Renegade

Soak taxpayers????? The structure is a legal mechanism to move the tax burden to the individual investor. Why is it that when a corporation structures to minimize taxes, it is "soaking taxpayers", but for an individual is just maximizing tax efficiency? If shareholders value short term dividends over long term capital investments isnt that their choice to make? Taxpayers don't own the company, shareholders do. It shouldn't matter in the least if it is a good deal for taxpayers. Thankfully taxpayers don't have a say, only shareholders do.

Yes, and all of those things should not be subsidized by the government. First, cheap internet is available wherever there is a phone line via dial-up. That means anyone can pay their bills, etc, just not at the same blinding speed as high-speed. Second, the same arguments you make for internet access can also be said for mobile phone access. Yet the government doesn't subsidize mobile phone access. Why aren't you demanding cheap mobile phone access? Third, if there are so many advantages to internet access, the cost savings will eventually justify the cost of high speed access. The same was true of the urban areas. Even today in urban areas at $45/month many people cannot afford high-speed. They make do with low-speed or dial-up or none at all. At some point when they figure that the gas and time they save is worth it, they will get high speed. Although the break-even point is different in remote areas, the same fundamentals apply. Many (even most) necessities will cost more in remote areas. It cost more to ship food and goods there. Are you expecting the rest of society to subsidize all items so that it is the same cost in remote areas as urban areas just because some people have unlaterially made a choice to live there? No, I don't think right-wingers think that provinces should pay for it. Right-wingers think individuals who consume the service should pay for it. Provinces can be considered "equal" only when they are equal in all aspects including how much they contribute. Until then some are net contributors and some are dependants.

Higgly, the subsidization of services to remote areas by urban areas is not without precident. For example, Canada Post charges the same postage for letter delivery throughout Canada. It cost far less to deliver a letter from and to an urban area. In essence the urban postal users subsidze the rural and remote users. The same is true of telephone service. The real question is why should the population subsidize a practice which is inefficient? If it is more efficient for people to live together in urban centers and share the cost of infrastructure then we should encourage that practice by not subsidizing small clusters of people living in remote areas. There should be an economic penalty to living where the cost of infrastructure is high. No doubt there will always be people who want to live in isolated communities, but they, and not the population at large shoudl bear the additional costs of doing so.

You can address both issue by focusing on making the criteria for hiring completely objective. With objective testing, it wouldn't be up to "like" to hire "like". Assuming that the the hiring criteria are objective, you would expect to get the same representaion of new hires as exist in the population as a whole. If you don't, then so be it.

The province can guarantee that it can meet the demand for healthcare by charging for health insurance in the same way an insurance compay charges for life insurance (ie based upon risk). People who are likely to impose a higher cost on the system, should pay more. As far as the portion, I'm not sure what the right answer is, but 20% seems like a good starting point.

Frankly I fail to see how the distinction relates between one occupation being for amusement and the other for life-saving. If anything it would mean that we should treat the standards for being a firefighter more seriously and only choose the best for those roles. If we did restrict those roles to the "best", including the "best" physical qualifications for the job, it would rule out a lot of women who didn't make the cut. It is not the kind of story you would read in the newspaper, so unless you are shooting the breeze with the boys at the firehall, you may not hear if a woman figherfighter did or didn't pull her own weight. In addition, the encouragement to join the fire services by adapting standards is simply more PC gone amok. But so what if they don't make the top. The top should be reserved for the best athletes regardless of gender, race, religion or any other discriminatory attribute. IMV it is not sufficient to simply say, they can't compete as a reason to segregate. Women have had the opportunty to play for at least as long as the current crop of women athletes have been alive. Are you saying that at some point you think that segregation is no longer necessary?

How about we just make people PAY a portion of their healthcare costs? It gives them an incentive to keep cost low and to take care of themsleves to boot. IMO, people should pay for health insurance, even if that insurance is provided by the government.

So why does not the same adaptability apply to sports. Many experts say that women's physiology is in some ways superiour than men (endurance and pain threshold). Why is it that women cannot develop techniques which allow them to compete on the same field as men? It seems to me illogical that if you claim that women can find ways of doing the same job as men in fields which require physical attributes, than the same should be true of sports. Yes, but so can virtually all team sports. Your argument is essentially that the physical attributes is only one aspect of being a firefighter and a minor one. I would argue that based upon the current requrements for a firefighter, it is an essential attribute. If a firefighter needs to rescue a 200lb man who has passed out from smoke inhalation, would you say that strength and physical attributes can be worked around? Personally, I'm ok with the notion that firefighting should be open to both men and women, however, for the same reasons I am ok with removing gender segration in sports. I think the same arguments you use to justify why women can be firefighters, also justify why women should compete on the same field in sports as men.

While your analogy may be apt for you, it would not be for me. For me, the relationship itself is the end goal of marriage. Everything else is incidental.

The Charter does not allow public institutions or officials the freedom to discrimminate. The SC has interpreted this to include discrimmination against homosexuals. from the G&M: Yes I agree. Those laws are flawed for promoting a double-standard. We shouldn't continue those errors by having yet another law that promotes a double-standard. I thought you were against laws which had a blatant double standard. I think you are misinformed on the hate crime law. The hate crime law is not to make it illegal to "beat up queers". It made it illegal to advocate or incite hate or genocide. link That is quite different than assault. Show me another law which makes it illegal to advocate or incite hate, and I'll agree with you that the hate law is redundant. No. The proposed legislation would extend the ability to discrimminate to provinical judges and other employees of the government, and those ARE public officials. Possibly. Who knows? Once the SC ruled, they should have left it alone as well.

