Slim MacSquinty

I thought the format was rather unfair to Harper who was simply ganged up on and attacked, I agreed with his comments after the debate that not much constructive came out of the other leaders it was mostly criticism not constructive. To his credit he remained calm, though somewhat disengaged from the debate. I thought although Dion seemed polite in terms of being less forceful in interupting, his words were hypocritical in that he made some very innacurate and personal accusations, which in my mind re-inforce his elitist distain for disenting opinion. May was hysterical. Jack didn't impress. Duceppe, because of his limited scope, always does OK. What I didn't like the most was there were a few things said, like Dion and may saying that the Canadain medical association had taken a particular position, Harper's attempt to rebut was interupted and he was unable to expain the Associations rebuttal of the Editorial (read opinoin) by one scientist published in its journal. It would have demonstrated the dishonesty of the accusation and the depth of manipulation by the Liberals. The other thing I find problematic is the young offender issue, harper clearly articulated that 14 year olds were neither going to adult prisons nor to be routinely tried as adults, yet it Dion, Duceppe and Layton continued to perpetuate the lie uncorrected by the moderator.

Reading that post I was waiting for phrases like the means of production, and proletariat, who in their right mind is going to allow the government to fiddle with prices, that is up to the market to decide, jeez can't we accept that we are capitalists? Oh and it is an oximoron to suggest government and efficiency in the same sentence.

It's irrelevant, there was no copyright, nor was Harper presenting this as his doctoral thesis. Therefore there is nothing wrong with using verbage which is relevant to the topic. This is a ploy by the Liberals to remind people of the speech which now can be used out of context as its five years old and much knowlege has been gained since then. Let hopes someone goes back and gets some good quotes from Mr. Rae, he's got lots of skeletons in his closet, rememder Rae days? He's changed his tune so many times he doesn't know if he's got spots or stripes. He's a boat without an oar or a tiller.

"By cutting funding to arts, culture, womans programs, doing nothing about poverty or the environment, and at the same time giving tax breaks to coroprations and making life easy for the eletes? Buddy, there's a reason why 60 to 65% of Canadians DON'T support the Cons and vote for left-of-center parties instead. " Arts funding has not been cut, only one programme was cut, I'm not happy having my money spent to send some actor to Cannes. They cut one womans programme, I'm heart broken. Keeping people employed and lowering their taxes is the best thing you can do about poverty. And they do indeed have an environmental policy, it just does't involve slitting our own throats. Dion is promising tax breaks too, but Jack should be careful trotting out his 30 year old party mantra, since many of the most profitable companies in Canada are owned by union pension funds. Why doesn't anyone remind the unionistas that the first thing the teachers pension fund did when it bought BCE is lay off hundreds of employees, good jobs, middle class jobs of people who have kitchen tables. People in Canada have been indoctrinated by the school system, the media and most of all by Liberal Government propaganda to beleive that socialism is a workable option. In univeristy most liberal arts profs. actually believe the Marxism was about economics. Dion, who is a Phd in sociology (university bird course) wherein Marx, Engals et al are taken seriously. The crux of sociology is that capitalism is unfair and that the only thing that can save humanity is socialism. Facts present little obstruction to these ridiculous teachings.

In 1957 Trudeau was nowhere on the political front, so don't give him credit for universal health care, which party brought it in? The Tories under Dief.

This is the dirtiest ploy yet by the Liberals, it certainly twists the facts as the coincident phrases among political speeches bears no comparison to plagiarism of a university paper. Their real motivation was to direct the electorates attention away from their incoherent campaign to an out of context five year old speech. Desperate times call for deparate measures, and the true Liberal colours come out. No suprise it came from Rae, who has a long displayed a lack of good judgement. Very interesting watching the various mud being slung by the Liberals, throwing in all directions hoping some will stick, I hope people look for the muddy hands.

Don't be jumping to conclusions, read a little more carefully, do you fund your own hospital? Six nations (Oshweken) recieved funding from numerous other ministries, such as health 5,008,258, Public safety 1,919,296, candian heritage founations 300,850 and I'm sure there was more money in other places, that really is not the point though. We transferred more federal money to indian affairs than the healthcare for all citizens of Canada, natives included, what does it accomplish? The sheer magnitude is astonishing, and the more you read, about all the handouts, the more frightening it becomes.

