blueblood

Would you rather not have that money stay in the family to be spent on things that the other siblings might have to produce instead of that money being gone? The things we trade are generally what other countries don't have such as oil and metals. Why should the market be flooded because Timmy from the city wants to save a buck? Timmy should realize that if you don't have something you might have to pay for it. I have to pay an arm and a leg for oil and diesel fuel because of the supply management scheme of OPEC, you can pay for ag products. Do you think those milk producers just bury all that money in their yards, no they spend it which helps out the economy and tax system. They might get a lot of money due to supply management, but they're spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes on top of it, it's a fair trade. We are in a trade deficit with China, we import all of their stuff and they hardly import any of ours, it costs us money and hurts our economy yet strengthens theirs, in short if we buy something from there, we don't see that money again. This money leaving Canada has got to stop. I think the ag producing countries should form something like OPEC, boy would those oil prices fall. Nothing like cutting Iran off from our grain.

There is one problem with allowing people to get a tax break on not sending their kids to public schools, it ends up hurting the schools themselves. Public money shouldn't go to funding private schools, but at the same time nobody should get a tax break just because you want to send your kids to private school, if you want to send your kid to private school it comes out of your pocket. There are other provincial expenditures that need funding, you live in an area you pay taxes simple. They had a problem like this out in Saskatchewan with a load of farmers threatening to boycott their property taxes because they believed that since they had no kids in school and weren't in school that they shouldn't have to pay for it. Mind you they forgot that they went to school and are in a way paying for it.

When we started this country we posted ads in other countries to attract immigrants to farm the prairies, I don't think ads exist now to immigrate to Canada. you can blame declining birth rates with the rise of more women entering the workplace due to inflation and the need to pay for our standard of living (a million bucks for a house in B.C. anyone?) What we need is the right kind of immigrants, not just anyone as the social services would be plugged more than it already is. Hah!!! The only thing that the Charter has done good is improve the rights of special interest groups and makes it harder to arrest criminals. Canada was already a highly civilized, non corrupt, non-abusive, safe Country before the Charter. What did you think that before the Charter we lived in anarchy? I don't think in the textbooks it says that there were death squads and all that roaming around Canada. Do you think that the Prime Ministers before Trudeau were all like Pinnochet and we NEEDED the charter to prevent that, our country is too advanced for that. With the Charter we get groups that cause organized crime that hide behind it stating they have the right to a freedom of association, why you would want to enable that is beyond me.

Hmm. Globalization is a bitch isn't it. Our society is accepting too, if our society was full of some posters here then this scenario wouldn't exist. the same could be said about the other side of the spectrum, evangelical christians anyone? In my view they are as dangerous as muslims are portrayed to be. I'd say catholicism made this compromise a long time ago and I'd say it's different in the handling of its affairs than in the past, it's time for other religions to catch up. I believe that globalization has something to do with this, some people being threatened with a so-called threat across the world. I think we're in for a round of wars concerning all of Asia, it took Europe over a thousand years of war to become pacified and to where it is now. I'd say the best thing for the developed world is to cut them off, let them get their house in order, and then deal with them. It's funny because when Europe was fighting with itself, all of Asia was the most advanced place on the planet, I think your right about the compromise with religion, they made the wrong compromise. I also think that when you come to Canada you should be accepting the culture of our country, this type of education seems to be holding them back from our standards. Theres nothing wrong with them setting up their schools but at the same token they should realize that they are a part of Canada and should be contributing instead of taking.

There are lots of excuses. I ride a bike. That's a good excuse. I'd like to see a hybrid attempt to pull 10,000 plus pounds

What about the obnoxious redneck label to western rural Canadians? That's a double standard is it not?

NEP and multiculturalism. Trudeau is the father of separtist thought in the West and a large contributor to separtist though in Quebec. "Screw the West we'll take the rest" attitude on top of that

It's not. I just want something for the kids I might have in a few years. I already have a 3.8L V6 car, so why not just get an SUV. I liked the van that had the motorized sliding door on the side.. but I swore I would never own a mini-van or put my kids in soccer. I loved the Jeep Cheroke Elderado becasue it had extrememly heavy soundproofing. It was so quiete inside. I want this I think. I just want a very soundproofed ride and extrememly soft suspendion. And an LCD would be nice too for the kids.. I like to go to StarBucks on the weekends and get my coffee and need to take the kids in and out of the vehicle.. i don't know if a small economy car would do that. Then there's strollers and stuff that need to fit in the car and be taken in and out easy. I might need to go to Bloor St, Younge St, Jarvis, Gerard, or hit the 401. This is the GTA. Any ethnic food you want in the world you can have here. All the hot latin, portrugeuse, italian second gen daughters at the mall in tight clothese. I can't have a van! Meh.. but Canada is so poor I don't know if I should have kids. The new GM crossover, (I forget what its called) or a Ford escape 4x2 sounds like the vehicle for you then

Nah, when he first moved in, he had to call the cable company because his kids wanted to watch Forest Rangers and couldn't get it. Nobody with American TV watches Forest Rangers. A guy from town tried to get cable hooked up when he had a direct tv system, needless to say soon after the guy zapping cards got in shit from the RCMP and the first guy got a little fine. That's funny with DirectTV his kids would forget all about that...

