Slim MacSquinty

I agree, it may be wiser that the government recognize no mariage other that civil unions (definition to be negotiated later) then the churches can define marriage on their own. I really think it is a waste of time and money over the definition of a word, its like red wanting to be called blue cause blue has more letters. The issue of property rights has many implications on your life, from expropriation, search and seizure to protecting what belongs to you. What I find the most interesting is the divide in logic in many of the lefties, while they stauchly defend "the charter" and "rights" I think they don't really understand, but they are very adamant about trampling on rights of others when it suits their purpose. The over achieving smoking bans, banning dog breeds, seat belt laws, smoke detector laws and especially some charter issues that limit free speech. I think we have reactionary left governenments and courts which are frequently willing to trample on minority points of view, so long as they are not "advanced" thinking lefties.

quote: Actually Stephen Harper is beginning to look very Prime Ministerial, press and articles seem to be more favourable than the last election. I agree and I hope he can continue to get the message out cause I know there is a lot more we need to discuss in this election. Furthermore, if we fail to get the Libs out in this election we will never know how deep the corruption is, and we will miss our opportunity to clean it up.

Stop trying to confuse him with the facts, capitalism does not allow them adequate opportunities to lock arms and sing those great songs like "united we stand".

Scrib: guess you killed that thread eh.

Quote: I wouldn't gloat, this is only the beginning, the liberal attack ads scheduled for the new year are only just the beginning of an ugly campaign, with the liberals allready at the gate . I suspect that the Liberal attacks will only get uglier. I agree, last time things were looking good for the CPC's and the wheels came off under pressure and mudslinging. That said, the new adds are just same old same old, so I wonder if this isn't a diversion. Interesting media scrum with Martin today on the CBC, He seemed confused and was sort of muttering the same repetative statement. However he did work on all the storyboard issues with one addtional one, vision, he shouldn't be hard to pick apart on that one though. CPC have really only pulled even, that's hardly a reason to get too excited, though I'm sure it feels good to think they're making a dent in fortress Liberal.

Spend some time on the Rabble site and you will see what scares us, dogmatic idealogues who hold very narrow views and are extremely intolerant of their percieved enemies. Having said that, (as a small c conservative) the NDP are valuable for political discussion in our political system and have definately provided a good counter point over the years. They absolutely have their roots in Socailism and at one point were required to take the utopian oath, pragmatism and history seems to have brought them back from the brink though. Bob Rae's time in power has rounded off his edges and in his latest book he tentatively embraces capitalism.

The Liberals do indeed have a platform and you can read about it on the Liberal website in addtion to the announcements they have made. I have, and found them a little thin, often more like mission statements not alot of meat. They are easy to grab onto if your just looking for something that makes you feel good. Statements like defend Canada from Bush and the Americans and stand up for the charter. The second problem is the ones that they seem to have put some effort into are ones they have made before, sometimes in two or more previous elections. So then you have to wonder about their veracity, sort of like those new years resolutions you make; I'm going to quit smoking, drinking, loose weight and be nice to my neighbours, very laudable but seldom followed through on. So your decision comes down to a scenario like this, things are pretty good should I vote for the status quo so I don't have to think about it much, can I hold my nose on the corruption thing, cause politicians are all corrupt (aren't they?). Or maybe, this time I think they're really going to do what they say. The other side of their campaign is the negatives, Harper is too close to the Americans, he can't fight the separatists, he doesn't love Canada, he's too right wing and you know there will be plenty more. The CPC has done an excellent job so far negating the negatives, and it seems to be working. I have speculated a couple of times on what negative stuff the Libs will have left and I have come to the conclusion they've used up the obvious and will start to try and provoke the loose cannon element of the CPC (if there still is any) into making dumb statements and political mistakes. I hope this doesn't happen though cause I think this is an important election perhaps as important as the free trade election. We need to have a good honest debate on health care, education, separatism and taxation, diverting attention to neo-con hidden agendas and fights with the US just lowers the the value of the debate.

Personally I'm just very happy we seem to be ready to have the debate without all the shrill scare mongering. There are numerous models available all around the world, many work better than ours. It's not simply a question of our way or the American way. I'm sure all Canadians feel similarly, they do not want poor people denied treatment, they want costs to be controlled, they want transferabilitly between provinces, they do not want to wait forever for treatment and they do not want to completly abandon the public system we have now. Seems to me if we can all agree on these founding principles then we should be able to move on to rational analysis of what is possible. So where do we start?

