WestViking

Peppergate pretty much established that.

Dealing with criminal gangs is not turning addicts into criminals. It is not addicts who are shooting it out for territorial control. This is not just a drug problem. Criminal gangs are almost always engaged in several criminal enterprises at once.

A personal attack is a lame excuse for inability to deal with the issues under discussion. Your generalized and unsupported distaste for authority is juvenile and unconvincing.

There are and always will be a few people who suck gas, glue and solvents, or who drink shaving lotion, mouthwash and various cleaning fluids, etc to get a dangerous and possibly deadly high. Legalizing drugs will not have much effect on them. Legalizing drugs will not remove the criminal element. We have numerous moonshiners, bootleggers and cigarette smugglers on the go. There is and always will be some criminal trade in licit substances, materials and property. Autos and electronics are hot items for theft and resale. Strip joints and massage parlours thrive on the fringes of society as do booze and drug cans. Problems arise when fringe crime goes mainstream and infect an entire town or city. When dealers are hanging around school yards and booze/drug cans set up in residential neighbourhoods, it is not long before criminal warfare breaks out and the public is put at risk. People toss around the term 'war on drugs' as if that is somehow causing our crime problem. First the 'war on drugs' is an American concept / slogan that was not and is not part of our Canadian justice system. We are after criminals, in particular those who run drugs, human trafficking rings (including the sex trades), protection and money laundering rackets and burglary/theft rings. Drugs are an integral tool in all of these rackets, used to hook and later keep slaves in line; slaves who work in the sex trade, act as enforcers, steal to order, or forced to work hard for long hours for little or no pay. Coercion, intimidation, threats and violence all go along with the drugs to achieve an end - which is to get rich living of the misery of other humans. Human trafficking, which includes the sex trades, is rapidly replacing dugs as the main source income for criminal gangs. These are billion dollar, world-wide rackets and legalizing marijuana will not slow the carnage on our streets for an instant. The root causes of crime are not illegal drugs or poverty; the root cause is amoral, predatory, violent criminals. We are not dealing with Robin Hoods stealing from the rich to give to the poor, nor are we dealing with poor people who have turned to crime for survival. In any Canadian city, welfare pays better and is far less dangerous than criminal activity. Members criminal gangs steal from everyone, in particular poor people who cannot defend themselves. The think nothing of enslaving and abusing people until they are of no further use and then murdering them and dumping the corpse in a ditch or a shallow grave in the country.

I would respectfully submit that politicians and political parties share illusions of competence with major corporations and their elite executives.

Conrad Black was a Canadian. When he became eligible for a British title, Jean Chretien refused to allow Black to take the title, so Black renounced his Canadian citizen and became a British Lord. Black is currently a British citizen doing time in an American prison.

Sorry, but law-breaking losers cannot blame decent, law abiding citizens for the havoc they create. When criminal drug dealers shoot it out, the whole illegal drug culture is complicit; accessories before the fact.

Okey Dokey - why don't you try that again - after a nap and sober?

You are mistaken. I did not imply anything. I simply asked for verification of your claim that there were millions of pot users. It appears there are not.Statistics on once in a lifetime use do not give any reliable information on current use or users. Likewise stats on 'having used or ingested' are not a reliable indicator of current use. Many peop0le experiment with pot, but then drop it because it does not do much for them, due to cost, a change in associates or a decision that rebellion is not their bag. Nevertheless the figures for current use would appearto be appreciably high. You do have a point. One factor to consider is how much current use would decease if pot was not so readily available. Putting growers and major dealers out of business is an idea worth pursuing. Pot smokers are unlikely to engage in rioting if they do not have a ready supply of weed.

Really? please provide a source for your contention. How is it that you conclude that only casual drug users will be caught while hard core users get a free pass?

Please provide a source for you contention.

LOL Canadian English. Canadian French or both? There is no 'equal language right' and never has been. You are welcome to show me that statute that says otherwise.

The British North America Act included the Quebec Act. Quebec was a province within a self-governing Canada. French language rights were set out in the original BNA Act. If your proposition was correct, there would have been no need for Trudeau's Official Languages Act.

Ignorance and bigotry? Give you head a shake. The Quebec Act has nothing to do with Pierre Trudeau's attempts to impose French on the common law provinces.

Quebec is one of Canada's ten provinces. It lost its colony status in 1867. End of story.

Of course, you can't explain why drug dealers are busily shooting one another in the streets under current laws.You can read the text of Bill C-15 here: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/P...3962&file=4

At present we have about 12,500 men in federal prisons - for all crimes. That represents less than one half of one percent of the male population between the ages of 15 and 70. The suggestion that 'millions' will be thrown in jail as a result of tougher crime laws is fiction.

Horsefethers. The Quebec Act gave the residents of what had been New France the right to retain their language, culture, religion and system of civil law. The Quebec Act did not impose the French language, Catholic religion or Civil Code on the whole of Canada. The pathetic bleating that we woe Quebecers the right to use the French language wherever they roam is a myth. The often repeated and untrue mantra that the privileges accorded to the residents of the former New France made them second class citizens outside of Quebec is also a sad, sorry myth perpetuated by sovereignists.

Obviously deterrence does not work. That is why we are enjoying the worst crime wave in many years. There are not enough of us in hug-a-thug programs.

I am going back to my Post 132 on this topic. I recognize that there is a small group of Quebecois who have illusions of grandeur and who agitate for a separate Quebec at every opportunity. They do not represent anyone except themselves. They do not speak for Quebec or Quebecers. They have no elected office and no authority.Much of the animosity generated in response to the Plains of Abraham issue has to do with the threats to use physical violence to disrupt activities if the reenactment proceeds. We are a peaceful people and do not react well to threats of violence whether from criminal gangs or separatist megalomaniacs. Threatening the peace and order of our society is not an acceptable tactic in political debate. We can never allow any group to win thir point by threatening peaceful citizens and visitors. In return, we have to confine out vitriol to the people who issued threats to win a point and accept that they do not represent Quebec or Quebecers any more than a criminal gang represents anyone other than its members.

I am not sure where you picked this up Muddy, but I am the author. I agree with your comments and did so on the piece: "We have tens of thousands of private enterprises who employ hundreds of thousands of Canadians who do not pay their executives huge salaries. They are compensated in accordance with their contributions to the operation, and are clearly accountable for their actions." I strongly support private enterprise, but am appalled at the behaviour of the elitist executives of conglomerates. Business ethic and morality should apply to the big boys too, but they apparently feel otherwise.

Queen Elizabeth II has several titles which she uses independently as the situation requires. When the Queen sets off from the UK to Canada on official business, she is the Queen of Canada for the duration of the visit. In effect and in law, she takes off the UK tiara and puts on a Canada tiara while she attends to our business. She has yet another role as head of the commonwealth of nations.

Really? You conveniently forget that from 1629 to 1632 the French colony was under British rule, that the French colony was under British attack from 1689 - 1697, 1710 - 1713, 1745 - 1748 and in 1753. The French lost part or all of their North American colony quite regularly.

From 1867 to 1981 our constitution lacked an amending formula and changes required approval of the British parliament. Since 1982, Canada can make any change to her constitution that she wishes. The process for amendment is set out in Part V, Sections 38 to 49 inclusive of our constitution.

You are aiming for a record as Canada's premier pretentious poseur though.