Black Dog

No, it's part of the constitution, much as the U.S. Bil of Rights is part of the Constitution, not a seperate document. But there was no legal obligation to do so. What's wrong with that? Before the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, civil rights and liberties had no solid constitutional protection in Canada. I don't think you can pin Liberal corruption on the Charter.

I would pose a counter question: can you name a country that's more democratic, and in what ways? I mean, there's countries with superior electoral systems and countries with less corrupt politicians, but that doesn't make them more democratic, unless one's definition of democracy is limited to the sphere of political process. Me, I like to think of democracy in terms of how we go about our day to day lives. I'm not in any danger of getting "dissappered" because of my political beliefs. I can read what I want and pretty much say what I want. And everyone else has the same rights. That's not a bad way to go. Can things be better? No doubt, but you haven't really articulated why, all of a sudden, the place is an anti-democratic hell hole.

Let me ask, for the sake of clarification: what the hell are you talking about? You make no sense. Canada is not any different from any other country in that the vast majority of population growth is depenant on old fashioned heterosexual procreation. Nor is Canada alone in having a slumping birth rate. Many other industrial nations (such as Germany and Japan) have seen birth rates fall below the death rate. Yeah: first it was the blacks, then the women and now those uppity homos won't shut up about their marginalization by the white male heterosexual dominant society. Whiners. Canada is a diverse nation consisting of many ethicities, religions and, yes, sexual orientations. There is no "normal heterosxual community". It is your right to believe, but not your right to dictate what other believe the same as you. And if you want the right to be a bigot, don't cry when people call you, well, a bigot. If I'm reading this right, this is a varient of the old saw that gay couples who adopt kids will somehow give the kids the gay. Which is weird, because generations of heterosexual parents have been completely unable to turn their gay kids straight, so I have to wonder: what trick the gays are privy to that can cause kids to flip their biologically predetermined sexual oreintation? Curiously, the Canadian Conservative Party (which is the closets approximation to a right-wing political agenda in action) hasn't done too bad. And let's not forget, too, that the party in power following the demise of the Trudeau Liberals were Conservatives. What effing difference does it make? is a unified identity necessary? Or is it possible for different groups, religions culture etc. to coexist? I'm no great fan of institutionalized multiculturalism, but even in "melting pot" societies such as the U.S.A., different groups still jockey for position and retain their cultural traditions etc etc. Is it even possible to creat a unified national identity? And if so, how does one enforce it?

It speaks volumes to me that Clinton can be considerd a centerist. I guess when the right wing take soff even furthe rin that direction, the centre lurches to the right. The Dem's ran "centerist" candidates in the last election. They lost because people who wanted a Republican voted Republican, while those who wanted a Democrat stayed home. Can someone name one substasial way in which Kerry's platform was any different from Bush's? If the Democrats are the centre-left party (which they aren't) they should just stand up and say so. Show some backbone. And don't listen to any moron who says they need to water themselves down even more than they already have.

The conservative crack up

The big problem of nuclear power (aside from the issue of waste) is that new plants are hideously expensive to build and maintain. And when you consider one esitimate I read indicated that we'd have to build 10,000 of the largest possible nuclear power plants to produce enough nuclear power to equal the power we currently get from fossil fuels, we're talking about a lot of money. Then there's the questions of how the infrastructure (you know, cars and such) would operate in a nuclear powered world, as well as how the shrinking supply of uranium would affect such a scheme. All in all, I don't think nuclear power will give us the answer.

The Charter did not need to be ratified by all provinces. Under the pre-1982 set up, amendments to the British North America Act, 1867. were enacted through acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The provinces had no say. Since the patriation of the constitution in 1982 amendments can only be passed by the Canadian House of Commons, the Senate, and a two-thirds majority of the provincial legislatures representing at least 50% of the national population. Povincial unaminity is not necessary.

