Mad_Michael

Softwood is extremely important to BC which means that BC needs Canada to 'go to the mat' with Americans on this one. One of the principle arguments for creating larger, more diverse, entities like Canada is to increase our collective clout. But to have clout there must be a willingness to use it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So Canada ought to "go to the mat" for this one eh? In order to protect 2% of our GDP, we ought to risk the other 98%? In order to protect our right to clear-cut forests and export raw lumber - a policy that can only be popular only with the union labour doing the cutting - we ought to risk all the valuable and value-added exports that Canada engages in. In other words, Canada is a drawer of water and hewer of wood (just like were were in the 19th century) and this must be defended at all costs. Government subsidies are not enough. Wholesale tradewar is needed to defend the subsidised industry of forestry. Canada needs to be clear-cut of all those nasty forests and exporting those forests (raw) to the USA is the number one goal of Canada. One blip in Canada's export of automobiles to the USA and boy-oh-boy you will feel the recession hit you out there in B.C.!!!

Epictetus, You realise that the US 2004 election was one of the highest voter turnouts in a long, long time. Does this mean that George W. Bush is doing something positive for democracy? Is Bush thus a model for human rights? In other words, I don't see how voter turnout rates can be used to make the conclusions that you are drawing.

Dalton McGwinty hasn't shown any basis upon which a prudent man might take his word at face value. Indeed, Dalton has gone out of his way to establish the fact that you can't trust a word that he says. And as I've noted above, the precise amount of Alberta's federal surplus is mostly irrelevant. What I'm interested in is how the existance of said surplus (of whatever amount, real dollars or per capita) is understood to be some kind of reason or justification for separation. That's the logical jump that escapes me.

Ontario rejected the Mulroney Tories for the same reason Alberta rejects the Liberals. Mulroney played to his base - which was Alberta & Quebec at that time. That meant screw Ontario and that's where he went with his politics. Ontario quite rightly objected and threw the bums out since Mulroney didn't quite figure out that Quebec and Alberta is not enough to build or hold a majority. The difference between Alberta and Ontario here is that Ontario actually has 10 million people (some 40% of the national population) so Ontario dissatisfaction is likely to be felt in Ottawa. Besides which Mulroney was a big-spending liberal. Ontario is essentially fiscally conservative (and socially liberal) and thus is in love with Paul Martin. Mulroney wasn't a fiscal conservative and thus had no claims for support from Ontario. With his bases in Alberta and Quebec, Ontario got no pork either. No pork and no fiscal conservatism means Ontario is going to run you out of town. They did.

Seems like some of this is cut'n'pasted. If I'm wrong, I apologise profusely. If I'm correct, it is plagarism. Hitler was a strong leader with high charisma. He also had a clear-cut election platform. Would you prefer a strong leader like that?The history books are filled with examples of countries destroyed by charismatic and strong leaders with vision. Peace and prosperity is boring. It attracts only dull boring grey men. I'll take the grey men thank you.

That figure is extremly suspect because it does not say how they calculated the amount of 'money not returned'. It is easy to inflate such figures by over estimating the amount 'paid' by Alberta and under estimating the benefits received. Quebec seperatists are masters at this kind of financial deception - they actually believe that Quebec pays more into the federation than it receives! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> And the SPA has no reason to want to inflate this figure right? Even still, Alberta does generate a surplus. How big or how small it is, isn't all that important.

Again, you dodge the argument. And if you knew anything about Canadian politics, you might know that Ontario has a long, long history of voting conservative. Ontario has no love of the Liberal Party. Now if Albertans can stop railroading the Conservative party into a clone of the Republican party in the USA, then it might be possible for Ontario to vote conservative once again. But so long as the Alberta-Reform wing has control of the conservative party and spouts anti-gay, anti-immigrant message, the party will be doomed to the backbenches and locked out of Ontario and Quebec.

But what's the point here? It is already a long established fact that Ontario and more recently, Alberta, pay more to the Federal Government than they receive back in Federal government services. No one disputes the fact of this in general (except Quebec separatists who need to ignore such facts to make their argument). So what's the point? Ontario has paid large surpluses to Ottawa every year going back to about 1920. The existance of this fact does not constitute or produce a conclusion of separation.

