AusKanada

Again, you're totally side-stepping the issue. Regardless what you believe it is a FACT that giving private citizens easier access to firearms will increase crime. There's no denial. Look at the United States, the bastion of private gun possession. Incredibly high homicide rates, fire-arms mortalities, etc. If you think we wouldn't need more police officers, you are already celebrating the end of the war on drugs with a big fatty.

What are you doing in this forum then? As one citizen, in a forum or on the street I have little impact. I am just living my passion for politics here and trying to point out just what you said, no party's perfect, but that doesn't mean they are all crooks either.

Yet the Conservatives are 100% supportive of giving those who donate tax exemptions, i.e. your money. How is this any different? Furthermore, as I said this subsidy comes to roughly 2 dollars per vote, to a total of roughly 26 million per election. That's about 8.5 million/year. I think the interest on those Tory fighter jets will be about ten times that. I see now problem with public funding as long as it's kept rather modest. If you find no problems with one party using it's majority to cut the throats of the opposition, you both are clearly Tories. Private funding just allows the rich to have excessive influence. MY VOTE should mean as much as your vote and 1,200 donation to Mr. Harper. How about we fight with ideas, not bank accounts?? This is a democracy, not a plutocracy.

So you're blaming the federal government for the actions of an entire system? That is beyond illogical. God... your faith in the market would make the Pope hug Darwin... ask those in the Third World what unfettered capitalism is like with their 15 hour work days.

No one can deny the wealth creative capacity of the market, take out a democratic government and it decays into chaos. Actually the tycoon robbers were created by that market, as it was the Industrial Revolution that created the new elite of merchants and businessmen, not government as government has been around for milennia. The invisible hand cares little for the weak, poor, for justice or for equality. It's simply a wealth generator .. to worship it so is fanatical.

Agreed 100%, good post.

You have one side of the equation: what do you think easier access to firearms also allows? Higher firearms-related homicides, armed burglaries, increased grand theft auto rates, etc. Thus requiring more police officers to deal with more firearm-wielding individuals in society. So if no legislation can stop the war on guns, are you therefore for ending the war on drugs?? No piece of legislation has ever stopped that either.

In my short summary of the problems, I was not necessarily advocating a whole sale abolition of the reserve system, but trying to show in my own limited perspective what I thought the chief hurdles are. I would say, however, some reserves are not healthy environments and should be ended. The local government is corrupt, it would take millions to make it properly inhabitable and there is virtually no industry in the area. It is extremely expensive and difficult to offer people services when they live away from the majority, where such service is readily available and cheaper. So I'd welcome the government giving some funds to encourage aboriginals who so decide to move into cities with their fellow Canadians. Also, I think it's dangerous to call for a wholesale abolition of federal support... if the communities are in rough shape are already, they will be infinitely worse otherwise. A long term strategy should be implemented, along with a new federal agency dedicated completely to monitoring and investigating local council activities so as to combat corruption.

In my short summary of the problems, I was not necessarily advocating a whole sale abolition of the reserve system, but trying to show in my own limited perspective what I thought the chief hurdles are. I would say, however, some reserves are not healthy environments and should be ended. The local government is corrupt, it would take millions to make it properly inhabitable and there is virtually no industry in the area. It is extremely expensive and difficult to offer people services when they live away from the majority, where such service is readily available and cheaper. So I'd welcome the government giving some funds to encourage aboriginals who so decide to move into cities with their fellow Canadians. Also, I think it's dangerous to call for a wholesale abolition of federal support... if the communities are in rough shape are already, they will be infinitely worse otherwise. A long term strategy should be implemented, along with a new federal agency dedicated completely to monitoring and investigating local council activities so as to combat corruption.

A Libertarian talking about a slippery slope?? Yes, the all-knowing Invisible Hand. Sure did wonders in Manchester during the Industrial Revolution... Seriously though, I think it's more dangerous to think in absolutes. I am willing to give parties a bit of faith, nothing wrong in that. You my friend are putting yours in the market. If you think the "I-know-better's" of Ottawa are bad, try the investment tycoon "I-know-better's," can't wait for the next great recession.

He surely sounds like a stalwart opponent of the death penalty, suggesting murderers get ropes in their cells. So what's your solution to murderers after they face their life sentence then? If they are not rehabilitated, if possible in their individual case, then what? Slap all murderers with double life sentences? Give them poison tablets in their cells so we are still "opposing the death penalty"?

