Jerry J. Fortin

I think I can tough out not trading with the UK. Tell you what, I think they should be free to place all the taxes on us they want, then I guess I won't buy their stuff over here, no problem.

Harsh yet very true words. You need to remember this is a PC dynasty we are talking about. You want right wing, then have a seat and watch the show. Yes we are running a deficit, cutting into the rainy day fund corner. On the other hand we have self finaced our own budget deficit....that has to count for something. The Heritage Trust Fund has not been functionally managed since the mid eighties when internal funding through resource revenues was ended. We haven't put a dime into that fund in decades. Idiots had the very first one of its kind and blew the mother load. Oh well, it wasn't my call to live and act in this manner. It was the PC government that has called the ball since the 70's. The entire coulda , shoulda, woulda, argument is getting a little old. We screwed the pooch, pure and simple, but all is not lost by any stretch of the imagination.

Noble cause ??? Hang on, that is not what I meant. What I should have said maybe, is that the tax payer would prefer to pay the minimum amount necessary to satisfy the law. The very rich don't actually pay taxes, it is the working class citizen that foots the bill. That is the guy making noise about stuff, not the 1% at the top. Its you and me, not the truely rich folks.

That is true! But it is also the relevant point, the rich do not like to subsidize the poor.

On that very salient point I shall not argue. Then again I am an Albertan of Quebec descent, or at least family roots. Quebec is screwed no matter which way you look at it. The debt bomb is everyone's nightmare, well not mine. Nor is my province living under that shadow, but we still own a piece of the national debt. Considering my views on equalization I am sure not a single person would be surprised at my personal feeling about owing Canada money.

Provinces do not pay tax, the citizens do. The reality is much different then simply first impressions. There has been a net transfer of wealth within confederation, at the behest of the federal government. Money has moved from province to province dispensed by the federal government in the names of four supposedly divine separate methods. The Canada Health Transfer, The Canada Social Transfer, A Canada Tax Transfer, and the most vaunted of all transfers the Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing. All these programs are federal, and serve as the means of transferring wealth from one place to another in the attempt to provide a level playing field from one side of the nation to the other. It isn't pretty but it does what it is designed to do.

While maybe you and I would think that any competent representative could realistically be expected to not only read the damned legislation, but in addition understand what they would choose to support or not. On the other hand lately many folks wonder how high up the political food chain it takes to get a functional model of political competence. I would tend to think that most folks would have aspirations of being found to be on the proper side of a political playing field in terms of partisan support. By that I mean siding with the majority, of whatever damned stripe of political persuasion forms the current government of the day. So to that end I will continue to suggest to any one who cares to listen that participation in the political process is an entrenched right within our constitution. Democracy rules, always. One way or another, citizens need to consider the necessity of legislating said citizens into legal requirements the participation in designated electoral events. Mandating the legal responsibility of voting WILL eliminate the political apathy that detracts from the power of the people to mandate political platforms beyond mere partisan design. Popular support is not mob rule, that is mere myth. Democracy REQUIRES paticipation, this is not exactly news.

My national identity is one in which the creation of my nation took place without a single drop of blood being spilled over very little different land that had cost tens of thousands of lives a short century of years before. You could say that the English learned from their mistakes, but somehow that does not prove accurate in the least. Many more lessons were painfully learned by England, before it became a more benevolent United Kingdom. Yet it retains the "Parliament" a cheesy form of democracy loaded in nepotism and cronyism. Hence the more modern and efficient system developed by the Americans. Which is not without its own drawbacks, I must add. There just seems to be something wrong with electing cops and dog catchers to the British type of citizen.... At any rate, I must say that I really believe that at this particular point in time, very nearly all nations are economic basket cases. To that end I will suggest that one way or another the crap is about to hit the fan. I am not sure what the driving forces of politics are that build nations, whether it is an identity of race or religion, or whether or not it is a moral/ethical regional difference, or a fiscal or monetary difference because it really doesn't make any difference in my view, its just communities here and there that matter. That and our desire to stand with like minded citizens is all that really matters. The concept being that in order to live in peace we must be willing to die in war, a kind of human based mutual assured destruction. Unfortunately I think that in order to accomplish this feat we will have to finally address the reality of class structure within a society. We really do need a class structure based upon merit and effort. Believe it or not there are classes of society that we have entrenched within law. There are rights and freedoms to consider, and a citizen convicted of a crime becomes a lesser class of citizen, that of one being penalized. This is the old world version of the slave and the free person. It doesn't matter how you look at it, when you really do look at it you can't miss the class structures all around us. I guess what I am trying so badly to say is that the root of all evil is not money, nor is it blood. I think that it is quite simply class warfare that will have to play itself out. Evil is simply warfare, in today's terms.

When you have to fight to create a nation, you will likely not come up lily white in the eyes of those who lost the fight.

Certainly not! I must beg your forgiveness, I meant to suggest that what matters is who is calling who what and how. The English who sat in Israel, were decidedly pro-Arab. I am trying to say that perception is everything.

As I recall, it was the Jews declared as terrorists from 1945 to 1947 in what is now Israel.....

