Jerry J. Fortin

Legalize the weed folks. Not decriminalize but actually make it legal. Tax the crap out of it and subsidize the public healthcare system. Add a similiar tax to cigs and booze. Sin tax the stuff to the nines. Use our vices to cover our costs......might as well add prostitutes to the list while we are at it. Its not like legislation prevents these everyday vices from happening, aside from that while these things are illegal they are literally out of control of the government. So legalize them and regulate them to actually protect society to the fullest extent possible.

If it is so easy, why are you waiting?!?!? I think the only difference between Albertans and rest-of-Canadians is that they have oil. I doubt they have the courage to stand on their own. Perhaps you are right, but perhaps not. Indications will become visible after the new premier is APPOINTED by the fascist dictatorship currenty in power. A provincial general election should follow in the spring at which point an accurate timelime can be projected. The tory government will likely be reduced in power by a dozen or more seats in the Alberta Legislature. The next government will be the one to take the fall in 2011. By 2012 Alberta will in fact be free. Care to wager?.....

The US will not devalue its currency. The next President is the one that will get left holding the line accross the board and similiarly will be held responsible for the fall of the American empire.

America has big troubles with its foreign policy. They are being pushed into a lot of corners because of it.

It is logical to expec t any group that believes it is oppressed to formulate some type of response. The simple reality is that when people believe they are cornered they react in one of two ways, they turn turtle or they get violent. The Jews are a perfect example of this.

A new refinery in Alberta is an economic key to our sustainable devlopment for Alberta. The adverse environmental effects need to be considered and mitigated to the extent possible with available technology.

In my view climate change is normal. It is no news to me that the weather changes from day to day either. The thing to be concerned with is long term trends and their impact on society. We need to take a different approach to this oproblem in my view.

Suspending rights to people is a bad plan. It simply can't be justified.

Equality is a relative term. In an enlightened society it would be understood that in order to create an environment of equality the entire "social order" would have to be removed and decisions based upon blind factual information. Don't hold your breath waiting for this..........

I think people need to give their heads a shake! Public healthcare is here to stay. The majority of citizens in any country would support the concept 10 times out of 10.

Hard to believe that the voting public could give a damn about this particular incident. I think that people can see through this little ploy, or at least I hope they can. Much ado about nothing I'm afraid. We have bigger fish to fry.

JBG you seem to think scientific investment is a waste of time, why is that?

Nice post Cybercoma. However I think that we should in fact dump a lot of money into the problem. The funding should go to scientific research. We need to understand the problems we face and determine a course of action instead of the knee jerk political reactions that are so common. The simple fact that governments utilize reactionary solutions should give us some pause for thought.

If you are a political party and want the support of the public you could take the fight to the streets and seek the single issue that would unite Canadians, that is taxation. I don't know of a single citizen that likes income tax. In fact over the last few years I must have asked a thousand citizens if they had the opportunity to vote on legislation to ELIMINATE income tax would they do so? Guess what, 100% of them said yes, provided that there would be no detrimental impact to government programs and services. Yet not a single partisan group advocates the elimination of income taxes. Income taxes can be removed without impact to the revenue stream the government needs to provide programs and service by REPLACING income tax with a transaction tax. In fact if you look at the math, you can design a revenue stream sufficient to cover present expenses while paying down the debt. A transaction tax is completely blind to income and therefore serves as a "fair tax". Creating this tax would eliminate a large portion of the bureaucracy in Revenue Canada, it could be collected the same way the GST is collected. In other words it would serve to reduce government spending to a degree.

The Liberals deserved a beating for adscam. They got what was coming to them. The public could hardly stand for what had happened with ensuring a political consequence.

Betsy, in this nation of ours our politicians are fence sitters by design. We as a people are not yet ready to actually follow a visionary leader. We don't sponsor or support strong leaders. We don't take the leading edge of politics by the point of the sword, we allow the battle to swarm around us instead. It is a problem in this country no doubt, but can you honestly say that you would lay down your life for your nation in their stead? Because that is what it will take to unite the citizens of this nation. We need a crisis to galvanize our people. That crisis can be either real or contrived but it needs to be raised to the forefront of our imaginations or at least rise to the level of perceptable consequence. Without such a driving force behind it our apathetic population is doomed to fail in political terms.

