Jerry J. Fortin

Just wait and see what happens people. Glaciers are melting pretty fast on this continent. The proof is in the pudding I would say. The last time I went to the Columbia ice fields it was a short walk from the parking lot to the ice, now you have a long hike to get there. Set that aside for the moment, now lets look at this a different way. If there is global warming were are screwed, if there isn't then there is no problem right. So since we don't know for sure one way or another what do we do. Some people would have us pretend that it isn't happening at all. That is risky, but the other side of the coin is that is may be really expensive if we ignore the problem. The question seems to be should we do something about it or not. I say not, but I believe that there is indeed global warming. I say do nothing because I don't think we can reverse it. Its a natural event, and I don't care if we caused it or not I simply don't think we can either stop it or reverse it. My recommendation is that we as individuals do what we can to mitigate the effects on ourselves and our families. Adapt or die. I think it will happen whether we spend money on it or not. I think that no matter how much we spend it will not change a damned thing.

He won't get my vote. Neither will Dion. Nor will Layton.

Hey Saturn who the hell are you anyway? Just a guess but I would say that you have no wife, no kids, and are making about 60k a year. You are probably 21-30 years old and are complaining that taxes are eating up you recreation fund or just cutting into your beer money. Look fella, I have been paying taxes since 1970. I have watched services decline and debts stack up with governments. Bureaucracies have grown and taxes have skyrocketed. The problem here is bean counters and politicians, graft and corruption. Taxes reflect all that goes on in government. Right now the government is vote buying with targeted tax breaks that reflect a majority position. Its politics. The cold hard reality is that taxes are regressive in nature and constitute a net reduction in disposable income. Given that this is a consumer society it would make sense to reduce taxation to provide a greater amount of purchasing power for the consumer. However having said all this, the government doesn't not play fair. You see most government programs reflect household income. Yet come tax time this does not apply, its just every paycheck they can get their hands on that matters to them. Now if they were playing fair then everything would either be or not be based on house hold income. So my point is this. Make a level playing field and then nobody can bitch. By the way Saturn, the vast majority of citizens in this country (85%) live in cities. Yes the cities create more wealth and provide more taxes to the government. But don't think for a second that us folks in the boonies want the government to build any swimming pools nearby. Its you folks in town that are whining about services and perks, its you 85 percent that account for a vast majority of spending. Take a reality break for a minute will you Saturn.

Actually I have the Republic of Alberta to call home. The land of the red neck! Governments are a waste of money at the best of times. I pay for my healthcare, I pay for my kids school too. I don't get a GST rebate and I don't get any child tax checks in the mail either. To say that a tax break constitutes a benefit is moronic at best. I still pay about 30 k a year in taxes. Thats after its all said and done. I don't get much in the way of tax refunds either, unless in your mind a hundred bucks is big coin because to me its chicken feed compared to the 30 k they government took from me. Where the hell do you live anyway? No doubt in some city with mass transit, child care facilities and a hospital in your neighborhood. Who is getting the tax benefits dude? The nearest government facility not including a school is more than thirty kilometers from my place.

What! I don't get a dime from the feds, or the province either for that matter. My wife doesn't work outside of the home and doesn't have a home business. There is a net transfer of my hard earned money to government , not the other way around. I got a little pissed off the other day when I heard that as a campaign promise the Quebec Premier has decided that more than 700 million of federal transfers would go to reducing the tax load on citizens in Quebec. Its a damned good thing for them that I am not the Prime Minister because if I was there would be a net reduction of 700 million in transfer payments to them next year! At any rate the smoke and mirrors that governments use to convince citizens of the value of government no longer works on me. I am not apathetic, nor am I fanatical, but I have become a separatist because of it. I want out of this chicken *&%# country! I am tired of the crap and I want changes made that are beneficial to people for a change. Corporate governance is my favorite pet peeve, after that it is bureaucracies and politicians. The government does little for me and charges a hell of a lot to do what it does.

Taxes are supposed to pay for services provided to citizens. So how is it that governments find themselves in surplus? How is it that governments can cut program spending to decrease services without the permission of citizens? Why do citizens have less ability to deduct expenses from their incomes than business?

