watching&waiting

The question is not knee jerk or anything even close. It has shown the RCMP were never trained for national security work and they failed in that so completely, that they were just doing as they were told by the USA. That is not what we wwant in our country. CSIS should be the one for this type of work and yes it may have to expand, but at least it will have trained the people to do the job. The RCMP were never meant to be doing spy work and International co-operation type agendas. It was dumped on them in the after math of 9/11 and they dropped the ball badly. Now is the time to see that and rectify it before it happens again.

I can see Harpers point about there still being a civil action on going and an apology may have some bad affects to that, but in the cold light of the day, it really has been shown that the RCMP really did the wrong thing and it costs Arar his freedom for one year and was tortured for that as well. I think Canada should also be seeking an apology from Syria, for their part in this and also from the Americans, who broke international law and probably thier own laws in doing what they did. Even though everyone has said they will accept all recommendations of the O'Connor report, it still remains to be seen if any of the people involved here in Canada will be punished. The RCMP will Never regain the respect of the people, without there being some kind of action against those who were involved with this affair. Arar will have his apology probably before the end of the civil suit, but only because events will make it so that to deny the apology would compound the act itself.

No I do not. You must also realise that the mission was still going to be there for quite sometime as the Liberal were the ones who ordered it and also they were the ones who changed the directive to battlefront instead of peacekeeping. Since the posturing in the elections would give many outsiders the thought that Canada was fractured about this, The new government decided to allow debate and then a vote tpo extend the mission. This would show that even though we may have arguments from both sides and opposing views, that after debate and in the cold light of day, the vote showed that the government was moving forward with a proper support not only for the current mission but also to extend it even further. That is just how nthe government works. You forget Harper did not need to have the vote and he could have extended it without consulting parliament. This way it afforded better optic for all parties, after a particularly divisive election. Instead of blaming Harper, you should see that this was extending a hand accross the floor to the opposition, to help heal the wounds suffered during the election. What you consider using was really nothing more then trying to bring the house to a better starting ground. Now if you want to still say Harper used the troops, in a way he did. But it was for very different reasons and at no time were they or their mission in trouble of losing government support. They were used to bring peace once agin to parliament. Which is probably a good fit with what their purposes are as well.

Actually the GG has the power to allow the opposition to form a try at governing, if she feels that it would have a chance of successfully doing so. To be exact, I believe that is the way it is supposed to be done. If there is no chance for someone to form a successful government, then and only then is she to drop the writ. There have been instances of this but I must admit to it not being within my time.

Harper was simply trying to show that the parliament was behind the troops and their mission from that point forward. This is really an easy thing to understand because there was a change of government and during the elections many things were said that could have been miscontrued to show that support for our troops and their mission many have suffered during all the election posturing. This was just a simply show of continued support for what was already there previously. Is that so hard to understand. It really makes good sense when you put it in its context.

QUOTE ''This issue is before the commissioner of Elections Canada,'' said Sandra Buckler, the prime minister's director of communications. ''We have supplied what they've asked for. If the commissioner of Elections Canada rules otherwise, then we will comply with the ruling.'' So what part of this very easy to read and understand quote, is giving you problems? Has the elections commissioner ruled otherwise? If so where? I have not seen any ruling at all in this. You once again feel things runs on your schedule, but heres a wake-up call for you: no one but you operates on your schedule. If and when things are needed they will be given to the appropriate people at the appropriate time. That just seems so hard for you to understand.

Gerry once again you try to deflect answering question that are asking for you to show proof of your claims of you translation, and once again you will n0ot answer these directly. Which means to me and most other that you are full of yourself. You have lost the respect of most people here, because of the way you are and the methods you use. So where that would probably bother most members it does not bother you. Maybe it is because you like being an outcast? There has not been one thread where you have made any justification for your feelings, other then you hate Harper. So sad man. None of what you will do or say here for quite some time will taken seriously by the people of this site, because you just have to be you. Maybe you need someone to look up to or emulate so you can actually be more acceptable by your peers. I know you will not choose Harper as an idol, but why not try Belinda. You would fit right in with that style. You a bit of an airhead when it comes to relationships, and getting screwed by those who would claim to like her, only to have political fallout at every turn. But tenacity to carry on even when most of the serious people have written her off. That must sound familiar to you. I am not sure if there is anything you could do to ever be taken seriously here again. You are only seen here as a source of laughs and giggles. As I said so sad.