I just have to say something on this thread. We are being lead down a path by zealots and scientists. Our society is leaning toward a demographics approach to politics. Instead of having real leaders speak toward their personal vision we are having government by opinion polls. Our societry is becoming luke warm and spurred by popular opinion.

Well don't hold back or sugar coat it Charles!

I was not too keen on the format of the debate itself. The content all fell into line with the standard liberal policy sets with not too much new being brought to the podium. I think Canadians want more than the regular lines that the Liberals use. Citizens want substantial change that will provide benefit to them. In my opinion the Liberals need a dynamic leader with a big mitt full of fresh ideas to beat Harper. More of the same old crap simply won't cut it with citizens. At least Harper offered a different direction and the public got on side with him.

While central banking may appear to be the apple of the eye of the average conspiracy theorist, it has very little impact on the little guy. The little guy is the one that can carry the ball across the line. It is the great unwashed public that has the true power. The United States is founded upon that principle and it is recognized in the Declaration of Independence, and it is also accurate in its foundations. Democracy is a tool for the people to use to their advantage. In time, the citizens of this earth will become aware that through their common effort all war and poverty can be combated with democracy. We have seen the rise and fall of the city states, and we have seen the rise and fall of empires. We are living in the age of nations and will watch their fall as well. In time the free citizenry of this planet will unite to deal with human interests to the detriment of corporate welfare but until that day all will suffer.

I think the winner of that contest will be the one who promises to alter the royalty schedules. The leader that brings the Heritage Trust Fund to the table and and suggests that the entire revenue stream needs some sober second thought will have citizens attention. We can no longer afford to screw around in this province, its time to get serious about resource revenue and the environment. Agriculture is another area that will gain some traction. Healthcare and education chew up a big chunck of the budget and the public doesn't want them screwed with unless it will provide better service at less cost, in other words don't even go there.

I think Baffin Island is a nice place to put a correctional facility. Security expenses would fall to almost nothing. You would need zero gaurds and zero maintenance staff. Drop off a barge of food and fuel once a year, and tell them to have a nice day. Let the sharks and the bears provide a secure perimeter for the criminals.

Sort of the way the NEP did? Yes JBG, exactly that way.

So you think the Conservatives should look to kill the family farm and help them move to the cities? No I think that government needs to stop screwing with the little guy at the same time as they stop kissing up to the big corporations. Leave us to our own designs, stop interfereing in our lives. Governments waste a hell of a lot of time undertaking considerations of things that have little value to citizens but direct application to business. When it comes to dealing with its citizens they tend to cut our services raise our taxes and restrict our freedom, about the opposite of what they do for business. The freaking "moral majority" lays claim to representing citizens when in fact they represent religious zealots. The supporters of the little guy are labeled socialists and anti-business. We need to wake up people, because we are being lead by the nose to a slaughter for a few pieces of gold.

The CWB and other marketting boards serve to regulate market prices. Quotas serve the same purpose, that needs to be understood. The corporate farm is forcing the small family farm into extinction through the utilization of profit margins and business plans. The little family farm sought only enough profit to provide for the family, and the big corporate farms seek enough of a profit margin to appease the financial institutions who provide the corporate operating capital that serves to provide a revenue stream for the banks. The little guy is doomed under that scenario, unless the little guy operates without incurring debt. All of the current bureaucracy was put into place to extend the perimeters of the agricultural sector. By recreating the lines of influence the opportunity exists to get more business into the little circle of capitalistic parasites. But to get to the point of the matter agriculture is viewed as a business now instead of a way of living. This changes things for the little guy, and not for the better. To return to my original point, things like the CWB and the NEP and the Crow rate have had little detrimental impact of Eastern Canada by design. Only a fool could draw any other conclusion to the fact that governments utilize demographics to their advantage. Those of us on the praires know very well that we simply don't have the political muscle in our parlimentary system to change the fact that we are the hewers of wood and drawers of water. It doesn't matter how much money we make or how important our economy is to the rest of the nation when we simply cannot influence federal decisions through the democratic process. We are a minority but unable to claim the protection of the law to obtain fair treatment.