normanchateau

It would be interesting to see how Harper would have handled this if Quebec had an oil and gas industry. One of the reasons why the Maritimes, British Columbia and other provinces were screwed by the new equalization formulas was so that Harper could crow about giving Quebec another 4 billion. No wonder Duceppe voted for the budget. No wonder Charest could give Quebecers tax cuts.

Just because only 36% of Canadians voted for Stephen Harper doesn't mean the wishes of the other 64% should be ignored.

"What I found interesting is that even among committed Conservative supporters, or the group that support the mission the most, only 26 per cent think there is a high chance of success." Source: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/features...0fd63f5&k=71351

Ottawa drops "no apology, no compensation" hard line Vancouver Sun Published: Sunday, June 03, 2007 OTTAWA - The Harper government has quietly dropped the previous Liberal regime's "no apology, no compensation" hard-line in negotiations with ethnic groups seeking redress for past wrongs despite warnings that it would open the door to a possible flurry of claims. In government documents obtained by CanWest News Service through the Access to Information Act, the federal government was recently advised that the new approach "may advance calls for apologies/redress" and that there was the "potential for other presently unknown communities to seek recognition." "A number of other communities are known to have been impacted by wartime measures and/or immigration restrictions including: Austro-Hungarians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Doukhobors, Germans, Hutterites, Indo-Canadians, Jews, Mennonites, Turks, etc..." says the briefing under the heading Other Impacted Communities. In an interview with CanWest News Service, Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multicultural and Canadian identity, said the terms and conditions of the Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP) are still being finalized and will be made public "fairly soon" once the details are worked out completely. He acknowledged that the "no apology, no compensation" policy of the previous government has been dropped by the Harper government as it picks up where former prime minister Brian Mulroney left off in 1988 with the Japanese-Canadian redress case that involved a full apology and a $422-million compensation package. Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized about a year ago to Chinese Canadians for the country's racist immigration policies of the past, including the head tax once charged by the federal government to newly arriving immigrants from China. The payments come out of the Harper government's $24-million CHRP, which drops the Martin government's "no apology, no compensation" policy. As well, consultations and a report by Conservative MP Jim Abbott, who is parliamentary secretary to Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda, have been completed for the government on the Komagata Maru ship incident in 1914 which saw 376 Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus forced back to sea by a Canadian warship at Vancouver harbour. The documents say the Conservatives have also created a new four-year $10-million National Historical Recognition Program to "provide a federal government narrative that presents an objective point of view on the history linked to wartime measures and/or immigration restrictions." "I shouldn't be made to feel culpable for what my great-grandparents may have thought, say about Asian immigration. But the Canadian state has a responsibility to face up to those moments in our history when we allowed unjust policies to focus on particular ethnic communities," said Kenney. Source: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.h...7c606c5&k=65329 Many in the Vancouver Sikh community are demanding that the government apologize for the Komagatsu Maru incident. Apparently the Conservatives are considering this according to documents obtained by the Vancouver Sun under the Access to Information act. But that incident involved Canada refusing to allow into Canada an entire boatful of illegal immigrants. Why does Canada need to apologize for not allowing illegal immigrants into the country? Why do we today refuse entry into Canada of illegal immigrants yet feel that we need to apologize for refusing entry to illegal immigrants in 1914? Beyond courting the Sikh vote, does Harper have any rational or principled reason for doing this? Shouldn't apologies be reserved for those who suffered racial injustice after moving to Canada?

You might want to read this book: http://www.amazon.com/King-James-Letters-H...e/dp/0877456690

Sounds remarkably like the same honourable MacKay who promised that his party would never merge with the Canadian Alliance and called his ex a dog.

Almost as bad as Harper appointing his unelected friend, party fundraiser and former campaign manager to the Senate.

