?Impact

You are making an assumption that the judiciary will not take any new guidelines into account, do you have any basis for that assumption? What is the reason for increasing punishments? Does it deter crime, or is it simply a vote getting ploy? Is there any evidence to support your desire to increase punishment? Do you want to abandon a correctional system, and put in place a punishment system?

I guess you never heard of federal transfers to provinces and municipalities, and the real kicker - equalization. Maybe Attawapiskat needs to put in a subway, then they could get a billion dollar grant?

I apologize, my statement was in error and I have retracted it (left in place for historical purposes, but crossed out above). One interesting note, I see that there is a discrepancy in the number of valid votes recorded on the wiki site you refer to and the parl.gc.ca site (a few thousand one way or the other depending on the party). The percentage of popular vote however is within 0.02%. ref: http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/ParlInfo/compilations/electionsandridings/ResultsParty.aspx?Season=0&Parliament=1924d334-6bd0-4cb3-8793-cee640025ff6

To sum it up (assuming the numbers are correct), the top 1% of income earners, with an average of over $450k income pay about twice the income tax rate as the rest of everyone else including children, retired, and unemployed workers. Their net income tax rate (federal + provincial) is about 33%. a reference for the about 10% of income can be found here (10.3%) - http://globalnews.ca/news/2316192/heres-what-we-know-about-canadas-highest-earning-1/

Perhaps, but stupid on crime is far worse as it leads to increased crime. Liberals are generally evidence based decision makers, and Conservatives are emotional decision makers.

Certainly the North American natives did not develop the advanced metallurgy of other civilizations, but I wouldn't say there were no intellectual advances. Farming, transportation, communication, trade were all part of pre-European society in North America. Mesoamerican society was fairly advanced in developing larger communities and included metallurgy but not advanced to the stage of hardened steel. While spoken language and passing down of oral history was well developed throughout the Americas, is was only the Mesoamericans that developed written language with their ideographic system.

Yes, certainly Louis Riel and the had major influence on the Manitoba Act, all I was getting at is that it was an act of the Canadian Parliament. Prior to that act there was no formal recognition of a Republic of Manitobah as first suggested by Thomas Spence. I am purposely not making and judgment as to what was right or wrong, because there have been many wrongs in our history, just trying to relate to historical account as to what has been established under the laws we recognize today. Even after the Manitoba Act there were many wrongs committed by government, in Manitoba probably the most grievous was the reneging on many of the land grants to the Métis that had been promised.

While I can't answer for the thoughts of the original European invaders, there are several problems I have with that characterization. 1. There was not a cohesive whole aboriginal nation, but rather a very diverse set of people with varying forms of social order on the American continents before the Europeans arrived 2. All societies have a social order or hierarchy based on blood line, conquest, and democratic decision making. That is true the world over, in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Certainly as technology has enabled movement between societies, and conquest went from local through regional to global scope, there has been a influence mostly from the conquering onto those societies they invaded. 3. Societal evolution doesn't just span different cultures, but also the ages. By the same token, today`s First Nations could call the societies of the middle ages in Europe as wild untamed animals. It is very common for societies not to want to loose their cultural legacy, yet live in the modern world. This is not unique to the first nations, just look at the British Isles and the various cultures there that don`t want to be assimilated. This involves much more than just preserving a language and folksy song and dance, it extends to self government.

Not sure why you single out Manitoba. Prince Rupert's land was a British territory, with certain trading rights (not land) given to the Hudson's Bay company under a charter. HBC ceded those rights for a monetary compensation, and the territory was then transferred from Britain to Canada subject to treaties being entered into with the indigenous nations. The original province of Manitoba (much smaller than today) was then created from those lands, just like Saskatchewan and Alberta were at a later date. All three of those provinces (and others like Ontario and Quebec) were given additional territory at even later dates to form their present boundaries. The only thing different about Manitoba (in this context) is that it was formed very soon after Confederation, and a couple of decades or more before Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Why would you say that? At one time the original 5 provinces were either British (Ontario, NB, PEI & NS) or French (Quebec) colonies before forming Canada. British Columbia and Newfoundland (also a Dominion) were also British colonies before joining the Confederation of Canada. The only provinces that were a creation of Canada, and thus lines arbitrarily drawn on a map are Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The National power was a creation of the provinces, not the other way around.

