Wilber

Someone has to build the road first. They already do some of that by passing on all the taxes they pay. You of course won't mind paying your police, ambulance and fire service road tax as well. Those who can't or don't, just won't get any.

Canadians use on average 111 million liters of gasoline a day. Federal taxes on that amount to 16.6%. At one dollar a liter that comes to 6.7 billion per year they collect on gasoline taxes alone. The higher gas goes, the more they make because GST is charged on the total, including all other taxes. That doesn't include taxes on diesel, GST charged on vehicles themselves, AC surcharges or GST charged on every vehicle related part or service purchased during that vehicles life. Provincial, regional and municipal fuel, sales and vehicle related taxes are another story altogether. I really don't think government wants to account for all that money. Much easier to chuck it into general revenue. Then you can talk about disconnects without having to show them.

I'll take that idea of yours Wilbur and apply it to food. Imagine if we got our food through general taxes. That is, imagine if we paid farmers through general tax revenues with no connection to what food the farmers produced or what food we wanted.In the case of roads, there is a large disconnect between what and how we pay and what we use. A similar disconnect in food would likely leave us starving, or waiting in queues. Indeed, that's how Soviet farming worked. So what are you saying, everything should be user pay? If you want to take transit to your grocery store you had better chip in for the roads that the trucks used to get those groceries to your store, otherwise you had better be prepared to walk to the farm and get them yourself. If you want police, ambulance and fire service you had better be willing to chip in for the roads they need whether you own a vehicle or not. Society needs infrastructure to function. You benefit from that infrastructure every day even though you may not use it yourself. You say there is a big disconnect. I'll bet neither you or government has a clue what that disconnect may be if there is one and has no interest in figuring it out.

I'll be stocking up on incandescents for my outside lights. Fluorescents are useless in cold temperatures. I have fluorescents and incandescents in my unheated garage because of that.

Just like everything else government provides that is paid for out of general revenue. But wait a minute, what about the billions in fuel taxes motorists pay every year? Less than 5% of the federal tax collected goes back into the road system. I'll bet the state doesn't have a clue what portion of sales, fuel and other taxes motorists pay relating to their vehicles goes back into road infrastructure and doesn't much care. It all just goes into the big pot to be doled out on whatever schemes suit them. Imposing a congestion tax without providing efficient alternatives is just a money grab. Without roads you would have to go to the farm to get your groceries.

The Soviet Union went bankrupt because communism Soviet style was a failed system. It could only operate in isolation. Iron curtain, rigid travel and currency controls etc. It was killed by its own paranoia. An even more extreme example of that paranoia and its effect is North Korea. The same cannot be said for many other Eastern block countries after the Soviet boot was removed from their neck. Many have prospered. The great majority of people are decent, whatever system they live under.

Rosie is a bit of a loose cannon but at least she can be funny. Donald is just a jerk.

Just think how many lives are saved by being able to buy hollow point amunition over the counter.

Should the teams hire their own 'private' referees? A commentator on one of the sports channels made an interesting observation. He said that during the regular season officials work as a team. During the the playoffs those teams are broken up and that could have something to do with the inconsistency. Seems like a dumb policy if true.

Who knows, she wasn't happy about the lack of time off they get on that show. They really only get the month of August off, not the whole summer like most shows. Maybe that was part of it. I'm not a big Rosie fan but she did liven the show up and love her or hate her, the controversy she stirred up was good for its ratings. My guess is they did want her back.

The Taliban are committing their atrocities against Afghanis. Where do we get off telling Afghanis how they should be treated? Even if we did bring them over here, eventually they would have to be sent back to whatever awaits them, given sanctuary in another country willing to take them or given refugee status. All this for a group of people who don't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way or differs from their view of the world. That's not on. We were at war with Germany, not some terrorist faction trying to take over the German government (although Hitler's mob fit that description pretty well, he was elected). Germany was a signatory to the Geneva Convention and as far as western prisoners were concerned at least, for the most part Germany lived up to that treaty. The Taliban has probably never heard of the Geneva Convention and would no doubt consider us morons for making such commitments if they had.

Come on Scott, do a little research on your own before you make those kinds of statements. To start with, Napoleon won several wars which resulted in peace treaties favorable to France with no one trotting along to help him. Britian's foreign policy was always to form alliances with the weaker Continental powers in order to maintain a balance of power and prevent any one country from dominating Europe. With the Netherlands and France against Spain. With Prussia and the Netherlands against France and Spain. With Spain against France and with France against Germany. How many times have we gone to war without allies? So don't talk about France never doing anything on its own.

France had over 400,000 military and civilian dead in WW2 and that doesn't include Jews deported to extermination camps. Germany's population was 69.6 million at the time. France's was 41.7 million. Wonder why they were underdogs? The French did finally throw the British out of France by force. Napoleon won quite a few battles. Certainly more than he lost and those he lost to allied armies. During the Revolutionary wars the French were fighting most of the rest of Europe's monarchies all at once. In spite of that and in spite of some defeats, France is still a republic. It's easy to be critical when your nearest enemy is on the other side of an ocean, not the other side of a field.

Sure, we'll give the guys who have been blowing up our troops refugee status, give them social assistance, free housing and medical care.

I realize that, I just don't know how it compares to other regiments which served in WW1.

and they have a lot to be proud of. But still no big whup since I have risked nothing nor sacrificed anything on the scale that they have. Should I ride thier coat-tails and claim thier courage and dedication for myself? Like it or not you are riding their coat tails because you are the beneficiary of their sacrifices. You have inherited the freedoms they paid for. You can't claim their courage and dedication but acknowledging and taking pride in those sacrifices is part of paying your respect to them. You don't think they want their country to be proud of them?

This all stems from what WestViking was saying in post #35 and was asked simply to provide proof to back up his assertions relating to Quebec's involvement with two battalions and resulting casualties. So maybe now you can provide proof to the actual number of casualties (dead and wounded) the 22nd suffered compared to everyone else who fought in that war? More or less, I don't know

France was once an imperial power - the Battle of the Plains of Abraham was towards the end of the seven year war with Britain. France was also a heavy in Algeria for decades and once held a large part of Viet Nam. They were also heavily engaged in parts of Africa beyond Algeria. Where do you get your history from? 150,000 dead in the Franco Prussian War. Over a million in WW1. Almost all on French soil. That's a start.

Won or lost is not the issue, it's about pride in what your fellow countrymen past and present have been prepared to do for their country. No big loss to you? Perhaps it would be, but for them.

The 22nd is a regiment. A regiment can contain several battalions. During wartime it is quite usual for a regiment to raise extra battalions. Even if the 22nd was a four battalion regiment during world WW1 and all of them went overseas, that could mean every member of those four battalions who originally went to France would have become a casualty. Nothing to sneeze at.

They don't need higher crime rates, they just need to build enough prisions to hold all the pedophiles and violent offenders that walk on their first... second... and third offenses. You mean for scumbags like this?

I think Gore's personal consumption and his justification of it by buying so called credits is a perfect example of polluting according your ability to pay. A carbon tax will do the same thing. The truly affluent will see no change in their standard of living or lifestyle. The rest will.

It may be part of politics in a free democracy but it is not a normal situation in the majority of free democracies. It bares a greater resemblance to the Balkans, only without the bloodshed. So far.

As Rene Levesque said, Canadians are a civilized people. That may be so but I don't think our continuing national unity soap opera is anything to be proud of.

Exactly.