Jerry J. Fortin

I will submit that racism is a discriminatory action based on race. The question then becomes is it wrong to utilize race as a means of determining like or dislike?

So in your mind we should not attempt to end racism by means of legislative effort.

Argus, do you believe racism to be wrong or not?

There are laws against discrimination, and there are laws against hatred. We do need to go a step further and actually legislate the death of racism, but that would be a very political effort.

I don't view citizens as property, nor do I view time as money. That is an entire foreign concept to me. I am not in business, I work for someone else. Even so, I don't think ill of those more affluential or influential than myself. Most of the rich folk I know are business owners who have worked long and hard to get where they are. Not a single one of them wants to see anyone get hurt over anything, and none of them take pleasure in the problems of others.

Many people are convinced that America is in fact a corporate entity. Many of their own citizens fear the "military-industrial complex". The truth is that democracy in America is dominated with dollar bills. From the very essence of pork barrel spending to the high brow efforts of NASA, the Americans try and spread the wealth of the nation out in various means. Putting their tax dollars to work means creating jobs for the citizens and then receiving taxes from the productive efforts.

The debt we already have is a relative thing. It is not so large as to consume the GDP, nor is it so large to represent a dominating factor in budgets in terms of servicing fees. In other words we have the fiscal room to maneuver. Yet the question is whether or not the government should try to "spend" its way out of economic recession.

What the nation needs is a united political will. To do that you have to at least address the apathy because that is the largest single demographic in the land. To tap into that entity some form of beneficial vision for the nation must be formulated and promoted. I am not talking about something as simple as platforms and policies but instead an entire ideology. I will suggest that this be based on a concept that incorporates a wide range of popular themes that are already present within our society but are unrepresented or at least under-represented in current political terms. Something must be found to have mass appeal, a means of delivering hope to citizens currently in need and a way of providing a very positive direction for the future. All I can suggest is some form of infrastructure program that provides employment, investment opportunities, and delivers a product much in demand.

The Conservatives only say they want less government but in reality they create more government, always have and always will. It isn't just them by the way, all partisan groups do. Patronage is the name of the game, paying off all those folks that got you there is expensive.

Look, there are a whole lot of public servants. At the top of the pile is a bunch of high paying patronage appointments, guess who deserves the first hit? Roll these top bureaucratic jobs into the responsibility and control of the Ministries or Departments and make the Ministers or Department heads accountable. Next thing is to drop back down a level into the upper administrative layers, in corporate terms the senior VP's and their attending herds of humans, and start combining these positions and functions with mid-level management jobs. The next step is to carve out all of the accounting functions from all departments and ministries and ship the workload to public works. Remove all research and development from all departments and ministries, combine into a new all encompassing department of research and development. All of these things will result in savings, but their impact will be revenue neutral because the right thing to do is plow the savings into service delivery, which means actually employing more people at the lowest levels and thereby increasing service level without increasing expenditures. The downside is increased fiscal liability in terms of pensions and benefits, but this can be well accounted for and not require additional cost adjustments because you are only spending what you save.

I will suggest that Magna will come out on top of this deal. I am willing to bet that cars will be built here, considering there is a lot of production capacity available between defunct GM and Chrysler plants. Besides, Magna is a parts manufacturer and the downturn in North American production hurt them, this is a logical extension of their corporate effort.

Our national debt per capita is a little over $21,000.00 and was falling. If you really want to do something worthwhile toward that debt level, add another freaking tax to pay off the debt. Once that debt is paid off this nation would be in very good shape.

You want cuts? Start by chopping the civil servants! Not program spending but administrative expenses.

Dumb? Now why is that? What is dumb about dumping on those who dump themselves?

Privatizing the CPP capital was an exercise in wealth transfer, nothing less. Those funds are now invested and profits are being made. One the one hand that is good, but on the other those profits should be plowed back into the fund. There are a lot of folks involved now and they cost a lot of money.

I think the government is making a large mistake. There is a new Candu design that is very promising. In addition there are numerous other new reactor designs that look very good, more than worthy of attention and investment. The Conservative movement has a long track record at selling crown corporations at a loss and then have those same corporations turn around and make large profits. Just don't look too carefully into who sits on the boards and who gets in on the IPO's, you won't like it very much.

Iraq? Canada has nothing to do with Iraq because Bush failed to prove his case to the government of the day.

