Wilber

Woops, enlisted.

"I'll bet most men that enlist come out of the lilitary with a whole lot more pride and self worth then when they went in - kudos to our military trainers." Exactly, they inlisted.

Servicing debt either takes money away from other government programs or results in higher taxes for individuals. If you get into a position of too much debt and skyrocketing interest rates as in the eighties, you can end up running deficits because you find yourself borrowing money to pay interest on debt you already have. Carrying a lot of debt is risky, for governments as well as individuals. Financial advisors have always told me that my first priority should always be getting rid of debt. Governments are smarter? I don't think so.

If you did this to the military, why would anyone with any self respect want to join it? This country has always taken pride in the fact that except for a very few people near the end of WWII, every soldier, sailor and airman that has served this country overseas has joined the military as a volunteer. Let's keep it that way.

If the US and China ever go to war it will happen with or without missile defense systems. "The Chinese are the most remarkable race on earth, and I have always thought, and still believe them to be, the coming rulers of the world. They only want a Chinese Peter the Great or Napoleon to make them so. . . and in my idle speculation upon this worlds future I have long selected them as the combatants on the one side of the great Battle of Armageddon, the people of the United States of America being their opponents. The latter nation is fast becoming the greatest power of the world. Thank Heaven, they speak English, are governed by an English system of laws, and profess the same regard that we have for what both understand by fair play in all national as well as in private business." Lord Wolseley Commander in Chief of the British Army 1903 An astute dude. Wonder if he will be proved correct more than a century later. Wolseley was called "Queen Victoria's only General" and was the inspiration for Gilbert and Sullivan's "Model of a Modern Major General".

I don't know. Unfortunately the people in power have a vested interest in a system that favours those in power as much as ours does. I just don't see our present system working in the long term for a country as divers and rapidly changing as Canada. The Brits might get rid of the Lords but in Britain party discipline is not as strict in the Commons as in Canada and that has a dampening effect on the government. Blair has lost votes in the Commons even though he has a substantial majority. The last time was just a month ago. The idea that my representative should be "given" a "free" vote by a party leader is outrageous. Who the hell does he represent anyway? Because members belong to parties it stands to reason that they are going to agree on most things but if a leader cannot convince a member to vote on a bill's merits, he doesn't deserve the vote.

You must have a low opinion of the military. Why saddle them with this? What did they do to deserve it? The last time we had a few members of the military act like punks (airborne) we disbanded them. Mind you, the Brits built an empire with an army composed largely of the dregs of society. When I once asked my cop kid whether a particular case involved drugs, he said, "they all involve drugs one way or another". When it comes to street and property crime, that's just about it. I do think we have to find a way of dealing properly with young offenders. Time and time again we hear of young people committing major crimes after years of multiple arrests and convictions but no real consequences. When we let them get away with this crap in their early teens, we are just teaching them that crime really does pay.

I think the Senate should be retained but it needs to be a creation of the people of Canada not its Prime Minister. We need a responsible and accountable arm of government that owes no allegiance to the Prime Minister as a counterbalance to the massive amount of power now concentrated in the PMO. The only one I can see that could be made to fit that description is the Senate. To all those who are obsessed by Steven Harper and what they fear he might do to the country. I'm not a shrink but would I be wrong to think that down deep, you really do believe the Prime Minister of Canada has far more power than should be invested in a single person in a democratic country?

Actually it is true. They do put a lot of effort when it comes to budgeting the system in general but when it comes breaking down the real cost of individual procedures there is a lot they don't know.

I'm glad we won't have to rely on you for parliamentary reform.

"Perhaps in the bigger cities this would be true but I suspect in the more rural sections of the country this would not be true. For example, there might be one hip replacement clinic in Atlantic Canada, perhaps in Halifax, and this clinic would serve the region. People could go to other clinics in the rest of Canada but the extra cost of transportation would be detrimental." I don't know where you live but in BC one of the biggest problems our public system faces is keeping doctors in rural areas and there is no way we can afford surgical facilities within easy reach of all our citizens with our public system. There is only so much money. Maybe we should see if some private clinics are willing to take a crack at it where the public ones can't. Not saying it will work but we will never know if we don't ask the question. We need some more ideas other than just throwing more money at the present system. Our public system doesn't even know what particular surgical procedures actually cost. You can bet a private one would. They would know or go broke.

