Saturn

Saturn, I don't know what you are trying to argue with that post quoting some academic who quoted extensively the NDP critic Charlie Angus on broadcasting.The fact is the telecoms are amongst the biggest schmoozers in the business. Rogers and Bell and the others played both sides of the street contributing both to the Liberals and the Tories. They all have former senior civil servants in their ranks, often with experience from the CRTC. If you are trying to suggest that the telecoms are influencing government policy, you're about 40 years too late. The CRTC does not exist to protect the consumer. It exists to protect the telecom industry. Bernier has signaled that this protection racket is about to end. Ottawa CitizenModern technology means that there is an abundance of competition in all the various media markets. If the CRTC ever had a reason for being, it certainly does not have one now. From the same article: Overall, expect some good deals in the first year or two and then face monopoly/duopoly afterwards. The only difference between now and then is that the big players won't have any constraints placed on them by the CRTC as they do now and you get to pay double for the same service you get now. P.S. As for the "academic" quoting NDP critic so and so, you are free to get Oda's donations from Elections Canada. Academic or not, the list of donations won't change.

With high oil prices and Alberta pumping oil like crazy, our so called "oil dollar" will stay high and our other export industries will suffer.

I suppose your argument here is that women are too stupid to enter politics? They don't commit enough crimes to be in jail more often and they don't have the brains to be in politics more often?

The consumer will not get "competition". Competition is bad for monopolists/oligopolists. If we were getting more competition through these changes, the industry giants would be quite opposed to the changes - not supporting them.

CBCThat's how the CBC would choose to present this decision. I would say rather that my vote for the Conservatives has been vindicated and only a Conservative minister from Quebec could do this. Dion Liberals couldn't. Whatever Harper's government does in its short mandate, this decision implies the greatest long term effects for Canada. Hats off to Bernier. Well, time will bear out whether this benefits the customer or not. But when such policy choices are made, they should also be accompanied by removal of artificial barriers to entry as well. Do you know what the current competitive status is? Can any Canadian company work anywhere? Can US phone companies serve us? If these restraints remain in place, then Bernier's policy will not really be fair to consumers. No, but that's what conservative policy on "competition" amounts to: Let the private monopolies run things the way they want and then "argue" that this will somehow benefit the consumer. So you are in favour of the government reulate how much you pay for your phone service? Let me ask you this - Did you pay mroe or less for Long distance calls before competition or after? California let such "competition" in its electricity market and consumers ended up paying 5 times as much for electricity. Here we are not talking about allowing more competition (which is good for the consumer), we are talking about letting the current industry players charge us more for the same services. If it was about competition, the big players wouldn't be working so hard to change the rules - competition is bad for them.

Actually the UK itself has a better system. Party discipline is not enforced nearly as strictly as in Canada, the MP's don't stand for it. It is not the system so much as what we have done with it. The system provides ample opportunities to be misused and abused. The UK politicians just don't abuse it as much as our own. Since our politicians have shown that they cannot be trusted with the current system, the system has to change to provide them with less opportunities to abuse it. In other words, if you can't trust a dog with a steak, then you have to tie him up so that he can't get the stake.

Exactly, the RCMP knew fully well where he was and that he was tortured to get these "confessions". That's why the RCMP is in deep shit for lying all along that they didn't know a thing. One the RCMP knew they had made a mistake, they manufactured and "leaked" false information to CTV, the Ottawa Citizen, and a whole bunch of other news agencies.

Saturn, I don't know what you are trying to argue with that post quoting some academic who quoted extensively the NDP critic Charlie Angus on broadcasting.The fact is the telecoms are amongst the biggest schmoozers in the business. Rogers and Bell and the others played both sides of the street contributing both to the Liberals and the Tories. They all have former senior civil servants in their ranks, often with experience from the CRTC. If you are trying to suggest that the telecoms are influencing government policy, you're about 40 years too late. The CRTC does not exist to protect the consumer. It exists to protect the telecom industry. Bernier has signaled that this protection racket is about to end. Ottawa CitizenModern technology means that there is an abundance of competition in all the various media markets. If the CRTC ever had a reason for being, it certainly does not have one now. The CRTC does not exist to protect the consumer. But the consumer still has some minor influence over the CRTC through voting and opponents to the industry have someone to lobby too. The removal of the CRTC means that voters will have absolutely zero influence over it and the consumer will the stuck with and forced to consume the BS the industry shoves down our throats.