No, lot`s of white guys but never a North American. The UN Secretaries General have been: 1946-1952 - Trygve Lie (Norway) 1953-1961 - Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden) 1961-1971 - U Thant (Myanmar) 1972-1981 - Kurt Waldheim (Austria) 1982-1991 - Javier Perez de Cuellar (Peru) 1992-1996 - Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt) 1997-2006 - Kofi A. Annan (Ghana) 2007-present - Ban Ki-moon (South Korea) It is also interesting to note that none of them have been from the permanent member countries of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) The Secretary-Generals of the League of nations (predecessor to the UN) were from either the UK or France.

More important is what % of income do the top 50% earn. Statistics are very skewed (e.g. children don`t pay any taxes, but don`t earn anything either). We always get comparisons based on two totally different topics, the only relevant ones are % of income vs % of taxes.

RETRACTED It would help if you used real numbers: 2011: Conservatives: 5,832,401 - 37.62% 2015: Liberals: 6,943,276 - 39.47% I won't however resort to any 'dictator' or other labels.

I would say not so good when long range driving is needed. Many people in rural communities do a lot of in-range type driving. For both city and rural families, an all electric vehicle would be a good second vehicle. The difference is that a small percentage of city folk could get by with only an all electric vehicle where that would be very difficult rural families.

It we look at Attawapiskat for example, the tax dollars amount to less than $7,000/year per band member. I don't know about you, but I would find it difficult to build a million dollar mansion on $7k/year.

Where is you basis for that? Here is a year old article about the prices in Attawapiskat. There have been countless others that reflect the same findings. This one has a slide show at the bottom, the first half has the "reasonable" prices, and the second half has the unreasonable ones. Note that the "reasonable" prices are about 3-5 times that in southern Ontario. "Reasonable" prices @3-5 times Orange Juice ($11-$15) for 2-3 litres Toilet paper, 30 rolls for $40 Small tin of salmon, $8.59 White bread, $5.35/loaf Frozen pizza, $16-$17 Salad dressing Kraft, $7 1.4l of Crisco oil, $14 Unreasonable prices Head cabbage (2kg), $28 24 bottles of Nestle water (500ml) - $105 500ml strawberry jam - $17 10 Janes frozen chicken burgers - $32 Lots more examples in the slide show, but you would need to zoom in to get the package size and make a comparison. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/02/14/attawapiskat-farmers-market-food-prices_n_6632526.html

I would assume that was left out because the exact opposite is true. Everything on these remote reserves is very expensive. Here are some real prices from a year ago: Frozen turkey - $200 Bag of flour found in Repulse Bay, Nunavut - $44 Jug of orange juice (Simply Orange, about 4l judging by the photo) - $26 Diapers, one large box - $80 Electricity prices are astronomical, as many are diesel generators. While land prices may not be an issue, everything else is, including building homes where the materials need to be shipped in.

I am not sure it is as black and white as you paint it. Are you familiar with Métis Scrip? Instead of collective treaties, the Métis were dealt with on a one-on-one basis with the government trying to buy off their aboriginal land claims with a few dollars. There is a lot of controversy over that, very much a take it or leave it proposition. I'm not taking a position as to what is right, or the long term issues around assimilation of cultures, just pointing out the history is not simple.

