normanchateau

As depressing a thought as it is to imagine the Harper Conservatives being in power for years, I'd still not want to build a firewall around British Columbia. This is the kind of nation-destroying pettiness we've come to expect from Quebec, not the rest of Canada. Klein's vision was greater and he was absolutely right to reject Harper's proposal.

I don't know about Lord but Campbell is certainly liberal socially. He favours same-sex marriage, no penalties for marijuana possession, safe injection sites for heroin, etc. He's a fiscal conservative but if he were also a so-con like Harper, he'd not be Premier of BC. Vancouver is socially far more liberal than the rest of BC so he's an albatross to the Conservatives in Vancouver. Yet Vancouver had plenty of PC MPs in the past when they had social moderates as leaders.

Harper's support of the nationhood of Quebec is consistent with another whacky Belgium-like idea he had a few years ago: Alberta Agenda From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Alberta Agenda is a loosely-organized political movement initiated by a letter written by prominent Albertans, including future federal Prime Minister Stephen Harper and 2006 Alberta PC leadership candidate Ted Morton, urging Albertan Premier Ralph Klein to fully exercise Alberta's constitutional powers. The letter was published by the National Post on January 27, 2001, in the wake of the Alberta-based Canadian Alliance's defeat in the 2000 Canadian federal election. The letter has been referred to as the Firewall Letter from its use of the phrase "build firewalls around Alberta," a reference to the computer software programs which block unwanted intrusions from outside sources. Its main recommendations were: * Allowing the province's contract with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to expire in 2012, establishing a provincial police force to take the RCMP's place. Alberta had a separate police force from 1917 until 1932. * Withdrawal from the Canada Pension Plan and establishing a separate Alberta Pension Plan. Many Albertans believe that given the province's youthful demographics, staying in the CPP makes little sense since a separate "APP" would provide higher benefits for a lower premium. * Separate collection of the province's income tax, as opposed to letting the Canada Revenue Agency handle tax collection. Alberta already collects its own corporate tax. Klein personally responded to the letter, but rejected implementing the authors' requests for the duration of his premiership.

LifeSite maintains a list of all MPs who voted for and against the legislation which made it a hate crime to promote or advocate the killing of homosexuals. All NDP MPs, all BQ MPs, most Liberal MPs and 50% of PC MPs voted for the legislation. Harper and all Canadian Alliance MPs voted against it.

What excuses?

Human right violations in Central America. This was during Reagan's time. And despite Reagan's efforts to overthrow the government of Nicaragua, the people of Nicaragua have once again elected his nemesis, Daniel Ortega. Meanwhile, what's Ollie North up to? Link: http://alternet.org/story/44293/

I certainly don't know if is a good idea if it opens up the country to a prolonged constitutional debate. That's exactly why Harper supporters condemned the idea when they thought it was Ignatieff's idea. But Harper's had this idea since his Belgian days at least.

What???

Ignatieff was rightly criticized for proposing this idea. Today Ignatieff was proclaiming to the press that Harper got the idea from him. I don't think so. Harper has long had this nation-within-a-nation perspective. Who can forget Harper suggesting two years ago that Canada should adopt Belgium's trilateral style of federalism. For those who have forgotten, see the following: http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/columni...108_91853_91853 Maybe Ignatieff stole the idea from Harper two years ago...

Why do people feel the need to call each other idiots on this discussion board? It weakens the points they're attempting to make.

I am one of those people. My Vancouver riding some years ago had an excellent PC MP who consistently won the riding. But once Reform appeared on the scene and split the fiscal conservative vote, the riding went Liberal. It has remained Liberal ever since as local voters see a Harper-lead CPC as another version of Reform/Alliance. Almost the entire PC vote went to the Liberals. CPC can probably recapture that former PC vote by selecting a leader who is not perceived to be a so-con. Harper's well-established position on marijuana, lesbians and other issues will make it impossible for him to shake the so-con image even if he tried.

What evidence is there that he's a socialist? And if he's a socialist, why did the Ontario unions abandon him and why did he abandon the NDP?

I love it. Even when faced with the facts, some Harper supporters continue outrageously to deny that Harper raised the personal income tax rate from 15% to 15.5% on July 1, 2006. Anyone on this board who filed a T1 General tax return in 2005 can simply look at the page on the form labelled Federal Tax-Revised Schedule 1. The lowest income tax rate was 15% for all of 2005.