I am in agreement with you that there should be some questions about where 5 billion went, but I am not sure you meant to post this in this thread or the other thread about the new environemtal controls being introduced soon by CPC

Volpe is an embarassment to the whole Liberal party and it has come to the point where if he thru his support to any of the other candidates, it would do them more harm then good. So the only way to resolve this would be to have the party force him out and then his supporters can go to the others without any od the negative impact. It is just that Volpe does not realise this and he seems to want to hang in until the bitter end. Being a conservative supporter I like the fact that Volpe is doing this and it brings a smile to my face when I see him again and again doing more harm then good to the liberal party as a whole. With a few more like him and we would see a total decimation of the liberals.

The people of Alberta are not stupid and believe me when I say that as long as the new meansures that are going to be taken, are seen as across the board of all Canadian businesses and provinces, there will be very little back lash. Even the oil industry must be aware that if push comes to shove, they will lose big time in all of it. The one waty to losing is a definite push to bring in alternative fuels like hydrogen and other totally non oil based fuels. We know that the science is there and if push comes to shove governments could well make the money needed to finally get these done, available. Then whenoil is $12.00CDN a barrel and the tarsands are closed due to costs, this small but needed effort at emmissions control will seem like a stupid thing to get upset about. So, no I do not believe that Alberta or for that matter any province will get all lathered up about controls on emmissions. Short sighted thinking is something that many alarmists use to get attention. But it is the large thinkers and those who calmly see and learn about the actions, that will be winners of the day. It has not been a thing where we can deny that there are effects even if they are small they still are effects. So, yes more then enough time has past for the industries to get there heads around this, and now it is time for them to react willingly, to the laws that are about to be past. If they fight it, then they will do so at their own peril.

You also need to remember that Chretien promised that he would kill the GST as sson as he got in power. Yep, just another promise that was not worth the breath to speak it. Also Harper is considering making a certain percentage of the GST to provinces in an effort to address the fiscal imbalance. This is on top of the said cuts he promised. The difference is when harper says promise, he means it. When Liberals say promise it mean F*&% you. when NDP promises it means only after the world ends and NDP comes to power.

Surprise, surprise, you mean Volpe would ever do anythign wrong with party finances? Oh the hurt, I am crushed

The iraq war I do not believe in and I do think that the USA was wrong to have gone in to this along with Britian. If there is justice in this Tony Blair will have to appear infront of the world court. Bush has removed his USA from the ability for the world court to grab him, but I feel he should also have to appear and explain his illegal actions. That being said there is pretty much not a lot of things that the world can do now in Iraq and it is just better to let the USA and England, try to see if they can just quel the civil war that is breaking out all over Iraq. It is a lose lose situation for both of them and pulling out will also be bad. Maybe it they could just guard the borders against outside interference, while the Iraqi people go about their civil war, would be the best thin g for that. Afghanistan is a legal war and we are there at the behest of NATO and the elected government of Afghanistan. We are fighting against the taliban and the drug lords and also war lords, who believe they can control the people in thei areas by force no matter the laws of the land. That is going to be a hard fight but just the other day the USA has turned over 12,000 troops to the NATO commander, to taken on the NATO missions. These are not new troops but rather they are from troops where the USA had their own operations and now see it best to let NATO take over and use them as they see fit. This is a very good thing and it does give the USA better optics in this dispute. There is one area that NATO has not used mostly because these are not part of their organization, but if Nato asked the Soviet Union for battle trianed special operations forces, that could be deployed along the Afghanistan border with Pakistan, this would make the Taliban want to crawl into their skins. There would be huge phsycological advantage in this, and it would scare most of the insurgents completely. But it would also cost a lot of the good will we have received from the rest of Afghanistan. Or we could ask the Chinese government for the same as we would have the S.U. and not have the back lash. In fact a joint effort of Nato with Chine would also be very good for world politics, and would also make running a pipeline for mideastern oil that would be shipped to China thru Afghanistan, a much easier sell to the Afghani people. Since this war can be won with a simple fact of man power, then China would to me be the logical choice.

I was around the hill the day Clark made his MISTAKE not intentionally. What had transpired was that Clark just could not keep track of things in the house that day. He went ahead calling for a vote thinking that he ahd enough members sitting in his sides seats, but the facts were several had left and were not to be found and the Liberals also had a few more members come into the house. His error was that he had thought he had caught the opposition where they did not have enough members sitting to make the vote go his way. When the truth was he did not see or know that sevral of his members had left and the opposition had a few more come in. The is why Clark is teased about his ability to be able to count while on the fly. Now, if people want to say that he engineered this, I would have to point out that it was so soon after the last election that he must have known it would be him the people would blame, and this was proven to be true.

From what I get from all of this is that by the time the weekend is over we should have a very narrowed field left of 3 possibly 4 still in the running. But I am going by what was said by some of the liberal party wonks I overheard having coffee, so call it maybe a insider view from and outsider etc .

