mar

No Viagra for Ralph? I actually lived in Alberta under Peter the Great when Ralph was merely the loudmouth mayor of an embarrassed Calgary. Oh I agree with you about the funding - offer them money for mosquito cloning they'll take it. All weak kidding aside, Martin's "this is the first new social program of a new generation" does kinda resonate with me (and I have never found much else he says resonant). Its about 30 years past time, but I really think child care is a much better prioroty for federal funding than most things. The reality is the single income family is dead (or on life support pending world economic reform) and we have to do something about it. I have no problem with provincial jurisdiction, though I would hope there is some control on them actually spending the money on child care. I honestly don't understand how some religious groups seems ot have linked child care to an assault on the family. I would think two peopoe trying to scrape by on one salary in the current "multi-career" employment life cycle or trying to pay for high priced unsubsidized child care puts a lot more stress on the family than having affordable child care available.

Thank you. Not being a politician I won't claim I made it up myself.

I dunno Hydroboss, Ol' Ralph may just decide they should "shoot, shovel and shut up." That'd solve the child care problem! "Big Brother has enough to do without 'a messin about' with matters that are not theirs to screw up." But didn't 10 provinces/territories sign on? Was there a gun to their heads? My understanding is the Liberal program is about standards and funding.

QUESTION: How can you recognize a conservative think tank? ANSWER: There's no deep end. sorry. couldn't resist.

LOL I like that! And hey! They could all work at McDonalds, part of McDonalds "cradle to the grave at minimum wage" employment program! p.s. to seabee "Why the bogus website?" because I didn't feel like registering the domain name, buying hosting and creating fake content all for a rather mild joke.

CTV.ca News Staff Conservative Leader Stephen Harper talked national unity, but he delivered a speech in Huntsville, Ont. entirely in English. "Every vote for the Liberal party - in Quebec or particularly outside of Quebec - quite frankly drives votes to the Bloc Quebecois," Harper told a news conference in Huntsville on Saturday. "Every vote for the Conservative party is pulling people from the Bloc Quebecois, and pulling people towards a new government that can unite the country and break down the polarization of the debate in Quebec." ----------- WOW! Who wrote that???? Now you may think the math doesn't make sense. I mean, after all, if a person votes Liberal instead of Bloq in Quebec doesn't that take away a vote from the Bloq? If I put my loonie into the machine and choose Pepsi doesn't that take away my business from Coke? But listen to this: it is 100% true. If you go to www.drive-votes-to-the-block.com you will see the registration system set up by the Bloc and made mandatory by the Government of Quebec for all residents. The system is fiendishly simple: Quebec residents are required under penalty of imprisonment to report anyone suspected of intending to vote Liberal. For each name reported, two persons from the Bloq database of "undecideds" will be forced to vote Bloq. Mr. Duceppe said he would like to extend the plan to cover Liberal voters in other provinces but since 50% of Quebec is already voting Bloq, the Quebec popuation does not have enough people for 2 Quebecois to vote Bloq for each Liberal vote outside the province. However, the Quebec government is considering alowing a retroactive registration of children under 18 and those deceased within the past 10 years to make up the numbers. Time for some new speechwriters (Gee! I hope he didn't come up with that himself

gee shoop, I am sorry to waste your valuable time by disputing another poster's contention that U.S. governments are inherently more honest than Canadian governments on a thread entitled "Harper-Bush, Bush-Harper?, Just some joe shmoe." Were we supposed to be discussing whether they were joe schmoe, john doe, or maybe joe sixpack? My mistake.

That's playing with words. It is an economic sacfrifice unless 1 person's income is sufficient to maintain the family. I am not saying people are saying "to heck with the kids, I want a new SUV" I am saying it is very difficult for ordinary working people to live on a single income (and by live I mean own a home in a reasonable neighbourhood, have at least 1 car and sufficient income for necessities and enough savings for a small cushion against unemployment or other disasters). Nobody is against children being cared for in the home. In fact, in the 1970's before feminism became a dirty word to some in Canada in the U.S. one of the principal demands you heard was that women or men who chose to remain in the home to raise children should be deemed by society to be doing important work for the benefit of the country and should be paid a salary. So if the Conservatives are so keen on women in the home, why don't they introduce that as a policy? Or do they think they already have (lessee here: I get $100 a month and I put in about an 18 hour day so that's 18 hours times an average 30 days per month and . . .