I think this site will put an end to the debate. It appears August is right. Somewhere some old Ukrainian baba is gonna make a fortune...

I ditched the truck idea for a car even though I drive 'at own risk' roads twice a week... most SUV/truck drivers don't need them if I don't. My car isn't exactly a fuel highlight, 250+ horsepower still there. But it's better than many of my friends trucks on fuel. the thing that bugs me about trucks is the huge demand for them. I use my truck for everything, it pulls the water trailer and cattle trailer, i haul all sorts of junk in the back, and it's off of passable roads half of the time. I literally need the 400 plus foot pounds of torque and the 4x4. It's old, 290,000 klicks on it, on motor #2, but still runs great. I'd like a new one but 60 grand for a new diesel that's more luxurious than a cadillac is ridiculous, that's approximately the cost of a regular one grrr. A gas one will run around 50 grand. A good truck back in the day was 20-30 grand tops and you got power to boot. I'm not sure if that's due to inflation. I don't know why some guy working in an office feels he needs a truck, it's honestly sickening. Good old human greed the cause of inflation.

Geoffrey, there are 6 billion of us on the planet. God knows what has been tried to make a buck. Take that as a lesson in humility.Anyway, there's a simple way to test my hypothesis. Check your change and look at the years on the pennies. How many old pennies do you see now? ---- Here's an interesting question though. Going back to the OP, I argued that the people who stole a copper roof from a Quebec church (or bronze plaques) impose a much greater cost on society than the value of the copper they steal. So, if people take pennies and melt them down, do they do the same? That is, if I melt down $300 in pennies to get $600 of copper, do I impose a similar cost on society? If the church has to replace the roof, the Mint has to replace the pennies. I think pennies are the most produced coin, they always seem to come out. I also know that a lot of people hoard them in cheez whiz jars to get exchanged for paper money, or they just sit around and collect dust. Anyhow, society is already paying a cost for people hoarding/discarding their pennies, the old ones might as well be melted down. To answer your question I'd have to say no.

how is driving a 250+ horsepower vehicle with four wheel drive essential in driving around missassauga? A focus wagon will do just fine.

Who watches Canadian TV? Who actually pays for Canadian TV? Only suckers it seems because there is no law to stop anyone from using DirectTV or Dish Network. There's a big DirectTV dish on 24 Sussex Drive. Theres a law against zapping cards in order to watch it.

Well on HNIC, when they weren't too enthusiastic about promoting the show, you can tell its going to be trouble. Oh well in making this show it's open season for anyone to publically slander muslims now.

When the authority of the government is being used, then I guess we all should somehow have a say.Canada's current government farm policies result in a forced transfer of money from consumers to producers which, in the case of dairy farms, amounts to a subsidy (welfare is a better word) of about $120,000 per farm. So, yes, I think people outside the farming industries should decide how their money is used. For myself, I would prefer that money went to children in difficult families rather than to rich farmers. To answer my own question the minister of ag should have a farming background but should work closely with the minister of finance/treasury board pres. (who should have a background in financial affairs) to ensure the fairest policies. You must also remember that farmers themselves are taxpayers too, and we pay a higher amount of tax than the average Canadian, we should have our say too. If the dairy farms are in fact getting a direct government subsidy, I will in fact say that is not good they can control the supply like OPEC does. The forced transfer of public money is no good as there is not enough public money to fix the "crisis" It is too much a burden on the taxpayer and I would be a hypocrite if I wanted it. If that 120,000 dollars per farm is from milk returns then I don't see a problem with it. If you have a problem "subsidizing" the milk producers, then imagine the problem I have "subsidizing" Monsanto, due to a law, 32 bucks an acre for seed that I have to buy every year when I could save my own, and another 16 bucks an acre for "the right to use the technology", considering I crop around 1000 acres of canola, it adds up. Due to a law they make millions upon millions of dollars doing nothing. You could say that I should stop supporting them, but then I'd say you'd have to stop buying milk products which i'm pretty sure your not prepared to do. So basically my beef is that our society is picking and choosing which industry deserves protectionist laws and which ones don't, either they all do or they all don't. In my view protectionist laws are the cheapest way on the taxpayer to bail out small businesses from the big boys.

