blackbird
-
Posts
6,683 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
8
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by blackbird
-
-
The B.C. NDP (41 MLAs) and Green (3 MLAs) have joined together to form a majority to be able to govern. Premier Clark has decided after much legal and constitutional advice to not resign, which she doesn't have to, as she is already the Premier and has 43 seats. She said she will call the legislature and have the throne speech presented. She expect the NDP/Green coalition to move a non-confidence motion which would bring the government down. At this point it is expected the lieutenant governor will give authority to the NDP/Green parties to form a government. Mz. Clark will assume the position of opposition leader.
The agenda of the NDP/Green includes a plan to immediately block the Trans Mountain Pipeline (Kinder Morgan). If successful this will eliminate the chance to create thousands of jobs during construction and prevent the province of Alberta from having greatly increased capacity to ship it's oil to world markets. This will prevent the re-hiring of possibly thousands of people in the oil industry in Alberta and cut off a source of taxation and royalty revenue for Alberta and Canada and to a lesser extent, B.C.
Trudeau has stated this pipeline project has already been approved. The federal government said today they will wait and see what action the (new) government in B.C. takes. Presumably the federal government does have certain powers, which if they decide to exercise them, could overrule the B.C. government and allow the pipeline project to proceed. Apparently there have been other times in the history of Canada in which the federal government has stepped in and over-ruled provincial laws or action. We will see if Trudeau has what it takes to do this.
I am hopeful Trudeau will act, but understand he must wait until the new B.C. government makes it's move. That is why we have a federal government. It must be able to act in the national interest when matters of national importance are threatened by provincial or local politics. This same scenario could develop with respect to the Energy East pipeline project and Quebec, or at least certain cities in Quebec such as Montreal.
-
On 2017-05-29 at 9:15 AM, Argus said:
Leitch wasn't rejected because of her values message but in spite of it. She had zero charisma, was not exactly likable or photogenic, not a good speaker, and makes terrible videos. The values message was the only thing that kept her from being dropped on the first ballot.
I wouldn't go that far. Leitch is actually a pretty good speaker. The left and CBC, media types despised her and spoke against her at every chance. She probably doesn't have much experience at making videos or her videographer might have zero experience. That could be improved. I don't see any of the other candidates having that much charisma. Charisma might help but politicians can also be elected without much charisma. Stephen Harper didn't really have much charisma but received a lot of support. He made up for lack of charisma with intelligence and knew what he was talking about. Often charisma is more bragadosia. Some of the PMs we had came across that way. Funny a lot of people voted for them anyway. Bragadosia seems to sell.
-
7 hours ago, Omni said:
At least they had the good sense to leave Leitch and her "Canadian Values" test in the dust. I'm interested to hear from Sheer. I thought he did not a bad job as speaker.
Leitch did a good job getting the message about Canadian values out and many Canadians agreed with her. Trudeau doesn't believe in this. Many Canadians do partly because Leitch made it a central issue.
-
1
-
-
8 hours ago, Omni said:
Obstruction of justice has nothing to do with political slant. It's a law.
I should correct that to say obstruction is a criminal activity.
There is no obstruction of justice.
-
1 minute ago, Omni said:
I doubt very much the conservative party wants a person like trump who can't get his approval #'s above 35% even this early in his mandate. And they will only likely descend until his impeachment.
You're assuming he will be impeached. I don't think so. He can't be impeached just because democrats or others don't like him.
-
1 hour ago, hernanday said:
I believe that the conservatives knew they'd lose the 2019 election. Trudeau is too popular right now and enjoys too much support to lose the next election, Harper imploded his own party. That is why their best canidates like Kenny and Mackay chose not to run. The best candidate the conservatives had was probably bernier or chong. Sheer's election has guaranteed that Trudeau will win again.
1. Sheer is a Western Canadian with poor french running against a francophone liberal.
2. Central Canada particularly Ontario has become increasingly more liberal and it will be almost impossible for a social conservative to win without cracking this region and it is almost impossible for a social conservative to win this region.
3. Trudeau has pivoted to the left of the ndp making it hard for anyone to beat him.
4. There are 4 maritime provinces who are dependent on government handouts mostly federal. No real conservative will crack these areas.
1. Doesn't matter if Scheer is from the west. Harper was too and was in for nine years. Poor french might not be the best but it is better than none.
2. There were a lot of Ontarians that voted for Harper during his nine years. Scheer is more of a populist who wants to do things that bring unity to the party. I would agree that a social conservative would not be very popular in Ontario but don't think Scheer is a strong social conservative except he opposes gay marriage; that doesn't mean much. Hopefully people are getting tired of that issue. It effects very few people.
