normanchateau

Another candidate for a Harper cabinet position...

The same arguments could be made about the law which makes it a hate crime to promote or advocate the murder of people based on their religious beliefs. As you must be aware, religious writings frequently advocate murder based on religious beliefs. Yet Harper has no objections whatsoever to hate crime legislation which makes it a crime to promote or advocate genocide based on religious beliefs.

Agreed. In fact, the healing power of prayer has been studied through rigorous controlled experiments and some of the evidence indicates that prayer works whereas other evidence indicates that it does not: http://jimbtucker.blogspot.com/2006/08/pra...ve-results.html One thing is certain. You will never find a bright and enlightened evidence-based theologian in a Harper cabinet. Approximately half of the MPs in Harper's caucus are religious conservatives: http://www.dennisgruending.ca/pulpitandpolitics/?p=72

Stephen Harper voted against Bill C-250, the legislation which made it a hate crime to promote or advocate the murder of homosexuals. At the time, Harper claimed that C-250 would take away the religious rights of Canadians to discriminate against homosexuals. In other words, Harper thought it necessary to protect the freedom of speech of churches to discriminate against homosexuals. Accordingly, Liberal Member of Parliament Derek Lee proposed an amendment to C-250 which was adopted. "It creates a defense from prosecution for opinions expressed 'in good faith' or based on a belief in a religious text" like the Bible. http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_hat6.htm The amendment clearly allows churches to discriminate and protects the Bible. Despite that, Harper voted against C-250 even after it was amended. Harper uses free speech as an argument to allow religious extremists to discriminate against homosexuals but has no use for free speech when it suits his political purposes as in the Galloway case. Hypocrite Harper has yet to reveal where he stands on free speech in general. Does anyone on this board seriously believe that Harper opposes the Canadian hate crime legislation which makes it a crime to promote or advocate the murder of people based on their religious beliefs? Why only invoke free speech when homosexuals are involved as opposed to the religious rights of Christians and Jews?

I think the Conservative decline Canada-wide is relatively small. The exciting news is that the Liberals are moving up into numbers that they've not seen for a while. The bad news for Conservative supporters is that they're unlikely to move higher as long as Harper leads the Conservatives and Ignatieff leads the Liberals.

So you think M.T. should have not been charged with a crime? See below: http://www.thestar.com/Unassigned/article/606068 Is advocating or encouraging murder not a crime in your opinion?

Scientists are not the only professionals whose discipline is evidence-based. For example, physicians are evidence-based.

Wasn't it Stephen Harper who used "free speech" as his rationale for voting against Bill C-250, the legislation which made it a hate crime to promote or advocate the murder of homosexuals? If Harper can use free speech to advocate for his Evangelical Christian homophobic beliefs, why can't his critics use free speech for their purposes?

March 21 Nanos Research Poll Federal party preferences of committed voters (Canada) Liberal 36% Conservative 33% NDP 13% Bloc 10% Green 8% Federal party preferences of committed voters (Ontario) Liberal 44% Conservative 31% NDP 14% Green 10% Federal party preferences of committed voters (Quebec) Liberal 32% Conservative 19% NDP 7% Bloc 36% Green In Western Canada from February to March, Conservatives and NDP each decline by 3%, Greens up by 2% and Liberals up by 4% http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls...T-W09-T362E.pdf

What's bizarre here is that he hired the investigator in the first place then impeded him from doing his job.

I doubt that he's a creationist. Far more troubling is that Harper would make a quack the Minister of Science and Technology. Check out these sites for chiroquackery: http://www.quackwatch.org/ http://www.chirobase.org/ Creationist or not, why is this quack charged with the task of reducing funding to world-class scientists? Why not have a Science Minister whose professaion is evidence-based rather than belief-based?

Yes, and sure enough here's what "economist" Harper is now doing to the very watchdog he hired to oversee the budget: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...PStory/National

So Martin increased spending by 14% and Harper by 14.8%: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...-the-state.aspx I suppose the difference is negligible but how does this make Harper a conservative? Sure, he's an Evangelical Christian anti-libertarian social conservative but aren't Conservatives also supposed to stand for fiscal conservatism?

I agree. Do you agree that October was more of a buying opportunity than November-February?

Particularly in 2008? Do you not remember the outrageously high spending in the 2007 budget? The 2007 budget committed billions of new dollars to be spent in 2008, 2009 and 2010. "With this 2007 budget, Jim Flaherty officially becomes the biggest-spending finance minister in the history of Canada. It’s true. The $200-billion Mr. Flaherty proposes to spend this year [2007] works out to about $5,800 for every citizen. Even after you adjust for increases in prices and population, that’s more than the Martin government spent at its frenetic worst, when it was almost shovelling the stuff out the door. It is more than the Mulroney government spent in its last days, when it was past caring." Source: http://andrewcoyne.com/columns/2007/03/fla...ig-spenders.php Long before the current recession, Harper was driving us toward a deficit by spending far more than he took in. History will show that Harper's financial mismanagement and imprudence damaged Canada more than the free spending of his predecessors.

Being Jewish, Moses didn't eat bacon and according to the Old Testament, Moses lived to the age of 120...

You've touched on one of the reasons why Preston Manning fired Harper as Finance critic. It wasn't merely because of Harper's incompetence that Manning fired him and that Harper quit Reform and headed off to the anti-national health plan, National Citizens Coalition.

I wonder how much of that money was Conrad Black's versus money stolen from Hollinger shareholders. Given his MO, I suspect little of it was Black's. Depending on the statute of limitations, Hollinger shareholders might want to see if Peter MacKay would repay them. I imagine Joe Biden would not be touting MacKay to NATO if he knew that MacKay received a small fortune from conservative jailbird Conrad Black.

And besides dead pig, Jesus also threw the door wide open to prawns, lobsters, crabs, squid, scallops and a bunch of other good fare which those who don't recognize him as the Messiah are prohibited from eating to this very day. They'd love him in China if they weren't such materialist, godless atheists. :angry:

Bad and perhaps fatal for those who'd like to see a Conservative majority government.

There's zero chance that sleazy Harper would ever do this. His party benefits most from the tax credit and the interests of his party and himself will always come before the interests of the majority of Canadians.

I suspect one's religious beliefs might influence one's answer, e.g., Christian vs Jewish or Muslim. For those with no religious beliefs, one must rely on inferences and preferences rather than blind faith. Since Jews and Muslims believe they can't eat bacon and Christians and atheists can, Jesus sounds reasonably messiah-like.

Seems like a good idea to me. If it had been in place a few years ago, Conrad Black would not have paid off Peter MacKay's loans, and Peter Mackay might not have needed to repay Black by killing the PCs.

The right of centre vote has indeed been relatively consistent: 2008 election Conservative votes =5,205,334 % of votes=37.6% 2006 election Conservative votes =5,374,071 % of votes=36.3% 2004 election Conservative votes =3,994,682 % of votes=29.6% 2000 election Alliance and PCs combined =4,843,927 % of votes=37.7% 1997 election Reform and PCs combined =4,959,785 % of votes=38.2% For CPC to win a majority in the next election, they will need a leader who is a social moderate, not someone who pretends to be in order to hang on to power. They do not need a religious fundamentalist who is apparently homophobic, anti-stem cell research, anti-abortion, former Reform/Alliance/Northern Foundation member and former President of the National Citizens' Coalition.

One small step to curb their spending: http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotian/1111410.html