bk59

Agreed. The last thing we need is a bunch of crack-pots creating binding referendums on modifying our justice system when they don't even know how our current system works, let alone how their proposed system would work. Likewise those who don't understand science shouldn't be dictating research policy, those who don't understand how the environment works shouldn't be dictating enivronmental policy, etc. I'm not saying our current politicians are much better, but at least they (are supposed to) take the time to consider their options and have staff available to make sure they are informed properly. House Committees investigate potential legislative changes, etc. No system is perfect, but representative democracy can give the people a voice in these matters while giving the decision-makers a chance to filter out some of the outlying noise (after at least considering it).

Another problem I see has to do with voter apathy. Right now you claim that no one cares and no one really takes the time to inform themselves of the issues. So what happens when every two years you have to vote on dozens of propositions? My guess is that most people will just continue with their apathy and say "who cares, I'm not taking the time to figure all of this out." I think representative democracy can work. Right now we just need to get rid of some of the party rhetoric and have a bit more party cooperation. Part of the reason people feel that no one is listening is because all anyone ever sees are party representatives (from all parties) screaming at one another about how so-and-so is wrong, or how so-and-so is to blame, etc. No one appears to be listening to anyone else.

These are things that many here have to work on. No worries there. Just make your mistakes in normal sized font. As for all of this, you're attempting to re-invent the wheel. It's all good to piece together bits and pieces of (at best) circumstantial evidence. The fact is, after an extensive investigation a whole inquiry found no evidence of Mr. Arar being a threat to Canada. One person sitting at his computer is not going to uncover something that all of these investigators missed. Statements like "he lived in an apartment building" are irrelevant and statements like "he improperly claimed refugee status" go against all common sense. Where is your source? How was it improperly claimed? Why has the government not done something about this when 1) they began investigating him before he was detained in the US and sent to Syria, 2) when he came back and demanded an inquiry, etc.? If you want to debate what compensation he should receive, if any, then let's do that. But this blame the victim routine just won't fly. It's grasping at straws for an argument that does not exist. It's also insulting to all Canadians - our society has moved beyond blaming the victim when all the facts point to no wrongdoing on his behalf.

Well as confident as I am in the unnamed "sources" and unnamed "Canadian officials", and their quotes that were given years ago, perhaps you should take a look at the results of the Arar Commission. Here is a link to the press releases page of the Commission. Download the PDF for September 18, 2006 - the press release for the release of the factual inquiry. You may want to draw your attention to this quote: Were there any other reasons why you want to kick a Canadian citizen out of the country after it has been found that mistakes by the Canadian government and its agencies (the RCMP) caused him to be detained in Syria for months?

Source? The first few points are pure conjecture. Why did he claim refugee status? Why did he marry? Your post assumes the worst without any proof. "The scam of producing a baby"? I probably should have stopped reading there since the author seems to be on the fringe. In fact, I'll stop my criticism there & wait for any info about the source of this post. I appreciate the bigger font, but feel free to use normal size from now on; I think we can all read it just fine.

By all means, please give us a quick summary of what happened to Mr. Arar. And please tell us why you feel that when a Canadian citizen is detained and then wrongly sent to and detained in a foreign country in part because of mistakes made by the Canadian government there shouldn't be some form of compensation and request for an inquiry?

In 2004, it could have gone minority for Martin or minority for a PC-like party. In 2006, the PC-like party would have had a majority. Probably a big one. When I say PC-like party I mean the Conservative party except looking more like the PCs than the Alliance / Reform.

Had the CPC looked anything like the PC party instead of a clone of the Canadian Alliance / Reform party they would have won the last election.

Of course Dion knew about the sponsorship programme. But there is absolutely no proof anywhere that he did anything illegal even after the whole thing was investigated by the RCMP, Gomery Inquiry, etc. Saying Dion is dirty is no different than saying Harper is going to put troops on the streets. Your logic so far: Some members of the Liberal party used the sponsorship programme for illegal purposes. Dion was a member of the government and a member of the Liberal party. Therefore, Dion is corrupt. Let's stick with this logic: Some members of the Reform party made racist comments and advocated racist policies. Harper was a member of the Reform party and a key policy adivsor to the party and Manning. Therefore, Harper is a racist. I don't believe either of the above scenarios are true. As far as I can tell the media have been no more sympathetic to this recent Liberal convention than they have been with past Progressive Conservative, Canadian Alliance, and Conservative Party conventions. Harper gets a pretty fair shake in the media. But he'll never get a sympathetic media when he goes out of his way to treat them like dirt. And he has only his own policy to blame for that.

