Jerry J. Fortin

Why not dump income taxes for individuals and business altogether and implement a fair tax system. A national sales tax with a lower income exemption, get rid of revenue Canada and save a few billion dollars in the process. Tax us on what is spent, not earned. Let us keep what we earn and let them tax us on what they can.

There are no rights in Canada any more, the entire notion has been sidetracked and murdered in the spirit of political correctness. We have special rights and privileges available to "certain citizen" while those same protections are denied to others. That is a travesty of justice. Special interest groups deserve no funding at all, not a dime of tax payers money should be spent unless it can be proven to be applied equally to all.

I must contest that statement. I find little democracy in the Canadian system. No fixed election dates, no recall, the whole question about the partisan voting in the HoC, no elected leader, the list is almost endless. We don't even have the right to own property in this nation. We are far from free and far from democratic.

That is assuming that he did not lie isn't it? Isn't there already a discrepancy with the numbers Schreiber says 300K Mulroney 225K? Given that the only place to find the truth is in Mr. Mulroney's tax returns and Mr. Schreiber's evidence I would suggest that there is in fact cause for an inquiry.

I will respectfully reply that the intervention of outside force into a domestic situation is a very dangerous game to play, as the United States is well aware. I would recommend that Canada not follow the lead of other nations and instead return to the role of keepers of the peace. I would further suggest that this nation focus instead on the humanitarian effort to reduce the pain and suffering experienced by nations in conflict. To do otherwise would in my opinion be merely passing judgment on a culture not our own. Taking sides is a political exercise that seldom results in the sparing of lives but often results in the taking of lives.

One can only hope. The chip on Brian's shoulder is pretty big. He left Kim in a no win scenario just so he could avoid the same result under his leadership.

I will suggest that the loonie will go up as much as the US dollar goes down. The thing to keep in mind is the rising cost of energy and the declining number of manufacturing jobs. For Canada this is a problem because we are losing jobs and our dollar keeps getting higher. This translates into a boon for consumers only if they have the means to purchase the lower priced imports. The situation as it stands can continue for a while I think but in the long term if our government does not find a way to use the advances in disposable income of Canadian families to invest in this country we will soon find out how fast our dollar will drop. Its demise will spell a very hard time for Canadians.

It is a bad thing when corporate governance is successful in driving public agendas. In the case of Alberta, where the energy industry provides a majority of employment there are special considerations. The public is well aware of the impact of messing around with corporate profits, yet they also see record profits and are now asking some tough questions. It seems that a commissioned report does not sit well with the political parties yet resonates well with the public. The average Albertan would simply prefer to somehow end the boom/bust cycle, but any economist not in the fee of the right wing is tared and feathered by the ruling class in the land of black gold. There is a mindset that permeates our small business folks that serves to protect its corporate masters, who hold all the keys and contracts to the very profitable industry of the oil patch. Any attempt to control the industry has an instantaneous result of investment withdrawl or at least the threat of such action in order to leverage the government into either action or inaction. These tactics have been very successful for the corporate citizens of Alberta. What is really needed in Alberta is for our citizens to take a freaking stand for once, and elect a slate of representatives that would call out both governments and industries that do not act for the future well being of the province. There is no plan for the windfall that the governments both federal and provincial have stripped from Alberta citizens. Other than being responsible for funding a disproportionate fraction of the cost for the equalization program of the federal government, or forgoing the cheapest utility rates in the nation for a privatization scheme that saw provincial public assets sold at a huge net loss in order to raise the costs to citizens to provide profits to the owners of what were once public assets, our political leadership has been quite beneficial to citizens, not. These folks have made the corporate administrators look like plausible leaders for our people. Alberta should be a nation unto itself, with a constitution that defines and limits the powers and authority of government in order to provide controls and limits to any form of leadership not supported by true democratic majority. Alberta has the greatest potential of any province in Canada, yet it is saddled with burdens and obligations beyond the ability of its citizens to control.

Very true. There was more going on than was reported.