The list of Conservative accomplishments in the past 16 months fails to note that they raised the personal income tax rate on July 1, 2006 for all Canadians though it had the greatest impact on those in the lowest tax bracket. There were are a few other missing "accomplishments": # Program Spending up 7.9% in 2006/07 and projected to rise by 5.7% in 2007/08 # Three dollars of spending for every dollar of tax relief in fiscal ’07 Federal government spending on all programs increased from $175.2-billion to $189.0-billion in 2006/07, this represents the third largest increase in percentage terms at 7.9% and the second largest jump in dollars since the budget was balanced in 1997/98. Program spending is budgeted to jump another 5.7 per cent in the upcoming year fiscal 2007/08 to $199.6-billion. "Rather than reduce the overall tax burden, the Conservative government opted to spend down the federal surplus,” said CTF federal director John Williamson. “Program spending is up 7.9% as a result of the finance minister wildly overshooting his original 2006 budget target of 5.3% an astounding 50%. As such, there is little reason to believe Mr. Flaherty will hit next year’s budgeted spending boost of 5.7%.” When the 2006 Budget was tabled in May 2006, Williamson observed, “If the government is capable of reducing spending in its non-priority areas and holding growth in others, the Conservatives will be able to offer broadly-based income tax relief in next year’s budget.” Today, he notes, “The government tabled a budget that dramatically increases the size of the state. As a result, the tax relief is neither broad-based nor all inclusive.” The 2007 Budget limits tax relief to low-income Canadians, families with children, and it reaffirms already announced tax breaks for seniors, including pension splitting. The Conservative government opted against a broad-based personal income tax cut. Source: http://www.taxpayer.com/main/news.php?news_id=2515

Category (e) is to maintain the status quo. Harper actually campaigned on a platform of making it easier for immigrants to get in. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...ion2006&no_ads= I wonder if some Harper supporters merely rationalize this as one of those lies he needed to tell in order to get elected.

On the first goal, he doesn't stand a chance. If the Conservatives were lead by a social moderate and fiscal conservative, maybe. But Harper is just the opposite and Canadians are not about to hand a majority government over to a Mulroney-like big spender with socially conservative views. On the second goal, that was his stated goal for many, many years. But the hypocrite totally flipflopped two years ago and now claims to believe exactly the opposite of what he previously believed. Here's the link: http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?sto...050430091919834 Perhaps if he were to flipflop on his social conservatism...

It is? Why? Because it wasn't proposed by the Conservatives.

Just like placebos, false beliefs can indeed result in positive results. Unlike placebos, they can also lead to catastrophically negative results.

On the first goal, he doesn't stand a chance. If the Conservatives were lead by a social moderate and fiscal conservative, maybe. But Harper is just the opposite and Canadians are not about to hand a majority government over to a Mulroney-like big spender with socially conservative views. On the second goal, that was his stated goal for many, many years. But the hypocrite totally flipflopped two years ago and now claims to believe exactly the opposite of what he previously believed. Here's the link: http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?sto...050430091919834

Something tells you whatever angers you goes far beyond my posts or the "Steve" government. And what exactly is that something? A miniature, talking Stephen Harper homunculus permanently imbedded in the neuronal synapses of your auditory cortex?

A truly effective Senate, both equal and elected is preferable to abolishment. Equal? Do you really think that the chameleon-like Harper, who supported an "equal" Senate as a Reform MP and Leader of the Canadian Alliance, would now dare propose that PEI should have as many Senators as Quebec? Do you really think that the hypocrite who promised Quebec more than an additional four billion dollars next year, ensuring that the BQ supported the 2007 federal budget and allowing Charest to deliver a tax cut to Quebecers at the expense of the rest of us, has sufficient gonads to deliver additional Senate seats to British Columbia and Alberta at the cost of Quebec Senate seats? Do you really think that the man who said "As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed" maintains the same principles as the man who appointed his former campaign manager and Quebec Conservative party fundraiser to the unelected Senate?

Even an incompetent government eventually responds to pressure.

Did you know that King James (who commissioned the King James Bible and to whom it was dedicated) loved men and had sex with them? Source: http://regenluna.wordpress.com/2007/05/31/king-james-is-gay/ Perhaps commissioning bibles "is an anomaly brought to life by human immorality and viciousness."