The coverage this weekend was exactly the same as the last Progressive Conservative leadership convention, the last Conservative Party of Canada leadership election, etc. Just because you don't like the party doesn't mean that they got special coverage. As I remember it, all leadership conventions get that much coverage. Unless you're the Green party or something... Typical partisan tripe. There is an investigation and inquiry and nothing turns up. But now Dion is the leader therefore he must have been involved. In fact, he was "definitely in the know". If you want to spew nonsense do it right. Dion was stealing money from little old ladies in downtown Montreal while Harper was positioning army troops on Toronto street corners.

We definitely interpreted the question in two different ways. I think the original point made by some people on here was that by giving homosexuals the right to SSM they are infringing on heterosexuals' rights. Some have claimed that SSM gives homosexuals rights that heterosexuals do not have (i.e. they have gained rights that heterosexuals do not have). My point was that with SSM there are no extra rights. Homosexuals can marry one another and heterosexuals can marry one another. Equal. I think you interpreted the question as what rights did homosexuals have to gain in order to get SMM, or in order to become equal to heterosexuals. So yes, they did gain something to achieve equality, but after this gain they have no more rights than heterosexuals. The only reason there was a gain was because they were being treated unequally to begin with.

Straight people aren't allowed to marry people of the same gender. That is the right that would need to be added. Of course, straight people didn't want to marry people of the same gender, but you asked what extra right would need to be added. I'm not sure that's an extra right though. Technically, under SSM, straight people are allowed to marry people of the same gender. The same is true of marriage before SSM and gay people - they were allowed to marry people of the opposite sex.

Equal rights (relating to Canada) are NOT INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED as human rights and therefore DO NOT constitute a U.N. international human right. "What are Human Rights? Human rights standards have been established by international agreement. They are based on universal norms, applicable to every society. (For the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights see www.unhchr.ch.) " Repeating your statement that equal rights are not human rights does not answer the question. Within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it says: There are numerous other examples where it says "Everyone is entitled to...", etc. So how are you defining equal rights? It seems pretty clear to me that human rights include saying that everyone should be treated equally...

This prayer wasn't ostentatious. They had a separate space that they went to for prayer. Some media happened to follow them for this article. It's a non-factor. Christian prayer is not being rejected here. If they had wanted to set up a space for prayer that would have been just fine in my opinion.

Has the prayer of Canadian history lead to big airplanes flying into big buildings and deliberately killing innocent, random people?If a politician or a political militant goes off to seek moral guidance (even by prayer), I have no problem. I am more concerned with the consequence of the prayer. You seem to think that any Muslim praying is automatically a terrorist. How are you connecting these delegates to terrorists? When you see a Christian praying do you automatically think that he or she is planning to murder abortion doctors? When you see a Catholic priest standing at the front of the church do you automatically think that he is molesting children? Do not confuse the actions of an extremely small number of extremists with the views of an entire religion. The type of link that you are trying to make here is what is damaging to Canadian democracy. You are saying to these people that even when they try to participate in the democratic process they will still be regarded with suspicion simply because of their faith. Personal prayer, such as what happened at the convention, should be welcomed in our society no matter what religion these people believe in.

'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' as been recognized and adopted by most modern civilized countries. Equal rights are an artificial fabrication of rights determined in Canada's case in a undemocratic fashion excluding Canadian citizens and are NOT universally recognized or adopted by civilized countries. From the very beginning of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html Equal rights are human rights. Stop trying to split a hair that doesn't even exist.

