fryingpan

If Green Party were changed to Libertarian, the poll would make more sense.

These are great!

Is the earth overpopulated? Is it going to be? I would answer yes to both, but with an explanitory note...the Earth could be in way better shape with the same population if our lifestyles were different. Consumerism makes humans act as cancer does, upon the host, earth. The Earth would be better if everyone lived a more "environmentally friendly" lifestyle, but I don't think our neighbours to the south will be too pleased with that idea.

That's a good part of it,but not all.As a parent of 4 teenagers life isn't too bad with my bunch.Why? 1.No cable T.V. 2.No allowances,you want,you earn- and I don't mean household chores-those are to be done because you live in this house.You want to buy,get a job. 3.I want to know where you are and with who.Your friends are always welcome at this house and overnight.Better it happens under your own roof. 4.We are not church goers,but morals and fairness are expected as a personal value from everyone in this home. 5.Siblings are more important than friends and should be treated as such when help or rescue is required. 6.Communications on a daily basis is a must.I want to know what you are doing and I CARE about it,so ask me when there is a problem,maybe I can help or offer some advice. 7.Interact,go to the game they play,see their projects,help them with their needs in school,respect their choices. 8.Love your spouse and your kids will love you both. 9.Love them,you made them, they're yours for life. Wow, we need more parents like you. Most parents I know are either never paying attention to their kids or paying the wrong kind of attention to them.

I heard somewhere that they now have schools in India that teach their students how to speak English with an American accent, so Americans won't be able to tell that these people are from India. It will be interesting to see how this affects our call centre industry here in Canada...

I say stick them on planes, fly them to Alberta, and let them work at McDonalds for $10/hour. If the starting wage rate is so high, they must need people, so let's give them some. Where would they live, out on the Prairies in tents as our Japanese neighbours did when they were shifted to Alberta in the war time. Housing up north is terrible, I have 7 family members working there. Do you mean lack of housing or lack of decent houses? I can understand if there are literally no houses or apartments left for them to live in, but if the houses/apartments are just poorly maintained...

I'm sure McGuinty could have found better things to spend the money on...I'd like to squirrel my foot up his rear end.

This attitude from many both wealthy, middle-income, and low-income parents is maddening. When will parents lose this sense of entitlement and accept that the cost and responsiblity of raising a child is theirs and theirs alone. Anything socieity provides is generous and is something they should be grateful for. I agree. The more tax cuts and handouts you give to people who have kids, the more people there will be having kids so they can get money back from the government. If you can't afford to have kids, you shouldn't have them. This world is overpopulated enough as it is.

No kidding, where I live the fast food restaurants get 5 applications a day, every day. They no longer bother putting up "Now Hiring" signs because they don't have to. About half of the people applying are teenagers, and the other half are over 30. The fact that the Ontario Provincial government keeps raising minimum wage is NOT helping. The student wage here helps the teenagers find jobs, but if you're over 18, you may as well not bother applying. And even the teenagers under 18 have to struggle. Here's an idea. If you want full employment, why not get rid of minimum wage? I have yet to meet someone who is literally worth nothing. Whoever wants a job would have no trouble finding one, there would be no excuse for unemployment. Whoever says that Canada is at the lowest level of unemployment should look at northern Ontario.

Probably not (in response to "are kids kids anymore?"). Parents today give their kids far more things than they had when they were growing up. Teenagers 50 years ago who had part time jobs were expected to contribute to the bills and pay their share. Now teenagers today are getting jobs just for spending money. They don't contribute to family bills (unless spending money on a new pair of jeans counts), and they don't save for university/college, because their parents will. And if their parents are unable to afford it, the government will force the taxpayers to pay. Another part of the problem is that parents nowadays are too stressed and can't be bothered to watch their kids anymore. They are more concerned with themselves and their jobs then they are with their kids.

I say stick them on planes, fly them to Alberta, and let them work at McDonalds for $10/hour. If the starting wage rate is so high, they must need people, so let's give them some.

Dennis Prager...telling it like it is! It's true. Admit it. I feel sorry for those in socialist countries who don't support socialism. They are the ones who suffer the most because they realize how stupid and destructive the system is, yet they can't do much about it, because the majority of the voting population stupidly votes them back in every time.

You're not stuck with them forever?! If someone f##ks up bad then he's gone. This law allows employers to fire without reason(other than their 2 years are almost up)!!! Again this is just a ploy to produce a pool of cheap on demand labour for employers. I can only imagine how badly this will affect productivity. If you are in a small city with a declining younger population (people going away for school etc...), you would run out of labour if you practiced that policy. Not to mention the employee turnover costs (assuming the positions being filled require some basic skills/education and can't be learned in 10 minutes). I can picture fast food doing that (since they do it anyway), but if the job requires actual skills/training, it's going to be more expensive. If I had a choice between unemployment and a job that would last a couple years, I would take the job. When I get tossed out, I could move to a country that isn't so socialist and use the work experience gained to get a better job.