3. A lot of people don't agree with a lot of what Trudeau has done. Lots of people oppose carbon taxes for example. I think lots oppose legalizing marijuana.
4. I will agree with you on that. The maritimes will be tough to win, but if the CPC get a lot of seats in the rest of Canada, they could still win the election.
-
1 hour ago, taxme said:
In English please.
The Bible is a spiritual book and can only be understood if one receives the gift to spiritually discern it as it says in the above verse. The natural mind cannot understand the Bible. (1 Corinthians ch2 vs 14 KIng Jame Bible 1611) I will pray that you may receive the spiritual gift
-
17 hours ago, dialamah said:
JT is disappointing a lot of people. If Cons elect someone closer to Chong than Leitch, they might have a fighting chance.
I don't think Chong has a chance because of his carbon tax. Don't know how Leitch is doing. She may be in the top three or four. The media are reporting Bernier is in the lead.
-
21 minutes ago, taxme said:
The story about Noah and the flood makes no sense to me at all. How can one man be able to retrieve a pair of every kind of mammal, bird, and insect from all over the world, when he most likely didn't know how big the world was and to how many different types of animal and bird life was out there? Did he know that there were polar bears in the Arctic, and there were tigers in the jungles of India? How many species of birds did he know was out there? And say he did get all the animal, bird and insect life into his boat, which had to be massive, and then he would have to stock up on food for all those species in order for them to survive for forty days while they drifted around in the ocean until the rains stopped, and some how waited for god to be was able to make all that water disappear enough to be able to put all those animals back from whence they came.
That alone tells me that the bible is full of nonsense stories that cannot be believed.
You are not aware of the fact the Bible is a supernatural book and a record of supernatural events that were done by God. Of course you can't apply human reasoning and look for earthly explanations for supernatural events. So Noah's flood, as well as other supernatural occurrences in the Bible, can only be understood as miraculous occurrences. Why did God choose to perform these supernatural events?
"For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness:" 1 Corinthians ch1: 19-23
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14
-
2 hours ago, taxme said:
The crazy thing about it all is that here in Canada our screw ball politically correct politicians can't see this danger that is coming our way. These muslims WILL never assimilate, and they will demand that their religion be exempted from all our Canadian laws and rules if it conflicts with their beliefs. They will not tolerate our way of doing things if they don't like them. What is also interesting is that why do they immigrate to a non-muslim country if they do not want to observe the rules and laws of that country? Their hatred towards others who do not kiss the butt of Islam is quite evident. It is interesting how just about all of our politicians appear to want more muslims to come to Canada, and not less.
The destruction of the western race and culture by our PC pro-multicultural politicians is right on track, and it looks like it won't be coming off the tracks for a long time yet unless we taxpaying infidels do something about it very soon.
Our politicians are scared to death by the PC crowd and leftists are ready to call anyone who disagrees with diversity and multi-culturalism racists. Any politician who opens his mouth against the Liberal agenda will be blackballed as racist. Look what happened to the senator who very mildly said everything done in residential schools wasn't bad. She was condemned and kicked out of the committee and dealt with swiftly.
-
1
-
-
I
38 minutes ago, dialamah said:I should hate all men and hold them guilty because one of them violently raped a relative, many more of them rape other women, men and children. 90% of all rapists are men, and they rape 100s of thousands of others every year around the world; about 500 per year in Canada.
If you are a man, then clearly you have the same beliefs as the men who rape and cannot be trusted to not rape at any given moment. If men truly believed rape to be wrong, they'd be condemning it a lot more, especially the guys who don't rape.
If you deny anything I've said here than you sympathize with rapists and probably are one
Bogus argument and not logical. All men do not claim to be followers of a holy book that tells men to rape women. That's where your argument falls flat.
The fact that most Muslims do not use violence or terrorism does not negate the fact that the Quran holy book teaches violence and that a small percentage take it literally. If there are one billion Muslims in the world and a small percentage believe it literally, say for example 5% that would 5% of one billion people, which is a large number. That would be 50 million. If only 2% take it literally, that would be 20 million. Because of the large number of Muslims in the world, even a small percentage who believe jihad is a legitimate part of Islam it still a large number.
-
4 hours ago, Rue said:
To me Muslim extremism is an attempt to resist the tide of Western ideology that comes through the internet and in the guise of Coke, MacDonald's, rap music, Adidas and nike, which have already gained a permanent foothold in the minds of young Muslims along with concepts as to sexuality that the traditional Muslim world sees as a cultural and religious war by the West to undo everything Islam stands for.
