Saturn

Dion's English is better than Harper's French. Should the CPC have picked another leader? Obviously, yes. Who do you think they should have picked?

PR will give parties disproportionate share of power? Have another drink! You support FPTP because it gives your vote a disproportionate weight. What makes you think your vote should be worth 10 times more than mine? Other than the fact that you are a conservative loony who imagines that democracy means that only conservatives should be represented? Bullshit. PR encourages democratic choice. FPTP discourages democratic choice - it gives you only 2 options which hardly differ at all. The difference between FPTP and the Soviet Union's voting system is well, like the difference between choosing between the Demopublicans and the Republicrats and choosing between the Communist party and the Marxist-Leninist party. Not very democratic at all.

He didn't buy A-380s. He just spend $8 billion on other planes and helicopters (handing the contract to a company of his choice without allowing other companies to bid for it).

Harper has well earned the name Harpocrite.

His profits were better than the year before and most of it, $110 billion to be exact, went to pay Mulroney's enormous mortgage. Harper has a huge profit this year too, but he's just going to spend it on toys, beer and popcorn. The mortgage will have to wait - we are rich enough to keep paying the interest in perpetuity. Better yet, he is going to set us up for another similarly enormous mortgage. Because that's what the Conservative "fiscally responsible" way of handling finances comes down to - CUT TAXES AND BORROW!

Mike Harris had plenty of choice. Instead of cutting provincial taxes 25%, he could have cut them by "only" 15% and made up the federal shortfall. But it was his intention to dismantle the public health-care system, as well as public utilities, public education, etc. If the feds had not cut their transfers to the province, he would have cut provincial taxes by 35% and done exactly what he did. The same was done by Campbell in BC. Did the NDP in Manitoba not do something along those lines? Have they not cut taxes too? Everything is about cutting taxes these days. Canadians are willing to sell their own asses and their children for a $100 tax cut.

Harper is running a completely disfunctional government to the detriment of the country as a result of his bullying, his complete lack of will to work with anybody, and his tactics of smears and personal attacks. He managed to pass his first piece of legislation after 9 months in office. This year he hasn't passed anything at all and it doesn't look like he will pass any legislation from this point on either. He has no will and/or ability to bring people together and to work for a common cause (the good of the country supposedly). He works only through confrontation and he is at constant war with the opposition (and probably some in his caucus). With him it's "my way or the highway and you are a terrorist by the way". He is the boss at work that everyone loves to hate. In this kind of environment, not surprisingly, nothing gets done. His government will go down in history as the most unsuccessful (in terms of legislation) and the most disfunctional. Canada is effectively on autopilot while the Conservatives posture and scream in QP and are only concerned how to spend their surplus in the most effective way as to buy the most votes.

LOL! They sure are morally superior. Made a huge fuss about every cent of spending by the Liberals and then turned around and did worse. They are a bunch of hypocrites and shameless liars who talk about transparency and accountability, yet their actions show an enormous disconnect from what comes out of their mouths.

One reason that the English-speaking countries are almost all solid democracies, i.e. US, Canada, UK, Jamaica, Barbados. Israel is an exception, and shows many of the weaknesses of rep-by-prop. All solid democracies (nearly 100 of them) use some form of proportional representation. The only exceptions are Canada, the US, and the UK. That's because we are too stubborn and obsessed with tradition to change a dead horse. In FPTP, voters usually end up with two choices - the Demopublicans and the Republicrats. Sorry, I want more choice than that. And I actually want to know that my vote counts for something. That's what democracy is all about - one voter, one vote. Not "one voter, 0.2 votes another voter, 3 votes" depending on how they vote.

Taxes were dropped there long before there was anything going on out there. The oil sands were barely profitable, which is why evil Martin and Chretien gave them subsidies - to keep them afloat. It wasn't the low taxes that produced the boom. The boom was the result of the price of oil quadrupling. If the price of wheat quadrupled, Sask and Man would be swimming in money too. If the price of fish quadrupled and there was any left to fish, the Maritimes would be swimming in money. Without taxes changing the slightest bit.

We gave him a chance. He completely wasted it. He has shown that he is just as corrupt as the previous Liberal government - he appointed unelected friends to cabinet the moment he was elected, he bought MPs to cross the floor, he made numerous political appointments. He is running a disfunctional government, that produces nothing other than ridiculous QP scenes. He continues to be a lying bully that makes false accusations in the hope that the mud will stick, whether real or fabricated. It didn't look good when he was in opposition, it looks much worse when he is the PM. He has decided that earning votes is too hard for him, so he's just going to buy them - even if it means screwing up the financial affairs of the country. I didn't expect much from him but I never imagined that he'd turn out to be such scum. Given his similarities to Bush and Harris, I should have expected it - I suppose I was in denial.

The Liberals were at 30% in the election and around 31-32% at the moment. How is that down? Everyone seems to be where they were in the last election, with the exception of the NDP and the Greens which seem to have traded 3-4%.

So you are doing wonderfully well but you cannot afford to hire anyone. Also, gov't rules help you out in the market but the "free" market is making everyone win. Do you read your own posts?