You could always have given that "allowance" money to someone who did really need it if you feel that strongly about it... In any case, the millionaires pay far more in taxes than anyone else, simply because they earn more money. Is this equitable?

That's a pretty good idea. But what about during winter when it's too cold for plants/trees to grow? Maybe people should keep more indoor plants too. I'm pretty sure they have medicine now for allergies, and from what I hear, it's pretty effective. The only way to ever get rid of pollen would be to kill every plant and tree on the planet, and I hardly think that's reasonable.

Why not wait until gas prices go up to $50/litre? The way things are going now, it's only a matter of time before that happens.

What I can't figure out is why French youth are protesting over something that is designed to help them. Facing an unemployment rate of 25%, why would they protest something that's designed to help them have a chance at life? Is being unemployed that much fun? Ironically this half baked change will create exactly the problems that the students fear: employers will create a pool of temporary jobs that will be filled by successive waves of young people who are let go after two years. Unfortunately, the French govt does not have the guts to implement the real solution by eliminating excessive job guarantees for all employees. I agree. Ontario has a student wage which acts the exact same way. In cities with a large number of people and few jobs, younger people are hired until they reach 18 and must be paid the adult wage. After this, the employer starts looking for excuses to boot them out the door.

I love that no one even tried to defned the party after i posted that a while back...could it be that no one here is FOR the current party in power in Ontario? I agree with every word you said. May I add how he promised not to unfreeze tuition fees and then unfroze them anyway? The only promise he kept was to raise minimum wage which resulted in lots of shifts and jobs getting cut. Not to mention young entrants to the labour force who cannot find any kind of job. Thanks a lot, McGuinty.

Who are you talking about? Those people that used to scan and beep as you choose to call it are not helping serve peole in the aisles, they no longer have jobs, period. This self-serve solution is about only one thing, and that is eliminating employees, and thus increasing the bottom line. I for one refuse to use these devices because my wife happens to work retail as a Head Cashier/Front-End Manager in a grocery store, and if our particular Co-op was to install these self-service modules, those girls and boys who rely on that part-time employment as a way to pay their educational costs would no longer have that money coming in. The store would just eliminate those positions and employ only those who now stock shelves. Don't kid yourself, none of tese stores will shift those employees to another part of the store, they will simply lay them of, but if you are naive enough to believe this corporate B.S. of how much they care about their employees, you go right ahead. Those of us that are more enlightened know better. I work in a store that brought in self-checkouts. No cashiers lost their jobs and some of them were even given better jobs in sales on the floor. You're right in the sense that we won't have quite as many cashiers on manned tills, but the difference isn't drastic. In a store that does $74 Million in sales per year we may have about 10% less cashiers now; however, there is more than 10% more coverage on the sales floor where the customers need the help. Don't kid yourself with conspiracy theories of layoffs and job slashing. Although some companies may do it, not all companies operate on those same philosophies. Doesn't it also depend on where the store is located? Some provinces have higher minimum wages and stricter labour regulations than others.

That's a pretty good point about subsidized health care. The lower middle class people don't get to benefit from this program, even though they are the ones who are crushed by the taxes to fund it.

Huh, I'm right where Friedman is.

When they become adults and realize that every single job out there requires previous work experience, those kids will care. You'll probably have them beating down your door and begging to mow your lawn. You could probably get them to do it for free, since minimum wage laws don't apply to those kinds of jobs.

They would if the government would stop telling them when they can and can't hunt. Or they could open more colleges so the teachers can make a ridiculous amount of money at the taxpayers expense. I'd love to go deer hunting all year 'round, but there this such thing as sustainable populations. Other than forestry, mining and paper, what else does the north have? Fast food restaurants, and other jobs that pay minimum wage. Some cities have call centres that pay slightly more than minimum wage. That's about it.

Seeing as how it was the taxpayers money to begin with, they should have the right to spend it as they please. If they choose to spend it on beer and popcorn while their kids starve, wouldn't they get charged with neglect? With rising health care costs and a massive debt, can this country really afford a 5 billion dollar daycare centre?

Southern Ontario is doing okay. It's the Northern half thats sinking. The paper mills towns are even worse off. I don't think anyone there makes over 50K a year. I love the hunting there. They should focus more on their tourism industry potential. They would if the government would stop telling them when they can and can't hunt. Or they could open more colleges so the teachers can make a ridiculous amount of money at the taxpayers expense.