Fortunate perhaps for the others, though I'm sure I'm not the only one around here with a good education.Unfortunate for you it seems since your arguments seem to be based entirely upon erroneous information and irrational arguments.

The only thing worse than someone slagging the Canadian medicare system as socialism and therefore evil, is someone who thinks the Canadian medicare system is the best in the world. Both views are dangerous. Reality is, Canada's medicare system is mediocre by any standard of comparison and there are huge areas in need of improvement. Doctor's control over the process is I suppose one thing, though a very unimportant one since I'm suggesting that they have already been long taken out of the loop and turned into pill-salesmen. Pill-salesmen make poor managers of one's health since for every problem, the only solution is to sell pills.

Tell this to Myron Thompson, et al.If the Reform/Conservative party wants to be taken seriously, they have to seriously distance themselves from a half-dozen senior members of the party who consistently and constantly make anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-Quebec, anti-everything comments. Until then, they shall be tarred with a wide brush. Nothing the Reform/Conservative party is accused of supporting has been made up. Every negative thing they are accused of supporting can be found to be widely supported by the party. If the shoe fits... or until Harper hangs one of these rednecks out to dry (which he has most certainly not done). Caroline Parrish went off the rails and spoke outside the playbook and got kicked out of the Liberal party for her troubles. How about Myron Thompson?

Your condescention is amusing. Your rebuttal is also non-existent. No surprise, I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Btw, I prefer the title of philosopher as I have higher degrees in that discipline that in poli-sci.

Why? The Toronto Star is quite successful in selling advertising pages. What more could you possibly want from a newspaper? Like, what else do newspapers do? Is there any other standard for judging newspapers? Either they are successful in selling advertising pages or they are not. The ultimate perfect newspaper is one with only advertising in it and no editorial crap. No doubt our corporate masters are still working on this one. On this basis, I should think the people who need to find a better hobby might be those who rant about newspapers successfully selling advertising. Talk about a waste of time. Are you suggesting that the Toronto Star ought to not sell advertising pages? Are you an investor in this corporation or a competitor?

Actually, depending on how much you know about statistics and polling - 44% and 52% are pretty much the same thing. Change a word or two in the question or change the word order and you can have that much swing. Change the order of the offered choice answers and you can swing the results that much. If you use a nice confusing poll question with "partly satisfied" or "mostly satisfied" or "totally satisfied" (and the negative opposites) you can really swing the results in any direction you want. And spinning the results in the direction you want is the whole purpose of polls. Polls are not used to measure public opinion or to inform the government what the people want (or don't want). Polls are published in the hope of creating the desired opinions (to make them real, as it were). Thus, large amounts of money and efforts are expended to construct polls in just the right way to support the chosen political agenda.

This lesson has been on the table for 30 years. The NDP have ignored it at every opportunity. Indeed, the same lesson is on the table for the Conservatives now for 15 years. They apparently are doing their best to ignore it. Bottom line is, addressing the electorate is considered secondary to ideological purity. Apparently ideological purity is of the highest importance.

Would you prefer the American model of healthcare? Doctors are just pill-salesmen now. Cures are not profitable, endless treatments are extremely profitable. I wonder which our free enterprise system prefers to deal with?

Without a doubt, Jack Layton is rather television-friendly and in person he's extremely likeable. Neither is apparently true with Harper. No doubt if ideology were put aside, Layton would probably be the next Prime Minister.

Trade disputes with the USA have nothing to do with merit or fairness. It is all about political clout. The lumber industry in the USA is particularly powerful, thus Canadian lumber is tariffed to protect domestic industry - regardless of trade agreements. Sure they lose in court (again and again) but they just keep doing it because they can. As far as I understand the Canadian government position here, is that softwood lumber is too small to worry about. Fact is, the Americans don't dispute 90% of our trade and that's what's important. If they twitch over softwood lumber, that's a small price to pay. So we fight them in the tribunals, win every time, but still the Americans tariff softwood lumber. Why? Because they have the political clout in Washington that enables them to do so.