Also Gerry maybe answer this: Under whose authority and power do the final say about our troops lie, of all those who are in the House of commons? Also because the house held an all party vote on this, then is it not also to say that this would make the support for the troops to be from all parties, because in the end the result is made up of all parties and the majority then speaks as one voice? Would you not say then, that the one voice is that of the PM? So if you can agree to this, then should it not also be the PM who would say if there were more then one meaning to what he says? This being said then why would anyone think your view of this is anything more then a ruse for your obvious inability to accept Harper as your PM?

Canada has a made in Canada problem that is about to balloon on us, as all of us baby boomers start to retire. You as we went through life, we found that if we wanted all those good things that both spouses had to work, but that was not a big deal or so we thought. Then we had children, but with the lifestyle taking a lot to maintain, most families had one or two children. Which basically was a zero population growth at best and negative growth the more likely event. This was not a big deal until now, where we see that a major part of the population is retiring and expecting the small population to pick up the tab. Since you can not give birth to tax paying aged children, we only have immigration as a tool to use to solve our problem. The biggest thing about immigration is that we want to control the make up of the types of immigrants we take in. We do not want HIV+ people from Africa, or other countries, but we would welcome english speaking caucasions openly, but along with that we again have this small family thing to worry about. We would like to bring in many nationalities that believe in large scale families and those that will work hard to support that family. We have to be careful of those that just want to come here for the social benefits, but still allow others who will soon be self sufficient. We missed the boat when Hong Kong was being handed over we should have opened the gates wide as many multi millionairs were there for the taking, and these were the ones with the entrepeneurial spirit. The Asain immigrants are also very good for the country, but they need to understand that it is better to come the legal way then illegal and then being underground. Most European countries can get into Canada with not much problems, but it seems that the eastern european ones also bring a lot of lawabiding issues s well. It is a hit or miss type thing. We have in the past had a large Lebanese and Greek immigration but these then all seem to congregate in their own little neighbourhoods, and we need immigrant to spread outside of our major population centers. I have noticed a lot of people from South America in and around Ottawa, but I do not know if that is because it is the capital or if they are just part of an employment exchange etc. Either way you cut it, we need immigration to the tune of 3-5 million per year for the next decade if we are going to be able to grow enough to support the foundations of our countries lifestyles.

I will agree that all parties have had their astonishing moments with incredibly stupid behaviour, but I am still pretty much amazed at the fact that the Liberal can not even go about chosing a leader without showing the world just how morally corupt they are. You would think they would really try to show that a change for the good was being done, instead they show us that the present leadship hopefuls are even worst then the last two leaders could ever hope to be. I am pretty sure that the top liberals know they are going to be inopposition for a few terms, but one would think that they would at least try to appear better, cleaner or at least less corrupt.

Gerry no need to prance around here?? Maybe he is homophobic It is just so painfully obvious that you hate Harper and the CPC. Your posts drip with that anger and you have do little to make anyone believe differently. The largest portion of people here will say that Harper is not using the troops, in the way you suggest, but rather you and others are trying to use the troops and there mission as a wedge to try and get at Harper. You certainly do seem to have a lot of time for posting here, but maybe you are retired like myself, or are you stealling time from your employers to do these posts? Or is it your job to be making these posts? Anyway it does not matter, You are welcome to your opinions and we will use our own right to post our opposition to your opinions. I guess I can say it gives me a chance to break up my day.

I do not think it will matter who the leader of the liberals will be, the party is so fractued that it will take a year at least to bring the party under some kind of unity. To go into an election without a unified party, would be a mistake of hue proportions. Mind you the Bloq could see that as its way to do the liberal the most damage, but would risk driving the federalist votes all to CPC, and that would definitely give them a majority. The liberals would even risk seats in the 416 areas if they go into election before uniting the party. The NDP would like things to go before the libs are ready, in hopes of maybe getting some of the left support that the Libs would lose. But I do not think that is anything more then a pipe dream of Laytons, as he has painted himself in a far far out left field position, that will not ring true with very many people. If he keeps going the way he has, then I could see a NDP meltdown coming very soon.

