Saturn

Of course it should. Now that Steve is firing public servants for not using his political slogans in correspondence. Next thing you know, judges will be wearing "Canada's New Government" buttons or get fired.

Bullshit. The Globe and Mail endorsed Harper as their candidate of choice in the last election. Harper will yet again get the endorsement of the Jewish CanWest/GlobeMedia for his support of Israel.

Polarize voters? Where do you live? There is no spectrum on your ballot, your either A or B. Every vote is 100% polarized when push comes to shove. Usually there are at least 4 choices on a ballot. This time around the ballot will look like Conservative or anti-Conservative (Liberal). NDP supporters can say anything in the polls but when push comes to shove they will all vote Liberal (except possibly for those in NDP ridings). Steve and Jack should start working on their retirement plans 'cause both will be wiped in the next election.

In the last election campaign the Conservative ads were already scarier than the Liberals'. Conservatives and their supporters like to go for personal flaws of opposition leaders, like their mouths, sexual orientation, infidelity, citizenship, etc., because they don't have a whole lot to attack on the policy side. It sits well with their support base of poorly educated rural folk and elderly religious zealots.

Old ladies who donated to the CPC hoping for a ban on gay marriage.

So just let private centres provide care, where the patient would come first... if they wanted return visits. Tsk, tsk. How many times do you need to be reminded that this is not convenience stores we are talking about but a monopoly which can control supply to maximize its profits regardless of whether it's the government or individuals who pay for its services? Nothing short of doubling the price of health care services will appease them to provide care "where the patient would come first... if they wanted return visits". I doubt that our economy can carry the burden of doubling of health-care costs, so for the time being, you'll just have to fly south.

When you are paying for $100K procedure, is it your ticket to fly south what will make it unaffordable?

When politician cancels programs which he calls useless and do-nothing and then brings them back, wooo, that's stupid. When was politician lying - when he said that the programs do nothing or when he brings them back as his fix for the environment?

The Conservative position on Arar at the time he was detained and sent to prison for torture was as follows: Harper: "While the minister participated in high level consultations to defend a suspected terrorist, it apparently took a trip by the U.S. Secretary of State for the minister to admit what he really knew." Diane Ablonczy: "It is time the Liberals told the truth: that their system of screening and security checks is pathetic. Arar was given dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship by the government. It did not pick up on his terrorist links and the U.S. had to clue it in. How is it that the U.S. could uncover this man's background so quickly when the government's screening system failed to find his al-Qaeda links?" The Conservative position was that Arar was a terrorist and that he should have been tortured in a Canadian jail. Now, do you expect Harper to go through a lengthy lawsuit during an election campaign where his skeletons would be brought out of the closet over and over again? Not only has he p.o'd Muslims for openly siding with Israel, but he would be criticized over and over again for assuming and insisting that a Canadian citizen must be a terrorist even though he had no evidence to support this accusation. And then his support for the RCMP and lying Zaccardelli would be brought out of the closet too. At the end of it all, it would have made Harper look bad and it would have cost as much in legal fees and compensation. Any reasonable person in Harper's place, would have settled out of court quickly and swept the issue under the carpet.

When an employee of a company screws up, the shareholders pay. Since Canada is a democracy, we are the shareholders of our government and its institutions. When Enron and Worldcom screwed up, how much the shareholders pay? When CIBC paid $2.4 billion in settlement for its participation in the Enron affair, it probably cost you more than 30 cents but did you complain about it? When a crown corporation brings in a billion dollars in profit, do you insist that the profit should be split among its employees? Now instead of complaining about your 30 cents and blaming the victim, you should let your elected representatives know that they will be held accountable for their actions. As much as you like to distance yourself from the federal government, it is there, and you are indirectly responsible for what they do.