The PC's are in trouble because they haven't listened to the people. The AA folks are merely more conservative than the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta. I am not convinced they will gain much ground next election. I think this next election will be interesting in as much as there will be real issues at stake. This time the government will have no choice but to fight an election on those issues. This election will pit one Albertan against another over the royalty issue. People inside the patch will be against increases while everybody else will be for changes to the existing royalty structures. Partisan affiliation will likely continue to dominate the Alberta Legislature, but expect a few independent candidates. What many Albertans want is to have government downsized and spending curtailed. They want the Heritage Fund to be revitalized and used as it was designed. It is strange to talk to some of the old folks and find out what the expectations were from that fund. That fund was designed to provide a dividend to citizens in the same manner as the Alaskan Permanent Fund. It was designed not by the Tories but the old Social Credit government before them. Strangely enough those same folks voted out the Socreds, for no other reason that they were in power too long. Now the PC government has been in power even longer, and finally its time for a change. All of the partisan factions have good platforms even the NDP folks, yet the chances of getting any single party in majority are shrinking fast. There is no visionary leadership in any of the parties. Citizens want real change, but we are diverse in our opinions and there is no single person or group that has brought forth a concept that resonates with a majority of the citizens. We need people with ideas, not partisans with spending agendas. Personally, I like to see a new political party of independents! A group of candidates that would be accountable to their constituents instead of party leaders or Premiers would have a certain appeal to some citizens, namely the 45+ crowd. Albertans might even become less apathetic and begin to vote starting with the next election if for no other reason than the government has been in power too long and has become unresponsive to the desires of the public. There is great political opportunity in Alberta at this time for good honest folks to unseat the old legislators with relative ease. People are not trusting politicians here very much, because of the pork barrel politics and the trough hogs that are currently in power. This good be an interesting election.

Actually the Alaskan Permanent Fund was designed by a former Alberta Socred Treasurer! The reality is that August is 100% right.

Expect the notion to return to the table this fall after the talks with Mexico and the United States have once again attempted to harmonize Fortress North America. Make no mistake folks our economic prosperity depends on a strong union of these three countries. Unless you want to anger the Americans, then you would want to diversify our trade interests and go with the Pacific Rim concept. Either way, the Conservatives are in for a rough ride with declining manufacturing in Ontario and rising costs from Quebec.

You need to design and build automated production facilities. In fact you will find that in time even the construction of those production facilities will be automated. Robotics is our answer to production expenses, we can undercut the competition with using machines instead of people. It will turn us into a nation of civil engineers and service technicians to build and service equipment. That equipment will become more and more advanced and produce more consumable goods as it evolves. We can compete by working smarter not harder.

Get a grip! Its not as if a fat politician is some new development! When was the last time anybody saw one of those folks actually working? If you eat and don't work you will get fat. Of course there are other ways to get fat too, such as beer drinking but that is not the point. The point is that the mans weight has no impact on his job performance. So it just doesn't matter. Neither does his hair style or choice of clothing, and yet the fools that we are we seem to complain about it anyway.

We need to think very carefully about productivity. I say this because we are now attempting to compete in global markets where some employees are paid a daily rate which is less than the minimum hourly rate in Canada. Thanks to the WTO consumers benefit from this new global market place, unfortunately workers in Canada cannot compete with those of developing nations. Thus the picture becomes very complicated. In order for us to actually prosper there is only one path to undertake and that is one of automation, which then means retraining our workforce to become technicians and transport workers. We will have to design and build equipment that can utilize our raw materials to create value added products and then ship them to end users. This means a leap in technological development in Canada. If there is another way to go I am not aware of it, because automation is our only hope of reducing the net cost of production by enough to be able to compete with third world labour costs.

Yes Peter is right, but that does not mean that the current government will follow his advice. The harsh reality of Alberta is that they are very conservative by nature. Alberta has potential, but only that. Until the province begins to stand up for itself it will remain a backwater in both social and political terms. An Alberta government that was responsive to the desires of the public would make sweeping changes to its economic and and political infrastructure. This government is not. A report on royalties is due shortly and I believe it will set the tone for this government. If the government does not revamp its royalty rates they will soon begin to hear from citizens in a very loud and clear manner. If the government calls an election this fall it will lose a lot of seat to the opposition and it will mark the beginning of the end for its tenure. The specter of separatism may well rear its head as a result of the people seeking alternatives to the present system.

Real estate is subject more than anything else to supply and demand. It is a good economic barometer as well. The real issue that needs to be discussed here isn't simply real estate, it is not standards of living either. The issue that needs to be discussed is nationhood. All the gains we have realized are not the results of our labours but the instead the results of trade. Our labour alone is not able to procure cheaply made foreign products, those products need to get here in order for us to purchase them. This world is at a crossroads of politics and economies. It is time to rethink both.

