sage

Another way of looking at the reason to help the "impoverished" is not necessarily out of a sense of altruism, but rather in self interest. As for myself, I justify the broad spending on social programs out of a sense that it inherently benefits society by not having a rogue and hungry lower class. This is starkly different to an altruistic purpose, but is one which I do not regret. Of course this is a cold statement, but I hate to break it to everyone: life is short and rough generally speaking.

Don't you think PMPM will be remembered as the man who came in with some of the highest of expectations, only to fall short in every regard? This alone sets him apart from Kim Campbell who was basically election fodder. A fairly adept politician, but a disaster of a leader.

Eureka I agree with your last comment, that Tories are the classic liberal. At the outset I apologize for the rant, however it is getting exceedingly difficult to hear over and over again how the reason the poor are poor is because the capitalist system puts them there. I would argue that it more often then not is due to just plain poor decisions; drugs, teenage pregnancy, dropping out of high school, and so on. As for the focus of what society can, is, or should be, I readily recognize the need for "the other c" as geofrey put it, charity. The difficulty in answering any complex question however is, as always, a measured response between two extremes. I am not going to state that "rugged individualism" is the key to eternal salvation for humanity, however I think we disagree on what the focus of our society should be. Take someone who is not "succeeding" (if that is the proper word). Obviously something is wrong, the question is why, and how can we fix it. The starting point is the "why" and my impression (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the left tends to start from the premise that it is due to a fundamental structural oppression that exists in our society. The right starts from the premise that it is the individual who is responsible for the predicament. The characterization of the problem results in a drastically different view as to the vehicle for change. For the left, the vehicle is government. For the right, it starts with the individual. My problem with the current leftist policies is that they take away from personal accountability completely. I am not saying however that there is no role for the government in this equation, the question is how much, and at what point does the government quit getting involved. Ultimately the biggest problem with government as the cure-all is you have politicians spending someone else's money, which necessarily results in abuse and a poor allocation of resources. I mean look at health care. I believe Saskatchewan is spending something like 40% of its entire provincial budget on providing medical services, and the left has us believe that this is sustainable? If you agree its not, then obviously government is not the wonder-cure to society's problems that people (especially in Canada) tend to think it is. It's not so much that "rugged individualism" and personal accountability is great, but rather its the only thing left after the vestige of government is stripped away.

When in the hell did it become a human right to live in a house? To difficulty with human rights, is the more luxuries we have, the more they are expected and the more they become a "human right". What's next Eureka, are they supposed to have telephones. Maybe access to the internet? What is so wrong with someone helping themselves out in Canada? I've never uderstood this mindless sense that something is owed to us. I come from Saskatchewan, where in a year with an $800 million surplus, the NDP launched a media campaign as to how we were getting screwed out of equalization money. Why were we entitled to any in the first place? Because lefty's feel they are entitled and refuse to work for anything on their own.

Mar, Mar, Mar. The Liberals have governed the last decade with an ineffective opposition? I would suggest the only reason the Liberals balanced the budget in the first place was due to the rising power of the Reform party and their fiscal conservative agenda. Preston Manning forced the Liberals to govern in a fiscal conservative manner. Not the other way around.

Bravo Wilber! Since when is winding back an agreement that we were never going to follow in the first place anything but being honest with ourselves. It also worthwhile to point out that we loathe those who did not sign Kyoto, yet we will still export them our oil and gas. Typical Canadian liberal arrogance.

How the hell can anyone suggest that the ad is pulled? The damn thing is still running in Quebec! Compounding the problem is the blatant lying about whether Martin approved the ad. McCallum says Martin approved it. Martin says he approved it. Ralph Goodale says it wasn't approved. Then Martin says "he only approved the transacript". This is reminiscent of Nixon in the 70's and the "credibility gap".

BHS I agree with some of your thoughts, but I do have one problem that I struggle with. Under PR you lose the direct represenation aspect obviously, which from a theoretical point I have a problem with. The difficulty though is what direct representation do we really have? Currently, people will vote for Svend Robinson, not because of the man, but rather because they are voting for the NDP. With a parliament that functions around party discipline, the strength (unfortunately) is in the #'s of MP's the party has, not the strength of the individuals that are actually there. One of the difficulties in this debate is the role the parties themselves play. I wonder how many people actually know how their individual candidates are chosen at the constituency level? I do agree with posts to this thread though that PR will not result in greater voter turnout. If people are too lethargic to get off their ass to vote now, why would this change under a different model? Another interesting aspect that hasn't been touched on is how we have made an incremental step towards this model through the introduction of electoral finance reform which bases a parties funding on the amount of the popular vote received.

Rather then the debate over the GST cut, the lowering of marginal income tax rates for the low income Canadian etc., would it not make more sense (economically and politically) to simply raise the personal exemption for everyone? Its really the only tax adjustment that will treat everyone equally, and you then don't open yourself to the idea that "you're cutting taxes only for the rich".