"But that the 20th century wars were neccassary to secure freedom." I didn't think anybody believed any more that WW I was about freedom. GEEZ! A sizable percentage of the troops returned for WWI so radicalized and sickened by the pointlessness of that war for the economic division of the world they founded communist and socialist parties, held general strikes and transformed the political landscape of Europe. "The US is not going to go to war with another country for no reason with an already at stake American economy and put themselves in more debt." a) they already did with Iraq China will become the world's largest economy. Do you think what will them be the world's richest country with the largest population of any country will accept a world dominated by the U.S.? They'd be the first ever in that position to do so. Plus one of the things you have to realize is the U.S. economy is much more entwined with China's than vice versa. When they started, U.S. governments promised Americans trade with China would involve MORE employment in the U.S. In face it has been the reverse: an immense job drain and an export of raw materials to china that come back as electronic goods, clothing, and soon automobiles. To date the bulk of this has been by U.S. companies who either contract producation or established their own factories but now China is turnings it attention to incentivizing their citizens to establish their own companies. So a china that leads the world in manufactured goods - with the U.S. merely as another comsumer - and has an reasonably affluent population will demand its rightful place. Plus there is some reason to believe that this century will be the century of war bewteen the third world and the West. Despite its economic growth, Chian has positioned itself squarely with the third world in geo-political terms. So, at the minimum the balance of power in the world will undergo major changes over the next few decades and history tells us this is rarely accomplished peacefully.

The Liberals can't even be honest in quotations? How can anyone take these ads crediably? I thought the quotes were out of context and unfair. Now I find out they aren't even real quotes. Got to love it. Geez! The fake outrage quotient is thru the roof. <sarcasm>Yeah, there is nothing outta context, incorrectly paraphrases or misleading in the ads the Conservative Party has been running since day one. </sarcasm> There's an old political saying: "When you can't refute the substance, go after the style." Guess those are words to live by.

Somebody who wanted to could find a whole list of quotes about how various countries (including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, etc) were so economically intertwined in the early-mid 20th century that they would never go to war. As an argument, yours amounts to about zero.

Key positions: Sectretaries of State, Defence, Treasury, Attorney General. Line if succession if president can not serve: 1. Vice President (Richard B. Cheney) 2. Speaker of the House of Representatives (J. Dennis Hastert) 3. President pro tempore of the Senate (Ted Stevens) 4. Secretary of State (Condoleezza Rice) 5. Secretary of the Treasury (John W. Snow) 6. Secretary of Defense (Donald H. Rumsfeld) 7. Attorney General (Alberto Gonzales) 8. Secretary of the Interior (Gale Norton) 9. Secretary of Agriculture (Mike Johanns) 10. Secretary of Commerce (Carlos Gutierrez, ineligible) 11. Secretary of Labor (Elaine Chao, ineligible) 12. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Michael Leavitt) 13. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Alphonso Jackson) 14. Secretary of Transportation (Norman Y. Mineta) 15. Secretary of Energy (Samuel W. Bodman) 16. Secretary of Education (Margaret Spellings) 17. Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Jim Nicholson) Don't look like Normie's getting anywhere near the reigns of power, huh? Other hand, Bill Cohen was merely 5 heartbeats away from the Oval office under Clinton

This might have been an acceptable argument in the 1950's when it was possible for middle income earners to live on a single income without immense sacrifice but has little to do with now. Since the fifties we have seen multi-thousand percent increases in the cost of living that has vastly outstripped income growth. In the late 1950's $10,000 was a nice middle class income from a single job and you could buy a brand new car for $2,000, a house in a middle class suburb for a bit over $20,000. You would have to make over $200,000 now for an average family sedan to account for merely 20% of your annual income. Without reform of the world economic system - yeah, that's gonna happen - day care is a reality for the forseeable future and claiming that turning family and neighbours into some sort of less than minumum wage day care system is insulting both to canada's children and these draftees in the cause of child care. As to the "institutions" you people keep talking about, nobody is advocating creating some kind of day care megacentre where children are herded together for institutional care. What the Liberal plan does is provide both funding and standards for facilities and each province can implement that in their own way. It should be a matter of shame to Canadians that we think so little of our children that we think giving the parent a few hundred bucks a year and forcing them to try and turn their friends and neighbours into semi-slave labour is something to advocate. Nothing in the Liberal plan limits at home care for those who can afford it or are able to make the sacrifice to stay at home. The unfortunate reality is that few can afford it and sweeiping that under the rug and saying take your $100 a month and shut up is appalling. And gee! Could it be the great conservative "triumph" of eliminating Family Allowance is being proposed in another form. Party haven't even been elected and already they've flip flopped on what they described as a major victory. But being the honourable people they are, I bet they're gonna give all those people who lost their family allowance a lump sum retroactive payment to make up for it, right? And maybe an apology?

