normanchateau

It's only those who don't like Harper, didn't vote for him and never would, who have an issue with the appointment of Fortier. It's only those who blindly love Harper, who would vote for him no matter how much incompetence, social conservatism and hypocrisy he exhibited, who would not have an issue with the appointment of Fortier. However, the clear minded and sane would probably temper their criticism with an analysis of the unalterable circumstances at the time. Obviously I forgot that only sane and clear-minded people support the actions of a hypocritical, incompetent prime minister...

Did you even bother to read the link that you posted? It was not a church and the couple had booked and paid before they were told that they could no longer have the hall. The tribunal which awarded them damages said if the hall owners had found them another hall, there would have been no damages. The tribunal never suggested that the Catholic owners of the hall MUST rent them the hall.

Do you seriously believe that the Concordia professor's review of more than 100 published studies was based on studies performed in Canada?

I'm not sure if the jury is still out but there's certainly no shortage of evidence based on previous statements and voting behaviour. There's no evidence which I'm aware of to suggest that those previous statements and votes no longer reflect his current beliefs. Voting behavior? How many votes has there been on sociual conservative issues? When Harper was leader of the Official Opposition, he voted against making it a hate crime to advocate or promote the killing of homosexuals. The Liberals, NDP and BQ voted for Bill C-250 which made that a hate crime. Even some members of Harper's own party voted for C-250. Harper voted against it even though he has no problem with hate crime legislation per se when it applies to religion and race.

It's only those who don't like Harper, didn't vote for him and never would, who have an issue with the appointment of Fortier. It's only those who blindly love Harper, who would vote for him no matter how much incompetence, social conservatism and hypocrisy he exhibited, who would not have an issue with the appointment of Fortier.

libcon is my phrase for the doublespeak of the governing party, the liberalsandconservatives, Interesting concept. Do you view the governing party as libcons because they've abandoned fiscal conservatism or are there other government actions or policies which deserve them being labelled in this way?

I disagree. The reason Steve is PM right now is because of Liberal actions, not voter trust. Too many scandals, the tipping point being the very public declaration by the RCMP of an investigation into Ralph Goodale. The Liberals were so unpopular when Harper won, that it's a miracle that the Conservatives did not win a majority. If CPC weren't saddled with a socially conservative leader, they could have attained that majority. But they remain in denial that its Harper himself who prevents them from a majority.

What's libcon?

Who said they would be? You are not exactly the same as your neighbour and you both grew up in mom and dad homes. In fact , havng two moms might mean the kid is better........could that happen? Sure could. And the other way around. Funny thing about kids, there are no guarentees they will turn out great. And, Norman, why don't you provide some links to show how 'often' a couple has an unplanned baby. "48 percent of pregnancies in the US are "unplanned." Of those unplanned pregnancies, 47 percent end in abortion, 40 percent are carried to full term, and 13 percent end in miscarriage. Advocates of abortion often argue that to decrease abortions, unintended pregnancies must be reduced through increased access to contraceptives. But the Guttmacher Institute's own research indicates that 53 percent of women who have unintended pregnancies used a contraceptive method during the month they got pregnant." http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=38639

Who said they would be? You are not exactly the same as your neighbour and you both grew up in mom and dad homes. In fact , havng two moms might mean the kid is better........could that happen? Sure could. And the other way around. Funny thing about kids, there are no guarentees they will turn out great. Uh, the STUD Y said they would turn out the same. "A few studies suggest that children with two lesbian mothers may have marginally better social competence than children in 'traditional nuclear' families."

Even Harper can't fool all of the people all of the time. It matters not that he wants a majority. He'd have to fool far too many people into believing he's someone that he's not.

Depends on how you define modern times. It certainly happened in the twentieth century. The fact that it doesn't happen now is because society evolved and churches responded. But churches still have the right to refuse marriage to whoever they want to refuse. They can even refuse marriage if you're dressed inappropriately.

In fact , havng two moms might mean the kid is better........could that happen? Sure could. I'm not sure if the professor who wrote the review considered this but here's one possible reason why two moms might sometimes be better. When two women decide to have a child, it's usually a well, thought out decision rather than an accident. When a man and woman have a child, often it's unwanted, i.e., an unplanned pregnancy. It's no surprise to anyone that wanted children would have more supportive parents than unwanted children. There's a higher probability of the offspring of a man and a woman having an unwanted child than two woman having an unwanted child. Having said this, I hope the social conservatives on this board don't interpret this as me saying or advocating that two moms are better than a mom and a father. That's not at all what I'm saying.

I didn't realize it either. Don't the complainers know that churches decide who they will marry? Churches can decide not to marry a Catholic and a Protestant. Or a Catholic and a Jew. Or a Caucasian and an Asian. They can discriminate on the basis of religion, race or sexual orientation. It's their God-given right.

No, are you? No, my suggestion is that he supports the government on this because he's not a hypocrite.

Here's the situation today: It's been over 3 months since the deadline and the line ups became long and well publicized. It takes 3 months to get your passport by mail. Every single person in the line today has no one to blame about standing in line except for themselves. Do you agree? The point of the editorial was that no cabinet minister was taking responsibility or even responding or even pretending to care. Apparently you agree that no one is responsible other than those standing in line. What if a person only discovered today that they needed a passport because of a death of a relative outside of Canada, or a job interview, or whatever?

but then he will never have to rely on the integrity of the civil service because his party will never for a government. Are you suggesting that Stephane Dion supports Stephen Harper on this because Dion does expect his party to form the next government?