I believe that Bill 101 in Quebec is a violation of the laws of the land in Canada. Nobody has had the balls to do anything about it.

Any politician, an elected representative of the people who is guilty of an act of racism or hatred proven in a court of law should be removed from office and forfeit any or all entitlement at the expense of the public. No pensions, no benefits, nothing at all. Any who aspire to the office and proven guilty should be prevented from running by means of disqualification.

Anything that returns at least some measure of democracy to the citizens is a real enhancement.

Equality is the name of the game. Fair and equal treatment for all.

The concept I am so poorly trying to convey is one of a functional bicameral system that would seek to balance a government that rules by representatives based on population with a separate House that is based on representation by region. The Canadian Constitution is supposed to provide ALL provinces an equal footing in confederation, to do that such a balance needs to be create. In as much as the provinces should fill the Senate with representatives from their own regions, that would make their terms and conditions of representation a matter of provincial authority, I am not suggesting that there should be different term limits just that the provinces should be the one to make that determination not the federal government. Certainly, yet in 1867 when we started this gong show there were 12 Senators from New Brunswick, 12 from Nova Scotia and 24 from each of Quebec and Ontario. It was designed to represent by divisions, the Maritimes, and Upper and Lower Canada. Both New Brunswick and Nova Scotoa lost seat when the nation expanded, yet the lived with the losses. It was a reasonable solution. We need a reasonable update to the system. Health care, education, workers compensation, pensions. These things have national standards yet are already provincial responsibility, so why not move them to the proper forum. The Governor General is the head of the Armed Forces. The Governor General should also be the head of the Senate, the summation of power and authority of the Upper House. I would actually build three aircraft carriers fleets, one designed for each ocean. All citizens coming of age should be afforded the opportunity to serve their country and expand their education through government paid for post secondary learning. Enhancement, not erosion. Bad political move, cause too much grief. Yet a government with a majority can institute small changes that do not require constitutional modifications. Getting expert advice from a bureaucrat seems like an oxymoron to me. My intent is good, so is the intent of a great many others, yet that cannot be said for all of those folks in government.

That really is the point isn't it, the fact that the politicians are usually behind one eight ball or another, and rarely in the right position to do the right thing. I agree that our problems stem from a lack of economic diversification. Now some folks will say that is the fault of the investment community, but I will whisper a little secret here. Foreign investment is designed to bring profits out of the nation where operations are conducted and bring those profits to the home nation of the corporation. They will go to great lengths to accomplish this. What we need is a viable secondary industrial complex of an home grown nature. We need to format our efforts to take advantage of our own natural resources instead of letting other take that advantage away from us. We need a "buy Canadian" program that supports jobs at home and profits being plowed back into local economies. There all lots of ways to do this will protecting the ownership from foreign control such as coops and the like. This isn't rocket science folks, but it does touch on big business turf and that means dealing with all the lobby groups and special interest that go with them. There is a darn good reason that these things are simply not done and that is because it cuts the big players out of the deal. Its like standing up to the mob in some regards.

Does it really matter? I mean when was the last time the system took itself on? This is a pot calling the kettle black kind of thing. If the government goes after politicians it won't be theirs, it will be the oppositions, and there are all kinds of nasty implications to doing that.

Senate reform; 1) Remove all existing Senators by first setting up single year term limits, 2) Replace all Senators with individual representatives determined provincially or by territory, 3) Reform term limits to be determined by provincial decision, 4) Provide equal number of Senators per province or territory, 5) Move responsibility for social programs to the Senate, 6) Move responsibility for the Armed Forces to the Senate, 7) Ensure all Senate work done in Committees with rotation of Chairman position, 8) All provincial and territorial Premiers to have seat in Senate Let the Senate speak for the regional aspects and application of government policy, as well as being accountable for national social programs and national defense. Let the provinces and territories determine exactly how senators are chosen and what their terms of office are. The Prime Minister according to our constitution does the actual appointing, but that does not mean that he cannot accept the advice of the other equal partners in confederation. There is no need to change or even open the constitutional debate. While we are at the government reform question, why not have the prime Minister seek the best counsel in the land and appoint them to specific positions within his own cabinet instead of relying upon only elected officials. If you want to create some accountability hire someone you can fire if they screw up. Either reduce the number of Ministers and the size of cabinet or increase their numbers and give every single elected representative a position of authority and responsibility. In this way you can certainly remove bad administrators and literally backbench the buggers and doom their political career for incompetence.