by then.

Let's see now,, you claim something is a fact and to prove it you post a link which has "opinion" in its url. Hmmmm... It makes me think you don't know the difference between a fact and opinion. A fact is backed by evidence. You haven't shown any. I should believe it is a fact because you say so?