Jerry J. Fortin

Without victory there is no support for effort. As long as the indigenious peoples can extend a sustained resistance to occuping forces they are able to claim if not victory then oppression. The powers that be need to rethink their operations and politics. Nobody has conquered the Afgan people since Alexander the Great, the nation may in fact be poor but it is extremely patriotic and determined.

The issue is not Canadian, it is far less encompassing than that. It is all about the individual, its about freedom. Citizens should be free to associate and interact with other citizens at their own discretion. Citizens should be free to choose a system of government and political association as best suits their needs and desires. Likeminded citizens have the right to associate and interact within society as they choose. In a democracy these concepts must be preserved and promoted.

How so?

Our government handed over one of our own citizens to a foreign power. That citizen was literally tortured due to the actions of our government. In my opinion the focus should be on the process that let a political decision impact the life of a citizen to such a degree. What have we become? If the man was guilty of anything, our governments responsibility was to utilize our justice system to address the problem. In this case the citizen was only accused and then given over to a foreign power. Our government failed in its responsibility to tyhis citizen, and in that regard ten million is peanuts.

You people need to get a grip here! If you want to actually deal with sex crimes then you must legalize prostitution. Only then can you throw offenders in jail and then toss the key. Legalization will help reduce disease as well as eliminate underage abuse as well. It would get rid of the pimps and the drugs and a lot of street crimes too. Think about it people.

I actually agree with him to a degree. Liberals are always willing to debate, but Conservatives are always willing to "Preach". Of the two approaches, I prefer the Liberal.

Perhaps we would all be better off if the courts decided things on the basis of right and wrong. Maybe we should revisit the so called justice system in the interests of society. The penal system itself does little to deter crime. The court system does little to deter crime. Even our governments do little to deter crime. Is it then a stretch that some citizens will choose to take matters into their own hands? Right and wrong, those are commonly understood judgements in this society. The problem seems to stem from our embracement of situational ethics. This lust for modification of the existing black and white judgements into an area of grey shades has been largely responsible in my opinion for the failure of society to manage a system of justice in the first place. The harsh reality is that we can only administer justice based upon our ability to pay for it. It comes down to a form of economic if not monetary consideration. How does society pay for its justice? Some things are just wrong, and our society needs to recognize that.

Correct me if I am wrong here... I would think that if a person wanted access to locked in funds that they could simply move those funds to an account in a tax haven such as the Cayman Islands. Once those funds were transfered to that juridictions would they then not be free from Canadian regulations? Reading the thread I realized that this particular discussion has some direct application to me. My employer recently changed our pension plan rules arbitrarily and has now removed an option that used to be available to any participant in the plan. It was described as a vested employee option where a member of the plan could gain access to all funds in a lump sum fashion following a formula that provided an equal monetary value if those funds were either recieved in a single payment or paid monthly until death. At least the formula accounted for an average life span of 78.5 years, so the lump sum payout woud equal 23.5 years of pension provided that the funds were not diluted and included calculated interest for the same time frame. In other words it would work out the same, if you didn't spend the money for 23.5 years! The idea being that the company, and the pension plan would save money doing it this way. The unions are trying to get this option back, and we have some realistic hope that we will prevail based on recent rulings in Canadian courts. If we do get it back, I am tempted to take adantage of this option. My plan would be to put the locked in funds into a Canadian bank that had international branches, then transfer my account to a tax haven, because my plan calls for me to have to pay to see snowflakes upon retirement anyway! Once both those locked in funds and myself were out of the country, I have no idea how the government thinks it can still have juridiction over me and my money. I am hoping that somebody on this forum knows how this convoluted system actually works and can provide some insight !!!

One year into their mandate, and they have managed to accomplish some things. Yes there were failures, but there was some successes as well. The shift to environmental awareness has been slow but sure, and that means that there is some hope for citizens. It will take some time but we will eventually arrive at the conclusion that our society needs to evolve around human and not economic considerations. Money is not everything. Canada needs to create its own identity at the direction of its citizens. We are different up here in the frozen chosen and we need to recognize that fact. We can build upon that fact. If only we can shake loose the bonds of economic desparity and political insecurity. Time will tell.......

Systems are tools for the use of humankind, the real problem is that the systems use humankind as tools for their own designs.

Nice debate going on here! But what is the point? Do we want a beter healthcare system or one that costs less? What price do you put on your own health? I will suggest that there is indeed room for private healthcare for those ble to afford it. In fact I would support private healthcare because I could afford to do so. However, the problem is that many people cannot afford to do so. Therefore the need for a public system is a foregone conclusion. If we were to go down the road of a combined public and private delivery system for healthcare it must be understood that the funding for public care must be universaly acquired though federal levy in the form of taxation. Those funds must never be used to subsidize a private system in any way shape or form. In other words no shared facilities or assets, no transfer of public funds into private for profit hands.

WE are all citizens of the world. Borders are for politicians, the people should be free. This earth shall never know peace as long as governments are able to tell the people what to do. War will rage until the people are empowered to prevent it.

There will never be peace in the middle east. The Arabs hate each other but all agree that they hate the Jews more. There is no simple solution, especially one from the from the west to be imposed on them. Leave them to their own ends unless you want the world picking sides and having it out to find a "FINAL SOLUTION".

It makes no difference which partisan faction takes power, once installed in power they use any and all means to retain that authority. The day to day issues get the call of the ball and party platform policies get worked into the mix. They all lay claim to the support of the majority, and pretend to have the backing of the masses its only on election day that the public has a voice.