Y
What might surprise you and Dialamah is moderate Muslims will say those terrorists are not Muslims and what they are doing is not Islamic. But what does the holy book Quran say? Some say there are over 100 verses in it extolling violence. This is a paradox.
-
Yes, as some have already said, a simple reason for keeping the Queen as head of state is if it works and ain't broken, don't fix it. It has worked well since Canada was formed in 1867. If the people don't like what the government is doing, they can throw them out in the next election.
-
On 2017-05-21 at 1:08 PM, JamesHackerMP said:
I understand the function of the Crown, in that it's not intended to wield power but to prevent someone else from occupying the same position and wielding it. All well and good for the position of head of state, but it provides no checks on the power of the prime minister. If I understand correctly, your PM has enough power to make Richard Nixon drool with envy. As Sir Humphrey himself said: "The prime minister giveth, and the prime minister taketh away. Blessed be the name prime minister."
P.S.: which ones were "the duds"?
The PM's power is somewhat limited by the fact the House of Commons can vote non-confidence in the government by a majority vote. But Parliament has to be sitting and there are only certain times during it's sitting that they can do this. It would require members of the governing party to support the motion to have a majority of MPs. Then an election might have to be called.
Also, the PM's power is limited by what is in accordance with the Constitution if I understand it correctly. But maybe he issues executive orders through his ministers to do certain things using government departments. The PM can take actions that are in accordance with the powers he already has. I think we are kind of in the dark about what powers the PM actually has.
Back around 1970 the PM declared the War Measures Act in order to use the Armed Forces to occupy Montreal and suspend freedoms until the crisis with the FLQ passed. The FLQ had kidnapped a British ambassador and murdered a Quebec Minister of the government.
-
Without the constitutional monarch, a dictatorial-minded PM could possibly dismiss the Governor General and refuse to call an election, on some pretext such as an invented national emergency or the threat of separatism. With the monarchy, that would be very difficult to pull off because the RCMP and Armed Forces have sworn allegiance to the Queen, not to an appointed figurehead in Ottawa. They would be able to arrest a would-be dictator who tries to set up a totalitarian system.
I would be very suspicious of a politician who is not supportive of our constitutional monarchy.
-
1
-
-
On 2011-05-14 at 1:04 AM, Tyciol said:
I am curious how come we keep printing the Queen on our money and our soldiers have to swear loyalty to her, how she must approve the Governor General.
I understand legal tradition and all that, but surely we could get rid of these things if we wanted to. Do most people just not feel it is wrong or important enough to mess with?
For me it's like, the question is how come we don't change that? I don't see the point in it at all.
From what I've read the constitutional monarchy has certain advantages to ensure the continued existence of our parliamentary democracy. Supposing we had a Prime Minister who decided he wanted to abolish our parliamentary democracy and set up a dictatorship with himself being the President. With our system of having a Queen and Governor General, it so happens that the armed forces and the RCMP have sworn allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen. This means if someone attempted to seize power by abolishing parliament and perhaps dismissing the governor general, the RCMP and Canadian Forces would be immediately under the authority of the Queen and could arrest such a usurper.
Other situations could arise for example, where there is a lack of confidence in the governing party in Parliament. If there were no Queen or Governor General with enough authority, the governing party could simply ignore the will of parliament and refuse to resign and call an election. These are just two examples where the Queen acts as a kind of protector to our Parliamentary system without having to do much.
It also would be much more difficult for a governing party to bring in a clearly unconstitutional law because the Governor General acting on behalf of the Queen could refuse to sign a bill into law if he felt it was seriously contrary to the Constitution. Normally he doesn't refuse to sign a bill into law, but the fact it must be signed into law by the GG means he does have that residual authority and is not beholden to any political party in the same way MPs and senators might be.
The other thing is the fact we have the Queen as head of state and head of the Commonwealth means we automatically have the other Commonwealth countries on our side in the event of an attack against Canada by some other country. In the same way when Britain went into war against Germany, and Canada was automatically in the war with Britain, I would think being part of the Commonwealth would mean Britain and other Commonwealth countries would almost automatically be on Canada's side in time of war.
-
2 hours ago, dialamah said:
They 'don't know about it' because SA has oil and SA is buying billions of dollars of arms. What more reason would they need for being 'deaf, dumb and blind'?
