lost&outofcontrol

Sorry about that, the quote was from speaker.

If you want people to pay attention to the products they purchase, get a legislation passed obligating corporations to place a nice big sticker on products made with child labour, paid slavery, growth hormones etc... There would be alot less Hershey chocolate bars sold. Just my 2 cents.

Studies have shown that the severity of a sentence has little to no effect on the probability of a crime being committed. What is important is the probabilities of being caught. 47% of deviants (people who are caught and convicted of a crime) will have no subsequent record. Another 35% will stop after the second crime and a further 29% will stop after the third. Thereafter, less than 5% will continue committing crimes. If you want deterrence, you should cut the length of sentences for first offense and better use the resources to catch criminals. In the late 19th century, most convicted criminals weren't sent to prisons, they were sentenced to repay their debt to society by working for the city/government/victims. Prisons were never created to be the only tool to punish criminals. I urge everyone to read up on the Classical thinking theory of criminal punishment from Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham.

Take a look at their plan. A party not trying to gain votes by trying to be everything to every one. A breath of fresh air these days I think.

What are you taking UOttawaMan ? I'm at Ottawa University too.

What's with the invading frenzy. Tell me again why we need to invade Iran ? Who should we be invading; Iran, who can be years if not a decade away from having a usable nuke or the Russians who are helping the Iranians with the development of it's nukes? Hell, we invaded Afghanistan because they were helping terrorists, why not Russia.

We pay on average 6% more in taxes than americans. The richest 30% of the population in Canada pays 5% less than the same in the US.

This post just goes to show you how people do not research before posting. Where are you pulling these numbers from ? If you would of looked at the NDP's, plan you would of seen that they're committed to not increasing taxes and keeping a balance budget. They've also agreed with reducing the lowest personal income tax rate. What they don't agree with is the massive tax cut offered to business without any incentives (like actually creating new jobs) or strings attached.

Think about this way, why wouldn't Iran seek nuclear weapons ? Afghanistan didn't have them, now they're little more than a protectorate of the US. Iraq didn't have any nuclear weapons (or any WMD for that matter) and they were invaded. I think Iran believes the only way it can assure itself an independent existence is with nuclear weapons. Just playing the devil's advocate here.

This is, perhaps, the most perfect Black Dog post ever. The Zen of Black Dog. It ties together and explains, in a fundamental way, every post I've ever read from you. I fully agree with Black Dog.

The problem is alot of people do fall through the cracks of our system. Most "full time" homeless people in Canada are mentally handicap.

I mostly agree with you although I do believe our health care system isn't all that bad but the main problem with it is that it's a compromise between a private system like in the U.S. and a truly universal system like in Cuba and most European countries. If we fully commit to a universal health care system, I think it can work. In this day and age, we are led to believe that you should look out for yourself and let other people work it out. The level of individualism has increase dramatically in recent times to where we would rather have the market correct inequalities by itself over time and let less fortunate people suffer until then. It doesn't have the be the rat race we've made it out to be. As for a having a strong military, I'm one of those UN pussies and so I'm of the opinion that we do not need a bigger presence than what our UN obligations require us to have. Then we have the drug issue. I still to this day do not understand the people on the right who are trying to control what people do in their own home. Whether that's the use of drugs or just about anything else. And I pretty sure that's what Jack Layton and the NDP believes in too. Again, it's a matter of opinions...

Just so you know, I edited my last post to clarify my question's intent. I do believe he knows the difference between the three. What you perceive as a nanny government; I perceive as a government that truly believes in equality by helping people in need. It's a matter of opinions where nobody can be proven right or wrong. It's either you believe in liberty then equality or equality then liberty. It's the level of individualism you adhere to.

Just to know, what economic policies of his do you think he dosen't understand or that he needs to reform. **edit The reason I'm asking is that I'd like to know what he would need to do to be considered as an alternative by more Canadians.