If you want to improve productivity you first need to produce something. This nation is full of tertiary industry that is dominated by multinational franchises, of course they produce nothing but they represent a major portion of employment. The service industry is huge in Canada. The primary industry, the development of our natural resources is the next largest industry. We export huge amounts of raw materials out of the country. The next sector is the manufacturing sector that produces finished value added products for sale internal and externally through export. This is where we are failing, in the manufacturing sector. So the question becomes how do we develop a profitable manufacturing sector. I will suggest that it could come to pass through the involvement of a tripod of individual investors, financial institutions, and the government. The industry needs to created in a manner that would provide benefit to all members of the tripod.

Partisan politics just gets worse! If it is not bad enough that we have had a one party rule for the last three and a half decades, now the power struggles within that party consume us. Lets waste time arguing about how much politics a group of citizens should have. Albertans need to wake the #$%@ up and smell the coffee. We need to drop these petty concerns and start thinking about the reality of our society. We are devolving instead of evolving at a rapid pace. The price Albertans have paid for economic development has been to say the least high. Granted that we enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, yet our politicians are driven and manipulated by the financial backers and their partisan masters. We are living in an "its all about me world". The "me" being the political animal at the top of the gravy train. The rest of citizens are viewed as pond scum. While we are divesting ourselves of our natural resources, we don't need to export the employment that could be gained through development out of the province. While many Albertans were content to either become or remain in political apathy, the line is being drawn in the sand over this pipelining of tar sands out of the province. Without the development of secondary industry we will never get any further ahead then we are now. That would be fine with the architects of the current political direction and their corporate masters. On the other hand, the citizens of this province desire a LITTLE MORE BENEFIT then they currently have from their efforts.

The feds should have the ability to create national standards which require that all provinces meet a designated level of services but that should be the extent of their control. Literally all federal social programs should be handled in this manner. Remove a level of bureaucracy at the fed level and turn over the responsibility of administering program spending to the provinces. All such spending should be calculated on a per capita basis and included into federal transfer payments to the provinces.

I would rather see everybody get a break actually, something like getting rid of income taxes all together would be nice. But since that isn't likely I will go for tax breaks no problem.

If an election is called I think it would be very entertaining. The green initiative is gaining public support. Global warming is a hot topic which will divert attention from the budget issues the Harper government has created. Talk about opportunities for beatings!

I fully expect that this will come to happen, being funded transfer payments and equalization from the feds. Smart move on their part, I only wish my seniority was good in Quebec.

Well jbg on most of the planet governments live fat on the taxes of their citizens. Some economies survive without income taxes though. Those need to be looked at by the rest of us. In most cases the efforts expended by governments are accepted by a majority of citizens. My hang up with taxation and governments stems from what I would describe as a lack of accountability. For instance here in Canada and more specifically in Alberta, the government has a surplus of revenue to the extent that it has trouble spending all of it. Who would ever think that this is something that should trouble citizens? Here though is the problem, while a budget has its merits and contains the fiscal practices and policies of a government there is simply no accounting for and public debate on the excess funds. The government does what it wants with it. In my books that is the same as taxation without representation, they simply don't have the authority to spend that money. At least in Alberta we no longer have any provincial public debt, there are some pension funding liabilities but there are no outstanding loans owed by the government. Having said that, the government is in a surplus position and at the same time has numerous infrastructure issues. One would tend to think that these issues would have been accounted for in some form or manner through the provincial budget, unfortunately that is not so. There is always some group of individuals or some public organization that desires funding at the expense of the tax paying citizen. There is simply no way around some of these pressing social issues, they must be addressed. Therefore the government is under constant pressure to support both individual and group efforts that benefit either society in general or some specific need of a segment of society. All the while the social dynamics are in fact constantly changing. The government is unable by design to be able to respond to the needs the wants and the desires of the public. Yet citizens do not recognize this simple fact. Unfortunately the common perception is that taxation fuels government and therefore it is incumbent upon citizens to willingly participate in funding the governments efforts with our hard earned cash. The people believe that their contribution of funding to the government which in turn provides the revenue streams that maintain public programs and service to citizens within our society is contingent upon income taxes. Nothing could be further from reality and yet the paradigm continues. I honestly believe that it is time for some substantive changes in public perception. It is time to begin to dismantle the carefully crafted wall of public apathy which successive efforts of numerous governments have endeavored to create. Once the public becomes involved within the political process change is inevitable. The time for that is now, right damned now.

Recall is a must in an enlightened democracy, but since we don't have one I guess the politicians can get away with it. Fixed election dates, public referendums and term limits need to be undertaken as well. However all this means that we would have to open the can of worms and enter inot a constitutional debate. It needs to be done but the politicians haven't the balls or the backbone to do it.