SunnyWays

You forgot the law of Supply and Demand. There are thousands of teachers who cannot find a job - good, young, modern teachers. You could pay teachers anywhere from $40 to $75K and you'd still have a large supply. The Teacher's Union - as an example - has artificially inflated salaries and benefits, creating a closed model that protects it from Supply and Demand. No matter how you view teacher's wages, one can't deny that there are literally thousands of young, educated people who wanted dearly to get into teaching - but can't.

The original wage concept of Public Service - at all levels of government was to accept less remuneration that the private sector in exchange for Job Security and a decent pension......and that was a fair bargain for all. It's pretty plain that this concept has flown out the window - wages are often greater that the private sector and benefits are gold-plated - making overall compensation as a whole greater than the private sector, on average. How do we get back to the original concept? A wage freeze for 10 years seems a non-starter. New pay scales for new employees, put the brakes on raises for others?

Probably doesn't matter anyway - like those in Attawaspikat who choose to live in pretty barbaric conditions. I doubt a GAI of $20K is going to make much of a difference.

Pretty straight forward.....hard to understand why someone would NOT agree to take this into consideration when discussing "guaranteed incomes". It's Pandora's Box.

There's a number of other choices - keep living in the basement and sponge off parents. Find a girlfriend or boyfriend who will support you. But really, don't put a system in place that will encourage and enable doing absolutely nothing.

No proof - it's all "wait and see". There's a temptation to play a shell game - to confuse the numbers in order to spend more than the planned $12 billion in new spending - or to ignore the diligence that's required to keep regular spending in check. If you're a fan of transparency, we should all be looking to see that $18 billion "base deficit" reduced each quarter as the economy picks up (as it hopefully will).....and this should be tracked and reported by the media in simple, straight forward terms. Would you agree with that?

There's another angle to the Education funding shortfall.......if someone on a remote reserve is fully educated, do you really think they will return to the reserve? They'll go where the jobs are. That's as good a reason as any for First Nations (as opposed to the government) to start phasing out those remote reserves. What's missing is the collaboration and will of First Nations to develop an all-emcompassing vision for Aboriginal people - beyond the status-quo. There is so much untapped potential in a cohesive First Nations society - but the Band/Chief system will never allow that potential to be fulfilled.

I really liked Jean Lapierre. I'm originally from Montreal and admired his insight into Quebec politics and their dynamics with Federal politics. Very pleasing personality. I'll miss his "straight to the point", clear analysis. Although I've never met the man, the news felt like a personal loss. Good people can make you feel that way. One of my tennis buddies has a summer home about a mile from the crash site - his son trains by running up the hill where the plane crashed. Like much of distant rural Quebec - families are large and there's a distant sense of community - so this tragedy is magnified within a close-knit community.

If you're a guitar buff, you might have heard of Tommy Emmanuel - here's a Youtube link to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"......if you like to hear someone who's perfected his craft, you'll love this guy. He's got a number of videos out there - Sukiyaki is another neat one..... Link:

Hard to know were to start = you're defeating your own arguments. You asked why all the various religions were less violent over here. Read the last paragraph of your own article and then see how silly your LMAO comment was. The Muslims who have managed to be "forward thinking" are the ones who have come to North America - and welcomed to Canada. In Global terms, these are "liberal minded people" - not Liberals. You obviously have a mis-guided, incohesive agenda of some sort - so I'll bid you adieu from this discussion.

I think that's been answered by another poster - but two things come to mind. One - those who make the decision to come to the US or Canada are more "liberal" in their thinking and are generally willing to accept the Melting Pot or Multiculturalism. Two - our immigration systems are designed (hopefully) to validate that mindset. In simple terms - those that "hate" or are "suspicious" of the West would simply not come here. The fly in the ointment that spoils it all for everyone are those that might come here specifically to inflict the type of heinous mayhem that we see in Europe. It's a shame - but we have to be ever so vigilant.

Asked and answered twice - but let me try again. The "general population" of the US is comprised of 70% who identify themselves as Christian - so does it not make sense that most of those dastardly villains would be Christian? How this relates to anything regarding terrorism that involves heinous and wanton murdering of innocent women and children is beyond me. Yesterday, in just one attack, terrorists killed more people (mostly women and children) that all your "right wing terrorism" attacks over the last 15 years!

In some ways maybe so. Politics seems to have trained people to always expect more - instead of respecting what we already have - especially when so many countries are so fiscally challenged. There are only so many dollars in the kitty - it's OK to shuffle them around from time to time to address the needs of the day......and hey, if we have some good years, let's do some short-term spending but surely if we've learned anything from the Global Financial crisis, it's that governments must have aspirations to live within a budget. I saw no major difficulty with the Liberal election promise of modest deficits returning to balance by the end of their mandate. I am extremely uncomfortable with a government that has not only abandoned that promise - but now, only 6 months removed from their election promise, has abandoned even the aspiration to return to balance.

You're getting there but still a ways to go. It just so happens that the vast majority of North Americans identify as Christians - Catholic or 25 shades of protestentism.....many of whom don't even go to Church. So is it any wonder that most perverts are "Christian? Most "homophobes" are Christian....etc, etc.? If you'd like to blame Christianity for that - go right ahead. But as I said, they are not running around with suicide vests killing any innocent who gets in the way. So to answer your question again - yes, there is something else going on - and it's called Islam perversion - the enabler/excuse that provides the rationale for that tiny, tiny minority of disenfranchised or just pi$$ed off Muslims to perpetrate their heinous actions. It's mind-boggling that you can't see the difference.

Not quite - we might never have any additional government programs......and relative to other countries, I think we've got it pretty darn good! Who says we always have to have more? Isn't that what inspires "entitlement"?