You're buying into the Liberal divide and conquer scheme, it goes like this lets make it seem like Harper is willing to give it all away to Quebec so the righter side of the conservatives get all concerned and start yapping. Well think about this, Harper has not changed his toon one iota, what he is really doing is pointing out how the conservative platform actually makes sense for Quebec. Not all the platform, no special deal, in terms of more autonomy for the provinces and in terms of better financial arrangements this is in every provinces best interest, for the first time in a long time the "every province" includes Quebec. Don't get hung up on the spin.

There were too many instances of unusual trading to be coincidental, The SEC was probably called because they seem to be more willing to investigate these things of late. Good for the NDP

Quote: I take my hat off to Bob Rae... Me too, but for a different reason, if you read his most recent book, you'll find he's a convert to capitalism. Good for you Bob!

quote: How about voting for the party that best represents your ideals, and not voting based on the mistaken belief that someone needs to be punished. What if the party I wish to vote for also believes that someone needs to be punished, but wait that doesn't make my choice that much easier, cause everyone but the Liberals believe they should be punished. Gee, this liberal logic thing is making my head hurt.

The Federal buffoons are all running around talking, studying and blaming, Ralph just got sick of WAITING and went ahead. Sure it's only one set of proceedures and limitted in scope but it's a success, what other province has had one. I'm glad to see that somewhere someone is trying to solve these problems, and Alberta should be especially proud given the aggressive stance the federal libs have taken against them. The only good idea is a liberal idea so lets shoot it down. grow up people.

quote: Bill C-250 made it a crime to kill someone merely because that person is gay. So it wasn't a crime to kill gay people before, by god you're right! Never mind that there was a great number of legal experts that indicated this was a law that had the potential to infringe on Religeous freedom, but then why should bigots be free right?

Can't wait to hear the Liberal spin tommorrow. Way to go Ralph, could you e-mail dorky Dalton your phone number.

Oh but this is a different Liberal party didn't you hear? They're all squeeky clean and new, they "love this country" and will fight on every street corner. Why I believe every word of it, on election day I plan on bringing the vaseline.

hiti: Well you are such a breath of fresh air, I hadn't heard any of these things before, you are wise and insightful and most surely a Liberal. It's a little like kindergarten isn't it? If you say it over and over again you hope it'll be true. Well you just click your heels together and say "there's no place like home, there's no place like home"

It must feel pretty damn good to be Ralph Klein today, fuddle duddle Paul Martin!

Shouldn't you want to get the facts before you jump to conclusion those nasty Americans are trying to screw us?

Although I agree that small amounts of pot could be relatively harmless, just imagine what the border crossings would be like if the Americans figured even a small number of Canadians were coming over with a little bag? A lot of credible Americans hae made the argument and a couple of more administration changes may see movement. Comparing pot to guns does not work. quote: This is yet another example of opportunistic muckraking on the part of the opposition. Gomery did establish that Cote was collecting illegal donations and funneling them to the Liberal party, however, there is no evidence that the recipicants of the money would have known where it came from and that it was tainted - even the PQ and PLQ received some money from the companies in question. It is unreasonable to expect Martin to release the naems when he knows the people in question would be presumed guilty even if there was overwhelming evidence of their innocence. You've got your head in the sand, all political donations are supposed to have reciepts issued, not cash in paper bags, the loot was also widely distributed so lots of folks involved, this was not a few people this was fairly widespread. No candidate should be accepting bags of cash without asking questions. quote: You also forget that Martin was not implicated in the scandal no matter what the opposition parties want to believe so most people know they are not voting for the Chertien Liberal party that created the mess: they are voting for the Martin Liberal party who can clean up the mess Martin was not implicated because he ensured two things in setting up the Gomery commission, Finance was not under scrutiny, and no blame could be placed. Now as for plausibility, any large organization conducts business roughly the same way, when an expenditure program (like sponsorship) is set up finance dept. sets up an account which the spending dept.(PM's office) can draw on, no cash changes hands. when each of the contracts was to be drawn on a invoice should have been submitted, cleared and signed by usually two persons from the spending dept. (PM's office) then forwarded to finance where it would get a third signature and a cheque would be drawn up. The large amounts of money should have required fairly important people to sign. Given this scenario there are only three possible ways this thing could have happened, they set it all up in advance and therefore had knowledge, they did it on the fly (and therfore had knowledge) or they had no control whatsoever over expenditures (they were incompetent). Either way not worthy of a great deal of trust.