I have no patience for that kind of argument.Do you have to have cancer to become a cancer researcher? Can only cancer patients understand what cancer is? When this idea is taken into the political arena, the result is even more horrendous. Should only farmers decide government farm policies? Should only people from outside the farming industries decide government farm policies?

I don't know. The Americans are paying too much for beef and softwood lumber, so why are they doing it? Because their government is neglecting the ability of the market to provide a better solution for their citizens and a more competitive industry over the long term. As ours is. It can't last forever. We tried tariffs, we tried subsidizes, and now our auto industry is pretty much a pile of rubble next to the non-unionized, ultra-efficient Japanese. The same will come of all leech industries, whether beef in the US or milk in Canada. Canadian softwood producers are actually considerably subsidized through ridiculously low stumpage costs. So that's not a great comparison. I'm suprised you environmentally focused left wingers haven't rallied around the US demanding that big lumber pays us a fair deal. You do it to oil, why the double standard? Would you be supportive of all leech industries (such as the entertainment industry more specifically the Canadian entertainment industry and the monsanto GMO products hiding behind the plant breeders act) being put on the immediate free market without the government passing laws to protect it. If I can't get those privileges neither should they. It should either be a free for all (personally, the old grain farm isn't doing too badly, diversification of income helps out huge) or the feds pass laws to protect industries in trouble, none of this double standard Liberal party malarkey. Oh and Saturn if you are worried about the "high" price of beef, take that up with Tyson foods and Cargill they have the cattle industry by the throat, cows aren't worth the hay they're fed, I've downsized our cattle herd to the point where they are just pets (thank God I did that back in 2000, but I can't make much money on the ones I still have, but they are not primary income)

It costs so much just due to economics. we put our crops in and buy our inputs. As we become more and more efficient and get the nice grosses, the input costs soars due to the fact that instead of sitting on our cash and not spending it, we spend on inputs and therefore costs rise. On the other hand there are so many farmers that there is good competition which results in low prices from buyers which we have to take. The way to stop this is a good old shut down, but farmers are too small to afford a shutdown because they have to pay the bills and live hence the problem. To reverse these trends the gov't must give us the same protectionist laws the canadian entertainment industry and monsanto get so we can afford a shutdown, and more orgaization among the farming community to ensure that the shutdown is effective.

In the short run your plan of all these imported countries competing is noble - prices would instantly fall, but in the long run we will suffer. Our producers will get put out of business, New Zealand will be smoked by the French due to high E.U. subsidies, and guess what there's no competition to stop the price of milk from going sky high, plus we would have an unemployment problem with it, and instead of boosting our economy, we are boosting our competitors economy which in fact weakens ours, I think the lesser of two evils would apply here. There is nothing wrong with restricting supply in order to meet the demand, it seems that you are used to a flooded market place and used to the perks that come with it. There is a cartel on oil and gas called OPEC, they set the prices and we pay willingly. Same goes for the tertainment industry and we pay willingly. If we can't make something for ourselves we have to pay for it, thats how it goes. I don't believe that the dairy farmers are getting welfare, they are getting paid fairly for a service they provide and the luxury of you going to the store and being able to buy milk and not having to wake up at 5 in the morning and milk a cow for it (doing that your dairy bill is eliminated). This has happened in the farm machinery market, there used to be over 20 companies and everyone could afford new machinery, they then got greedy, merged and we have to pay through the roof to get machinery now, if there was rules and quotas, i don't think we'd have this problem. Supply management in Canada looks after the poultry producer and the milk producer. While it is tough out there in agriculture, there are no supply management deals for the hog producer, the corn producer, the beef producer and so on.If they are able to stand on their own two feet and make it work - then why are we guaranteeing the poultry and dairy producers an income? Which is pretty much what supply management does. Someone back up the line mentioned a Son-in-Law selling his dairy out. Hmmm .... with quota running somewhere in the high $20K's and having hit the low $30K's - I suspect he is doing well. Even after paying everyone off - after all he probably had about 40 kilos - somewhere in the million two bracket. As for poultry - somewhat off topic - to start into the game - poultry quota costs a minimum of $750,000 just to start into the game. The Ontario poultry industry is essentially controled by two families - no one else has the start up capital. End supply management - end it now - let those who can make it continue - the remainder can sink - or sell out. Borg