Here is something that may interest you, if you're a squeemish guilt ridden lefty this may make you feel better, if your relatively normal it will at least give you pause for thought. http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/recgen/txt/72-eng.html Go to PDF document of federal transfer payments. Some stats for those who are impatient: Federal transfers payments made by Ministry: Indian Affairs 5,334,520,927. Health 2,133,705,475. veterans 2,125,287,137. Transportation 1,721,344,093. Defence 195,718,956. Environment 62,190,015. Public Works 45,112,986. I will keep my judgement to myself, draw your own conclusions.

Many probably don't even realize that the Indian Act created segments of aboriginal people...off reserve, non-treaty, non-status, Bill C-31, who pay taxes like everybody else. The whole tax thing is a wash in gray and creates attitudes like Borg. What is boils down too, if a company, or, business was on reserve it would be tax-free. Gas and cigarettes are tax-free! All the other stuff regarding tax is BS. All the laws were written in the late 1800s when the boat people of Europe arrived and settled this country with aboriginals helping them when they got here. These laws are still in effect today. Self-government has become a general term as well and to me it is the elimnation of the huge bureacracy called Indian Affairs--which employs mostly non-aboriginal people in cities like Vancouver and Edmonton. Get rid of the DIA and you'll be eliminating all those jobs that feed of the DIA budget and the indians don't see that l money anyways...if the indians have it so good on the reserve then why don't people like Borg create a Federal Department of Non-ABoriginal Affairs and give himself all the so-called benefits? Certainly we all must agree that DIA has proved to be a failure for any number of reasons, as a white man I will not accept that natives in this country were treated poorly with a negative result as the intended outcome, but certainly paternalistic and in retrospect doomed to failure. Like the road to hell, the native situation is probably paved with good intentions, poorly executed. So slinging mud in each direction is not going to get anyone anywhere. There exists innumerable examples of barbaric treatment of nationalities throughout history, some of which continue to this day, many considerably worse than the treatment of natives in Canada, many canadians are here as a result of escape from slavery and/or genocide. If self governement gets rid of DIA then I'm all for it, however I think self government has to be offered with some conditions; whatever charter/ law or decree which enacts self governement must be universally applied across the country, it must insist that natives retain Canadian citizenship and the rights and obligations which come with it, and be subordinate to federal law. The self government model should have numerous limitations which which still will allow numerous areas of provincial and federal jurisdiction to be enforced (things like provincial highways, federal communications, coast guard, customs etc.) Finally by accepting the terms and financial or land considerations they must abandon all land claims. With any luck this could put an end to this debate.

By my reckoning Dalton has been whining for two years or more about how all that's wrong with Ontario is because of Harper, forgetting of course that it was the Libs who made deep cuts to transfers. The most comical of which when he began lecturing the eager media about his superior knowledge of the economy forgetting of course that Harper is actually an economist. All the while John Tory, who claims to be a conservative, sounds more like Maude Barlow, so what's Flaherty to do, sure he's a pugnatious Irish boy, but someone has to point out the obvious to pink bellied Ontarioans. The real evil deal here is Dion piping in with his divisive comments, hardly constructive and well outside his purvue, wouldn't you say?

Today's Toronto Star Article: http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/326411 "The finance minister is in a vendetta against a province (that) represents 40 per cent of the Canadian population and economy," Dion told the Star. "If it was happening in Quebec, we would have a revolution in Quebec against this government. The reaction would be everywhere." Harper, who was in Toronto yesterday to give a speech to the Economic Club, continued to criticize the economic policies of the provincial Liberal government without ever mentioning Ontario or Premier Dalton McGuinty. Harper blasted his political rivals for suggesting "that every problem demands an immediate response, an immediate, short-term, high-cost intervention or subsidization." That was a veiled swipe at McGuinty's call for Ottawa to match the province's $1.15 Next Generation of Jobs Fund to encourage manufacturers to keep and create work in Ontario. Harper urged provincial governments to eliminate capital taxes, lower corporate taxes and harmonize their sales taxes with the GST and singled out British Columbia, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island for praise, pointedly leaving out Ontario. What a stupid thing for the guy who wants to be Prime Minister to say, and left media keeps reporting on how smart he is and how he isn't partisan, what BS. First this article demonstrates extreme partisanship, he has to know that Harper and Flaherty are right on this one, however being a Liberal he has to a) support McGuinty (who is dead wrong) and advocate giving away my tax dollars to uncompetitive industries to gain votes. This is the perfect example of why this guy should never be Prime Minister, someone should tell him that Ontario, at one time, was the economic engine of the Country, but a lack of progress in productivity and a lack of capital investment is driving business away. Throwing money at unproductive business is not the long term answer, encouraging investment in greater productivity is the solution, unless we all want to work a Tim Horton's eventually. This guy is dangerous, he is arrogant, lacks a comprehensive understanding of the economy and perhaps the country itself and the more he talks the more I fear his socialist hidden agenda.