I'm not sure how you jumped from what was reported to these statements. It seems pretty clear that these people are not terrorists... they are just people who took some time out of the convention to pray. This really didn't seem that ostentatious to me. There was a small room set up somewhere, they went there to pray. It may have been different if they had stopped the convention and made all of the delegates take time to pray right there on the convention floor. This wasn't an attempt to bring religion into our political affairs. It was a small number of delegates taking some time to pray during the convention. I'm willing to bet they weren't the only ones praying during the convention. The only difference is they went to a separate room to say their prayers. Rather than under their breaths just before the voting results were announced. Excluding people from the political process because they pray is a horrible idea. Let them pray and let them participate. People from different religions / denominations have been doing this throughout Canada's history. The simple fact that someone prays does not necessarily mean that they are going to force their religious views on someone else. Nothing really. Prayer, like the prayer described here, is personal and has been happening throughout Canadian history. If anything it might just strengthen our democracy by showing people of different religions that they too can participate in this country's future. When someone starts trying to force religious views into government policy, then it's time to worry. Personal prayer is not a threat.

LOL The quote was this: But thanks for the mental image of Dryden being hit on by cheerleaders!

I do enjoy this particular viewpoint. After everything that happened with the investigation of the sponsorship scandal and the Gomery report, Dion's name was not linked to the scandal in any way. Now, as soon as he becomes the Liberal leader, people start accusing him of being corrupt.

Didn't the Liberals vote on policy questions at the convention? Why would they need another conference for that? Or do you mean a policy conference in terms of getting the party's riding candidates together? A bunch of people think the Liberals might try to force an early election. I think the Conservatives might push for an early election. So much attention was focused on Ignatieff and Rae that Canadians don't really know Dion. The Conservatives can use that to their advantage in an early election, but not so much if Dion gets a chance to show himself in the House and let Canadians get to know him before an election.

Please remember, Long before it was a legal (state) term, it was a religious (legal) term. This is exactly the point. Even though you state it here, you seem to miss its importance. SSM legislation in Canada refers to the legal definition of marriage. It has no affect on the religious definition. Every religion is still free to practice marriage as it sees fit. All of the arguments about religious freedoms, etc. seem to miss this point.

So is your argument that marriage should only be valid where there is a societal benefit?

Complete BS. They were not interested? So every single woman had no interest in voting? The fact is they were not allowed to vote, whether they were interested or not. They were also not allowed to own property. None of what you said is any justification for not giving women the right to vote or own property. You have not addressed the problem with your international human rights argument. If something must be an international human right before a country grants that right, then how can you justify giving women the right to vote? At one point in time no country did this. The first country to extend voting privileges to women would have violated your argument about international human right standards since the standard at the time would have been to deny those rights. How are you distinguishing between equal rights and human rights? Equal rights are a subset of human rights.

This question got me thinking a bit and I'm curious to hear what people think. It seems that illegal combatants are those who attack their enemies without distinguishing themselves from a civilian population - in other words without identifying themselves as combatants. This is why we say dressing as a civilian and then bombing a military target is wrong - the bomber has not given their enemy the opportunity to recognize them as an enemy combatant. Now take this reasoning - that combatants should identify themselves - and apply it to the bombing from a plane example. If the military targets / personnel being bombed have no chance to defend themselves then how does that fit into the moral view that governs bombings on the ground? Those dropping the bombs have not identified themselves since the targets can't see them coming. Thoughts? I will post my own thoughts a bit later since I don't want to send the discussion in a certain direction right off the bat. Unfortunately I feel the need to add one last bit here for certain posters on this forum that love to jump to conclusions and just assume certain things. This question is simply that... a question that is meant to generate a bit of discussion. I am not advocating sending soldiers to war with knives only, where everyone shakes hands and introduces themselves before trying to kill one another.

I have to agree with the posters who are asking "What is the practical effect of this legislation?" I think that the current legislation would cover a suicide bombing as an act of terrorism. Realistically, do we really need to enumerate all of the acts that might be considered a terrorist act? It seems redundant and pointless given the definitions we already have. To be blunt... what the h*ll are you talking about? How will the practical effect of a piece of legislation that wants to say "a suicide bombing is a terrorist activity" be seen at the Liberal leadership convention? Have you even read the proposed amendment? Here it is, in it's entirety: Link: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/content/Senate/Bill...-206_text-e.htm I seriously have no idea where you're coming from with your statement about the leadership convention.