We've veered off course haven't we... I believe Jack Layton is a good leader/ builder but they do need to groom someone to take the helm once he steps down as I don't think he can lead the NDP through the 20% barrier of support. I think his honesty comes off as being a bit too blunt for the average Canadian; unfortunate really. He's not a good "sound bite" kinda politician. People seem to prefer the car salesman type*. *By the way, I'm not necessarily saying Harper/Martin are car salesmen types. It's just a generalization of our overall past prime ministers/politicians.

Stranger than fiction.

No country has ever been communist. The closest a country ever came to it was in the soviet union up until 1924 when Lenin died or the Paris Commune of 1871 . You don't really think that Russia under Stalin or China under Mao was communism do you ? They were nothing more then socialist dictatorships.

Take the blinds off man. Since 1975, 38k people have been killed and a 100k injured by land mines in Vietnam laid by the US. link

<rant mode> I think he makes very good points. Just look at Indonesia for the perfect example of influence trans-national corporations can have on a country. The British and US .gov had a direct link in the Suharto coup which led to the mass murder of over a million people all in the name of capitalism. The Trans-national corporations and representatives of the Suharto .gov had a conference in the late 60's and they (the Trans-national corporations) basically gave the Indonesian .gov their terms as too how they could enter the country and"cut out the cancer (dissidents)". The IMF and the World Bank has loaned over 30 billion dollars to the Indonesian .gov of Suharto of which Suharto skimmed 10 billion that we know of and yet the IMF & WB refuse to forgive the debt. Who do you think is paying for the corruption of the trans-national corporations and the Suharto family ? The Indonesian people ended up paying for it. They have no chance in repaying this debt, they're barely paying the interest and that's how the IMF and WB work. They don't expect repayment of loans, only to receive interest on those loans for eternity. The Nominal GDP for Indonesia is in the top 25 in the world and yet the Gross National Income per capita isn't even in the top 100. They're in the bottom half in the world for poverty. The invisible hand isn't doing a very good job. All in the name of capitalism... </rant mode>

Where is this coming from ? I mean seriously, why should the incompetence of one family making $120k be enough justification to punish a lower income family ? Do you seriously think that most people are like that ? If you're making $25k a year, you won't be buying a 3-bedroom split level house unless the loan officer at the bank is really drunk. Haven't you noticed everybody want to be that $120 family; but it doesn't work that way. If some are considered rich, then some of them have to be poor. But it shouldn't be a reason to punish them !

Where do you think they will get the money for the $1200 child care payment ? You can't reduce taxes, and keep the same level of social programs. You'll just end up paying more for day care since it won't be as heavily subsidized. I do agree that the liberal solution wasn't adequate. Parents had to wait months before space opened up. It's the same old liberal half-ass way of doing it. You have to either increase the subsidies so as to create enough space or don't subsidize it at all and do what the conservative are doing. my 2 cents

Total crimes commited has gone down since the late 80s linky Since 1993, violent crimes have fallen 11%.

If i'm not mistaken, its a tax credit, not a direct welfare handout. You guys and gals do realize that $100 a month to spend on day care is a joke...right. An average daycare center charges $750 in Ottawa, Ont. The cheapest daycare you can find(Montreal, heavily subsidized) is more than twice of what the CPC is offering.

Yeah, sorry, I did sound like a douche earlier. I spoke to a rep from the PCP party before the election and he though they were going to get at least 1 representative elected in either Winnipeg south-center or Brome-Missisquoi. They barely received 0.1% of the national vote!

wow, didn't think people were that bad on this board, me thinks you need to look in the mirror to find the zealot. I'm not even a conservative voter nor am I a PCP voter; I was just stating facts. And yes, the PCP did choose to keep to name hoping for a few more votes. That I know as a fact. Didn't realy help them since their best showing was in Brome-Missisquoi with 4% of the vote. Heck , the Christian Heritage Party got twice as many votes nation wide.