Jerry J. Fortin

The Chinese have a space program and an aerospace industry, a very large effort is being made. Expect a nuke powered aircraft carrier by 2015.

Convert the national program into a personal savings account, matched by employers with tax deductions for both. Invest it and allow for its use during periods of unemployment. It becomes a pension plan upon retirement. How much money would citizens save over this.....billions and billions of dollars.

The reason to make the change is not my feelings, the reason to make the change is to make the damned system work in a more efficient and accountable manner. Separating the PMO from the Commons and from the Senate would mean that all parties would be required to work together in order to legislate. It would mean that the efforts would serve to bring Canadians together instead of forcing them apart. It would mean that partisan politics would be relegated to campaigning prior to an election instead of in a process of governing. It would mean that all Canadians would have an equal voice in their representatives. Our system was setup to reflect the spirit of the commonwealth without the authority or equality to make it a reality. After nearly a century and a half we as a people still haven't seen the light of the errors of our own ways. A flawed spirit, not reality is what we have.

I have said the system is flawed. It needs to be changed, non-confidence votes just don't cut the mustard. Fixed election dates provides for stability of the system itself. While we are at it, the PMO should be an elected office.

The charter is a flawed document.

The tricks and tools of the trade and craft we call politics in Canada. You are most definitely right that we are in fact a constitutional monarchy.

That is to be expected. Each province will want a little piece of the action, and that is a good thing. Let each province bring to the table what they view to be something that needs to be fixed. Or not if that is what pleases them. My point is this; opening the Constitution for amendments is in fact a big thing and it will require a very good reason for doing so. It is a great place to go in terms of a comprehensive policy proposal for a partisan faction if the document precludes the achievement of stated policy goals. It is a way of identifying policy under the banner of multi-partisan effort, or if you prefer, in the best interest of citizens. Right now with the specter of nothing but minority governments for the foreseeable future, fixed election dates make a great deal of sense. Right now, with the constant limelight of scandals looming over so many talking heads in government, from all sides of the House, recall legislation makes a lot of sense. Right now, with the current fiscal issues the government has the provinces would do well to start doing more for themselves than they currently can and that would make a lot of sense.

I agree, but not pulling the plug today may be a mistake. We will see what happens, but I think Iggy will make his first strategic mistake and let Harper stay in Sussex until fall.

Yes it is! Yet it is true is it not?

Opening up the constitution would be a real challenge for a government. Please keep in mind that it doesn't have to be as scary as some would have many believe. What is required is a real political will to deal with a specific problem. Once that is achieved then the process of amendments can be defined. Agreement would have to be reached to deal with specific concerns, and that would likely involve bringing other areas to the table as an act of negotiation. That would be fine as long as the core concepts of desired reforms were retained. There would be great opportunity in this effort, a chance to modernize a constitution should not be passed up and everyone knows this it is just that they (the politicians) are afraid of public consequence. This proves one thing if nothing else and that is these folks are insecure and paranoid. The idea is not to destroy but to create and the means to accomplish this can be found in constitutional renewal.

There are no details available yet as to what the plan actually contains. The point I am making is that these provincial leaders are helping Harper out right now, while at the same time trying to score points for themselves and their provinces. It is an astute move, one which is long overdue. The provinces are equal partners in confederation and it is time they started doing something with that.

That riding was picked for him by the leader of the party at the time!. That is why I said, give him time. Name recognition can go a long way, that is true to a certain degree. Yet I would not vote for a guy just because of his name, would you?

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/06/19/e...rn-leaders.html It seems that the provincial leaders have decided to lead for a change. This will get Harper off the hook and complicate Iggie's efforts.

Politics in this nation is merely the manipulation of public opinion and public perception. It is a game of emotional and intellectual optics.

To a certain degree it does, but only because of different levels of education and standards of living. We use capitalistic/democracy, our version, not the American one. We already attempt to screen immigrants, but we are not very good at it though. We have no fixed requirements for ideology, it is a free nation. In fact most of our immigrants are hyphenated Canadians, as in French-Canadian or Chinese-Canadian.

Maybe this is just bad business all the way around. It could be that there will be a lot of things said about this from every angle. Like I said before, bad optics.

Damned good question. The person responsible for the purchase should be fired.

They have population pressures there, women breed more humans. In olden times they didn't bring much wealth to the family either. Their attitude is old school to say the least. Evil by your standards, mine too, but not to their minds. All I am saying is that they are the oldest surviving civilization, they managed to get from there to here and tell the tale. That makes them a little different and makes them think they are superior in some respects. That makes them difficult to deal with.

There is simply no great amount of evidence yet, that is true. There is a little steel visible every once and a while though. Consider this, the riding in which he ran had a BLOC representative in place, and that person was defeated in his own yard. You know what kind of game the BLOC plays in campaigns, it is rough. He was victorious in that first real political effort. Consider his political activism before that on the environmental front, successful there as well. He is young, give him a little time.

I suppose that is a fair view of things, but I don't think it will work this time.

It is an opportunity to make political points with free public air time. Rarely are answers really sought, nor are questions properly formatted.

Evil is different things to different people.

Justin Trudeau.

That is the key isn't it? The phrase , not ours but theirs. Their responsibility, not ours. In time China will change, it does that just like we do. The point is we need to be on firm ground with them when it does happen. How many natives have we killed in this nation? There are skeltons everywhere and we all live in glass houses.

Canada or any other nation should have no say in what another nation does. The place for that is the UN, and that system needs to abolish the VETO powers of the security counsel. Democracy is what can make us safe and secure, nothing else will do it.