That in itself is quite a ridiculous statement. Most parents introduce their children to religion because it's their own belief, I think Dawkins would agree completely that parents introduce or impose their religion on their children because it's their own belief. However, he would also argue that it's too early in life. Why would that be? Do they undertake potty training too early too? After all, it's merely a parent's personal belief that children ought not shit all over the living room floor and pee in the oven, eh wot? What about teaching kids "please" and "thankyou?" Ought that wait until a child's brain is fully developed too, lest they become abused by enforced politeness? If you view the need for childhood indoctrination in religious and other faith-based beliefs to be analagous to the need to be toilet trained or polite to others, then your point is well-taken. I suspect that Dawkins views childhood religious indoctrination as more analogous to the Communist or Nazi indoctrination of children which occurred in Soviet Young Pioneers or Hitler Youth.

Better still, the Canadian government should mete out Biblical punishments for violating religious rules written during the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Leviticus 24:16 has just the right punishment for taking the Lord's name in vain. Exodus 31:15 suggests the identical punishment for working on the Sabbath. How about exactly the same penalty in Exodus 21:17 for cursing at one's father or mother? Let's forget about secular law and use the New Testament, the Old Testament and for Muslims, the Koran. After all, people were so much wiser in the Bronze Age before the era of science and reason. *Zing* What was that mate? Just another strawman running by... I wouldn't necessarily characterize the Bible as a strawman. I'm not talking about the Bible. I was.

I think it'll take a while before the world accepts the notion that religious indoctrination of children is a form of child abuse. Countries like Iran and the US, where religion continues to exist in epidemic proportions, will be especially resistant to this notion. Re the video: "It would be unfair to single out the Muslim religion in this matter - the raison d'etre of all religious “faith-based” schools is to indoctrinate rather than to educate! This is not to deny that some of them have fine academic records, but those achievements are a by-product, window dressing, all part of the sales pitch to bedazzle parents into signing up their children for what may be years of insidious brainwashing." Source: http://www.smartsociety.org/religiousschoolschildabuse.html

Better still, the Canadian government should mete out Biblical punishments for violating religious rules written during the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Leviticus 24:16 has just the right punishment for taking the Lord's name in vain. Exodus 31:15 suggests the identical punishment for working on the Sabbath. How about exactly the same penalty in Exodus 21:17 for cursing at one's father or mother? Let's forget about secular law and use the New Testament, the Old Testament and for Muslims, the Koran. After all, people were so much wiser in the Bronze Age before the era of science and reason. *Zing* What was that mate? Just another strawman running by... I wouldn't necessarily characterize the Bible as a strawman.

I don't hear any Canadian politicians, right or left, demanding that we reinstitutionalize the mentally ill beggars that are on our streets. Getting beggars off the streets is a vote-getter but building new mental institutions is not.

I agree. That'd be the final nail on the coffin for Harper. Not a chance that he'd do this while he has a minority government.

That in itself is quite a ridiculous statement. Most parents introduce their children to religion because it's their own belief, I think Dawkins would agree completely that parents introduce or impose their religion on their children because it's their own belief. However, he would also argue that it's too early in life.

I've seen no Canadian data on this issue but in the US, there has been a dramatic increase in the past 10 years in the number of mentally ill pan handlers on the street. This has been frequently linked to deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and closure of hospitals in the late 90's, a situation which worsened during the 2002 and 2003 US recession. It happened statewide under both the Clinton and Bush administrations. I doubt that "leftie" Bush was motivated by leftist ideology. Here's more information: "The trend toward deinstitutionalization took over in the late 1990s and early 2000s, drastically reducing the number of state hospital beds for persons with severe mental illnesses and greatly changing the mental health services system. Excluding government-owned facilities, in 1995 there were 433 psychiatric hospitals compared to 315 in 1999. The number of beds shrank from 43,497 in 1995 to 29,937 in 1999. As nursing homes took over a bigger role in the delivery of mental health services, controversy arose as to the appropriateness of care for the mentally ill living in and seeking treatment in nursing homes. The situation worsened for the mentally ill during the recession in 2002 and 2003, when many mental health programs were being targeted for cuts statewide. Private insurers were not filling the gap left by government programs, with one study noting that the amount of resources devoted to psychiatric care among private insurers had dropped 54 percent in the 10-year period ending in 1998. Due to these reasons, several state mental hospitals were closing and private hospitals were filing for bankruptcy protection in mid-2002." Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/psychiatric-hospital