"Martin will be remembered as the Liberal Kim Campbell." Well, the fat lady hasn't sung quite yet but there is certainly a similarity in that both are saddled with anothers baggage.

True. I was just trying to point out that you can't pick an interest rate that was in effect on a particular day.

I hope so. As far as I am concerned the biggest reason for the regionalism and alienation (real or perceived) is our form of government. Once elected, Canada's system of iron party discipline turns our representative into the leaders representative and the leader appoints everyone of importance in our government. I have often thought that I was better of with an opposition member in Parliament because at least I would have someone who was trying to hold government accountable. Back bench government MP's of all parties have proved to be completely useless in this function, which in supposed to be their reason for being in a parliamentary system.

No they weren't. The 5 year GIC rate in 1990 was 12% Martin didn't gain power until 1993 You can't use the interest rate of the day. The interest on the debt would be at whatever rate was in effect when the debt was incurred for however long the term of the loan. If a ten year bond was sold at 15%, we would be paying 15% interest on it for ten years even if rates dropped to 5% after five years. We should be pounding away at our debt while rates are low, because if they go up substantially it will suck the blood out of our economy. I know what it was like to renew a mortgage at 18%. I was lucky because I was able to handle it. I know people who couldn't. I don't give either party particularly high marks on this one.

It was the Liberals that turned the RCMP Commissioner into a political appointee of the PM. They have nothing to bitch about on this one.

"Interesting that both the strength and weakness of a liberal or, more generally, a progressive mindset is the tendency to actually listen to other views. The entire liberal tradition is an openness to different ways and viewpoints. The positive is the freshness and ability to survive through new ideas; the negative is that liberal parties are not very good at providing the certainty that true believers crave, tending to see most issues from multiple sides." Get serious, there is an election going on. Until it's over almost no one on a political forum is looking at issues from multiple sides.

Air Canada hasn't been goverment run for years but it is still suffering from the hangover.

ProudCanadian Confused: Don't blame you. If you are looking for neutral information, tell us when you find it. Just take eveything with a grain of salt and don't let anyone tell you what to think no matter how hard we try. Concerned: OK but I wouldn't get too sweaty. No matter who wins this bun fight, in real terms it is most unlikely your world will change very much before the next election. Like August says, this is a good place to learn, because the people here will make you think.

That is true. But the Liberals were betting on the fact that Ed Fast is not as well-known (even as a city councillor) as Randy White was, and the fact of the changing demographics of the riding. "Isn't Abbotsford a suburb of Vancouver?" Technically no because it is its own metropolitan area for the census, but in real-world terms it is. Not quite. Abbotsford is a city in it's own right of close to 140,000 population spread out over quite a large area about 50 miles east of Vancouver. It provides it's own services including police force (not RCMP) and airport serviced by AC Jazz, Westjet and others. It is a suburb of Vancouver like Burlington or Oshawa would be of Toronto.

"I'm sorry. Some things are not "just politics." Where have you been the past month? Everything is politics.

This is really weird. I can't see either one of them having a snowballs chance in hell of winning in this riding.

The burden of providing medical services under the Canadian Health Act falls on the Provinces not the Federal Government. If they can get me more bang for my buck from a privately operated facility, good for them. If not, we should look at something else. This is not a matter of ideology for me. Even under a public pay system, private clinics would not operate in a vacuum, they would have to compete with each other as well as the public system. If there is no money in it, they won't bother. Why is the desire to make a profit always come down to "greed" for some people. It is the "greed" of people that make profits and employ people to make those profits that gives us our standard of living and social safety net. No government has ever created a job. All they can ever do is provide a favourable climate for "greedy" people to generate wealth that they can redistribute.

"2) He would have sacrificed the lives of Canadian troops, AGAINST the will of the majority of the Canadian people and WITHOUT U.N. approval in order to curry favour with the Bush administration." Possibly, but we also know that what people say when they are in opposition (their job is to argue an alternative view) and what they do when confronted with popular opinion while in power is not always the same. I think that is also the case with much of Harpers perceived "scary scary". If he likes power and wants to keep it, he will listen to the public.

Yes, ouch. Elections are a hoot.