Michael Hardner

Auguste, I would think most people pay their debts because that's fair.

We should be taking out complexity from our processes, not adding it. The senate isn't used for anything right now. Why do we need the colossal waste of another house of commons when it's not used. And now people want to add elections as well ?

As we learned a long time ago, it's wrong to judge people on the basis of their religion, their race, their nationality. Flowery bigotry and racism is still bigotry and racism. And no, I'm not shreiking it, screaming it, or wailing it. I'm just saying it.

Yes, sometimes referred to as 'carrot and stick' or the poles of love and hate. Most civilized people and nations will act with honour in most situations.

You're not likely to convince the unconvinced by using such biased sources: I'm pretty sure that's not what those bills are called.

MikeD, I should have used the term 'banned', but 'disbanded'. You have hit upon a major downside of elected senators, namely more politics.

If sober second thought is necessary, then why don't we use it ? The senate doesn't turn back legislation now. I don't know that they *never* do it, but you never hear of it. The general public is not interested in more politics, more elections and more rhetoric. The senate should be banned.

It sounds like a good summary of his long years in office - a long litany of ego battles between megalomaniacs, while nothing was done. Chretien could have used his time in office to completely re-engineer government, and make it more efficient. Instead, the healthcare bureaucracy festered and service deteriorated, the civil service remained immune to changes in the business world, promises were signed for photo opportunities and nothing was done.

Auguste What you said about the lists is right, but giving more powers to security agencies generally improves security, creates another obstacle against attack.

jd, From your link, it appears that this is happening now though. What doesn't seem to be happening is more attacks, thank goodness, but that can change at any time.

Wilbur, I encourage everyone to keep an eye on the government, yes, absolutely let's do that. jd, Personally, if my credit card is cloned, I can get a new one the next day. Not so with my own personal body. I'm not sure what else I can say about that.

jd That sounds so convoluted. It sounds like you're saying: "I don't want to give the government access to information that they can use to prevent terrorist acts because it might lead to identity theft and commercial fraud that will be used to fund terrorist acts." I think it makes more sense to allow security services to monitor as many transactions as possible. The terrorists can get funding from many sources. 9/11 didn't cost that much to execute, from what I have read.

W, Sure thing. I don't think Ben could have anticipated identity theft, though, and if you could have explained it to him, he probably would have agreed that having your name in a database somehwere isn't a real loss of liberty. Maybe you could call it a vulnerability to loss of liberty. I work in IT, and I can tell you that your information is everywhere, all the time. It's kept by organizations that you don't even know exist, and that have more motivation to intrude upon your life than the US govt. does. I'm trying to explain this fact to people so that they understand that they're not losing much by allowing the government to monitor them - and they're potentially gaining a lot.

Come to think of it, there is no way that the airlines and banks that you give your information to when you travel take anywhere near the amount of care with your data that a security agency would.

Wilbur, What is the real impact on your life, though ? jdobbin, Risk of fraud is real, but I imagine that the risk of that happening is quite small. Besides, that's just an inconvenience, not a risk of injury or loss of live.

jd, Ok, I concede that they can start with that information, but it's not enough on its own. But again, I'm wondering, what exactly the fear is about having personal information go out when it's pretty clear that it can lead to increased security and saved lives. The only negatives I can see to this situation is 'false positives' - individuals who end up on the list by accident - and paranoid conspiracy scenarios that aren't real. As for false positives, any system has errors and although it's a shame, it's certainly no reason to NOT screen data for terrorists. Wilber says he objects to other govts. having the information because they don't have the right to it. Well, they have the legal right to information within the US, including your Canadian banking information. Higgly, too, seems to feel uncomfortable giving that information away. Well, I don't feel uncomfortable with it. I feel uncomfortable with the idea that untrackable individuals are trying to imagine horrible attacks on Americans. I think excessive privacy is useless, and unnatural. But most don't agree with me. For some reason, people would rather risk thousands of lives than have their phone records searchable in a database somewhere and I personally don't see that that's a good trade-off.

jdobbin, What do you mean by 'steal your identity' ? I don't think you're liable for any debts incurred by someone who applies for credit with your name. Nor would any credit card, or bank give you access to your funds with only that information. Furthermore, if you're worried about other countries having that particular information - they already have it. It's on your passport. And a lot of companies that you deal with day to day probably have it too. My impression is that most people just don't like the idea of people being able to see their private transactions, even though it happens millions of times a day in other arenas of business, and it helps us more than it hurts us.

I don't understand something about the mentality that says 'I don't want the US government to know any information about me.' Do you not think that they have a better chance at preventing terror attacks if they have more information ? Do you actually value your 'privacy' so much that a few thousand bytes in a database somewhere that nobody cares amount means more to you than the possibility of saving thousands of lives ? By the way, Bush_Cheney_2004 is correct. The suspicion is that Canadian banks are required to provide financial information for Canadian citizens via their US subsidiaries if the government requires it. So a lot of the discussion in this thread may be moot.

jd, There are many issues that deserve deep analysis and discussion, but none get it. Healthcare and education need better dialogue, yes. One of the reasons 'religion in schools' and issues like that are so popular is that it takes zero effort to understand them.

I honestly think that someday web forums will have an important part in politics, much like donut shops do today.

jdobbin, Thanks for responding to my post. There is a missing link in the media right now. If you look at the depth to which issues are covered on MapleLeafWeb, you will notice that there is nothing like that in MSM that covers issues to this extent. The web is great for informing people on issues, but unfortunately, it's all top-down now. That is, the information falls from blessed official sources when they deem it necessary to inform us. We need a new media vehicle that discusses issues, not campaign strategies - and one that has influence.

Mr. Layton, Would you consider joining Maple Leaf Web as a regular poster ?

The oddest thing to figure out is why the MMP vote was higher than the provincial vote, and yet it went resoundingly against MMP. It's almost like non-voters came out to kill the thing. I'm hoping that some research bears this out, as it would mean that there is some hope that people out there care about something. Instead of a citizen's assembly, a.k.a. a focus group, let's have a big tent discussion about the kind of democracy we want. Some questions: Is declining voter turnout necessarily a bad thing ? If people are uninformed and uninterested, shouldn't they stay away from this process ? How can we expect increased voter turnout without making the system more accountable and easier for the general public to understand ? --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Using Healthcare as an example, I started a project to try to find some metrics that would give me clear information on how our healthcare system was performing. I couldn't find any. There are NO regularly produced simple metrics giving raw data on how our healthcare services perform. You can get periodic reports that will give you snapshots of, say, waiting lists but nothing ongoing. Isn't that shocking ? Truue - healthcare is just one aspect of our government, but one of the most important so you'd think there would be something. I think that future generations will look back on us and ask us why we didn't pay attention to such things.

Everybody lost.

MikeD: It wasn't a wast of time. [sic] You quoted something credible, now you and I can continue this discussion in the real world rather than in the world of your word vs my word. I can't say immigrants aren't poorer than Canadians, and you can't say that recent immigrants are useless and lazy, by your own statistics because we now have the facts in front of us.