blueblood

How about the BQ according to latest polls, wouldn't the PQ and BQ's fate be intertwined?

What makes you think the Greens are left? Their last leader was a former Conservative. Their tossing piles of money towards the environment, a lot of lefties tend to like that.

That is very true and it is unlikely the greens will walk away with any seats, but we have to realize that the greens ran last election with only 5% support and are now polling 10-13%. It would be interesting to see the demographics of where this new 5% comes from. Is it also spread out? Or is it focused in certain regions? Its tough to call because the fringe vote usually is very spread out, but what happens when a fringe party starts to push into the mainstream? The greens taking away support from the libs with support thinly spread is a good thing. They take away votes from the left and it just makes it that much easier for the tories.

No one has commented on this, and I haven't come across any specific federal place that pays less than $10. It would appear to be a pretty safe proposal to set the minimum at $10. Or it would be entirely pointless. If that's really the case then I suppose they're just compulsive regulators. I couldn't agree more. What is funny is that since a 10 dollar an hour minimum is really such a non issue, why does anyone care (one way or the other)? Perhaps sleeping dogs should be left to lie. And some people think we don't think that there should be any minimum wages period........ The issue is 10 bucks an hour, whats next 20, 25? Minimum wage can be a large expense for some companies. If it costs too much to do business in a country why bother doing business there in the first place? It hurts small business too, if they can't afford to pay these wages people are proposing then they either fold or pass on the costs to the consumer. Alberta doesn't have 10 dollar an hour min. wage, yet burger flippers can make 15 bucks an hour. More job opportunities mean that they have to compete to get workers, which results in higher wages as a result.

Like Harper, Martin said that he was doing government business. Harper attends fundraisers but then throws in something else. Check your own link. Also, the Liberals today produced a lot more cancelled checks for personal flights. The point is Harper is paying some money back the Libs, paid none back. From CTV website At least Harper is trying.

It doesn't seem to bother you that Liberals under Martin paid for personal flights. I have no idea about Chretien or Mulroney. The issue here is that Harper said the flights cost $11,000 an hour. Harper and the tories paid some of the difference. Martin reimbursed only for his one family vacation, the liberals paid diddly squat. ctv

It is very unlikely that an increase in the minimum wage will spark inflation. It is more likely as other suggest that certain small businesses may cut back on employment. You are correct in suggesting the market would adjust. 90 years of history has proven just that fact. Since the minimum wage is playing catchup to the requirements to work for a living wage, it is understandable that the level it is set at will always been seen as floor. The statement that poor people are spending to much money is limited by the fact that poor people can't spend anymore money then they have. Minimum wage people aren't the ones mortgaged to the hilt, and with 2 new lease vehicles and living day to day eating and paying off the interest on these items. Minimum wage people are spending their earnings on food, rent and a bus ticket and probably trying to save any extra nickels for education. With regards to your statements of inflation, inflation is always present, but hasn't been a major detrimental factor since the oil crises of the 70s and early 80s. Rapidly rising Energy, Hydro, Gas, Oil etc are major factors affecting inflation. Something far more deadly could occur with the removal of the minimum wage and a decrease in spending as you suggest. Deflation. Something not seen since the dirty thirties. I base my theory on my min. wage beliefs due to personal experience. For example farmers get X dollars for my grain/canola sales, farmers have to pay Y for lets say fertilizer. Say we have a good year, farmers use fertilizer all the time, the fertilizer company realizes that the farmers had a good year, they can get away with charging more for fertilizer knowing that we're going to buy it anyway. If we have a bad year some guys won't be able to afford much fertilizer and the fertilizer company might not get as much money as it would like, so it drops it's price and takes a little hit on it's profits, making some money is better than no money. Out in Alberta stuff from what I heard costs an arm and a leg, why, people have money to spend and spend they do. If minimum wage went up to 10 bucks/hour, stuff could possibly go up, retailers won't care about rent and bus passes etc., they'll realize everyone is at least making this much money and will adjust prices in order to net larger profits, that's a problem in itself, 10 bucks an hour could likely be considered poor. Like I said a low min. wage + low corporate tax rates encourage business growth (low costs), this happened in Ireland, it grew so much that they were competing for workers by offering higher and higher wages, thus making the people of Ireland richer and richer. It's just a theory, Saturn, Geoffery, and Charles Anthony know a lot about economics and should correct any mistakes I may have made.

Apparently they're doing pretty good in Ontario now cbc

Right, and minimum wage legislation prevents someone from doing so. Agreed. And that is why minimum wage legislation is necessary. Because in the absence of it, we would see employers offer less, people work for less, and the poor would become more poor, and the employers would simply use the "savings" to pad their pockets further. Ireland in the early 90's had one of the lowest wages in the developed world, that and really low corporate tax rates. These encouraged foreign investment. Now they are richer than us and their country is a better place to live. They now have to worry about competition from Eastern European countries because Irish wages are now too high. wiki

Then inflation wouldn't go up like crazy, there's always going to be poor people whether they work for 7 bucks an hour or 10 bucks an hour as far as minimum wage goes, the market will readjust to put back the balance. The only problem is that 10 bucks won't mean didly squat anymore. It actually hurts us in the end as our dollar won't be able to buy us things anymore. The only way raising the minimum wage would help out is if people quit spending money too much.