This budget is all about getting elected. Harper has taken a Ralph Klein approach to politics, find out where the band is playing and run out in front of it. The citizens want money spent, so he spends money. If Canadians were up in arms about government spending that is where Harper would be. It is politically astute if not morally bankrupt. Hidden agendas? I don't think so, Harper wants power and the more of that the better. He will continue to act in this manner until it no longer serves his purposes, then he will change. Folks the problem is power and greed. Elect representatives not accountable to political parties if you want to avoid this. It is time to limit the powers and authorities of governments and representatives and turn toward a more democratic method of governance. To do this the constitutional can of worms must be opened. Get rid of the Governor General, create elected Senators, create recall legislation, create citizens referendums and most importantly we need to deal with patronage by reducing the bureaucracy in government. What is truly needed is to revamp the way our government works for us, because it no longer does work for us. We have become servants of the government and a new version of class based society has been created. At the top of the pile is the government and its attending bureaucracy, just below that is the entrepeneurial class, followed by the professionals and then the remaining working and not working masses of humanity. The tax base from the bottom feeds the top. I think the problem is much greater than most people think it is.

The North American power grid has been in existence for years. It was designed to benefit the industry, but in theory the end user gains benefit. The simple fact is that our power production in Canada is basically sold to the US. We supply more power than we use and our surplus goes south. In Alberta we used to have the cheapest utility rates in Canada, that is no longer the case. Our rates have sky rocketed yet the cost of production has not. There is a lot of profit in energy production, and there is no doubt in my mind that is a trend that will continue. With respect to mass transit; this is yet another program designed around urban sprawl. It is a net transfer of wealth from rural Canadians to urban Canadians. It would be nice to think that all Canadians would benefit but that is simply not the case. Having said that if you really want to make public transit functional I would suggest that you ban private vehicles from the downtown areas altogether and force the public to utilize the system or take a cab. As it is parking lots do not pay sufficient taxation, and the amount of pollution would be minimized.

Political power in Canada resides in the Parliament. However all policy is derived from the Prime Ministers Office. While legislation is created and passed by the House of Commons, the day to day operation is in control of the Prime Minister who is able to create or alter policies and practices at will. There is no means of executive oversight in this matter. The President of the United States does not have as much political power as the Prime Minister does. In my opinion the PMO has far too much power.

Not here in Tory Alberta! We cut taxes alright, but not to the individual you understand. We have a history of corporate welfare here. The oil industry is everything out here and anything that has an adverse impact on corporate profit is avoided like it was the plague. We no longer have a provincial debt, but on the other hand our health care system is in tatters and the school system is under extreme pressure as well. Much of this is the result of the current boom, but the root of the problem existed long before that. Once again industry is calling the ball.

It is necessary to open the constitution. Native land claims, democratic reforms and a list of many other issues require it. The government with the balls to do it will be beaten up for sure. Yet they will gain a great measure of respect for the effort. The largest opponent for this effort will come from the business community because it will divert government attention that has been bought and paid for by millions of dollars expended in lobby efforts.

Harper is going to make some deep tax cuts. Odds are income splitting but watch for the real cuts in the form of corporate welfare. There are bigger fish to fry, but we won't see that in the budget. Expect the Tory election platform to be rolled out with the budget. Targets, big business through a green initiative, the apathetic voter through calculated tax relief.

Get a grip people. Governments cost money to operate. Get over it. We should be thankful that Harper doesn't want to go out an buy a A-380 or something. As it stands we spend very little on the gravy train compared to other country's. It could be far worse than it is. Want to talk about needless expense, then consider the Senate and the Governor General, these folks are not even elected but cost many millions of dollars a year.

