Jerry J. Fortin

Which is why we need to deal with the ability of politicians to be corrupt in the first place. Stop patronage first, then start unloading the civil service. Take steps such as fixed election dates and recall legislation in conjunction with term limits to their obvious conclusion. Only then can we begin to deal with the politicians, only then can we make them accountable.

You are comparing apples to oranges! The needs dictated by the RCAF to the government were achieved with the CF105 Avro Arrow. Trying to compare our needs with that of the USA and their procurement programs is an exercise in futility. The plane met or exceed all of its design expectations. The cuts to the program which started the slide to cancellation were smoke and mirrors. The Conservatives were determined to kill the Arrow while still in the opposition. That decision was made ONLY for political reasons. The economics did not play into the concept of cancellation at all. The actions undertaken by the Canadian government were those taken as a vassal of the USA. Building our own military equipment would cost the American military industrial complex billions of dollars, and that is real money folks, especially back then. Now anybody who thinks that this would be of no interest to US policy makers is a fool. The Conservatives were and are little more than wannabe Americans. Sadly for greed and power the decisions were made and the Arrow died. Just in case anybody cares, we no longer have anything that went as fast.

Canadians soldiers should fight for our freedom, that is the long and the short of it. With all due respect, it is honourable to fight and die for another persons freedom as well. However I must agree that the correct path is economic sanctions first. When all else fails or the nation is under attack then and only then should we deploy our military assets to make war.

Sort of, but not really. What I was driving at was the entire public service sector of the government. From employment insurance to health care, if all of these government programs were reformed with the emphasis on service delivery and cost effectiveness then we would stretch our tax dollars to the limit. It could possibly allow for the disintegration of Revenue Canada as it is now know, because face it this is just another bureaucracy, and its conversion to a program funding vehicle able to break down costs and manipulate funding requirements. Think of the overall cost savings to the tax payer!

I would turn the Gaza strip into rubble and then push it into the sea.

They are called collateral damage. The cowards hide amongst them, that is why the IDF is going in on the ground. It is now urban warfare, where the Jews have trained for some time to reduce the damage to civilians by going house to house on foot instead of dropping bombs overhead at 500mph.

Arabs or not, the Jews are not going to put up with this crap forever. Attack another nation at your own peril, while I may feel sad for the "innocent" civilians in Gaza, that doesn't stop me from hoping that the Jews will finally put an end to this madness.

The point is that Canada must be principled in its approach. In Iraq, we as well as most of the rest of the world determined that Saddam was wrong to invade Kuwait. In the case of Bin, we were in favour of dealing with the Taliban in order to get him. That too was a mistake. As a nation, we must seek to not merely take sides in global events but to apply our own principles to our own foreign policy.

MSJ, I understand your argument and don't really disagree with you. But understand this, employees have expenses as well, but they cannot deduct them. They need to cloth themselves and feed themselves and transport themselves to their places of employment. Yet these expenses are not always deductible for them. What I am saying is that there is an unfair advantage to business in terms of tax advantages. That is all, I am not against business, nobody is. I am against unequal treatment under the law. This nation needs to make citizens their priority, not business.

How was the project mismanaged? The plane was the first to bypass the prototype stage and go straight to production. The low rate production you speak of was not able to be realized due to the Canadian content and all of the development costs of that content. The one exception was the missile system, that was an American system purchased by Avro because they could not get it to work, but we did. Yes the project was the definition of cost overruns, yes it was very expensive, but it was in fact leading edge technology. That stuff is not cheap. Costs would have leveled off and produced an aircraft that was more than comparable to the American designs, in part because of the tax revenues created in Cnada and realized in Canada by both the employees and the company. This alone would have made it a viable and prudent fiscal choice. The reality is that the elected representative for the Malton area was a Conservative, who did not get along with either Crawford Gordon or the federal Liberal Government. That caused a little focus group that sought to eliminate the program and shift spending priorities to locations were Conservatives would benefit. It was political, and it was foolish. The industrial base that was being created died that day. These things don't just appear, but they do just disappear.