In today's Vancouver Sun, Stephane Dion is described as defending the government's position on this issue: "Baird said on Wednesday the arrest sent a message that public servants have a duty and responsibility to protect confidential information, dismissing suggestions that Monaghan was a whistleblower. The RCMP said he could be charged under the Criminal Code for violating workplace security clearance. Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has defended the government's position, but the NDP compared the tactics to Nineteen Eighty-Four, the fictional novel by George Orwell. "Canadians remember the good old dark days when the Conservative government simply fired whistleblowers and public servants who did not agree with government policy," said NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen in the Commons. "Now, the government simply calls in the police and puts them in handcuffs." Monaghan (the fired civil servant)described the government's approach as hypocritical. "Our society knows the threat presented by the changing climate, global warming, and the rapidly increasing growth of industrial emissions. We deserve real action, not cynically calculated PR campaigns and witch hunts on public servants." http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/st...534b66e0c32&p=2 Doesn't Stephane understand the concept of hypocrisy? He needs to say the opposite of what he believes now then he can flip flop AFTER becoming Prime Minister. It worked for Stephen.

No, the guy who got it through the access to information act hasn't bothered to let the unwashed masses actually touch it, apparently. He wants us to take his word for it. Aside from the fact they didn't do any of their own research, just handpicked studies they liked, and aside from the fact they only spent $25,000 on it, it seems pretty balanced. NOT You appear to be claiming that the Concordia professor and graduate students handpicked the more than 100 rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific studies that they cited in their review. This suggests that there's a bunch of scientific studies which provide contradictory conclusions which were intentionally not cited in their review. Care to provide references or citations to those contradictory studies?

The Vancouver Sun endorsed the Conservatives in the last federal election. The following editorial appeared in today's Vancouver Sun: Politicians dive for cover rather than discuss passport mess Vancouver Sun Published: Friday, May 11, 2007 "Apparently, it's not just Passport Canada bureaucrats who fiddle while the agency crashes and burns. Cabinet members also seem to have no interest in serving the public. The Vancouver Sun newsroom has tried in vain to reach both senior bureaucrats and politicians, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, to discuss the issue, only to be given the runaround time and again. The Sun editorial board decided to try its luck, but didn't fare any better than the newsroom. We began with Day, who, in addition to being a cabinet minister, is the member of Parliament for Okanagan-Coquihalla. You'd think he'd be interested in talking to British Columbians through the province's largest newspaper. Through rain and sunshine, darkness and light, applicants take their place in line outside the Sinclair Centre passport office in Vancouver. Evidently not. Day's office informed us that the minister is just too busy to come to The Sun offices. We offered to confer with him by phone, any time in May. That was a no-go as well, because Day's calendar is apparently booked so solid that he can't even take a phone call for at least a month. Having failed with Day, we contacted MacKay's office and asked for a meeting, but were told that the request would have to be in writing. Although many ministers in previous governments never required written requests, we complied with the instructions, and eventually heard from someone in MacKay's constituency office in Nova Scotia. The representative informed us that he had been told to call us, but that he didn't know anything about the particulars of our request. So we explained we'd like to talk to MacKay about Passport Canada, among other things. The rep then said he'd have to contact someone in Ottawa, who would get back to us. Next it was MacKay's press secretary Andre Lemay's turn to phone. His message: The minister is "completely booked," but might have some time to talk to Sun editorial writers in mid-June. Just as we've had no luck contacting Passport Canada CEO Gerald Cossette or Hal Hickey, the agency's director for the western region, it looks like we're not going to hear from cabinet ministers while the Passport Canada crisis continues either. This refusal to accept responsibility for the mess is even more galling given that the mess never had to happen. More than a year ago, Day mused that maybe Canada should consider issuing passports valid for 10 years, as is done in the United States, Britain and many other countries, rather than five. But no action was ever taken, which led to the current situation. Even with the five-year passports, the government had plenty of advance warning about implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which requires Canadians traveling by air to the U.S. to present a valid passport. In fact, Auditor-General Sheila Fraser warned the government last year that it wasn't prepared for a surge in passport applications. Naturally, little was done. Thanks solely to the inaction and negligence of cabinet members and bureaucrats, Passport Canada is overwhelmed. Yet those very politicians and bureaucrats are unwilling to talk to Canadians about the situation and what they plan to do about it, if anything. Remember that the next time you go to the polls and politicians tell you what a great job they're doing."

Here's what Flaherty said in March when he delivered the budget: "We’re putting an end to the practice of corporations borrowing in Canada to fund business operations abroad, then using the interest deductions to offset Canadian income. It is a practice that has resulted in Canadian taxpayers indirectly subsidizing the foreign operations of multinational corporations, and paying the price in reduced business activity and job losses in Canada. No more. The interest expense on debt incurred to acquire shares of a foreign affiliate will no longer be deductible." A complete flipflop by the Conservatives in response to pressure from Big Business.

Social competence is a pretty wide net that captures pretty much every quality that matters, as far as I can see. What other areas were you thinking of? That's what I'm concerned about. This 'study' is only 74 pages, and yet uses wide sweeping terms to encompass it's findings. Yet it's only 74 pages, and they didn't do any of their own research. The research involved was to review more than 100 published studies on the topic. It's called a review of the published literature. Do you know of any published literature which contradicts the conclusions of this review? How many studies would need to be published before you'd believe the conclusions of the review?

What's the hateocracy? Government by those who hate?

What do you mean by "forthcoming as to financial matters?"