It's all about what are the most strategic alliances for the U.S. to have. Contrary to what SJWs think, the U.S. has to act in it's own best interest in the world. That means weighing the good against the bad that having SA as an ally would mean. We don't see the whole picture sitting here on our computers, but there are lots of things to consider.
-
2 hours ago, Argus said:
Of course they know about it. But they're in a quandary. First, how do you tell religious people not to propagate their religion, not to encourage others to take it up, not to teach it or export it? Particularly when there are so many US missionaries abroad? Combine that with them being major oil exporters, and having major influence throughout the Muslim world, and the amount of contracts they give out to American corporations, and that they cooperate (somewhat) with the US in providing information on their enemies.
I think if SA was supporting terrorism to the extent you claim, the U.S. would know about it and there would be major friction between the U.S. and SA. Since that is not happening, I doubt SA is supporting Al Qaeda and terrorism to any significant degree. But like any country in the ME, there are probably some people in SA who fund terrorism. Perhaps this is without the SA government's knowledge. However, if SA was a major supporter of terrorism, as you say, I think the U.S. would be doing something about it. The U.S. has spent perhaps trillions of dollars on the war on terrorism so I don't think it would work politically if SA was officially supporting terrorist groups. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Also, I don't see SA oil being a major influence with the U.S. The U.S. gets a lot of oil from it's own wells, Venezuala, Canada, and possibly other places. I think Newfoundland even has half a dozen or so ocean drilling rigs. There are lots of alternatives to get oil for the U.S.
-
6 minutes ago, Argus said:
I think Saudi Arabia is responsible for most of the terrorism in the world today. It has spent tens of billions promoting its rigid Wahabi version of Islam around the world, and all major terrorist organizations subscribe to it, including ISIS, Al Quaeda and Boko Haram. And while it officially doesn't fund these groups you can be sure a lot of rich Saudis contribute.
Interesting perspective. I don't know if it's a fact or not. How could I know? If what you're saying is a fact, why doesn't the U.S. know about it?
-
52 minutes ago, dialamah said:
It wasn't that I disagreed with everything the speech said, but that the hypocrisy just turns my stomach. Sanctioning Iran, while pretending that SA has had nothing to do with terrorism? Congratulating SA on the way in which they seek the best for their citizens while ignoring their blatant and horrific human rights abuses?
I kind of get why this happens, and no doubt JT would do something similar were he speaking in SA, but I certainly don't have to like it.
So you don't think Iran is a world's biggest state-sponsor of terrorism? You don't understand that SA is an ally of the U.S. in the fight against Islamic terrorism? What would you do differently?
-
1
-
-
2 hours ago, Argus said:
Which is why, anywhere in the Islamic world, including Egypt, someone is accused of blasphemy, by just about anyone, mobs show up with torches, right?
There is a woman in Pakistan who was a Muslim but converted to christianity and has been sentenced to death for blasphemy. She has appealed it. There are Muslims calling for her execution.
-
2 hours ago, Argus said:
And you know this because you've done your own in depth investigation?
Innocent until proven guilty!
-
4 hours ago, dre said:
Thats because non-muslims live in structured secular societies for the most part. Things are done differently. Take the war in Iraq for example though... A predominantly christian army, complete with priests, chaplins, etc, was sent by a president that said Jesus told him to do it, and they killed or got killed about 1/2 a million muslims.
The Iraq war wasn't a religious crusade. I don't believe you when you say Jesus told him to do it. Never heard that on the news once.
Part of it was the U.S. thought there were weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be false. But part of it was also fighting against Al Qaeda. As it turned out there were Al Qaeda terrorists fighting in Iraq and a lot of suicide bombings, which killed a lot of bystanders (which are still going on). When the U.S. occupied Iraq, Al Qaeda terrorists migrated in droves to Iraq to join the battle against the Americans. The daily fighting in Iraq was against Al Qaeda terrorists, not the people of Iraq.
You can't compare the Iraq war with terrorist attacks by jihadists in various countries and continents that have been going on long before the Iraq war. It's comparing apples and oranges.
-
Seems you haven't read the New Testament. Jesus wasn't involved in politics or political action.
The British Royalty: How come this never seems to come up in Federal e
in Federal Politics
Posted
OK, who would you suggest to be our figurehead (King, Queen, whatever you want to call them)? You think the RCMP and Armed Forces would swear allegiance to that person and would they protect and obey that figurehead in the event someone tried to seize control of the government and set up a dictatorship? The GG is not a flunkey of the PM actually. In our system, the GG actually represents the Queen in Canada. The PM cannot remove the GG or tell the GG what to do when it comes to Constitutional powers of the GG.