Probably not, but it can be customized for the couple's needs. Kids aren't the only reason people get married, and even those who do, may want to sign up for a longer (eg 20yr) term.

We have discussed the same or similar issues before: link

In my view, marriage should offer more choices than "till death do us part". You should be able to sign up for whatever term you want to, 1year, 2 years, 5 years, or "till death". Of course, if you sign up for a term, you can renew if you both mutually wish to. It would sure take the pressure of considering marriage a "failure". As far as "honour", it is hard to know what exactly that means in the context of a marriage. "Obey" is an outdated term which has no place in marriage vows.

If such legislation were brought forward it would be flawed in many many ways: 1. It is likely to be unconstitutional. 2. It strays into areas of provincial juristiction. 3. It promotes a double-standard. If discrimmination against homosexuals should be tolerated under freedom of religious beliefs, why should not other forms of discrimmination. If my religious beliefs tell me that women belong in the home and rasing a family, should I then be allowed to discrimminate against women in employment decisions? 4. It is redundant. Freedom of speech is already protected. If the intent is to protect hate-speech against homosexuals, then why only protect speech aginst homosexuals, let the Klan have the same right to hate speech against Jews, blacks, Catholics and homosexuals as well. 5. It sends the wrong message. Public officials make a choice when then take office. Their choice is to accept a job which doesn't make value judgements but administers according to the law. It doesn't matter if the agree or believe in the law. If a judge doesn't think it is moral that a 60 year-old man shoudl marry an 18 year-old girl, should he have the same freedom to refuse? How about if he doesn't believe inter-racial marriages are moral? Personally I don't know what Harper is doing by reopening this issue. It is a divisive issue. I can only guess that he is doing it in the face of pressure from the religious-right.

Inalienable rights Natural rights

I disagree. "Privileges" are what society chooses to grant individuals, rights are not. Would you think that in a society in which slavery was accepted, that society "chose" not to grant the slave the right to freedom, or has that society voilated a right which was inherent to that individual?

That would be a recipie for disaster, unless ALL social programs are also cut so as to not be an incentive for non-productive immigrants to come to Canada. For example if welfare benefits and medicare are more generous in Canada, than the immigrant's home country, it makes economic sensse for them to immigrate especially if they can take advantage of those social programs.

It is superficial to criticize the cut to adult literacy programs without looking deeper at the results. for example: 1. Assuming increasing literacy is the aim, would the money be better spent on education while in school? 2. If we are looking at the economic aspect of literacy, how many of those now literate are unemployed and would actually get a job which depends upon literacy? 3. How do we know if the program is effective? (ie how much has it improved our oveall literacy rate?)

Good topic. Start a new thread. The details of the analysis are here: Cost Benefit Methodology They've done some interesting manipulation to arrive at those numbers.

I'm not saying every single person in Newfoundland should get up and leave. There will always be circumstanance where that is not possible. Conditions being what they are now, any able bodied (even illiterate) person can likely get a job in Alberta. Welfare benefits still exist for the single mom, no matter how foolish she was to have kids she couldnt support. A student I know went to Alberta for the summer to earn some money. He spent the summer working for Wendy's. They offered to fly him back any time he wanted to go back to work there. Case in point. How much less skilled can you get than Wendy's

In my view, the taxpayers pay once already through public school funding to get everyone literate. If for whatever reason the adult is still illiterate, they should get literate on their own dime.

How is your second one a program cut? Unfortuantely it is the answer to a question I didn't ask. Yes I realize people have excuses such as wanting to "avoid the rat race", but in many cases when "a person has no choice" it is simply an excuse not to undergo hardship. There are many Newfoundland men who go to Alberta, and are separated from their families for months at a time inorder to save a pile of money to allow themselves some choices. In many cases several men share an apartment to keep costs low. I appreciate that these men make sacrifices, and they do so because they woudl rather earn their keep where there is opportunity then be on the public dole. As far as "affording the transportation", many, many Alberta companies will pay transport to get workers in, as long as the worker agrees to work for a period of time, so it is hard to use that one as an excuse. The other thing is that what was cut was a drop in the bucket to the available programs. I know that but some of the services cut, can equally be provided by the provincial government, since by your own admission, they stand to benefit by training the workers instead of having the workers move to other provinces.

Since you feel these are critical programs and ought not to be cut, if forced to choose, which programs do you think ought to be cut in lieu? If people don't want to move to where the jobs are, it is of course their choice, however there is no good reason the taxpayer should subsidize them in that choice. It is inefficient to subsidize people to stay where there is no work and are in need of handouts. Based upon your description, your friend would not benefit from the progams cut as he could get a job without them in either Newfoundland or Alberta. It becomes completely his choice on where he wants to persue employment, but again without taxpayer subsidy. If anything that points to a case that their home province ought to be funding such a program and not the federal government.

Yes, I'm aware. I think I said that before. The question is this case is not "can they?" but "should they?" from a moral pov. I think they woudl have to answer to the courts not the tax-payer.

If the bottom line and end goal is sales, then perhaps the criteria for the event shouldn't be restricted to athletic ability. Perhaps "saleability" is more important. Rules should be stacked such that tennis players such as Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova are given a "bye" so that the qualify, regardless if they are the top skilled individuals, because afterall they may be more saleable. I agree. It isn't discrimmination to have one set of physical standards that anyone applying for the position should meet. In fact, it woudl be diliberately discrimminatory to have a dual set of standards.