Scanned through this thread and was surprised there was no mention of graphene based supercapacitors. A capacitor holds a charge, but it is very different from a battery. A battery relies on a chemical reaction to generate electricity, and to charge it the electricity reverses that chemical reaction. The drawback of batteries is that the chemical reaction is slow (although improving with new technology), and there is a degradation of the materials over a relatively small number of recharge cycles (again improving with new technology). A capacitor on the other hand stores the charge in the form of static electricity on the surface of the material. Capacitors can operate in the kV range, and charge very quickly (seconds, instead of hours). The main challenge with capacitors is to increase the charge, and that is where graphene based supercapacitors come into play. Graphene can be made extremely thin (1 atom thick), and therefore sheets can be manufactured that increase the surface area dramatically and increase the charge held. There have been experimental supercapacitors manufactured that hold several times the charge of any battery technology per unit weight. Of course ramping that up into production level manufacturing will be a challenge. Capacitors will also degrade over charge cycles, but they are way better than battery technology. Another challenge with capacitors is long term storage. Both batteries and capacitors will lose their charge over time without a load connected to them (ie. when the car is off). Capacitors will do it much faster than batteries by about an order of magnitude (ie. the power lost in a capacitor over a couple of hours would be similar to the power lost in a battery over a day, similarly a day compared to a week, etc.). One of the avenues being explored to address this issue is a hybrid solution combining both capacitors and batteries. The obvious disadvantage is cost and weight, but the clear advantage is fast charge time and long term storage. You plug in your car for a 2-4 minutes and receive a full charge. If you are doing distance driving then you will be essentially discharging the capacitor until the next charge station. If you are doing short term commuting, then when you shut off the car the capacitor will slowly discharge and top up the battery. **add** Two important points I forgot to mention is the charge/discharge profile of capacitors vs. batteries, and heat. Capacitors have a fairly linear profile of charge/discharge over time, where batteries allow for a more steady charge and discharge cycle with rapid drop off. That is an obvious disadvantage for capacitors in similar circuits where the usable charge out compared to the charge in will be lower (ie. less efficient), but I expect new circuits will be developed to utilize more of the charge and improve that efficiency. Similarly there is a big efficiency disadvantage to batteries as much of their charge/discharge cycle is wasted in heat. If anyone has seen any study on the net efficiency combining these different issues, I would be interested in the link.

I would say it is the 99% reaping the rewards of their own labour. There is no seizing involved. Did Mountain Equipment co-op seize anything from Eddie Bauer? If that is the case, then I guess you would say that Pepsi seized from Coke? b.t.w., I didn't know that Fairies had tails.

I quote from the document: As an alternative to the profit-gouging of private companies and the remote bureaucracy of some centralized state ones, we can create innovative ownership structures: democratically run, paying living wages and keeping much-needed revenue in communities. That is not nationalizing, it is more akin to building co-ops, or possibly other corporate structures we haven't seen yet. You might call that communism, but then you must call Mountain Equipment co-op, Calgary co-op (food distribution network), and countless others as communist, but they certainly are not nationalization. The roots of some of today's largest corporations were cooperatives (e.g. Canada Life, before demutualization in the 90's and then being acquired by Great West Life.

Care to share any specifics from the manifesto to support your argument? That is why I showed the paragraphs I don't support. A blanket "it's all communism" is a cop out, you are better than that Tim.

Lots of replies to the original topic, but this appears to be the only one that was actually on topic. It also seems to be an appropriate topic for Harper. He did manage to unite a fractured party, but unfortunately he fractured a united country.

Since the LEAP Manifesto made headlines from the recent NDP convention in Edmonton, I thought it was time I actually read this document. Not to worry, it is not some 1000 page study that you will need to devote a lifetime to read, but a simple short document (5 pages total, only 4 pages with text). It does raise some good ideals, but there are some obviously contentious parts as well. While it acknowledges that we will still be carbon dependent for at least 20 years, it does call for an end to new infrastructure projects in fossil fuel extraction. Here is the paragraph I think was responsible for derailing the NDP Convention: There is no longer an excuse for building new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future. The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard. That applies equally to oil and gas pipelines; fracking in New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia; increased tanker traffic off our coasts; and to Canadian-owned mining projects the world over. I wouldn't sing the document because of that paragraph, but most of the rest is about positive goals and where we should be focusing our efforts. The LEAP manifesto can be found at: https://leapmanifesto.org

English is an imprecise language, often with ambiguous phrases. The term could be interpreted as either hating homophobes, or a homophobe who hates.