Quote: The Conservatives have written off some minorities. They like to argue that homosexuals represent a mere 1% of the population and therefore believe they can get elected without worrying about this mere 1%. Conservatives incorrectly assume that only homosexuals care that Harper voted not to include gay bashing in hate crimes legislation. Canadians are fairly civilized and you don't have to be gay to oppose gay bashing. But Harper doesn't understand that. Of course gays and lesbians aren't alone in being written off by Harper. How about the 30,000 Canadians charged each year for possession of tiny amounts of marijuana? How about those who are jailed for possession? This is just patently foolish, what is your agenda in the "gay bashing" comments? If you think your making a point you're only fooling yourself. Harper most certainly is not advocating anything like this and if you do not realize your own dishonesty then you are a fool. As for the pot comment , you say that as though the people smoking pot had no choice but to continue with their unlawful behaviour. It is tantamount to saying "well many people speed therefore we shouldn't have speed limits". Finally, using Quebec to make hay against Harper doesn't help your argument because no party is making a dent in the Bloc, do you think its cause they have an overwhelmingly better policy position for Canada? What is this some high school project?

This is classic Liberal arrogance, everybody else is stupid so it justifies our misdeads. It surely looks as though Quebecers aren't so stupid though eureka, as they have finally said enough is enough. Certainly the "blood" is on Liberal hands no matter how you stack it up the Liberals have insulted Quebec for decades, pandered to the rest of the country now caught with their fingers in the cookie jar are fabricating a crisis of serparation and American intervention. I was pleased to see Duceppe school Martin on the difference between a federal party and a provincial one during the debate. Interesting to me to see a nationalist seem to have a better grip on federal politics that the PM. Disgusting

The quick explanation of securing oil hardly convers the complexities of the current state of affairs in the middle east, although no doubt it helped sell the invasion of Iraq to GWB. But it does not explain Afganistan. The rise of fundamentalist Muslims and their percieved threat on the western world required leadership, the UN dithered and US acted. Saddam was a provocateur and was wealthy enough to do substantial damage. There is also no question he was amassing significant weapons including chemical weapons, medium range missiles for delivery and nuclear potential. On the latter the Isrealis had done several unilateral bombing missions to keep him in check. Where his armaments went is still a mystery, but there remains no evidence he destroyed much of his weaponry. You have to recall that Muslim fundementalist terrorists have been striking western targets since the late 80's, clearly they were gaining strength and confidence. Saddam had links to fundamentalist and continually meddled in the affairs of other countries, in fact prior to the fall of the Shaw, Sadam had willingly protected the Ayatolah who later took the US hostages. It would be nice to wrap it up in one conspiracy theory and there is no doubt America takes advantage of its position, but the truth, if know, is more complex.

quote: These slurs on Chretien and Martin are simply disgusting. There is no truth to any of it and I think it is time you began to use your heads for something relating to truth. That's rich, nobody complained when Harper and Mulroney were bashed, Mulroney is the only one who took the slanderers to task AND WON. Mulroney was quite successful in the corporate world prior to his entrance into politics (despite humble beginnings), his parachuting into directorships does not seem unrealistic, he was alway critized for his ambitions. PM unquestionable landed soft out of school, though he is said to be very smart. No question leaders usually land soft out of office, its the minions that worry me, Dennis Mills, ex MP now VP of charity at Magna Int. Alphonso Galiano, Ambassador to Denmark? and the list goes on and on.

Go to the other tread and read what sciblett posted in terms of what the supreme court HAS ruled on. Quoting Irwin Cotler is of no value since he is biased. The legal possiblities have been hashed out quite well and the notwithstanding clause is not necessary since the Supreme court has not specifically ruled on this issue. And in fact pointed out that the definition of marriage is parliments to make. You ruin your own argument by referring to the far right as being disatisfied with Harper as it demonstrates he is a moderate, and perhaps not the knuckle dragger the Libs are trying to make him out to be.