Jerry J. Fortin

Yet he reflects the image of a strong leader which is favoured by a great many people. Especially those on the right.

I too am a fan of Chavez. He has done more for his people than any other leader in living memory there.

Are you folks serious? There are tens of thousands of Canadians who are not working. We just handed out billions of dollars to an industry that literally put thousands of those citizens out of work over the last decade. Then we see comments related to the technological advancements that have already put many out of work, and in the same breath we complain we are losing jobs to Asia. Its well past the time to start building more infrastructure and repairing the existing infrastructure, our cities are falling apart as fast as our hiways. It is well past time to invest in high tech industries, they have already moved out of the nation seeking cheaper labour. Folks it is time to consider where this is all going. We will be reduced to a primary resource society, with few jobs. Is that what you folks want?

A thug is a thug, yet I suppose there are degrees within that group like any other. The tough part is that any partisan group from the right or the left respond in like manner. Question period is a great place to view that reality. Their true colours are displayed for all to see there, unscripted peanut bench commentary with warts and all.

Good call, I agree.

So what you are suggesting is to simply keep doing what we are doing?

In what sector? Like OSB from our forestry industry, or plastic from our oil industry? What I suggest is using our available resources to produce value added stuff. Of course we need many more products to export than we currently have and that is the point. It seems to me that we need to start small, and work our way up. Use what we have to OUR advantage. Look at the export of potash, we ship it over there and then turn it into fertilizer with additives, we can do that here before we ship it. As long as we export raw materials we are losing out on jobs and revenue. We have trouble competing with their labour costs so we need to eliminate their advantage by using an automated process. We have the people to retrain already on the government dime. We have the production facilities already built and sitting idle . We have a lot of little pieces, but we need to put them together in a concentrated effort focused on an end goal.

No, you are spot on. Most people just view this as a bump in the road. I see it as a pothole and it tells the future. You know damned well the foundation is bad when that pot hole appeared in the first place but it is cheaper and less problematic to just toss some dirt in the hole and say done.

Hey Oleg, The oil sands run from Grande Praire to the Saskatchewan border and beyond. I have read some things that seem to indicate they run east to the shield. The only issue with extraction is the depth, that is why Fort Mac is the growth are. It is close to the surface there in some places less than a couple meters down whereas in other place it is many meters down. The easy way is to just open pit mine the stuff. You just back haul the clean sand and dump it back in the hole you left. The water issue is the scary part, mega use and polluted residue, that and the amount of natural gas we use to heat water to clean the sand. Even so, they are small fry in the oil sands, as in single digit development. Its not too easy to get more land up there anymore most of the leases are bought up. They got in late in the game and there are consequences to that.

You folks are just tossing the concept of automated production out the window! What we really need to do is tap the retail markets of Asia with our own productive efforts at value added consumer goods. We have both the resources and the techmology to make this work, so why are you folks not in the band wagon? Why do you want to import their productive efforts at inflated profit price structures and export only raw materials to them? We need the work and that is found in secondary industry to a far greater extent than primary industry.

Hey a crook is a crook. They let both of those buggers stroll didn't they! What does that tell the citizens? Two letters come to mind....one is an "O" and the other is a "J".

So what is happening with the AirBus deal? I see Carl has been shipped back to the Fatherland for trial and possible punishment. but here ole lyin' Brian has yet to have charges made against him. Strange that the guy who created the GST didn't pay any on his "earned" money delivered in brown paper bags at airport hotels. I for one don't know if our former Prime Minister is guilty or not, we need a trial of inquiry to sort that out all nice and legal. Maybe that should happen now, what do you think folks?

Nobody in their right mind advocates torture, not Harper or Iggy or even Jack and Gilles. But that isn't the point is it? The point is to just muddy the waters at this point. This is the time to toss around bogus accusations. We all know how the game is played, there are no laws against it. Yet there should be. Wouldn't it be nice to have en election about the real issues? When was the last time that happened?

Include Gilles with that thought and you get a majority that sees Harper moving out of 24 Sussex.

Argus we are on a 5 province average now, you know that. What gets me is the language of the agreement which takes Hydro-Quebec out of the accounting situation. If you add that revenue they would likely not get very damned much in equalization. Oh well. its just another "non-issue" for the supporters of high taxes.