Don't they though. Wasn't an NDP member in Manitoba punished for not voting for a whipped vote? Haven't Conservatives in the Senate been punished for not voting according to a whip? BQ members I have no idea about. I was referring to the anti-terror bill instance.

Was any vote not whipped on this? Yah but I don't think the tories, NDP, or BQ put up as big a stink about it as say the one MP who voted with the government.

FLQ were setting off bombs in street side postal boxes. That can be deemed terrorism. It led to Trudeau instituting the War Measures Act. Meant you could be (and were) rounded up and put in jail w/o any due cause. Pretty much all of that FLQ bombing has been debunked after the investigations happened, remember, the RCMP infiltrators were found to be planning and doing all of those acts, which lead to the formation of CSIS? And yes, Trudeau's war measure act application did mean that. and is a good reason why we must stand against anything that erodes our individual liberties. The Air India attack was not a terrorist attack against Canada. I was living in Montreal at the time of the FLQ bombings - no they weren't debunked. They were pretty small in nature - but they did happen. Of more concern was the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte by the FLQ. They also kidnapped James Cross but fortunately, they found where he was before he could be murdered as well. In fact, after holding him for several weeks - they discovered the hideout and it was only three blocks from where I lived. Do not try revisionist history with the FLQ - they were serious times. Did they find him with the full powers of the war measures act or the regular old way?

FLQ were setting off bombs in street side postal boxes. That can be deemed terrorism. It led to Trudeau instituting the War Measures Act. Meant you could be (and were) rounded up and put in jail w/o any due cause. Pretty much all of that FLQ bombing has been debunked after the investigations happened, remember, the RCMP infiltrators were found to be planning and doing all of those acts, which lead to the formation of CSIS? And yes, Trudeau's war measure act application did mean that. and is a good reason why we must stand against anything that erodes our individual liberties. The Air India attack was not a terrorist attack against Canada. Remember there must be a balance. Right to a security of person is a very important right as well. Rights come with a responsibility, we should not abuse our individual liberties as well as say the FLQ and the guys from Toronto per se and that goes also for members of the RCMP/police force and the army, it's too bad they're under the microscope and the rest of society isn't. We have to let the authorities do their job as it's under their protection that we get to enjoy our individual liberties. We as a society must find a balance between our individual liberties and security.

If I could rub a lamp, those prisons would be sweat shop and the wage prisoners would get is repaying their debt to society.

FLQ were setting off bombs in street side postal boxes. That can be deemed terrorism. It led to Trudeau instituting the War Measures Act. Meant you could be (and were) rounded up and put in jail w/o any due cause. Good point, the War measures act put these little clauses in the Anti-Terror Bill to shame. I think you still get to see a judge with these, or go back to your original country, with the War Measures Act in theory, they could pluck you off the street at the discretion of the police officer/soldier. Trudeau enacts it he's a hero, just imagine if Harper would enact it...

If you can have slavery without coericion then yes it should be legal. I'm not being sarcastic of course. Why not use the scores of people we have in jail, we'd be able to fund the prison system then. Not even the Chinese can compete with free labor.

Wouldn't the recoil on a big gun like that mangle the car up pretty good anyway maybe causing death? Perhaps more education to the Afghan public about warnings when convoys roll through should help.

They'll probably use RCMP for the olympics, I've heard they're churning out cadets out of depot at a very fast rate.

Yeah, well I have a PROBLEM with your NAME. EVERY TIME I SEE IT I GET THIRSTY. THEN I HAVE TO MAKE A CHOICE CANADIAN or BLUE. Never a poll on that. All kidding aside. Baylee rants and the difficulties in Afghanistan get sidelined on this forum just that fast. There is a problem with the number of Civilians being killed. It is important to find better ways. Perhaps the Afghans have one. But if you have ever read anything about them, who knows what's gonna happen. I was hoping to see responses from Weaponeer, Army Guy etc, to get their feedback on Afghans wanting to lead a Canadian Convoy with the intent to reduce civilian casualties. That's one thing about the media everytime a civilian there gets shot, it gets reported. I think only a very small amount do get shot. Look at it this way 20 kids every year get killed or horribly disfigured in accidents involving PTO shafts, never hear about them. Civilians die in war there's no way around it. The soldiers have a right to defend themselves. As the saying goes it's better to be a defendant than a corpse.

I doubt we'll see more crossing the floor. Those that have done it already will have a hard enough time winning again. Go ahead. Call an election tomorrow. Whoops worded it wrong, i meant a coalition gov't of Liberals, NDP, and Bloc. I can see the tories doing well in another election.

I think harper should call an election on this. If his gov't can't get his agenda forward, what's the point. It may as well be a coalition gov't of MPs from the other side of the floor.

Does that mean we should also try to get unemployment back down to where it was as well? Unemployment was lower back in the 70's too. Of course we should, people working generally don't participate in criminal activity. In another thread it was stated that they are looking for jobs like crazy out in Alberta, as Geoff puts it, get over to Alberta and work lots of jobs there.

If Monsanto genetically modified the THC out of hemp/cannabis and threw in the roundup ready/terminator gene, they'd make a fortune. Just imagine roundup ready hemp. Hahahahaha.

I'd like to see some evidence before I make a judgement