quote: No link to the original article (only the "reaction"), so can't comment on its own merits; however I agree that as long as it was made clear that the post was the opinion of the author only, and not that of the board, it should be left up to the electorate alone to judge the performance (including judgement) of any official in the next election. Board can issue it's opinion inc. disapproval of any such act but that's it period. No public ostrachism censorship expulsion execution because of political correctness. It should be made very clear to everybody who does not understand it already that this country is governed by law. The law that protects, among other things, the right of individual to express their opinion on any subjects - as long as that itself does not break the law. Countries that do not allow, or restrict these rights usually fare much worse than this country; that may be the reason why some people come here in the first place; they should then understand (or be helped in understanding, if need be) that this right, ultimately, works to their, and everybody's advantage, by exposing issues and problems that could otherwise be swept under the rug. Sorry when I originally posted I had read the letter but was unable to find the link, I believe Argus did post a link. I agreee with your opinion on the role of the law, however what bothers me is these organizations (the anti-racism groups and even the school board itself) are not referencing any law in their opposition to Gilchrist. It's as though their own sense of moral outrage (justified or not) is an adequate substitute and thereby justifies punishment. By calling him and ignorant racist and more they destroy his reputation since most of the public won't be bothered to read the original letter. In essence they become the morality police. Even worse in my mind is that even out in the sticks these are the people who run the school board, which just reinforces my opinion that the school system is less for education and more for the social manipulation of our children.

The following is an article from the Peterborough Examiner, local rather crusty school board trustee wrote a letter to the editor to a local paper, in which he railed against immigration this is the response: Posted By ANDREA HOUSTON Posted 14 hours ago Several local activists and community social groups have banded together to demand public school board trustee Gordon Gilchrist resign after writing a letter to the editor attacking immigration. Mike Ma, co-ordinator of Peterborough's Community and Race Relations Committee, said Gilchrist's remarks have caused pain to local immigrants and caused serious damage to the Peterborough area community. "Although we're happy the board censured him and condemned his remarks, we feel that it's just not enough," Ma said. rest of article DELETED by moderator; link to online article: http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/Art...y.aspx?e=929343 I find this whole scenario very interesting from a variety of veiwpoints, he may or may not have said some regretable things however it appears that "tow the line or else" is the prevailing attitude amongst his fellow trustees, is it desirable to have a perfectly monolithic attitude amongst a public body like the school board? The people who are preaching tolerance (rightful so since they preport to represent immigrants who apparently face intolerance) seem to have precious little tolerance themselves as I percieve a desire for a blood letting from the comments. Look at all the organizations that pipe in, this is in an area of Ontario that is so homogeneously white you can go for days without seeing a visible minority, it appears that the ratio of organizations per immigrant could be 1 to 12, hence the title racism inc. Is it just me or should a society that prides itself on pluralistic, multi-ethnic liberalism be less reactionary to opposing view points?

It protects a mother's right to give consent to pregnancy termination, and that's explicitly stated in the proposed bill, which would anathematize a pro-life campaigner. The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada still wants the bill voted down because it feels it's an "unconstitutional infringement on women's rights" and is calling for petitions against it. Isn't that a rather bazarre position? An infringment on a woman's right to be the victim of a crime?

A 40,000 what subdivision? 40,000 homes is a population of at least 120,000 people, wouldn't that double Winterpegs population? You really can't retro fit existing subdivisions, economically it can work in greenfield developments in blocks using common fields and a utility like delivery system but only if there is nearly 100 percent buy in. I have not seen any organization step up to act as the utility yet, but it is possible, condo developments would be ideal but the cost of land and zoing standards tend to encourage maximum housing density. How much food do you suppose we import now? How efficiently do we use farmland in this country now? Why don't we grow fresh vegatibles hydroponically locally? Ans. most, not very and because it remains more economical to import than adapt to hydroponics. The cost of transportation (even with todays fuel prices) doesn't stop Hersey and Kraft from closing production facilities in Ontario for chocolate bars and cereal and producing the same products in Mexico or the southern states to supply the Ontarion market. Under those same conditions it seems perfectly feasable to import foreign produced ethanol.

