Michael Hardner

The premise here seems to be that low wage earners are not economically viable entities. This would mean that minimum wage earners are a net drain on the economy. Okay... Then who benefits from lower wages ? If the benefits from downward pressure on wages go to someone, shouldn't that person's net benefit be taxed somehow to offset the net drain on the Canadian taxpayer ?

The social assistance programs that you mentioned are varied. EI funds itself, at a surplus, out of payroll deductions. Denticare goes to welfare recipients as far as I know. CPP is also funded by payroll deductions and is geared to earning. Low cost housing programs are, I believe, also for welfare recipients. Education costs are presumed to be paid back when someone graduates and starts to pay taxes as well. You didn't address my point about businesses and individuals benefitting from cheaper labour. Isn't this one of the main drivers of the globalization ? And the poverty=crime equation has long been used by the left to explain such things as terrorism. As you see, many of the arguments you espouse are rooted in leftist thinking... That's fine with me, if you're indeed a leftist.

The article is correct. But why is downward pressure on wages a good thing when considering globalized trade but not immigration ? I was strongly against the FTA but came to change my mind when I decided that these agreements will, in the long term, bring other nations into the western fold. The only difference I can see is that exported industrial jobs are "out of sight, out of mind". I suspect, too, that many conservatives who don't leave near immigrants, and don't deal with them - except when employing them as say, nannys, or working in a building cleaning business - appreciate the downward pressure on service wages.

What are you saying, exactly ? They 'botched' the Iraq invasion how ? There exist several objectives, some of which the US has achieved and some of which they will never achieve. But you seem to be taking items from the war's PR campaign and using them as evidence that the war has been 'botched'. But the PR campaign is mainly targetted at American voters and the test of botchiness isn't until next November.

The 1990s are over. In the new era, former Reform party idealogues will have to absorb the fact that victory is impossible without compromise. The New Truths: Manning lived in Stornaway, Alliance MPs get a better pension than you, and nobody ever took Sheila Copps seriously... And the if the new Alliance leader is bilingual, your chances of success will increase twofold.

I think the internet should only be as regulated as free speech is, ie. people have to be held responsible for libel and slander. Above that, it's mind control by the state. But I doubt they'll be able to do anything substantial. They don't understand the medium - there are too many sources of information for it to be regulated. I'm sure there will always be ways to circumvent regulation.

It has happened in a few cases that I can think of. There was the gay prom case in Ontario that, I think, was dropped before it made it to trial. ( I didn't agree with the court ruling in that case by the way. ) But the deciding factor seemed to be that publicly funded religious schools aren't truly religious. Still, it's an impossible stretch for someone to suggest that sermonizing against homosexuality after the law is passed will result in an automatic jail sentence due to hate crime.

[edited] I suppose it depends on what you do.

No reasonable person can believe that freedom of religion will be automatically trumped by freedom of sexual preference.

The space program, the military, social security, medicaid, FBI, CIA, national parks system, department of consumer affairs, etc. etc. We could scrap all these and reduce taxes to zero...

While I agree that the majority of Iraquis support the ousting of Saddam, it should also be noted that the Gallup respondents may have felt intimidated or may not have understood the independence of the pollsters. That being said, it should be obvious that any rational person would be glad to be rid of any dictator as bloody and ruinous to his country as Saddam.

The first few posts in this thread are quite odd. How could one possibly equate the Democrats with socialism ? That's far fetched to say the least. Also, there seems to be a general acceptance that taxes are absolutely a bad thing. If that were true, why not have a 100% user-paid society ? The answer is that such a society isn't liveable for the average worker, but is a paradise for anybody in the top 1% of earners. Was Eisenhower a socialist ? Higher tax rates for higher earners were used in the middle part of the 20th century to fund the interstate highway system and other useful improvements to infrastructure. The average working joe isn't seeing many benefits from lower industrial wages, crumbling infrastructure and the collapsing education and health systems.

MC. Loved the post. I agree with the first sentence, but not the second. I think crime will trickle down to [almost] nothing over time as anti-socialites realize that it's not worth the risk to rip off an $80 stereo. Also, I think there's more of a social stigma associated with criminality than there used to be. Of course, there's no way to back this up...

When you say certain industry sectors, I assume you're speaking of employment. There's also the demand for goods that is created by these people. Welfare payment issues, lack of jobs are all part of the big economic picture. Security risk is indeed a concern. "Intrastructure straining" isn't anything at all. The infrastructure is built to accomodate a range of populations, which needs to increase perpetually. That sounds low to me. I'll read more about Borjas. I don't know much about him, but having (just now) read his response to critics of his book, he sounds like somewhat of a leftist. His main concern seems to be that oversupply of work will reduce wages. Well, EXACTLY. Lower wages reduce the cost of goods and services, don't they ?