You have got to kidding me. With all of the issues in this campaign, suddenly liberals are picking abortion as the reason Harper is evil? I may be wrong, but wasn't Mulroney in when the Supreme Court ruled on the subject. As for the health care mantra, which liberals manage to wrap themselves every election about this time, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the Supreme Court of all institutions has indicated there is no proof a private element in public health care will be the death of the program. Jesus, the Supreme Court! Well what about the military then? What a pathetic advertisement released in the last few days to get this point cross. Why do liberals even bother to purport to have a military plan and just declare Canada to be a neutral country? Then daycare, yes daycare, that must be what the Tories will take away. Uh, take what away? After 13 years of power there is no national daycare plan. The hallmark of the liberal election strategy (past and present) is to make every promise imaginable and then not deliver. The beauty of this strategy is their ambitions were so ridiculous in the first place, nobody expects them to be achieved. What's the next plank in the liberal platform, a perpetual motion machine? Another thing. Martin has now indicated that he will dispatch with the notwithstanding clause (somehow). This he indicates can be done through a mere parliamentary declaration, yet constitutonal experts agree the provinces must be consulted in accordance with the changing mechanism found in the constitution. How does a party that doesn't even understand the constitution deserve your vote? Someone once said that Elsie Wayne could have run for the Nazi dog-killing party in her hay-day and still got elected in her riding. Apparently the same can be said for the sheep who vote for Martin.

Mg understanding of "fiscal imbalance" is a reference not just to Quebec but all provinces, and represents the fact that Ottawa has vastly superior taxing authority relative to the provinces, whereas the provinces have a broader scope of responsibility under the division of powers under the constitution. Case in point the fact that the federal government has to provide the provinces with money to deliver health care which is a strictly provincial jurisdiction, because the provinces can't afford to deliver health care on their own.

One of the major flaws with Kyoto and most enivronmental policies is that they fail to appreciate that one of the most insidious detriments to the environment is not necessarily emissions in the aggregate, but rather density. In general those whose primary concern is the environment live in cities, which is representative of the fact that it is the ridiculous population density and the accompanying cumulative effects of pollution that cause the most obvious environmental problems. This is one of the reasons why the U.S. has a better record then Canada in reducing emissions. The pollution is concentrated on the Eastern and Western seaboard's and they have had to act in their own interest to reduce the effects of pollution. Look at California's vehicle emissions policy as an example. Of course detractors will say that Canada contributes to global warning, etc., and that local policies will not deal with this. To that I simply say the rising dependency on fossil fuels, and its corresponding scarcity (i.e. the rise in demand and shortness of supply) will result in inflated energy prices. Ultimately the economy will do what a bunch of liberal dogooders never could. Reduce fossial fuel emissions.

Unfortunately, in an era of limited attention spans, where 10 second sound bytes are all most people see of what any of the leaders have to say, it's not really smart to try and articulate a grand vision, especially during an election campaign. It's too easy to attack, too easy to twist around your words, too easy to read things into it you don't want read into it. This is particularly so for Harper where his "grand vision" is probably fairly conservative and would, taken together, cause people who already distrust him to worry even more. I'm sure he has a vision of some kind, but you're only going to see it a piece at a time, depending even then on how long he's in office and how much of that vision he's allowed to embrace given the political realities of a minority government. All too true, I suppose. What was Kim Campbell's line: "An election is no time to discuss policy" (or something like that)?

Is it just me, or is the only leader who seems to have any honest passion in this campaign Jack Layton? Harper is in a straightjacket, and Martin is always on some emotional rant just so he can play the "I have passion. I love Canada." card. To be frank I'm a conservative, and so I find this bothersome. I think we all know Harper actually would just as soon not participate in the political games (though he does and must), and is only in Ottawa out of what he feels is an obligation to set Canadian policy. If this is indeed the case, why can he not succintly get this point across? I've been hearing a lot of talk lately as to the lack of a vision for Canada lately, and I have to say all leaders fail on this front. The only leader that can detail his vision is Duceppe, which should be expected given that his vision consists of one thing. All 3 other leaders are horrendous on this point. Harper's vision for Canada is reducing crime and wait times? Martin's is dispatching the notwithstanding clause? Layton's is to "look out for families"? Is no-one looking past the next year to year and half? I think what Canadians need is someone who can say where they will take the country after the next series of minority governments. Coincidentally, I think it's the only way to obtain a majority government.

Actually Big Leagues, you both are in a way accurate. Parliament reigns supreme on any law that does not touch on a charter right. However you are completely wrong to think that Parliament can do anything in violation of a charter right, simply because it passes "an amendment". If it breaches the charter, section 1 of the charter still acts as a saving provision, however if a court were to find that the impugned legislation does not reasonably interfere with the right, the law would be struck down and the only manner in which Parliament could save the law is through the utilization of the notwithstanding clause. I am sure your "peripheral knowledge of the law" understood this however.