An excellent question that is far deeper than you might expect. Theoretically nothing. However, our corporate masters would all loose their jobs and that is apparently unacceptable. Ergo, 1% or 2% annual growth in our economy (if only from importing people) is critically important to prove that our econonic system works. The system doesn't actually work and 0 growth would prove that, but 1% or 2% growth from immigration is enough for all the capitalists (and the politicians and the voters) to believe that corporate capitalism is good for the country. And war is good for profits. No. Capitalism will consume the planet and all the entrepreneurs too if you let it. What capitalism does best is to bribe governments to control/close/regulate their markets to their satisfaction. A little of both. The ebbs and flows are there for the entrepreneurs to surf. The rest is rigged by the government for the benefit of the largest corporations who abhore free markets as unprofitable. The most profitable markets are those that are regulated by governments to keep the riff-raff for the benefit of the inside players. Massacre? I'm help defend you viewpoint as it is an interesting and important one. The question is, to whose benefit is society run? Your question indicates that you are beginning to figure out the answer and it is not a pretty one because the answer is not "us".

I'm a little confused here. Harris is responsible for emmissions eminating from the US? That sounds unlikely. It also sounds unlikely that Ontario Power Generation went out of their way to make their emmissions dirtier after the laws were changed. I'm familiar with the way the company works, and this sounds like a PR nightmare that they'd want to avoid at all costs. What's confusing. Ohio valley is the number one source of smog in Ontario. Ontario Hydro is the second primary source.And avoiding bad PR is what investments in PR and media management is all about. No different than now with public sector unions threatening to strike. That is all public sector unions are capable of apparently - threatening to strike. They were doing that in 1995, they were doing it in 2000 and they're doing it in 2005. If I remember correctly, public sector unions have been striking and threatening to strike pretty much constantly since the early 1970's.But the fact is, general apathy and hatred of the Ontario government seemed to have hit a high note under Harris and has never recovered it seems. This is Harris' most long term contribution to Ontario politics - a culture of extreme partisanship of the American variety.

Not quite correct. You have your bogeymen mixed up here. Certainly the healthcare unions would oppose any private enterprise, but that is expected - unions are anti-private enterprise and anti-competition. However, the doctors are generally pro-private market practice in Canada. The constituentcy that is most solidly supporting the status quo are always the politicians and the bureaucrats and, most importantly, the electorate.

BANG!! That's the sound of hitting the nail right squarely on the head. Agreed from this redneck 100 percent. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The 'Greatest Generation"? The ones who have milked our system to the max for their own benefit and profited from every possible lucky break? (Real Estate & CPP specifically). Are those the ones you are praising? Credit where credit is due, but lets get the facts straight first. Btw, what happened to this thread discussion? Seems lost and wandering all over the place.

It appears the Liberals have the 'incumbant' advantage. When people are feeling good about their lives and the economy they really don't like to kick the people in charge out. When Gomery was in the news it sounded like a good reason to get rid of the Liberals but it faded as people went back to their lives. Any opposition leader would have a tough time in these circumstances. If the CPC had elected a Joe Clark clone instead of Harper they would be equally low in the polls and people would blame them for not differentiating themselves from the Liberals in policy. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I disagree. The Conservatives ought to be doing quite well right now. However, so long as they are (legitimately) bagged with the tag of anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-equality, anti-Ontario, anti-Quebec and anti-Maritimes, we will be stuck with the Liberals ruling. Go figure.

Really? If this were true, I should think they'd be asking for the gun laws to be repealed. Okay, we now know where you stand. Your sexuality is apparently comprimised by the peaceful existance of homosexuals. Hmmm....

What a ridiculous post. There is room enough for Gay Pride parades and Miss Universe in Toronto. City Hall seeks to be prim and proper, the Gay community has no such pretensions. If Miss Universe wishes to attend the Gay Pride parade, she may do so topless if she likes. Speaking of tolerance... Why is it only bigots who rant about tolerance?