So your solution to combating a wealth of weapons in the underworld is allowing gun owners little registration of their weapons? Allowing them to be easily stolen and not as easily tracked? Wow, great idea.

Obviously you did not pay attention to my point: most prisoners will be freed. It's a simple fact, simply slapping them with long sentences even in non-violent crimes (as is the conservative mantra) is a fantastic way to make generations of professional, life-long criminals. Rapists and murderers are a different case, obviously... You also realize that research into Texas, the U.S. most punitive state or even California, has lead that nation into being filled with prisons they cannot deal with or pay for. Unless you plan on re-introducing the death penalty, I don't actually see how you plan on reforming the vast majority of criminals (thieves, those charged with battery, assault, drug trafficking, etc.), as you cannot lock those one up indefinitely. Or is that the conservative "solution"??

An NDP friend of mine once told me that it wasn't that her party was perfect, it was that it was closest to her beliefs. She rarely agreed with NDP foreign policy, but loved their social democratic social policy. Sometimes it's about voting for those who hurt you less, rather than help you the most.

Poll I am just interested what parties people support here on the forums. Above is a poll. Check it out!

As much of a waste as it was creating in the first place, abolishing it is even more ridiculous. Most police organizations supported its retention. It's just Harper showing he can keep one or two promises while failing at deficit reduction, Triple-E Senate reform, Arctic Sovereignty, federal-provincial relations and so on.

If were are to respect every voter as equal, I say have limits on political donations like we currently have without any tax deductions for donations. This simply allows wealthier Canadians to donate and influence parties even more, as they have even more funds to donate then and honestly, most Canadians are not political active or indeed wealthy enough to shell out money to something that isn't vital. The party funding system was very modest, something like 26 million. TWENTY-SIX MILLION. The Tories are spending millions on Libya victory parades, metals for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, but cannot spare twenty-six million to enable democratic equality? It's roughly 2 dollars a vote... thus helping all parties to advertise and function, not simply those with good fund-raising (i.e. the Tories). If the program was expensive, I could sympathize, but the value of encouraging democracy cannot be undervalued. This was obviously a Tory strategy to cut the throats of the opposition parties that are not able to function purely on private donations, allowing them to have an unassailable lead in TV and radio ads.

It's a sensitive topic surely. All part of having immigration from rural backwaters in the Middle East, where women are not emancipated, given contraceptives, equal rights or dignity as persons. Also to the poster who claims that is not legal anywhere, this is true, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I think perhaps four countries on Earth legally allow filesharing, does this mean that filesharing does not occur in the vast majority of the world??

Restorative justice is cheaper, more effective and more practical. In the vast majority of cases, prisoners will be re-integrated into society, which means they will have to be taught how to cope with violent and criminal tendencies and will require basic education and organization skills to gain and retain employment. Punitive justice systems are far more for the sense of vengeance of the victim than the correction of the perpetrator.

I am glad that Rae and Turmel called out that Tory senator. It is illegal in Canada to execute capital punishment and it is the responsibility of Corrections Canada to ensure the safety of all prisoners, rapists or whatever. This also would seem like cruel or unusual punishment. I am sad for his loss, truly, but he seems like the political opportunist. He apologized immediately and then backtracked when Tories nationwide supported him...

I think Canadians are caught between a rock and a hard place, preventing any quick resolution of the conflict, for the following reasons: (1) Some aboriginal leaders are calling and encouraging civil disobedience to stop pipelines projects, disrupt legal construction sites and so forth, eroding any chance they will have a majority of Canadians supporting their plight (2) The corruption of band councils and among chiefs is legendary. The whole reserve is coming apart, while those on the council have houses that would be the envy of people in the suburbs. This makes it rather difficult for the federal government to simply transfer them payments and give them complete self-government (3) The funds invested in Aboriginal communities were for a long period (in regards to housing anyways) allocated based on a normal Canadian birthrate. So in many reserves, the federal government built enough houses for the entire reserve, only for them to have far more children than most Canadians, making these houses insufficient less than a generation later. The federal government in an era of austerity and belt-tightening is less inclined to invest even more. (4) Location difficulties also keep some reserves very poor as there are few resources or neighboring communities to interact with. The question must arise whether aboriginals should stay in reserves or simply join Canadians in cities and towns, allowing them equal access to urban social programs, jobs and so forth. Remote reserves can hardly be as wealthy as cities, just as remote Canadian communities that are non-Aboriginal rarely achieve prosperity to any significant degree either. The chance they will leave the reserve system seems slight. (4) Grits and Tories have ignored the issue for a long time, allowing it to balloon out of control. (5) Aboriginals remain a rather weak electoral bloc, making their issues less than critical. They are asking for multi-billion dollar investments in healthcare, education and so forth, but cannot offer anywhere near the political power of the GTA, Montreal, or Vancouver. I don't mean to seem Machiavellian but this is a strong factor as well. It takes a lot of political capital to get a Kelowna Accord v2.0 through and if you're a Conservative government, this would seem supremely ill-timed and it would probably be hard to get caucus support behind it.