This is classic mud slinging politics, there is no depth that the Liberals will leave unplumbed, they can't imagine a judge convicting them since they've appointed most of them. They know they've got nothing but the more mud thrown the chance just a little will stick. They devastated the Mulroney Cons using the same tactic, yet all the ammo they used against him amounted to nothing, they kept the GST, they kept NAFTA and they used Michael Wilson's budget virtually word for word, all the stuff they used against the Cons. Joe Clarke same tactic, remember no tax on fuel, it only took a month for Trudeau to adopt Joe's plan, it's a proven strategy. On the other hand I do agree the Cons have disappointed on the transparency issue, my hypothesis is that Harper himself does not trust politicians and wishes to keep tight control, so on the one hand its been a very clean government, on the other we only get sanitized information. As far as partisanship goes I can image that he is looking over his shoulder a lot since the majority of the federal beauracray would find him distasteful as most of the higher ups would also be Liberal bent since they got there jobs under the Libs and they tend to be pro big governement.

I agree there are many applications for geo-thermal energy and it is best and most efficient when used for larger applications, I will probably go with it this summer, I've installed it before, also there are significantly better ways to build, but costs are 15 to 20 percent greater. I built a 1100 sqft home in Atikoken Ontario 15 years ago that could be heated comfortable with a domestic hot water heater all winter. Geo-thermal can't really work in typical subdivisions but industrial heat waste, central heating plants and large amounts of lake water could work extremely well in large urban centers. Quote: Even the government's own statistics show that if every piece of arable land was used to grow ethanol, it would not curb our need for oil. At most, some figures show that it could amount to 35 or 40% of our needs. But at what price? We wouldn't be growing our own food anymore. Worse, the price of energy is not going down so fueling your car would still be expensive but then so would your food be hugely expensive. All kinds of third world countries could become energy producers and compete with the Arab world, that would be good, farmers making money in Canada would also be good, if we could lower the use of oil by even 20 percent that would be a great first step. Food prices going up is not necessarily a bad thing, much of the world subsidizes their farmer's so the net effect would be zero, higher food prices vs. lower taxes.

You know what is perhaps more perverse than the Liberals lack of honest conviction is the fact that about 25 pecent of the electorate won't budge from supporting them. Although I don't agree with them, I can understand those who support the NDP and Greens, I can even understand the bargaining position philosophy of voting BLOC, but I just do not understand why people cling to the Liberals. Not in recent history have they stood for anything but green eyed envious pursuit of power, even back in the days of CD Howe when they made all their friends millionairs off the war effort. In my mind voting Liberal is like supporting the Czar, the NDP throwing your lot in with Lennon, I see parallels to class struggles of olden times.

That's a crock, they factored in every crazy thing they could think of like how much forest would be burned down to provide new forest in the third world, while they gave the oil industry a buy. Ethanol should theroretically be relatively carbon neutral as when the crop grows it absorbs carbon, as it's burned it releases no more than it absorbed except for processing (which does not necessarily require burning carbon based materials) and transport. The ecofreaks seem to suck and blow as they are critical of everthing except punishment for the developed western world. Ethanol is a great idea, it will be an excellent intermediate step between total dependance on oil and the transition to yet un-economical energy sources. The extra benefit is farming will finally become profitable and it might even make farmland valuable enough to prevent increasing urban sprawl. The earth may indeed be warming, only presumptious humans could assume they are responsible, climate data only goes back less than 200 years over the millions of years of earth history and therefore hardly produces a valuable trend. However that being said, all the pollution we pump into the air can't be good and we should take measures to minimize it, in addition oil is a finite resource we should be looking to replace, and one excuse to do so is as good as the other, just how draconian should we be?