You mean like the American Constitution? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Nonsense. The reason for the sudden about face on the constitution (which was to have been locked in without amendments for a period of eight years) is that the push to get a deal done pushed the Sunni's off side; now the U.S is scrambling to bring them back by offering them this concession, a move which render s the whole referndum essentially useless as anything more than a tool for stirring up more resentment among the already disaffected (and violent) Sunnis.

My long term plan is to retire by age 35. I doubt that I'll have the means to do so, just as I doubt Zarqawi will have the means to accomplish his goal. Reallyu, there's nothing here that the bin Ladenites (whose cause al-Zarqawi seems to have hitched his wagon to) haven't been saying before. Maybe you should stop mouthing empty, ignorant rhetoric and start suportting the troops by getting them out of a hopeless situation where there lives are at risk. Stop helping the terrorists by providing them with recruitment tools and targets. For the upteenth time, oppossition to Bush, the war on Iraq, the conduct of the war on terror etc etc does not equal support for terrorism, at least in the real world.

Interesting observation about Iran, Argus. And you know what's even more interesting? The hunger for democracy is coming from within. people who beleive the "regime change" model can lead to the flowering of democracy forget that democratic institutions work best when they are homegrown. Germany and Japan, as Luttwack notes: "The mass instruction of Germans and Japanese about the norms and modes of democratic governance, already much facilitated by pre-existing if imperfect democratic institutions, was advanced by mass media of all kinds as well as by countless educational efforts. The work was done by local teachers, preachers, journalists, and publicists who adopted as their own the democratic values proclaimed by the occupiers. But the locals were recruited, instructed, motivated, and guided by occupation political officers, whose own cultural understanding was enhanced by much communing with ordinary Germans and Japanese. In Iraq, by contrast, none of this has occurred." Curiously, the only people in Iraq who seem to care for the idea of a unified Iraq is the Sunnis, simply becaus ethey have the most to lose. Experts see grim times ahead -- a torn Iraq -- even if constitution is approved Kinda lowering the bar, ain'tcha? I think, given factors such as the U.S. support of Israel over Arab interests and the historical animosity between Islam and Christianity (excrabated today by the "war on terror"), it won't matter what the U.S. does. No matter what they do, they are still invaders, occupiers and infidels. I agree, but that isn't the counter-insurgency model the U.S has followed.

Contgratulations on an insight that Jean Jaques Rosseau nailed more than 230 years ago ("Man is born free and everywhere else he is in chains"). What does it have to with your earlier comment and my response to it?

So why are they voting on a constitution they can just turn around and change (and vote on all over again) down the road?

So what? An election where the people don't even know who they avoted for, an election where a significant segment of th epopulation (the Sunnis) boycotted the process. A veneer of democracy (such as elections) is no substitute for a real democracy. Even therecent constitutional wrangling has shown there to be little interst in pluralistic, representative government.

Tell me, in your view, what is the "problem"? To me the problem is the core idea that a country with no democratic tradition to speak of, with deep religious, ethnic, sectarian and tribal divisions, with a history of resisting foreign invaders and colonial occupation and a social fabric and civic infrastructure shattered by decades of war and deprivation can be tranformed by a benevolant foreign power into a western style democracy. What this whole fiasco has shown is that Iraqis of all stripes are universally uninterested in democracy (at least the kind of democracy westerners associate with he word) and more interested in a winner take all scenario. The Sunnis are desperate to retain soem grasp on the power they held under Saddam Hussein. The Shiites want the oil-wealth and an Islamlic government. The Kurds want their own country altogether. This of course begs the question of why Iraq (an artificially created country to begin with) should have a future as a nation. the longer people cling to the idea of a unified, democratic Iraq (despite all evidence indicating such a scenario is, at best, highly unlikely), the worse off Iraq will be. They left to kill infidels who came into their country. Chances are, once the infidels left, they'd either go back to farming, or go on with the business of killing their neighbours. Which they're doing already. More troops won't solve the fundamental problems of Iraq. And while I would agree that the establishment of infrastructure is a key element to acheiving stability, I would suggest that an increased foreign prescense would only serve to keep the ant-western flame burning and simply postpone the inevitable civil strife.