This is the same thing that McGuinty has done in Ontario, I admit, but there's something different at play here. Martin, unlike McGuinty, has long been an insider and has years of experience in business as well. I think that it's possible to give everyone a piece of the pie if a thorough and radical restructuring takes place. This would take vision, imagination, drive and energy unlike any PM since Trudeau. Or, it could just be more hype...

Well, it certainly won't be difficult for Paul Martin to outpace the glacial rate of change marked by his predecessor. But he seems to be saying that Canada is in for some major changes ? Is this just PR or is Paul Martin planning to shake things up ? My view of government over the last ten years is that they've cut services, and cut taxes somewhat but haven't really attacked the waste, and redundancy that run through every level of government. Predictions ?

Well, the poll certainly doesn't seem to reflect that. How can we condone free trade, unlimited movement of money and goods between nations but restrict the movement of people ? ( Just a straw dog there. ) Canada's economy needs more people in order to keep growing. 2nd, 3rd and later generation immigrants don't have enough children to sustain growth. You can crow about the fact that children don't know the words to 'God Save the Queen' but that doesn't really warrant alarm in the same way. Conservatives have opened the world up to globalization, and so immigration has gone: open borders, fluid labour markets etc. Countries will soon be as meaningless as religions are. If you don't like that, don't blame Chretien - he's only the end of the whip - blame Reagan and Thatcher. It's their plan.

Recent events are putting the spotlight on America's foreign policy more and this can only be good. The administration blatantly appeals to the US citizen's sense of justice by referring to Saddam's record of torture, etc. But regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan certainly have their problems too. I hope that one positive outcome of that rhetoric is that Americans become more aware of the poor human rights records of some US allies, and there is pressure for change.

It's hard for me to invision taking a job which might require me voluntarily giving up my life. Not impossible, but hard. I have never seriously considered military service, and those that I have met that have done it have described a hard, hard life. It sounds to me more like a calling than a career. If you feel, in your heart, that you want to give yourself away to your country in that way then maybe the military is a good choice for you.

How about an option for the status quo ?

As far as I see, AllianceFanatic has barely touched on (if he did touch on it) one of the main drivers behind immigration: the economy. An economy with a declining population is hard-pressed to grow. And Canada has a low birth rate. You seem to be from Alberta. I'm from Toronto, and I can tell you that many of the cab drivers, small store owners and manual labourers in this city are new immigrants. These are people who work and earn money, and spend it here. Mainstream conservatives, whatever that means, support a strong business climate because a good economy is good for all Canadians. Perhaps that's why they haven't voiced opposition to immigration policies, outside of criticisizing the federal government on immigration. Also, SirRiff said: This isn't entirely accurate. The whites that feel out of place now include Italians, Irish, French and English. The Italians were made to feel out of place by Irish and French. The Irish and French were made to feel out of place by the English. So "white" doesn't have as simple a definition as it seems to have.

I follow you to a point. But too often in the past the "devil you know" excuse has been used to justify American support of absolutely inhuman regimes, and when there was more than one other alternative available. My feeling is that we've come a long way since the 1970s and 1980s in this regard, yet people today seem to be playing catch-up with their anti-Americanism.

This thread is typical of Canadian and American voters, in that the labels are more important than what actually happens. Thus Martin is considered left-wing because he leads a party CALLED the Liberals. Never mind whether he's interested in reducing social spending, it's the name that matters. The Alliance is often called right-wing or worse even though they support socialized medicine.... And pure socialism or capitalism haven't even been proposed in this country for decades. The shades of difference in the policies of the major parties are slight indeed. But I'm sure you feel better having something to argue about.

I don't think I made an analogy. "Far from ideal" can mean a lot of things. You seem to be from the "end justifies the means" camp, which I am not. I don't think dropping flaming drums of gasoline on women and children in Nicaragua is a justification for keeping communism at bay. Nor do I think that suppression of the press, or restriction of travel is justified to strengthen socialism. The evidence that these things happened is compelling, maybe even airtight. I'm not sure about racism, but certainly xenophobia. There's a certain Canadian smugness that seems to have grown lately, and I don't think it's warranted. There are some things that Canada does better, and some things that the US does better but IMO there's no evidence that the average American and the average Canadian are completely different animals.

I agree. The baffling thing is that when the US was supporting despots in Latin America, average Canadians were practically silent. I guess we're always a little behind the times up here.