Jerry J. Fortin

In my local town all the merchants price match with the stores in the big cities. I buy everything local unless I happen to be in the big city.

First of all we have a lack of justice legal system. Lets get that straight right off the line. Secondly, I would venture to say that most people believe that violent offenders need to be put behind bars. I will go a step further and suggest that most people believe crimes with weapons deserve and extra portion of sentencing. Thirdly I will suggest that in actual fact most citizens desire to see criminals punished severely for their crimes. Letys try a little test of the reality in am speaking about; How long should a rapist be put away? What if the rapist used a weapon?

Let me try one more time to make my point. Canadians have become nanny state sponsored trough hogs, living in a perpetual state of on demand entitlement. These things we ask for need to be paid for, and they are paid for with tax dollars. Those tax dollars detract from disposable family income. Reduced disposable income translates into less available investment capital. This simply force foreign investment and debt corporate debt accumulation to fund research and development as well as expansions to production capacity. All in all, we have slid down a slippery slope toward where we have found ourselves today. Heavily taxed and under invested. Meanwhile we have piled up debt and demanded more services from the government. How long can this continue before an utter collapse takes place?

I can take anything you dish out Oleg. Telling me to shut up won't do you much good, but keep on swingin'. If I wasn't sure before I made the racist comment I sure as hell am now. Your kind disgust me.

Yeah Oleg I guess you should move south and live with those folks. You can say what you want, just try to not lump us all together into a nice little herd that you think you can dictate to.

I don't think so Oleg. As a matter of fact its sounds if you could use some anger management yourself, it seems you have a chip on your shoulder. Your racism is showing again as well.

Now why is this the problem of the nation instead of the city? Why should federal dollars fund some solution to the problem?

Let us set aside all the hype and models, the rhetoric from the left and the right, and just think about this. Even using the most primitive sense of logic, there appears to be a level of warming in at least some places on this earth. That trend, should it continue will cause changes to our environment. Now consider this; an awful lot of talk has been done about reductions in this and that to levels from (pick a year). Nobody has said levels of (pick a compound) will actually be reduced, but merely the growth would be slowed to some specific point in time. Now isn't that point already far into a trend that is supposed to be causing problems? So take that a step further, we are not even talking about solving a problem that some people don't even think exists! For all this talk, not a single person wants to admit that there really isn't anything that can be done about what has already happened. So if there really is a problem it exists without any chance of resolution. In other words its all spilled milk and we are crying in our beer about something we can't do anything about anyway. So I return to my personal stance on the subject, adapt or die. Why not figure out how to live within our means? By that I really do mean finding a way to live within a budget!

Yeah thats right, we are nobody and just like everyone else.

To a certain extent we do agree. I think that there is a time and a place for government. I am not a big fan of massive social programs that fail to accomplish anything that is a for sure. I my view EI should be like a personal savings account similiar to CPP. You can take out what you put into it. By the same token I am no fan of social assistance either. Yet the two are light years apart one being federal and the other provincial. I would think that there could be work found for people on these programs at either the federal or provincial level, call it workfare if you like.

Handguns are simply property. So is booze and dope or what have you. Anything can be used improperly and the effects can cause harm. The thing to keep in mind is that in order for anything to happen, a human being must be responsible for the action. Unless I am wrong and some hand gun has sprouted legs and walked off to commit a crime, then we are barking up the wrong tree.

It would seem to me that we are in another natural cycle. The earth warms up and the earth cools down. We have ice ages and warming periods, and there is data to support this. Those facts are not in dispute. The thing that is new is simply the finger pointing and the potential windfall of dollars some some groups and some individuals. We cannot stand in natures way on any kind of large scale. Yes we can and do control specific pieces of nature and use them to our advantage where we can, but that is not the same thing. In truth Darwin said it best with his "Adapt or die" line. I don't give a damn who is guilty of what or at least accused of whatever, the important thing is to use science to identify and prepare for the natural conditions on the planet we live on.

What I am getting at is that citizens continue to request that governments provide solutions and funding for problems. Even as they do these things they demand fiscal responsibility and lower taxes. The case of urban infrastructure is a problem for the residents of that specific location, its that simple. In my view they should look after their own backyards. Citizens as a whole need to review their expectations from governments at all levels and start accepting responsibility for their own situations. I have come to the conclusion that the entire nanny state concept of cradle to grave benefits and a legacy of entitlement can be directly traced to the growing problems of our modern society.

Look folks the deal here is pretty complicated. Criminals don't have to buy guns in stores, and they don't have to go through the process of registration either. There is a steady and growing market for illegal firearms in this country, in part because of the registry. Unless you go the route of making all firearms illegal then begin a process of picking them up and destroying them there just isn't very many ways to address the problem. Aside from that this is really a matter of property ownership which is actually under the jurisdiction of the provinces, the gun registry was carved into the criminal code to circumvent provincial control and create a national standard. In essence a turf war between the feds and the province over control of the issue. I can see that there is great division in this nation over this issue. I can also see the citizens desire to reduce gun crimes as the driving force behind the registry. The problem is that the registry simply hasn't provided the measures and result that the government wanted. For that reason citizens see the expense as a waste of tax dollars. It is time to rethink the entire mess and come up with a workable solution. I am in favour of eliminating the long gun registry.

It all points to urban sprawl and zoning restrictions, or in other words urban planning. The cities got themselves into this, why isn't it their problem to work out?

LMAO! Yeah well the registry was a joke from the get go. I must admit to liking the concept but hating the implementation. I think the government screwed the pooch big time on this. It became a huge waste of money and achieved very little.

All well and good folks, but what happens when the deadline comes and Quebec doesn't get some funding that they could have had?

It is just another opinion nothing more and nothing less.

Blame the Liberals! How very partisan of you.

It isn't over yet. There are still a few hoops to jump through.

Why not just add possession of a restricted weapon without being in possession of a permit for said restricted weapon to be determined as a weapons offense carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years. Do that and then the cops can start making a dent in the gang bangers. All they have to do is see a gang and probable cause would lead them to a search for a weapons offense. All we need do then is draw up a list of restricted weapons and the problem would begin to go away in short order.

It seems there are indeed a few citizens already wise to the reality of the game. The is a very clear picture being painted for any who care to actually see what is on the canvas. The wealth transfer continues as more taxes are being paid to governments and more debt is accumulated by governments. As citizens watch their disposable income decrease they see their consuming power compromised. Little bit by little bit the numbers stack up against the citizens, higher taxes and decreased services is where they are headed and they know it.

We don't actually vote for a government. We just vote for one representative from our own constituency anyway. We don't vote for a leader either. Those things don't have any application in our system, surely you know this.

Which is why I refer to it as weather. Given that I live in northern Alberta and the climate change/global warming folks predict a much warmer climate for me I have begun to like the idea.

There is a way forward within the present system, and that is through coalition governments. That is the logical progression from multiple party politics and minority governments. It provides the means of enhancing democracy.