It is really sad to see that many people who do not know the first thing about fighting a war, are listened to when they make many statements about the very things they know nothing about. I do not believe that the people who are doing the fighting and those who actually do the planing and issuing the operations during the war, have said anything remotely close to what these other so called reporters have said. Mnay of the reports would have you believe that the Taliban are sitting pretty in Pakistan in a spa like comfort just waiting for the time to be right to retake power in Afghanistan. The truth is the Taliban are too busy hiding themselves in the rocks and caves, and cowering in fear of being found and killed. They do not have the luxury of having a nice place to hold up, even in Pakistan. The Taliban are a extreme muslim faction, that holds many beliefs from long ago times. There rules and laws suppress the people and the punishments are very severe, especially for women. The think a woman who gets raped should have killed herself to have stopped the act and it is all her fault that she did not do this and now brings shame on her family, so they stone her to death. If by chance he Burka allows a bit of skin to be seen she is publicly whipped. A theft by anyone requires the hands to be chopped off, no matter what was stolen or for what reason. The list goes on and on. But this is what we have now got running and living in the caves a crannies of the mountains. Does anyone think we should let the likes of these people every come back out in the light of day, to again take power? Of course not. Right now Afghanistan has an ellected government and it is one of the most modern thinking goverments in the muslim world. This is a big plus. While we are still there fight for the freedom of many areas such as the southern areas where most of the ousted Taliban and insurgents fled into hiding, we are also training and helping to rebuild the Afghan army so they will be able to one day defned all this for themselves. Right now the Afghan army is 35,000 strong. But they will need an army at least twice that to be able to protect the whole of Afghanistan. As things are fought out and areas become safer, you see that schools and other markers of society taking roots and making the lives of the people more fruitful. There is nothing being said about these great happenings and also about how we are well received by the people of the villages we have not come to free them from their harsh Taliban masters. Yes there is a lot of harsh things being said about the USA, in all of this, but we are a NATO mission asked for by the elected government. We are not conquors, but liberators. Canada is being thanked daily for our help and courage by the very poeople we are freeing. And to think here at home in Canada we have the likes of the NDP and other foes of our present government, trying to pick at the political bones, in order to try and sway public opinion away from support for the war our troops are presntly fighting and winning. These politcal leaders are as slimely as you can get. Jack Layton, the village idiot of parliament, is a traitor to our Canadian troops and he and his party should be made to pay at the next election by not getting one seat in Parliament. The liberals who are too busy trying to hide all the corruption of their party from the grass roots up, are also now trying to say that the missions has changed, but we all know that nothing has changed and if it had you would have seen some paper trail issued for that change. There are trying to push this all on the government of the day and then try to use it as a wedge issue. I am glad that the CPC have taken the position of being a responsible government and fully support our troops and the mission it was given back when the Libs were in power. The CPC know what it means to support your troops and they have taken on the role of showing the world that Canada can and will be proud to act with its NATO partners to fight the worst of what the world sees as misguided leaders, and free the people, so they can chose a bettter way to live. Shame on all those who think they can wedge issues and twist them for their own political advantage. That sound more like a Taliban move then it does a Canadian one.

Thei Ads??? I hope you mean the liberal ads, as yes they were sleazy and probably were way over the top. For the most part the CPC ads were tame but yes a couple were tit for tat to the libs and NDP

Gerry why do you persist? Just because one twisted myopic member (Meaning yourself), can not let this go, it does not mean it is important. You have said youself that the news has now picked this up as a wedge issue, and that is probably because even at it worst light, it will not be nothing but a back section filler in the news papers. Just as there is a pecking order in all things, the same can be said for this item. The things asked for by Elections Canada have been given to them. If there is something more that they want the request should come from that source. Yes eventually the report will end up on the Cief electoral officers desk, it will probably have recommendations as to whether there are further questions or whether things all seemed in order. As much as you seem to never be able to contain yourself, you just keep spouting off here on this site making people think you are a complete nut. You do yourself this harm by your pathetic rants and attempts to cause trouble for all things CPC. I believe you are working with the Liberal and judging their performance at their own leadership race, and the fact that they can not help but sring corruption at every cormers, and then looking at you and what you make the people of this site think about you, I can not help but think, that this must be the new liberal way, and if it is then thank god we won't be seeing the libs with any real pwer for at least another decade.

When I first looked at what was cut I had some questions that I thought needed answering because some of these cuts were to things I would have thought were good things. But then I looked at it the way the Federal government would have looked at it and the answer become more clear. While adult literacy is a good thing, it has nothing to do with Federal Government and so it should be cut and addressed by the provincial governments and funds sought from there. The same can be said for just about all the things that were cut that would be controversial. I am all for there being less government and this does go to that theme by putting the responsibility for areas that are provincial back again in that arena. It would have been nice to have had this explained when these annoucements came about, but that is the one areas that the CPC lack in, that being public expalnations for much of what they do. As I said at first I was taken back and wondered why would they do that, but I again had to think it through for myself to see why this was. The CPC need better media optics or a better public information officer, to explain things more clearly.

Even after all is said and done with his legal woes, he will still be quite rich and will be one of the movers and shakers in the country. He will pay his taxes to Canada and that in the end of the day is a plus for us all.