I don't think that it is my business or the governments business what goes on behind closed doors. A couple in my opinion that is living together should be allowed to split the income of a single wage earning household. It is also conceivable that the NDP will form the next government but I don't think it is very damned likely. Lets use yourself as the example shall we? Lets say that you no longer suffer from withholding taxes and are no longer subject to income tax. You will have more money to use at your own discretion. A portion of that money will likely be invested, another portion will be used to cover your debts, and the remaining portion will go into your household budget which you will likely use to raise your standard of living. That new household budget will let you increase your discretionary spending and probably buy a hot dog while walking downtown looking at things that you can now afford to buy that you could not afford to buy before. The hot dog vendor has a larger potential customer portfolio due to increased spending provided through enhanced disposable family income. This is a consumer society that follows the motto.."the more you earn, the more you spend". That is not equal treatment! Equal would be everybody paying the same percentage of tax, not the freaking sum total divided by the number of tax payers. That type of convoluted reasoning is what brought us to this point in the first place. True equality in taxation can only be realized through a system based upon a levy placed on real estate. The rental value of real estate being determined to be the base of a tax structure. In this way those who could afford to pay tax would do so and those who could not would not be required to do so. This is an extreme example and not one which I would advocate, yet it is the most FAIR system that I can think of.

First of all, under the present system I favour income splitting, it would recieve the maximum benefit which will help my family. Secondly the idea of abolishing income taxes is one in which I personally advocate. The concept of a consumption tax WILL increase disposable family income. Anything that puts more money into the hands of the individual is something that I would support. No matter what level f income you are talking about the more you spend the more you pay in taxes. This is equal treatment in taxation.

Canada needs a foreign policy, so much so that Canadians ought to be putting some pressure on its political leadership to do so. I am not taking about the whims of the government of the day, but instead a policy created by Canadians and for Canadians that can be incorporated into a citizen ratified constitution. Something along the lines of; The free individuals of the nation of Canada offer political and humanitarian support to all citizens and nations that seek to preserve and promote free will and democracy, to the extent they we are capable of providing.

I know I am just a dumb Albertan, but it seems to me that any region making money and paying taxes benefits all of the other regions. Perhaps more to the point, a tax will not prevent anything other than transferring even more money from citizens to the government. The problem is emissions. With that in mind I think we need to split up those emissions into harmful and non-harmful groups. For instance I don't think cows can really be blamed for global warming so lets not bother taxing the farmer to death so we have to pay 100 dollars a pound for ground beef to make hamburger helper. Lets look at the refineries and other production facilities that put actually harmful crap into the atmosphere. If you really want to tax something to pay for something then go to the root cause and use the revenue to off set the costs of the problem created by the harmful crap. A carbon tax would do nothing to reverse the damages caused, nor would it serve to prevent the increased by products of industrial expansion and economic development. The only way to actuall reduce the harmful crap is to stop doing it!! So tax the freaking sources of the problem, forget trading credits and all that other hogwash. Stop pollution by making it too expensive to to the polluter. Promote green thinking with the revenues from the polluter tax, convince citizens to avoid the purchase of products from polluters.

I believe that the financial system needs major work, now let me tell you why. We are becoming wage slaves. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting more so. The average citizen has a debt to equity ration! We have become the means of wealth creation for those who take more than they need for their own satisfaction. If we were all hunters, we would die from this type of operation. In fact, that is what is happening in the worlds oceans we are depleting the ecosystem. Now just for a minute think about how the system is actually working. We create money by utilizing the future profits of lending to finance a loan. There is no real fractional reserve at play is there? For the reason Riverwind so accurately described, banks don't make money off of their reserves so they asked for and received from the government the elimination of those reserves. They do pay 1/30 of 1 percent annually of total deposits to the CDIC to cover possible losses, the cost of which is of course charged back to the customers of these institutions. The point being that banks no longer have assets equal to deposits because they don't need them. Banks operate under a completely different set of rules than you or your business does. They wanted to hang the guys at Enron for selling bankrupcy insurance but once the fed is involved with a bank anything is possible. The fees charged for deposit insurance to member institutes are tax deductible as a business expense. Isn't that interesting, they get a tax deduction from having to charge us to protect our own deposits with an insurance plan. The system is bent! The same rules should apply to all citizens of a nation, not one set of laws for the rich and one set for the poor. I think we can trace our problems back to the creation of limited liability companies, the corporations. Originally designed for business ventures deemed to risky for either private or public funding, they are now a resident feature of the economy. The owners and operators of corporations are not subject to personal liability for their actions. No liability equals no responsibility. The creation of the "legal" citizen in the form of a corporate type of business entity was the beginning of much of our current troubles. All bovine excrement aside corporate governance is a very real problem. The military industrial complex is another problem. The entire concept of taxation is probably the largest problem because it provides for the protection of the other two problems by transferring wealth from the individual to the government. What is truely needed is that citizens wake up and smell the coffee.

