gc1765

I thought you were a conservative The conservative view (and my view) is that I have my finances in order, why I should I be paying interest because someone else has personal debt? If I was in debt, my number one priority would be getting out of debt. But I've been careful with my money and kept out of debt. If you truly are concerned about people who are in debt, and want to take a more liberal view, why not give more money (or cut taxes for) low income people to help them get out of debt? Once the debt is starting to get paid off, and the interest payments start decreasing, taxes can be cut much more than if we continued to pay interest.

Yes, and it was the Liberals who started down that road. I am happy though that the Conservatives are (so far) continuing with that.

I have the feeling that if it were the Liberals snubbing the Americans, they would be labelled as anti-American by conservatives.

Still being formed? The Clean air act has already been released: Link Anyways, if the policy is still being formed, what better time to discuss it? I don't know what other issues they planned to discuss, but if they are important enough issues to schedule the meeting, then they should be important enough to keep the meeting.

If his plan is as good as he thinks it is, it just might change some people's mind. At least have a debate about what is the best course of action on the environment, if the environment is indeed a serious issue to Harper. I'm sure they would have also discussed other important issues besides the environment. They must have other things to discuss or else they wouldn't have scheduled the summit in the first place.

But was the environment on the agenda, or no?

Presumably, the environment was probably one of the issues that they planned to discuss when the government agreed to it. If Harper believes his "made in Canada" solution is better than Kyoto, he should discuss that with them, rather than avoiding the issue.

Why, because we trade more with the U.S.? Should our PM only meet with leaders of countries (ie the U.S.) that we trade the most with? If that's the case, why was the summit planned in the first place? And presumably, the EU meets with Canada to discuss EU-Canadian issues.

We have to be part of the EU for our PM to meet with european leaders? Do we have to be American for him to meet with Bush?

Link

So, which side will the extremist Christians (the ones mentioned in this article) take? They are neither rational nor muslim. ...or for that matter the moderate Muslims who are both rational and Muslim.

Just out of curiousity, have you ever said anything negative about this government on this forum? I know I haven't read all of your posts, but of the ones that I have read, I haven't seen anything negative.

I dunno, Ralph Klein?

Yes, you are correct.

Pearson's minorities spent money, which is the easiest thing in the world for a politician to do. Pearson did more than just spend money. Whether you agree with what his government did or not, you have to admit that they got a lot done. Or as the original poster would say "Love 'em or hate 'em - you have got to admit that they have not been passive". I don't see how what Pearson did was any "easier" than what Harper's government has accomplished.

Pearson's minorities got a lot accomplished.

Using this example: Look at the first choice first. In this example, the greens did not get any votes, they would be eliminated. There are no choices to transfer because no one voted green. The next lowest is the bloc with 2% of the vote. They would then be eliminated. Their votes would be transferred to their second choice, in this case the green party, but they've already been eliminated, so it would go to the third choice. That would depend on whether those 2% of bloc supporters voted for CPC or Liberals as their third chioce, and that party would be the winner (Not the bloc). I can't think of any examples where this would be flawed.

Exactly. I don't see why you would have to mark all the choices, you could even still choose only one if you wanted. If your first choice is eliminated, it would go to your second choice. If that choice is eliminated, I guess your vote would no longer be considered. Fringe parties won't be elected unless they can get 50% of the vote in a riding, not likely for a party called "Mohammad will kill the Infidels" The cost of getting your name on the ballot would likely keep most fringe parties away, similar to how it is now.

If the liberals are smart and elect Kennedy as their leader, maybe you could join the dark side

I think that ranking the candidates would be similar to a PR system, for example the STV that was proposed in B.C. would rank the candidates. Hopefully, the people voting and the people counting the votes can count to five (or however many parties there are) and can write legibly. If that's too much trouble, you could have 1 column for each candidate with the numbers 1, 2, 3 etc... on top. You would simply put an "X" in the number 1 box for your favourite candidate etc... In that case, The ballot would like sort of like this: Link Except that the number of columns would be equal to the number of candidates, and you would only put one "X" per candidate. I just learned that this is currently being used in Australia and Ireland Link

Ok...how much do border guards make a year? 50K? Times that by 400, that's $20 million per year. What about the other $80 million?

I don't need books. The transit pass is a great idea, but it's included in my tuition which is already tax exempt.

My favourite idea would be to rank the candidates all on the same ballot. No need for more voting. Keep crossing of the lowest on the list until you get > 50%. It would still be more 'proportional' by allowing people to vote for 3rd, 4th parties etc. without wasting a vote. I guess the only disadvantage is it would take a lot of ballot counting, and could get complicated (but probably no more so than PR).

Overall, most people's taxes went down in the budget when you factor in the GST cut, child tax credit etc... For someone with no children who spends virtually all of my money on food, tuition & rent, I don't benefit from their so called "tax cuts" as much as I loose out on their tax increase. Bad for me personally. I think the conservatives are cutting taxes to make up for their taxing income trusts. The money will help them pay for the next GST cut, plus splitting income, possible corporate tax cuts etc... Overall, taxes probably won't change that much, but if you have money invested in income trusts you will loose out personally (while others may gain). P.S. sorry for getting off-topic

You're not the only one who had their taxes raised Of course my tax raise was back in their budget when they raised income taxes. (I won't (directly) loose any money with their most recent tax raise). I guess now you know how it feels