What if in your scenario China is the largest t-shirt maker, it's allowed to import, it would likely blow you out of the water by its low low prices. Now that China has all the market share, what on God's green Earth is going to stop it from jacking up their price? Not only do Canadian t-shirt wearers have to suffer from inflated prices, they have to suffer by paying for your social security while you find another business, they suffer by having our money leave the Canadian economy/tax system and going to the Chinese one which helps out the Chinese. The Entertainment industry and the Canadian Entertainment industry is one of the most inefficient businesses in the free market, without government interference that industry would be in serious trouble, just look at the havoc Napster created. Without the CRTC I don't even know if there would be a Canadian entertainment industry. That is the most blatant use of lobby power to prevent people from getting market price for entertainment products, with Napster the market price would have been zero. If Canadians don't like paying that much for milk, then by all means they can stop buying it, that should drop the prices and the Soybean farmers from Ontario would be laughing their ass off (Soy milk anyone). The consumer isn't entitled to whatever price they want for something they don't have, if they want it they have to pay the price the producers are giving at the time.

Montreal GazetteI have only two comments, other than the obvious. First, as long as Quebec dairy producers have 50% of the protected Canadian market, Quebecers will never vote for independance. Second, it will be the environmental practices of dairy farmers that will bring down this cartel. I thought the reduction in the consumption of dairy products was a result of a change of culture (the advent of soy milk and margerine). I once again say good on the milk producers, they're using their heads. By uniting they are helping themselves out, in my view the dairy producers are getting a fair price and a fair wage for their work. If milk producers were competing in a true free market setting, over time the smaller producers would die out and we would get what I like to call the "Cargill effect" (buying out the smaller guys to the point where it is an oligopoly and the prices will in fact rise more than what is in place now, (look at the snowmobile industry over the last 40 yrs.) The guy writing this article is assuming that dairy farms would stay the same size and that the industry would remain "stagnant" This of course is not the case as the human tendency towards greed trumps this and we in fact get the Cargill effect. The author is either naive or living in a dream world. Sure opening up the market to full freedom will lower prices initially and opening it up to international producers will lower prices, but over time due to human nature, there will be a few huge companies that remain and we get the oligopoly again and inflated prices that would make the prices now look like a bargain. My question to you is which oligopoly do you want? I don't know how much quebecers stand behind their dairy industry but if they seperate that industry is toast. The high cost for environmental practices that would be tacked onto the cost of milk and anything else for that matter will be the end of the environment being #1 issue for Canadians

I do not care how they got there. He is not a victim of the jackass who would not tarp his truck. He is a victim of ridiculous "intellectual property" enforcers. Agreed, he was the victim of government policy and a multinational corporation, I was merely stating that if the jackass would have tarped his truck, he wouldn't have been in that mess in the first place, which is why when i'm combining canola the trucks get tarped!!! That is completely ridiculous, because of some law i have to pay a lot of money for expensive seed every year when I can just store it in the bin and plant it next year, it's mine after all. It runs me about 32 bucks an acre for that nonsense. If the government believes in that sort of nonsense, I want the same privileges as that multinational corporation, I'm entitled to that as much as they are.

I wouldn't say its over, it's on the chopping block. If your under 1000 acres it's time to stop and rent out the land. Over 4000 acres is tough cuz of manpower, machinery, and costs. Ideally you want to be at around 2000-3000 acres for maximum efficiency. It's funny when people say that we should disappear, if thats so then lets remove our laws that protect the recording/entertainment industry and to be more precise the Canadian recording/entertainment industry (CBC), you and I both know without government intervention their ass is as toast as the 500 acre farmer down the road. With cloned food, you are going to get very high quality food (when it's perfected) you won't have any screw ups, it would be healthier, and could be mass produced. As for expensive goes, that depends on how much people are going to be providing that service, if its all the big corporate boys which is not very many there won't be much competition and you will be paying through the nose, if all cattle producers got this than the prices will be reasonable due to competition, hmm the little farmer doesn't look too bad now. With the spending habits of a lot of people nowadays, they'll pay more for food. Look how much we pay for fuel, cars, and other things. The neighbour's seeds aren't patented, that's why he has them so he doesn't have all the BS that goes along with GM Canola (for me 50+ bushels/acre is worth the BS). I see you have heard about Percy Schmeiser, he paid the price cuz some jackass wouldn't tarp his truck. I can assure you that is the only way that they can fly through the air, they are in pods right up until they go through the combine. Sure some seeds go out with the chaff and come out as volunteer canola but there is stubble to act as a windbreak and the volunteer canola gets sprayed out the next year.

Small time cattle farmers would be opposed to cloned food too.