Provided you have an open mind and a reasonably logical mind I would be happy to discuss the problems with our monetary system! I am no rocket scientist, but I have a fair grasp of the realities of the system. So lets begin to address the issues. Government has only regulatory authority over the monetary system. System designed to utilize government to ensure profitability Central Bank has no obedience to government. Where to begin? I think the basis of the problem can be understood with a quick study of C.H. Douglas who seems to have come to the same conclusions I have except for the fact that the man died before I was born.

I like living in a democracy. I just wish we had a democratic government. I like the majority rules concept, so in that context the proportional representation concept simply doesn't work for me. I think the problem you folks are talking about stems more from partisan affiliation than anything else. Party whips and planned votes don't do a lot to promote democracy people. Open votes do, but that doesn't work within our political system. We need reforms yes, but simple electoral reforms will not achieve what we want. We need recall legislation. We need fixed election dates. We need a division power powers within government. We need a leader that can be selected by the people and not the party. If you want to fix the problems you need to embrace the concept of a republic.

Sorry guy, that is not the courts fault its the government. The problem is not judicial, but instead legislative. You don't want these guys walking the streets, then you need to change the laws that govern the penalty phase of the judicial system. Change the sentencing, that is the problem here with what we are seeing today. So it goes right back to the government. Is it Harpers fault, yes. Then again is was the fault of all those that came before him, they didn't do anything about it either.

Canadian Blue, I agree with you. We are behaving in a pathetic manner. We do take much for granted. Perhaps more importantly I owe you a debt of gratitude for wearing the uniform and putting yourself in harms way in defending our national interests. You speak plainly and clearly from a point of reference that most of us cannot even imagine, and you are entitled to your opinion. Catch Me, Get a grip fella. Your arguments are pathetic. Had you the courage and fortitude to stand up and fight for what you believe in you would probably be doing so beside Canadian Blue. Think about that for a second dude.

The judge is speaking with some experience I would say. Considering he is retired I would tend to think he spent some time working inside the system. Considering his commentary and background I would suggest that he is entitled to his opinions and that they should be accepted as a credible source of information. It is not news that governments stack the deck in every corner of bureaucracy to provide a like minded group of individuals working toward similar goals. What is new is that people are finally beginning to see the problems within such a system. At least some citizens are becoming more vocal in their opinions. The time will soon be upon us when there will be changes brought forth by a government that will actually serve the purposes of the citizens instead of the aspirations of those in political power. Not with this government obviously, nor likely with the next government. Even so, times always change, what citizens need to be aware of is that politics changes and society does evolve. Knowing this citizens can actually find some hope in the future.

Lets have a witch hunt and gather up all the religious zealots! Then when we tire of that lets go get the political zealots. Then we can hunt down all the blond people. Me thinks that we have gone a little too far in this thread. An individuals religious believes are private and should not be subject to public scrutiny. Nor should their sex lives, medical history or anything else. The only thing that should be public information is a criminal record.

I am a single income family father of three, whose wife works hard taking care of the family home and the kids. We are not allowed to do income splitting, so the money that I make is taxed at a higher level then a family that makes as much as I do through the efforts of two individuals. I make too much money to get the government to give me the child tax credit. The kids are school age so we don't get the 100 dollar kiss either. In short the government doesn't do a lot for me. I pay for my health care benefits, I pay my taxes. I don't begrudge those who would want the government to pay daycare costs or anything else. Perhaps they need the government to help them, and I won't prevent somebody from getting some help. What burns me is those individuals who chose to stand up and voice their opinions on stuff as if it had some impact on them. Like single people complaining about child care, or men complaining about abortion or any number of issues where their opinions simply aren't valid.