Actually, that's not true. A number of U.S. goverments have lost civil suits and many more settled rather than go to judgement. And you have to remember, the U.S. sytem makes political corruption endemic to the system and detection far less likely. It is documented that tens of millions of dollars in Iraq oil money as well as federal appropriations money is unaccounted for in Iraq (not some leftie view but in reported by the office of budgetary management) but with the house, senate and judiciary controlled by one party, no investigation is forthcoming. The worst part of the U.S. system - and one which most constitutional experts agree was completely unanticipated by the framers of the constitution - is that because the document was conceived on a theoretical level for a pre 1800's world, there was no explicit prohibition against the takever of all aspects of goverment by political parties. Interestingly, one of the framers did want to toally prohibit political parties as he thought - rightly as it turned out - that they would twist and corrupt the consitution and system of government for their own ends. U.S. elections are completely controlled by political parties which is a recipe for corruption and recent years have shown endless examples. And I am not limiting this to Republicans. The Democratic machine in Chicago and Massachussits is equally guilty. You saw this to an almost surreal degree in Florida where the person who would be the chief elections officer in Canada was appointed by a member of the same party as one of the candidates who happened to be the brother of that candidate and this same person in charge of the elcetion process was the head of this same candidate's campaign in that state. I mean, that's like a Marx Brothers movie. It is extremely attractive - probably irresistible - for any party to do this and you can bet if the Liberals had total control of the electoral process in Ontario they would employ some strategy to limit voters who theier research showed would likely vote against them. The conservative party would do precisely the same elsewhere as history has taught us that no political party is above corruption when it comes to winning elections. In addition to this one example, you have a federal appointment system for judges in the U.S. which makes ours seem like the model for transparency and light. And honestly, which one of the framers ever contemplated a day when the party in power would try to install individuals with no judicial credibility whatsoever onto the Supreme Court simply because they would do their political bidding? And yet this has become an accepted practice in the U.S. Couple that with in excess of 6,000 party people paid by taxpayers money but not part of the civil service - and not governed by its rules - and responsible only to the party in power which U.S. government routinely install into every branch of government and you have a nightmare that makes sponsorship look like a minor gaffe. If we scale that down to Canada, that would mean each government could appoint thousands of their party workers to control all aspects of each government department and, even tho these people would be paid by taxpayers they would not be part of the Civil Service or bound by its rules, reporting only to the PM. The effect of this is to both allow a draconian control and to provide a layer of protection against any investigation of the department. What this amounts to is basically government by a semi-secret cabal of unelected officials. Prior to 1900, U.S. administrations routinely appointed members of either party to cabinet but that is long gone (Clinton being the last pres. to appoint a member of the other party to a key position). While we the voters have no direct control over who becomes minister of foreign affairs, defence, whatever, at least they have to be drawn from a pool of people elected by the Canadian people. So where is the accountability of these people who are responsible only to the president and elected by no-one? Anyway, too long already...I'll stop.

There is no such thing as a defensive weapons system. Any system engenders a development process whereby other states are obligated to counter with their own sytem or cede all power to the originator. Plus, the signal aspect of the missile shield is the abililty to control the system from space and ultimately to launch space based weapons. So tell me, if you're, let say, China, do you look at this and say "Gee! The U.S. would never use the space launch capability to target us, would they? I mean its not like they ever dropped nuclear bombs on an Asian population or invaded a region close to us, is it?"

If you believe that you should emigrate. In fact the Bush administration might pay you to do so as over 70% of the native U.S. population believe their government steals from them on a massive scale for their own purposes. They need believers like you.

A great many things in the world will happen whether we agree or not but that does not make the act of agreement correct. There are various terms for this view: "passing the buck", "ethical void", "lack of principles", "mercenary attitude". In any conflict there are people who believe in one side, people who believe in the other and people who side with whoever they think will be the winner. I thought you were a "principles guy".

We apparently have to take his word that the evolution has occured (not saying anything on issues - which is pretty much all he's done - is not the same as coming out with a new statement). I seem to recall someone on this continent saying he was a uniter, not a divider, that he had no interest in nation building, that he wanted to return civility to politics. Can't see that those changes have occured anywhere so maybe I remember wrong Look, we all know what Harper is. If the U.S. NeoCons are your ideal of political philosophy, then by all means vote for him (or move to Mecca which is only a few miles South for most of you). However, if that's not your political opinion, don't be fooled by a deliberate strategy of avoidance and misdirection. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I guess I'm guilty of this too, eureka (that's a great name; maybe you should consider legally adopting it - just the one name, like Cher or Oprah). I actually have voted NDP many times in my life and will in this election as in my riding the battle is NDP-Conservative and the Liberal candidate will finish a distant third. I guess my perception is that with the polarization that we see in other english speaking countries of one left and one right party, which is also the pattern in several provinces like manitoba where provincially the Conservative and NDP parties are the only ones capable of taking power - the Federal NDP have missed out and are doomed for the forseeable future to minor party status. However, the PC's were wiped out (the final knife to the heart being deliverd by Harper-MacKay ... et tu Peter?) so you can't say its impossible that the same fate could befall the Liberals over the next decade or two, though I think that's unlikely. I think part of the NDP's problem has always been our closeness to the U.S. and the constant flood of U.S. opinion that has made "socialist" not merely a political view but something inextricably linked to evil, atheism and fear for Canadians who have absorbed a tad too much U.S. propaganda. While it appears the word socialist will no longer pass the lips of any NDP leader, I'm not sure if the rather ridiculous stigma will ever leave them.