As a matter of fact you are right. Now how do you get the PMO to relinquish power for starters?

No the national debt is because the government borrowed more money than it had. The government then adds to this existing debt the cost of borrowing the money in the first place. A nice little circle jerk, the government is always either borrowing money from the banks or paying it back. Meanwhile the central bank doesn't really lend money to the other banks, and has no control over the realistic monetary policy supposedly designed by the government. What we have is a debt based currency not an asset based one. What we have is a travesty, and few see it that way. God bless the system of capitalism that has made us all wage slaves to work to cover a level of taxation imposed upon us to service a debt created by a government not smart enough to manage its own fiscal affairs in a manner that benefits its citizens. Wake up and smell the coffee ....

IF ?

Simple approach, yet I don't see it as a fix to our current problems. It certainly means that guys like Harper would be in for a ride and I am all for that but it doesn't get to the roots of the problem.

When it comes down to an us or them situation the pros of survival will always out weigh the cons of not surviving, there is no upside to death. When you get down to it, he never says that torture is okay. The closest he comes to it is that there is a line that should not be crossed. Don't try to ignore the simple fact that he has never advocated torture. What he was speaking about is matters of national security and the nations responsibility to its on citizens in terms of moral high ground verses survival. He stops short of advocating the government impose on its captives that which would be unacceptable treatment of their own citizens.

Great a non-partisan form of self governing political parties. Just how do we get there from here? With all due respect there are many versions of the Parliamentary system, our is only one of them. One that needs work. I do agree the PMO has too much power and control, and I do agree that changing the way we elect the PM would suffice reduce a lot of crap. Now after all that, you need constitutional changes to get what you want done. I merely suggest that when you open that can of worms you let them all out at once and rewrite the damned thing to include recall legislation, term limits to office and a means of providing for the public to interact with government in decisions that have visible impact on their lives. I would prefer to be able to have the public choose their own leader not the representatives to the House of Commons and I would prefer that the Senate have elected representatives that would act as a regional system of representation in which an equal number of senators were elected from each province, and those elected to that House have a specific function to undertake such as that of an Auditor General and holder of the purse strings.

How so? Those procedures are very nearly written in stone, and they would require extensive work to fix. I will grant you that it is a way to go, but it is realistically a baby step, and at that one which fails to accept the underpinning problems.

First of all lets not say we tortured anyone, to find out anything. Lets not cross the line to actual torture, lets just play the head games that result in no permanent damage to individuals. Maybe we can find stuff out that way, but if we can't then we can't and we don't cross the line. But lets say we did have the information we were looking for. Then yes whack the bastard, and be done with it, instead of having limited warfare rake the lives of any innocent humans. Iggy never said "a one time thing" did he, or did he say "systemic?

Let me draw a line between a couple of things you said here. You seem to come out against targeted assassinations. Now tell me if I am wrong here but....had bin Laden been whacked the entire Afghanistan thing would not have happened, and in the case Iraq, taking out Saddam would have prevented that war as well. Now how is that a bad thing, just taking out the bad guys and leaving the citizens alone with a little infrastructure for their poor existence? I am all for saving as many lives as possible in case of political conflicts, I would hope that you would be as well. I am all for limiting the collateral damage that is a consequence of the use of military force, again I hope you would be as well. So now having said this, how is this strategy such a bad thing and why do you come out against it when it is made clear in Iggy's writings? I don't see any conflict in what he has written only in how you are perceiving his words. Torture is crossing a line and political assassinations are far more desirable than full blown military conflicts.

Fine, in my mind we need to rework the system, in yours not. As I see it the problem can be found with partisan composition of the House of Commons. The issue there is that they are only a rubber stamp for partisan leadership and do not really represent the will of the people that elected them. Now add to that the power vested in the PMO to administer the nation in the absence of any parliamentary oversight through orders in council. So how is it that the will of the people can even be expressed in the House of Commons? The only means of practical application are found within the constitution, and there are damned few people in this nation aside from myself and a handful of others who dare to would advocate opening that can of worms up to fix the problem. So how do you suggest we deal with the practical application issue?