Harper will ignore what Manning and Harris have to say just as he did last year when Manning and Harris proposed scrapping the Canada Health Act. To his credit, Harper called last year's Manning and Harris proposal "naive" and "misguided". Story here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/20050509.html

Did he govern during a recession? Increased oil and gas revenues might have helped a little.

Sounds like grovelling to me. When a bully steals $5 from you, bloodies your nose and gives you back $4, he's still a thieving bully. When the bully in question pours money all over you every year you learn to make a few accomodations. Here's a hypothetical question. When China imports as much as the US does from Canada, would you feel the same way?

I don't think it is to the same degree. I don't think conservatives generally take the same tone towards Liberal PMs or leaders. This is a good example, Canadian Blue, of why the vicious cycle won't end. Those who criticize one side sincerely see the other side as being less objective and more biased.

Sounds like grovelling to me. When a bully steals $5 from you, bloodies your nose and gives you back $4, he's still a thieving bully. When the bully in question pours money all over you every year you learn to make a few accomodations. So do prostitutes.

Good point. As you probably know, both Great Britain and the US CIA were involved in organizing the overthrow of Mohammed Musaddiq and installing the Shah in 1953. Yet in 1951, Musaddiq was named Man of the Year for his achievements in Iran by Time Magazine. Were it not for the decades-long repressive regime of the Shah, who knows whether fundamentalist Islamic radicals would now be in charge of Iran. The current regime is a threat to the entire world. The Musaddiq regime was mainly a threat to the interests of British Petroleum.

You mean yesterday newspapers weren't there to make money? Tell that to Conrad Black. I would rather get to the bottom of it myself. With help from newspapers. I wouldn't use them as my only source. I would like to see an original document if at all possible. It also depends on where you get your info. If it's from ndp.ca, to use as an example, that would be a more biased source than a general newspaper article or a journal of some sort. You see where I'm coming from Normie? Yes I do now.

Ironically, some Muslim countries were far more evolved and humane than some European countries if you go back 500 years or so. For example, Jews escaping persecution in Europe were able to escape that persecution by settling in Islamic countries at that time. The pendulum will swing back though I doubt that it will be in our lifetime.

I see that you joined this discussion board only a month ago. Has it really changed that dramatically in such a short time? Your perspective differs from mine. I joined about a year ago then left the discussion board in December while my wife and I travelled to many different countries in Africa and Asia. I returned to the board last month. What I remember from last year is repeated vicious attacks on Paul Martin and the Liberals. Martin was regularly called Dithers and the Liberals were regularly called Libranos, Fiberals, crooks, scumbags or worse. The attacks all came from Harper supporters and the defense from Liberal supporters. To me, we're seeing exactly the same pattern now but in reverse. Your perception is that the criticism of Harper is increasing. It probably is increasing but that's because the longer he's in power, the more mistakes he'll make. The same was true of Paul Martin. The longer he was in power, the more mistakes he made. Let's face it. Most of us on this discussion board are partisan and we're well-informed political junkies. If we didn't enjoy arguing with each other, we wouldn't be here. In fact, we'd be fools to be here if we didn't enjoy it because it sure is a nonproductive activity. My wife regularly criticizes me for being on this board, pointing out that the chances of me changing the opinion of a Harper supporter are about as remote as the chances of a Harper supporter changing my opinion. Her view is that the typical undecided voter who will likely determine the outcome of the next election is unlikely to spend one minute on this discussion board. I try not to hurl insults at Harper supporters but I sure receive my share of insults. Honestly, the insults don't bother me. I feel supremely confident that the person who finds it necessary to hurl insults at me is frustrated, ill-informed, angry, losing the argument or some combination of the four. Perhaps if you reminded yourself of this, you'd be less bothered by the tone of other posters.

I know what some of the laws of Islam are, for example, their penalties for adultery, homosexuality, blasphemy, conversion to Christianity. Here's a link to some of their laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Dress_codes

You mean yesterday newspapers weren't there to make money? Tell that to Conrad Black.

Norm, That doesn't make sense to me. How can it be called bias if it changes from election to election. Editorials are supposed to reflect opinion and the fact that that opinion changes tells me that there's less bias than thought. To answer your question, I'd have to look at the detailed 2000 results broken down by news vs. opinions. I don't have that breakdown, only the composite data for 2000. But if you look at the 2006 data, you'll see that three of the seven newspapers actually were more negative with respect to the Conservatives on opinion but not on news. So we'd want to compare the 2000 opinion analysis with the 2006 opinion analysis. One takehome message from all of this is that the composite data (news and opinions) might result in different conclusions than analysis of opinions alone.