No way would Chretien have sent troops to Iraq, ever. He only sent troops to Afghanistan as part of the reconstruction and since Steve has been voted in our troops are at war. Steve just spent $217 million to send our tanks to Afghanistan. Do you know how many rusting Russian tanks dot the countryside over there? Harper did plenty of brainwashing while in opposition. His buddy Zac, the RCMP commish helped with the announcement of an inquiry into Ralph Goodale during the last stages of the federal election, even thought there was no evidence to go on. And when the s**t hit the fan, Steve tried to cover Zac's butt but the can of worms popped it's lid. We'd be really smart to stay away from American style politics. After Katerina hit New Orleans, the diaster bill that passed in the US had attached to it numerous goodies like a bridge in someone's riding, a road here. a road there in order to get the votes to pass the bill. Most pathetic way to do politics. And why on earth would we regulate ourselves to go to the polls every two years? Really, for what? As for the senate, if the provinces wants to elect senators-in-waiting then appoint them but many provinces do not want this. I sure don't want the likes of Morton in the Senate. The election for premier of Alberta was a big farce. Anyone and their dog could plunk down $5 on the day of voting and vote. This meant that the best person for the job didn't get in. Oh well.... Tories in Alberta are on their way out. The way the Liberals elected their leader was the way to go. Each member voted for their choice based upon information that was available when they voted, most of that info gleaned from the media, but when the delegates got to the convention, they got to meet the candidates and to vote for the best person for the job. There isn't a better system in the world than what Canada has. Except that losers always want to change the odds. I suggest they campaign smarter. Ya, our system is a great way to discriminate against Canadian voters who don't vote for the big 2 parties. It takes 30,000 votes to elect a Liberal and not even 20 times as many are enough to elect a Green MP. You can't argue that one Liberal voter should be worth more than 20 Green voters. That's BS and that's what makes our "democratic" system a farce.

Toope's report on whether Arar was tortured: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/10/27/...ture051027.html The O'Connor report on the Arar Inquiry: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/18/maher-arar.html In summary, the RCMP was responsible for sending Arar to Syria, where he was tortured, and the RCMP tried to cover up their trail.

Our politicians did push the Bush agenda...at least one of them did. Harper even went on US television to let Americans know where he stood. Furthermore, Harper claimed that most Canadians outside of Quebec supported the invasion of Iraq. Here's the story: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...s_name=&no_ads= What a quagmire we'd be in if this so-con had been Prime Minister then. We would be just where the Americans are. We are still with them in Afghanistan. My point was that Canadians are not a whole lot smarter than the Americans and if our politicians choose to brainwash us into believing something, they can do it. Some politicians are clearly better at brainwashing us than others. Currently a majority of Canadians do not support the mission in Afghanistan. But at the beginning, the majority did support it, no? Yes but the mission differed then or at least that's the perception. Yep, perception is all that matters

Our politicians did push the Bush agenda...at least one of them did. Harper even went on US television to let Americans know where he stood. Furthermore, Harper claimed that most Canadians outside of Quebec supported the invasion of Iraq. Here's the story: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...s_name=&no_ads= What a quagmire we'd be in if this so-con had been Prime Minister then. We would be just where the Americans are. We are still with them in Afghanistan. My point was that Canadians are not a whole lot smarter than the Americans and if our politicians choose to brainwash us into believing something, they can do it. Some politicians are clearly better at brainwashing us than others. Currently a majority of Canadians do not support the mission in Afghanistan. But at the beginning, the majority did support it, no?

You got a strange sense of humour. Canadian officials didn't want him back, the RCMP provided questions to the Syrians for which they were to get answers (through torture), if he said the word "torture" they wouldn't have done a damned thing. The RCMP knew fully well he was tortured. They are simply lying that they didn't because that's a crime. You wouldn't expect them to admit to breaking Canadian law, now would you?

Our politicians did push the Bush agenda...at least one of them did. Harper even went on US television to let Americans know where he stood. Furthermore, Harper claimed that most Canadians outside of Quebec supported the invasion of Iraq. Here's the story: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...s_name=&no_ads= What a quagmire we'd be in if this so-con had been Prime Minister then. We would be just where the Americans are. We are still with them in Afghanistan. My point was that Canadians are not a whole lot smarter than the Americans and if our politicians choose to brainwash us into believing something, they can do it. Harper didn't because he was in opposition. If Chretien was on board, we would be in Iraq and believing that it was the right thing to do.