The comment was based on previous posting that culminated in the response I made. MSJ is an accountant, who employs people to do work for them. The complaint that was made was that the costs were higher for the employer than for the employee, it was suggested that this was unfair. I suggest that the profit margin of the employer is realized through an unfair application of taxes and benefits that is biased toward business.

I think that NATO and the UN are foolish places to place our trust. Both are unaccountable for starters. Both have undemocratic principles as their foundations, with the use of VETO power. My point did not go there though. I said it was a mistake to use military force against Afghanistan. At least as far as an invasion goes, the force should have been small sized hunter killer groups seeking the actual person charged with murder. The civilians had nothing to do with this and yet still are made to pay for it. Yes the Taliban were bad guys, backward socially and repressive to their people, but that is not what the war is all about now is it? It was about Bin, and bringing him to justice.

Do these efforts need to generate profits? I mean why should they? Could they not be designed as non-profit organizations? Would that not serve to create more competition and improve service deliveries?

Simply. You are a corporate elitist who thinks that you have all the weight of the world on your shoulders, and whle you are in that frame of mind the little guys that actually do the work are mere pond scum. Business gets more tax breaks than individuals, and even so you complain that your burden is greater than theirs.

Of that there is no doubt. Dief the Chief killed the project and that resulted in the loss of 25000 jobs. At the time that was a lot of jobs. There were several companies that went under. The project was massive and it brought us to the absolute pinnacle of the aerospace industry, that is a fact. With the cancellation of the project we lost a hell of a lot of engineering expertise. Some stuck around to be sure, but the big names went elsewhere. That was the real tragedy of the Arrow. That plane was on par with the best designs in the world at the time. It was the result of a fledgling military industrial complex in Canada. It was a bad idea to kill the plane, dollars had everything to do with it, that is true. Yet the reality is the number of jobs and the spinoffs from the effort would have taken us on a much different path.

I have not seen you come out in favour of labour, so I thought perhaps you were of that ilk. Was I wrong?

At one time it was, and it was called Victory Aircraft. That was sold by the Canadian government to Hawker Siddeley after the war. That became A.V. Roe Canada or Avro Canada.

Damned interesting comment. I for one want to see massive reductions in the public service and in bureaucracy as well. Transferring services to crown corporations does indeed travel in that direction. It makes these operations function in independence of other efforts. It would benefit citizens by shielding them from many of the pitfalls of the current public service. Entire specific efforts would be rationalized with the intent of becoming self sustaining, and this is good news for the federal revenue stream. It could well reduce costs and add accountability at the highest levels. I would suggest that each crown corporation have at its head an elected representative, a minister in charge of the effort.

What Harper knows, remains in question, as what Harper thinks. What kind of thinking would take a sitting PM in a minority government to propose legislation that would serve to eliminate opposition during an election in terms of campaign financing? Harper will either write a throne speech that is acceptable or he will not. Acceptable to the opposition could mean many things, which is why he must consilt to placate these other interests or face the reality of a confidence vote in the Commons. We may not even get to a budget.

I had no say in reopening this highly divisive debate! That was a right wingnut from Harpers own camp. Further to that point about cleaning up a political mess, I think you need to look up some facts. Lyin' Brian took us to a new high in deficits and debts. The Liberals are the fiscally responsible party in federal politics. Harper went from surplus to deficit. He said the economy was in good shape up here. Only a fool would believe that a political party is responsible for economies, that is way out of their power. Yet the do get all the hits and take all of the credits for it. To return to the point, this was a private members bill. It was not reflective of the party line, nor is it reflective of a majority opinion of members in the House of Commons. The bill will die in committee, before it has a chance to return to the floor.

You are anti-employee, so I must ask why you have any of them?

Interesting. Did either you or I get a say in bailing out the auto industry?

They should have gone in to hunt for Bin. Instead they, and we , and the rest of the world supported an invasion. In my opinion that was a mistake.

The royal we, we Canadians. The we being a member of a group of similiar opinionated citizens.

We are a little different here, that I will admit. In the case we speak of, turfing a Conservative for a New Democratic Party representative is fairly extreme here.