The Star.Com Mar 03, 2008 01:44 PM March 3, 2008 Personal Statement by Dona Cadman I'm a little bit surprised at the level of reaction to the disclosures in Tom Zytaruk's book and I guess that's probably because it was put to rest in my mind, when I discussed the matter with Stephen Harper, 2 ½ years ago. At that time, I recall specifically asking him if he was aware of a million dollar insurance policy offer, that upset Chuck so much. He looked me straight in the eyes and told me he had no knowledge of an insurance policy offer. I knew he was telling me the truth; I could see it in his eyes. He said, yes he'd had some discussions with two individuals about asking Chuck to rejoin the party, but he'd told them they were wasting their time trying to convince Chuck. From that point forward.... I didn't regard it as a "Party" initiative, but rather; the overzealous indiscretion of a couple of individuals.... whose identity, Chuck never revealed to me. It all comes back to my conversation with the Prime Minister.... 2 ½ years ago. I want to be perfectly clear in that regard. Chuck liked, respected and trusted Stephen Harper. I like, respect and trust Stephen Harper. If I didn't believe in my heart, that he was telling me the truth.... I wouldn't be running as the Conservative Candidate for Surrey North. Dona Cadman Please read above, they asked him to rejoin the party, she is not saying they tried to buy his vote! The rest is just heresay, not enough to find anybody guilty of anything, if it were the jails would be full of politicians and forum posters.

Wow a scandal out of thin air, read the transcript very carefully, then read Mrs. Cadman's statement, what you will find is that they did not ofer Chuck anything for his vote, they talked to him about re-joining the party. There is no vote buying scandal, but two representatives went to try and get Cadman to become a Tory. Surely they were all aware of the MP insurance and benefit package, and the risk he was running of losing them both. It would have been like the elephant in the room. Perhaps he was mad at the Tories because they insinuated he was voting just because of the benefit package? There is nothing to the allegation and Dion should have apologized. I went to the Liberal web site today, it is full of really foolish allegations and many quotes from Mark Holland (who is an idiot) that make vague insinuations, frankly quite juvenile.

I wouldn't have bothered to reply to your rehashing of invented issues, until I read your pea-brained tag line. First off it's offensive, second it displays your utter lack of knowledge. Only on the last point can I offer you the least bit of help. First off ethics; even the lawyer who has authored two books on Mulroney's scandals admitted on the CBC that Harper was the most ethical national leader this country has had in a generation. Cadman; himself denied incentives were offered except with electoral expense, no insurance policy could have been purchased for a terminal cancer patient, quite ridiculous. Numerous nuclear experts have revisited the risk calculations and confirmed they were wildly overstated (by as much as 100X). The head of the commission was over zealous and needed to be reigned in, job done crisis averted. The conservatives do not believe in nationalized industries, if you're in America you should understand how that is contrary to capitalist principles and has more in common with socialist governments (say like the Nazi's). You indeed are a windy man.

Stephan and his cronies are making Joe Clarke look like Clint Eastwood, standing tall. What is really quite amazing is the buy he seems to get in the media, when the Liberal cabinet was shuffling out of the house after the budget speech they were all towing the same "it's not a good time for Canada to have an election". No one took them to task as to the real motivation; Then they finally got around to interviewing D. Smith the campaign chairman, he was honest (or foolishly candid) enough to say its not a good time for the Liberal party. I suppose this may qualify as a freudian slip as the Liberals have always been of the opinion that what's good for the Liberal party is good for Canada.

This is a comedy thread right? Harper using the RCMP to create a police state? His governement is the one who rooted out the corruption leading to the turfing of the commisioner, then someone says the OPP are above political interference, but just a few years ago these people were accusing Harris of directing them? Then we get into the human rights business which can only lead to a logic shell game. What you should be worried about is the erosion of your civil liberties by a constant barrage of left wing laws and the perpetual whining about human rights.

I agree that there has to be a better more streamlined aproach to deal with drinking drivers, I do believe that in another generation there probably won't be much of a problem, I know that my son and his friends wouldn't even consider it. However I think the Cops are carefully choosing their battles to soften public opinion toward crimilizing traffic infractions and getting themselves extra ordinary powers. It appears that many of the people who are getting stunt driving charges are middle aged men driving on 400 series highways late at night (probably shift workers on their way home), that's BS, as these guys are speeding in excess but hardly racing or stunt driving, that clearly was not the intent of the legislation. It really bugs me since I have been riding big street bikes for nearly thirty years, used to ride "crotch rockets" now I ride a big european bike. 100mph (160kph) is easy to reach in third gear, I've been safely riding all these years and am exceedingly careful, but still like to see 100mph on a rare occasion, I'm hardly a criminal and think its ridiculous some cop can take my bike for that. I have spent some years involved in technical aspects of highway design and know that 400 series highways are usually designed for 160kph speeds, so when done correctly its not even unsafe in a car. Speeding aside, it concerns me that our civil liberties can be so easily taken away, with little or no public debate.