Fig you make me laugh! You just don't see it do you?

I think that the way to "fix the system" is through redesigning the infrastructure utilization policies and tackling the bureaucracy issues. Given that care received in emergency rooms costs many time more than it does at the family docors office it would seem that the first priority in researching the problem would be to examine the case loads of these emergency centres. I am willing to bet that a vast majority of treatment services delivered to citizens in these facilities could have been provided elsewhere at less cost. Availability of services is the likely cause of this problem, but that needs to be documented. With this in mind I think it prudent to consider alternative means of service delivery to reduce costs. The other side of the equation is asset utilization. How many public facilities have horrific utilization curves. Between public schools, libraries and community centres we would probably see less than a fifty percent utilization should we be bright enough to ook into it. When you consider these assets being idle at great public cost you begin to get the picture. Its a planning function of government that needs to be carefully examined. While the conversion of existing assets may prove expensive, there is no doubt that it would be cheaper to expand infrastructure in this manner than constructing entirely new low usage facilities. How many administrative cluster ***** do we currently have? Lets see, a federal department, a provincial department, a regional department and finally a facility locally administered! How much money could be saved through administrative reductions? A little outside of the box thinking could cure the system without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Just this one? How about SSM? Or the environment?

Fig your arrogance is exceeded only by your ignorance. What many of us in Alberta are concerned with is a geographic based tax, its nonsense. On top of that it amounts to a tax on success, not exactly beneficial to those who have sacrificed to achieve their goals. Alberta citizens pay three times that of Ontario citizens into a fund that actually reduces the funding for services they receive. Considering that there is about three times as many Ontario citizens as there is Alberta citizens out here the math translates into a tax that is nine times more than some of the other citizens in this land of equal treatment. Gee, I wonder why Geoffrey is a little miffed at this vaunted system? Equalization sucks.

So First Nations should have no special rights at all, I could live with that.

Faith, hope and charity. Granted that it is not very inventive and far from original, however it is in fact a very self rewarding lifestyle.

My personal reccommendation is to start a small business in a small town in Alberta. Forget the big cities, expenses are too high. There are a lot of 2nd floor apartments over retail square footage that can be had for reasonable prices. For instance, in Onoway there is about 800 sq ft of floor space in addition to a one bedroom apartment upstairs for 1750 a month, at least it was there last week. Coffee shops have low overhead and can be profitable with the right management. There is lots of opportunity in Alberta! How about a mobile oil change bsiness that shows up at your residence or place of business for a quick oil and filter change??? Alberta has a great business tax structure and welcomes any and all entrepenuer types, come on down because the price is right.

Don't hold your breath waiting for an NDP government! My best guess is another minority for the Conservatives, unless of course the Liberals grow a brain and a spine. If the Liberals and the NDP attempt a coalition platform, the Consevatives will fall. Now start a serious attempt to unseat the right with an anybody but Conservative movement, geared toward social policy and the environment and you can kiss the right wing goodbye. Citizens in my view would support an internally focused government, set aside foreign affairs and focus on the improvement of the condition of Canadian citizens for a majority!

Let Ed pick his team, that is his right. From my perspective I would prefer to have each and every elected member of the legislature in a cabinet post, let me explain. I can thing of more single problems in this province than we have elected representatives. I think most people would agree that we would like to see the problems resolved, so the question is how do we get that done. To me the answer is simple, assign each MLA a problem to resolve. Give those people some work! If they don't get the job done then fire them at the first opportunity. That is how it works in the real world. We need to make some major changes if we want to get anything done. Picking cabinet ministers is only the tip of the iceberg. There are problems to solve, let Steady Eddy have a shot at addressing those problems. If he doesn't deal with them, then fire him and hire someone to do the job.

I have no idea what your last sentence is supposed to indicate, but regarding your questions: a-"why has Ottawa to this day allowed Quebec to violate the spirit and intent of the constitution" b-"what is with Quebecs refusal to sign the 1982 Constitution, and still lay claim to articles of it to protect their own interests?" A: I think Bill 101 and the use of the notwithstanding clause to protect it has been tested in litigation and found legal. (Though I'm not 100% sure). B: It's ironic, isn't it? The reality is that in politics demographics are everything. Quebec sits on a very large demographic, and as such the feds are reluctant to mess with it. With respect to the constitution of 1982, its a joke! We lost our right to own property for starters. What is worse is the fact that us lowly citizens didn't get the chance to ratify it only our politicians did!!! On top of that according to the constitution elected members to the House of Commons are supposed to take an oath of allegiance to this nation. Having said that, can a person then take a stand against the country without being in conflict with that oath? Utilizing that logic how can the Bloc exist a political party within federal political system with a public expressed position of provincial seperation which can only be described as contrary to the best interests of the nation. Again the reality is in the numbers. Lacking a political spine has always been the problem with Canadian Federal politics.

Hey Fig! Lets turn that around a bit and ask ourselves about Quebecs Bill 101 shall we? What is with that whole pile of crap legislation anyway, and why has Ottawa to this day allowed Quebec to violate the spirit and intent of the constitution. Further to that, what is with Quebecs refusal to sign the 1982 Constitution, and still lay claim to articles of it to protect their own interests? Lets think about that for a minute then enlighten us with your views of fair and equal treatment under the constitution.