A full year in office and Canada's New Government has accomplished nothing besides brainwashing the public into thinking that they have achieved something. The Federal Accountability Act provided only 1/3 of the measures they had promised. Aside from reducing political donations to $1,100 and protecting whistleblowers by giving them $1,500 for legal advise, the FAA won't do a thing to "clean up government". The FAA is a pathetic joke. In the meantime, Steve has been appointing friends left and right to all sorts of positions - appointments which were supposed to be made by an independent committee. Transparency in the Conservative government comes down to running a tight dictatorship, choosing which questions can be asked by the media, releasing documents that are so heavily blacked out that only the column titles can be seen and occasionally leaking info to gauge reaction and adjust policy accordingly. Tightening jail terms for criminals while judges are in short supply and line-ups at the courts are getting longer won't do a thing to reduce crime. The Childcare plan came down to telling women "Here's a 1,200 bucks in taxable income, now stay home and take care of your kids" and giving working women a choice between leaving their kids with the lady down the street who runs a daycare in her basement with a dozen kids in front of the TV or well, staying home. The 1% drop in the GST amounted to $100 in annual savings for the average family and the cost savings which were supposed to trickle down to the consumer, well, they got lost along the way, duh! The result is minimal savings for Canadians, which were more than wiped off by increasing personal income tax rates, and a $5 billion waste that could have been put to much better use, such as paying down the debt or investing in infrastructure. Wait times, well, we know what happened to those. Steve may end up getting some sort of a promise for wait times reduction on one type of procedure for preschoolers and then he will hail it as some sort of universal fix for the whole health care system. The fiscal imbalance will be fixed by dumping more money in Quebec. Another great fix and "a promise kept". On the environmental front, Steve's Clean Air Act got a lot of bashing, so he has taken it upon himself to re-introduce all the old Liberal environmental programs, which he canceled only a year ago, under new names. They were completely useless do-nothing programs a year ago, but now they will suddenly become effective. Next thing you know, he will be re-opening all the Status of Women offices he closed down. Harper got us deeper into Afghanistan and he's handing out contracts left and right for military equipment, while at the same time our military doesn't have money for fuel to patrol our coasts. Good job, Steve! Overall, the Conservatives have proven to be even more hypocritical and incompetent than expected. It's time to end this experiment called "Canada's New Government".

But you are the first to scream in support of forcing people to have children against their wishes, no?

I think that Mr. Harper has managed to polarize voters in a similar fashion to Bush in the US. Many voters and especially NDP voters, see the next election as either you are with Harper or against Harper. While they may prefer to vote NDP (and waste their vote in most cases), they are far more interested in getting rid of Harper. On top of that, many are pissed off at Layton for going after the Liberals even though they see Harper as more harmful to Canada than the Liberals are. In other words, by being too ideological, hence polarizing the electorate, Mr. Harper has kicked himself in the rear. His actions have caused the bleeding of NDP support to the Liberals, while his numbers haven't improved at all. He really needs to throw Jack a bone and I suspect this will happen when he accepts the Kyoto agreement targets under the label of a "Made in Canada" environmental plan, developed with the input of the NDP. This way Jack will get to brag about being effective in Parliament and will look good in the eyes of his supporters and environmentalists. Steve will get to look good for being green in the eyes of environmentally-conscious voters and for coming up with a "Made in Canada" plan, not Kyoto, in the eyes of his supporters.

Rick Mercer received training to be in Kandahar? I bet he did. So did the guys from This hour has 22 minutes and dozens of other entertainers who have visited the troops.

True. The problem is that the government just pays the health-care bills but it doesn't have control over the health-care system. The system itself is controlled by the medical associations and the medical profession. Their interests are not best served by providing good care to Canadians. The government can do very little besides begging them for better services.

What pile of crap! Senate reform is just a lot of noise for nothing. What the heck is "Strong voice on the world stage"? Spending more in Afghanistan and heckling with the EU over Kyoto just to make Canadians feel more important than we are? Fighting crime. By talking about more severe punishment that won't happen anyway? Noise for nothing. Economic growth and tax cuts. Will that be achieved by reversing his personal income tax increase and handing out more beer and popcorn money to people who don't want to work? Another 1 point drop in the GST that so far has not shown to trickle down to the consumer? I really want to hear more about this. I have really low expectations from this government on the economic front but still have some hope that something positive may come out of it.