Well lets think about that for a second. Okay lets see, my grandmother died of scarlet fever, along with three of eight other children in the dirty thirties. They may have been saved with modern healthcare, such was not available at the time. I still consider this a personal loss, you are free to view it as you will. My family came here from Quebec in 1903, where they buried my first Canadian forefather in 1732. Been in country for a while. Actually we are developing secondary industry based on available resources. Those resources do include oil, but are not limited to merely oil. Our agricultural industry has evolved, and expanded. Our forestry industry is adapting to more value added products. Alberta is very much more than simply oil. Since we have had confederation for a little more than 100 years now, things are pretty much set in place in political terms. You can look at it from the perspective that either left or right winged partisan efforts will yield an x or y result, but in truth politics kills more jobs than it creates, unless you want everyone working for the government in some bureaucratic gulag. I will take my place among other Alberta citizens and suggest that I will take my chances with what we already have and plan on building from that point forward. Unlike other places I guess our citizens prefer to do as much as we can for ourselves. Dude, give your head a shake! Think about what you are saying. The BAD oil sands are just below the surface in Fort Mac. You think that maybe all that oil stuff just laying there under the surface us really environmentally positive. Maybe, just maybe that bad oil sand stuff has been polluting the area for a little while now, like maybe a few million years. It could be said that through the process of removing the oil from the sand we are actually cleaning up mother natures mess. How have those heavy water spills from your nuclear efforts in your corner of the woods, played out. So according to you, Alberta oil has killed Ontario's ability to compete as a manufacturing base. Apparently because of this, again according to you, westerners are "in some sick and twisted way" responsible. I don't think so buddy, I just don't think that is even remotely close to reality. Interesting argument you are pushing here. While I said that the feds did this or the feds did that, no mention did I make about other provinces. Nice to see how an easterner views us out here in the polluted cultural wilderness. I don't plan to move eastward, but I do invite those who want to work to move westward. You see it seems like we are more inclusive to the rest of the nation than they are to us. Go figure, we are the bad guys out here in the west.

Can we really get away with claiming to compare Singapore's economy, a single city state, with a nation the size of Canada. Singapore has what all of maybe 5 million people, packed into what we can say is less than 300 square miles. So we have a population density of about NINETEEN THOUSAND people per square mile in Singapore, and we have something like 9 people per square mile in Canada inside our nearly FOUR MILLION square miles. A single city being compared to an entire nation?

Females should always be treated with honour and respect. To do any less is more than simply foolish, there is no difference between male and female politicians.

Hold on there! Alberta is a pay as you go kinda place, and we have been paying our share since day one. You might want to consider how the fed has treated Alberta OVER THE YEARS. Do you recall that King let Alberta default in the depression, they actually refused us both credit and capital. They damn near busted us down to nothing, yet we persevered. We have our own bank now, ATB Financial. We had to create the damned thing on our own, when the Bay Street Bankers pulled up stakes and called in all of our debts, then promptly shut down all the financial institutions short of one bank in Calgary and one in Edmonton. Not very nice for Albertans'. Fast forward to the NEP, I think we all accept the reality of that treatment. Look at the BSE crisis. Income trusts anyone? Now we are getting the gears because our provincial economy is faring better than others. It doesn't seem to matter what the situation this Province of Alberta has met challenge after challenge and we have prevailed time and time again. We have worked within Confederation since 1905, not always to our best interests or simply on our own account. These sturdy Alberta citizens are neither selfish or ignorant of our position. While Canada could very well shrink, I will suggest that Alberta has and is continuing to grow and diversify its interests. Lets just say that Alberta with no provincial debt, no provincial sales tax, a very low personal and business taxes structure, is in a decidedly advantageous position as compared to the rest of the nation. Alberta has yet to stretch out its hand, as other provinces have done before them have, and take a shot at nation building. On the other hand, that is exactly what we will be doing very soon. Energy is a valuable resource, one we are taking steps to convert to our best advantage. I will suggest that we will earn favour within Confederation very soon. Using the Ontario tradition of being the economic engine, we will transform our land, not ending with, but instead beginning with our own regional (western) economy. Our little political arrangements within our western provinces will begin to dominate Confederation to the dismay of our detractors.

There is only one tax payer. All the rest is window dressing at best. Fed tax, employment tax, and pension tax, all at once before the standard employment deductions. They call it a withholding tax, no shit. It works the opposite way for business taxes, companies get to withhold tax from the government. Where once business taxes made up 80% of tax revenues for the government, the situation has now reversed and the citizens pay 80% of tax revenues. Now lets remember that most of us are paying some form of provincial sales tax, along with a GST. Equalization is a direct tax imposed by federal mandate. That is how it really works, forget the ENRON accounting practices and just realize it as another tax. No matter which way you look at it, the citizen is getting screwed. The citizens foot the bill, every time. It should not matter who is getting screwed by the feds, all provinces should be up in arms over this crap. At every level the citizen gets leveraged into corners. The nation needs serious tax reforms, just as much as it needs to figure out what a budget is. For openers we need some form of fiscal responsibility incorporated into the constitution. Next on a to do list is the entire issue of taxation. Reforms are needed.

I am not sure they either will or can effect the government.

I think you make a very good point. Interest rates will go up at some point. These historic low costs of borrowing will catch a few folks I think.

I suspect you are referring to the now newly killed off manufacturing sector in Ontario...

I hope the former employees occupy the place in protest. They should lay claim to the assets as severance, let the company fold up, roll over and die. Give the corporation the tax breaks they want and say good riddance. Let the employees run the place and earn their pay and keep. This can be turned into a blessing in disguise. Call it designed destiny, but when you act in the interests of other, karma applies!

Fire sale ! Time to go shopping!

The have not provinces are almost all but Alberta. In truth the western provinces have been improving and the eastern provinces are getting worse.

The world may well have to turn the other cheek, and watch Israel do WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. Only Israel can do this and get away with it. The nation threatened can definitely respond in preemptive fashion, without fear of negative consequence. The same cannot be said for other nations in the area.

Don't we all wish !!!

Why not simply make it a requirement of citizenship, making the concept of democracy functional by means of enforced participation. I have yet to speak to an Aussi that did not think the the idea of democracy starts with voter participation.