And how would that be accomplished? What government would ever cede any power to a body beyond their control? And how would that body be selected? If they're elected, how would we possibly eliminate politcal parties from the process? If we don't and went to a U.S. like system and the U.S. model of 2 senators per province and territory and gave them a real power - e.g. legislation MUST be passed by vote in the house and senate - we would suddenly create the 26 most powerful people in Canada. Double the number and its the identical problem; go to somewhere near 100 and all we have done is create an immensely expensive dual body of "super MP's" that basically has the effect of introducing a form of proportional representation. If we want propertional representation, much simpler and cheaper simply to reform parliament on that basis. I really think the Senate is not a valid body in our parliamentary system and we should simply abolish it. Britain - who used the House of Lords in a similar fashion - has been moving in that direction for a very long time.

My opinion on the shield has never really changed since it was first talked about. I know it won't work, the test results are just shameful. I strongly doubt as well any rogue nation is going to fire a salvo of missles at Canada. With this considered, I still support the idea. Lets be realistic, the Americans are going to pay for the thing, Canadian jobs are going to be created in building the thing, and at the end of the day, one of the thousand missles might actually get shot down... If they are paying for it, why not? There is no valid strategic argument for the shield and the negative aspect of it in terms of sparking a new arms race among major powers far outweighs any advantage. However, I will say one thing that goes way, way beyond the current election. If the proliferation of nuclear weapons continues (India, Pakistan now possibly Iran and more to come) Canada will definitely revisit the debate that has existed virtually since WWII as to whether we should join the "nuclear club." This is not some off-the-wall prediction. There have been advocates in the Canadian military for the past 50 years based on the simple premise that, for a relatively small nation in terms of population with a large landmass to protect that exceeds the capability of conventional forces, the deterrant effect of nuclear weapons is an extremely cost efficient solution. Given our current expertise in nuclear power and the pool of expertise available to the military, development would present no problem. I am neither advocating this or automatically dismissing it, but I will bet you if international proliferation continues, within a decade or so it will break out of the closed world of the military and become a matter for public discussion. It may also serve as an interesting object lesson in how our neighbours to the South regard us as, make no mistake, a succession of U.S. governments have had very definite opinions on this.

If the spirit of Edmund Burke (I'm sure as a good conservative you know who that is) appeared to you in a burning bush and told you that the current liberal party best embodies the principles of free choice and respect for the individual that is the conservative tradition you'd say "Suck rocks, fireboy." So you see your role as, what? Proselitiser in that narrow little island in the history of conservatism currently called the Conservative Party of Canada? Agent Provocateur? Party Hack? Harper Acolyte? I mean you gotta admit when you're saying "Sounds very appealing to me Melanie. But you see...the big problem is: It's coming from the Liberals" that kinda suggests rational discourse is not your interest.

We played this game already on another thread and the Conservative posters lost on both style and originality, but hey! knock yourselves out! here's my favourite but I'm biased CUE: SOMBER MUSIC The blurred screen gradually sharp focuses on a line of coffins draped in the Canadian flag. VOICEOVER: If Stephen Harper had been Prime Minister in 2003 he would have sent Canadian troops to Iraq without the sanction of the U.N. and against the wishes of the majority of Canadians. Now he says he was misled by the intelligence. Mr. Cretien was not misled, Mr. McCallum was not misled, Liberal, NDP and Bloc MP's were not misled. The majority of the Canadian public was not misled. Either Mr. Harper has poorer judgement than the majority of the public or he was willing to sacrifice the lives of our sons and daughters, husbands and wives in the Canadian military to ingratiate himself with George Bush. Do we really want Stephen Harper answering the phone the next time Mr. Bush calls? (100% true and accurate; approved by mar)

Sorry, Dr. Semantics, read government of Quebec for Quebec in my statement and either way Harper promised to reimburse them, which was my point. What is more troublesome is it won't end there. I've outlined this on other threads so the short form: If he doesn't compensate Quebec a Conservative government will begin their term with a bitter dispute with Quebec. If he does, first the Atlantic provinces, then others will demand compensation. You KNOW they will.

"Dispose of" in that "Good Fellas" kind of way? KIDDING