Good for him. Might be a bit much but nothing one can do. My only question is how did it get done so fast.? The government is not on particularly good terms with the muslim community right now and they wanted to get this resolved before the election (to score points with the muslim community of course).

Fortunata, I didn't torture Arar. I had absolutely nothing to do with this injustice. By making me pay for this injustice, the injustice is further compounded.If such things can be compared, Steven Marshall suffered as much if not more than Arar. His family received $2.3 million (once again, I paid my share). The police in question are now retired and have suffered no serious sanction. Was Steven Marshall tortured? Did he and his family live in fear that he would be killed in prison? Mulroney got $2 million for libel and taxpayers paid for it too. On top of that 15 years later it seems that he was worthy of the accusations. Was his suffering worth $2 million? And what exactly did you in particular pay for? Do your taxes exceed the part of your education costs that the government covers? How about other services you use?

Conservatives are hilarious. First they criticize the Liberals for claiming ownership of Canadian values and next they call people who disagree with them "anti-western" and "un-canadian". Sorry, I was not aware that disapproving of human rights abuses and discouraging actions that put Canadians in danger makes me "un-canadian".

A significant portion of the service charges come from retail businesses. I doubt the average family of 4 pays that much. Furthermore, many people pay these charges because they are too stupid to find alternatives. It is not the bank's fault that people are stupid. Scams flourish on stupid people, but that doesn't mean that they should be allowed. Stupidity, while harmful to the consumer, is part of life. It is also harmful to the economy, so regulators must ensure that stupidity and gouging is kept to a minimum. Boohoo - a business makes a profit. So friggen what? Everyone needs banking services which means everyone has to pay something. Furthermore, a large percentage of these profits come from people who do not know how to manage their money (i.e. they run up huge debts on credit cards and end up shelling out tons of money in interest each year). If you want to reduce bank profits then the gov't should teach people how to manage their money properly. You mean the government which has more debt than the average Canadian should teach us how to manage our finances? We are spoiled for choices in banking services in this country. The problem is not with the banks or the system - the problem is with the consumer. The problem is both. The market allows gouging and the banks merely take advantage of the situation. That means that Canadians pay excessive banking fees, when the money should be going to something more productive.

That's not quite true....... Four transactions a month may be enough for some consumers but is certainly not enough for most. In addition, funds electronically transfered into an ING account are placed on hold for a week. Can you write cheques? So, no, an ING account is really a savings account, which is not very convenient at all.

Let's look at the facts before we jump to conclusions. In 2006, the big banks made $19 billion in profit. Roughly 5% of that was made due to fees. That's roughly $950 million or $30 for every man, woman and child in this country or $120 for a family of four. I don't know what the cost of providing these services was, but the banks sure made a good profit on them. In addition, roughly 80% or $15 billion of last year's profits were made domestically. That's roughly $500 for every man, woman and child in this country or $2000 for a family of four. Now any industry that can siphon away $500 in profits from every person in the country annually, is a very profitable one. Some may even consider these profits excessive (myself included). Now, why do banks make excessive profits? Because they can. Consumers have no choice but to have an account (who gets paid in cash and makes all their payments in cash?). The majority of consumers don't care enough about the $50 fees annually to move to PC Financial for example (and if they did move in large numbers, PC Financial would undoubtedly stop offering no fee accounts). The big banks happily exist in an industry protected with huge barriers to entry. They can probably further increase their fees and make more profits without any significant consequences, which they probably will do unless the regulators step in. So, they charge excessive fees because the market and the regulators allow it.

Do the ATMs you use to access your ING acount for cash charge a fee? Do you avoid all fees everywhere? Or do you live primarily cash-free? Curious to find out how it works and how convenient it is. It's not very convenient at all. The ING bank does not have ATMs, so you have to use another bank's ATM to withdraw money. And of course, you have to pay a fee for that. The ING accounts are meant to be savings accounts.

Canada is better of without Alberta? Are you f*cking serious? Yes, I'm serious.

Let's look at the absolute numbers. Hmmm, by slicing it that way Canada is behind a couple European countries and Russia. The self-evidential nature of your facts are simply wrong and open to interpretation. And your whole family has as much brains as Bush's dog.