A war in the style of Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq cannot be won through conventional tactics. The problem inherent in all those conflicts was that the Western powers assumed those peoples wanted Western-style values and government, which they didn't and don't. I think that it will take a century or more for secular democracy to even begin to solidify in the latter two. Winning "the hearts and minds" doesn't work in these conflicts, as the local populace are fanatically opposed to the "invaders." Regardless if the West is actually combating a greater threat than they could ever be thanks to human rights legislation, military protocols, democratic oversight, etc, the populace are believing that they are in some sort of grand nationalist struggle against imperialists or they are fighting for Islam against crusaders. In a lot of ways, Afghanistan was worth it. The Taliban are relegated to the mountainous part of western Pakistan along the border and an at least "moderate" by Middle Eastern standards regime is there trying to bring some sort of stability. I think the most sickening part of being part of the West is you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If there's Islamist militias killing Christian blacks in Somalia and the U.S. goes in it's "21st century imperialism," if they don't it's Western isolationism and a lack of commitment to human rights. They cannot win. I am not advocating unrestricted invasions, nothing of the sort, but I think anyone on the Left (such as myself) must recognize that interventionism must happen in particular cases, lest we be total hypocrites. Hard to call ourselves progressive humanists, if we let dictators and religious fanatics terrorize their people because of "religious or cultural differences."

The hilarious part of this debate is not really whether we should be against Mulcair for having dual citizenship or not, I think it's a non-issue. What is however super hilarious is that Jack Layton sort of crucified Dion about HIS French citizenship... so the NDP sort of prove that they can go against Layton. Or that they can frankly re-write history as their pundits do on CBC's Power and Politics and elsewhere.

Sharkman is completely right. McCain is probably the leader of the moderate faction of the GOP, with Romney being a close #2. If I were Romney I would court Mike Huckabee, he seems genuine, is considered a "true" conservative and would help deliver the South. Rick Santorum would be a decent choice too if he'd accept the offer. Regardless, Romney would need an undisputed Conservative.

1. Ron Paul with his wacky Libertarianism, which would undoubtedly widen the wealth gap considerably, cut billions in transfer payments and probably increase the American decline. Obviously this has all been brought about by the deregulation of the financial system and by corporations being able to take their profits and invest it in China and elsewhere... lower their corporate taxes and even more capital will leave for the Third World. 2. Newt Gingrich has shot himself in the foot a thousand times now. In a general election situation, he'd be crushed. He's indirectly labelled Spanish the language of the ghetto, claims that deficit reduction can be achieved simultaneously with a moon base and has been incessant in claiming he was behind or at least contributive to the Reagan "Revolution." Ironic considering Reagan mentioned him once in his diary. Add in he is a noted foul-tempered, egoistic bully that had his own caucus rebel against him as Speaker of the House. 3. Rick Santorum has labelled himself the real Conservative of the Republican race. In doing so, he has moved to the far right. His religious zeal, extremely hawkish foreign policy and pro-life and anti-regulation stances again would do very poorly in the general election. He was also against the TARP bailout which while controversial probably saved the U.S. from a full on depression. 4. Romney is undeniably the best and least crazy of the candidates. He's a moderate Republican with the money, big Republican establishment support and organizational capacity to challenge Obama. He is the most likely to interest independents with his business experience, experience as a cooperative Republican governor in a Democratic state and support for states determining their healthcare system. He says the occasional crazy thing as well ("very poor" comment e.g.) but he at least can use a fork and knife properly.