Yeah, BHS, Edward N. Luttwak is a peace activist.... The point of the article is (which would be apparent if you had read it, which it appears you did not) that the notion of "leaving the country a better place" is a hopeless pipe dream. Full blown civil war (as oppossed to the low-level civil war that is occurring right now under the U.S.'s nose) is likely inevitable. It may even be necessary.

Roe v. Wade may not be reveresed (and contratry to your assertion that it only is kept to drive the Demsocrats crazy, they keep it to fire up the G.O.P base), but it can be rolled back. Parental consent laws, measures such as the"Unborn Victim's of Violence Act" and the "partial-birth abortion" ban (scare quotes beause the term is not recognized by the medical community, bans on federal funding to family-planning groups and others are all part of an effort to chip away at abortion rights and leave Roe V. Wade a hollow shell. And without constant vigilance, they can be easily done away with. But whether that inability to remain competitive can be laid at the fot of labour is up for debate. A question that misses the point. The blather about "regulatory oversight" is simply a way of protecting a government-enforced oligopoly. Canadains get the same drugs as Americans, but at far lower costs (thanks to the power of the phramacutical industry lobby), so your "tic-tac" talk is nothing mor ethan scare-mongering. You seem to have a willful blindness when it coems to big money interests and the sway they have over teh political system.

Ironic that such things are considered nagatives in the so-called "land of the free".

And if the tables were turned (say, a ban on gay marriage or illegal abortion), you wouldn't take the same position? Riiiight...

"Freedom isn't free..it costs a buck-oh-five..." I think the notion of governments defining democracy is decidedly, well, undemocratic. NJon interference is a two-way street. You can't very well "run away" from foreign interference on the one hand and then interfere with foreign nations on the other. You can bet the founding fathers would not have endorsed the Iraq debacle. No mention of the Oil For Food program should pass without mention of the fact thati ndividuals and companies in the United States accounted for 52% of all oil-voucher kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein, the largest of these recipients being Houston-based Bayoil. It's also worth mentioning that the bulk of Saddam's illicit income came not from the program, but from oil smuggling to Turkey and Jordan, smuggling which the U.S. was charged with preventing, but failed to (and may have ignored). Gay marriage, in addition to being legal now, is also old news. You need to move on.

Given all that has happened in Iraq to date, the best strategy for the United States is disengagement.

If that's what they are there for, they're doing a piss poor job of it.

What a worthless piece. Anti-Americanism or anti-Bush? I guess to some, it's the same thing. Wow, two completely unverifiable statements based on anecdotes. Great reporting. Actually it's (rightly) treated as a case of American protectionism and the sway corporate lobby groups have over politicians. Another anecdote. The plural of anecdote is not data. Which could have just as much to do with the loss to the U.S. in the first World Cup, and to the feeling of regaining our rightful position as the best hockey nation in the world as any anti-Americanism. Of course the authour doesn't bother asking why, just assumes the worst. Gee, could that be because, if they were in the States, they wouldn't be able to get married? Views shared across the world and even within the United States. Rubbish. Canadians don't want an American style health care system because it doesn't work, not because it is American.

Not only does the Alberta government get money from taxes, they also set the wholesale prices for liquor and the supply of booze (that big warehouse in St. Albert doesn't just hold Klein's private hooch supply). There's no free market for booze in Alberta. Of course when you factor in the 1,866 jobs lost as a result of "pivatization" the net gain is considerably smaller.

You can do better than that. I understand how much of this kind of thing is personal preference. Mine just happen to be for communities that have strong sense of identity and direction, vibrant culture and a positive atmosphere. Alberta's city's are prety bereft of ant of thos ethings IMO.

Having lived in Vancouver and Ottawa, I can safely say that we're more blessed than we realize. -k <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Explain.