What we need is to bring in proportional representation, elect both houses on fixed dates with one of them in the middle of the other's term. That way they can keep each other in check and we can change (or correct) policy every 2 years. But don't expect this to happen. The PM has the power to rule like a king and he is not about to give that away.

CBCThat's how the CBC would choose to present this decision. I would say rather that my vote for the Conservatives has been vindicated and only a Conservative minister from Quebec could do this. Dion Liberals couldn't. Whatever Harper's government does in its short mandate, this decision implies the greatest long term effects for Canada. Hats off to Bernier. Well, time will bear out whether this benefits the customer or not. But when such policy choices are made, they should also be accompanied by removal of artificial barriers to entry as well. Do you know what the current competitive status is? Can any Canadian company work anywhere? Can US phone companies serve us? If these restraints remain in place, then Bernier's policy will not really be fair to consumers. No, but that's what conservative policy on "competition" amounts to: Let the private monopolies run things the way they want and then "argue" that this will somehow benefit the consumer.

Yes, the relaxation of the rules will sure benefit Canadians, which is why the industry is bribing the politicians involved: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...id=968350072197

The Liberals are surging in the polls. Harper's popularity is sinking. What do you think his response will be? What cards will he play to win the next election? How will the Liberals fight back?

Are you for real? That's precisely the people who would benefit from daycare.

Also, just to clarify, I am GeofFrey's team on this one. Parents who send their children to daycare are NOT their children's primary caregiver. And who is? Yes, I would say that. Funny: I was chatting with a buddy of mine about schooling and home-schooling. He said he is looking forward to when his youngest daughter goes to school because then they do not have to pay for daycare. I know someone with 4 kids whose goal in life is to get rid of them for a weekend here and a few days there, so that she can "breathe". It's too much to ask an adult to be stuck with pre-schoolers 24/7. People who take their kids to daycare may just be happier to be with their kids than those who can't get away from them for full 5 years. And yes, too many people look at school as some form of daycare, not a place of learning, which only contributes to the fact that our children can't add 2 and 2 in grade 10.

I wonder if that would have been so if there had been no 9/11. The US was attacked and everyone jumped on the wrong bandwagon and most are now trying to get off. It was a situation ripe for abuse and I wonder if it would have been much different if it happened here. I doubt it. We want to believe that we are better than the Americans but if our politicians had chosen to push the Bush agenda, half of us would still believe that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and all the rest.

That is true. But the United States of America has the greatest level of democracy that is not matched anywhere else in the world. I feel we should move their system. We can't keep letting elites run our country from the back office. This is the funniest comment I've heard in a year.

Exactly, among many other cultures. So what is a Canadian culture? An immigrant arrives from Japan. We tell him he doesn't have to change anything to be a Canadian. An immigrant arrives from Italy. We tell him he doesn't have to change anything to be a Canadian. An immigrant arrives from Nicaragua. We tell him he doesn't have to change anything to be a Canadian, etc., etc., etc., The obvious question is, what the hell is a Canadian? We can tell them anything we want but the matter of fact is that people become Canadian anyway. One sure sign is that they don't normally rant about the Greeks or the Burmese but they rant about the lazy easterners, the self-centered Ontarians, the greedy Albertans and so on. Multiculturalism means diversity and variety. If everyone was the same, we would be a bunch of boring narrow-minded rednecks living near the north pole. But seriously, if you look at the stats, one generation and bang - all immigrants' children have the same profile as the rest of us.

I place you as far more worthy than someone who came here 10 years ago and holds dual citizenship. A piece of paper doesn't dictate absolute equality amongst citizens of this country. That's my opinion of course. That's just your opinion and you should keep it to yourself. Arar CHOSE Canada to be his home, which IMO makes him at least as Canadian (or even more) as someone who is here by default (like you). He worked hard, got a good degree and a good job. He paid more than you have in taxes. He probably didn't spend his days badmouthing people who worked harder and got better jobs. As far as I'm concerned, the two of you are not equal indeed. Now you should stop ranting. Take an anger managment course or educate yourself a bit more on the subject because this much hatred cannot be good for you (or anyone around you either).

Who cares what socialists think? Socialists are voters two. If half of the NDP vote goes to the LIberals, we will have a Liberal majority govenment. You wouldn't care if you thought that the Libs and the CPC are the same.