Harper has made dozens (if not hundreds) of patronage appointments already and he hasn't paid his jet bills. Nothing new about that, the Conservatives are bunch of lying scum. When someone points out how they are abusing their powers, they are only capable of responding with accusations, lies and personal attacks.

What is your fascination with free markets? If anyone in this country should be afraid of our "free markets", it's farmers. Chances are that if farmers were left to the "free market", you'd be farming 0 acres, not 2000. It's easy for you talk about free markets when some poor minimum-wage guy is getting screwed by them. But if farmers are getting screwed, it's "Farmers feed cities!" and we'll drive our tractors on the highway and to Parliament until someone insures that we are protected from the free markets. Sorry buddy, things doesn't work that way. It's either free markets for all, or intervention when the free markets are getting people screwed for all. Take your pick and stick to it. Consistently.

You can derive that from their sample size and their indictated margin of error. No, you cannot. 1,000 responses means that they contacted 5,000 people, 4,000 of whom did not respond. Internet self-selected sample surveys are junk. Telephone polls are significantly more accurate but less accurate than they claim to be.

Some elements in Quebec are striving to ensure that Quebec can separate with little disturbance. If Quebec has its own pension plan, its own police, its own revenue agency, its own statistical agency, its own immigration system, etc. separation can be less painful. If it separates first and then has to build those agencies from scratch, things will be more difficult. Which is just fine as long as Quebeckers pay for these things. However, they are convinced that ROC is financially responsible to ensure that Quebec is well prepared for separation.

What exactly is the benefit in a 1-yr, 50-pg long thread? Such treads are difficult to navigate and go off topic very quickly. Will you please, please let us start a new thread once in a while?

If Canada were a part of the US, it would make sense to have the IRS do the tax collection and the Census bureau to do our census. Given that Canada is not part of the US, it makes no sense. Given that Quebec is part of Canada, it makes no sense for it to have national type agencies. If you want such agencies, you better split up and run yourself as a nation. You can then have a National Assembly in every village if you want. Until then, it's not our responsibility to pay for it. Fine, split Quebec up into 10 countries if you want. I don't care.

These are precisely the problem. What's the benefit of having a separate pension plan, when it is exactly the same as the federal plan? What's the benefit of having a Revenue ministry, when the CRA can do the same job at a fraction of the cost? The same goes for the statistical agency. What's more efficient? Two entities of equal size that do exactly the same thing, or one entity that is that is 50% bigger and does the whole job? That's why Quebeckers pay far less federal taxes than the residents of other provinces do. That's why Quebec should separate and run itself as a country. If all decisions are better made by your provincial government, then it ought to be a federal one. The real costs to Canada is that we subsidize all these great decisions that cost far more than they are worth.

If Gilles were to say that, he'd sign away the BQ to oblivion forever. He'll never admit that a Federalist government has done good for Quebec. He has said before that if it's good for Quebec, he will support it. Obviously, there will be a lot of goodies in the budget for Quebec. He can always say that it's a good budget for Quebec (thanks to his party's efforts in Parliament) but there is more work to be done. Or if his numbers don't look good, he'll say that the budget doesn't go far enough to solve the fiscal imbalance, so he'll vote against it. Quebeckers need to send him back to Parliament with a bigger caucus, so that he can fight for them.

Neither of you make much sense at all. In a "normal free market economy" minimum wages would not be necessary - the market would provide optimum levels of salaries and the market would serve its purpose - to the benefit of society. Minimum wages are necessary because perfectly efficient free markets are fiction. In the real world, many markets aren't very efficient at all - like in that small town (there are plenty of them in Canada btw, you don't have to live in one to know it). A market failure does not give your greedy ass or anyone else's a cart blache to exploit that failure to the detriment of society. When a failed market does not serve its purpose, outside intervention is necessary. That's where minimum wages come in.

Instantaneous run-off. The voter would rank the candidates in order of preference. The person with the lowest votes would be crossed off the list. The people who voted for this candidate, their second choice would now count. Continue until there is one person left, and they would have over 50%. This is similar to how parties choose leaders, I believe. The best part is, you could have as many parties as you like and it wouldn't matter, because you don't have to worry about "splitting the left" or "splitting the right". This works well then you are choosing one person - like a party leader. There are 308 persons in Parliament. This proposal will do very little to ensure that the popular vote is fairly represented in the number of seats each party gets. With the enormous power and influence party leaders exert on their caucuses, we are not voting for people but for votes in Parliament (except for those few voters in 4 ridings who vote for a party leader). It's not the case that each riding sends its own representative to HOC - we send representatives of a party leader to HOC. I favour STV (with ridings comprising entire provinces or 8-12 seats in provinces that have more seats than that ). That way regional representation is preserved without the disadvantage of ignoring the popular vote and giving governments majorities through the support of minorities.

We have one, it's called a minority government. The majority (the combined opposition) have the power of life and death over the government. How can you say they don't have a vote? There have been coalitions before but first you have to get those parties to put aside their differences and work together as a government for the good of the country. The only time that ever happens is when there is a dire national emergency. Without one, they will always put their own political interests first. Our political system allows governments to assume that once they get 35-40% the popular vote, they have the right to rule with impunity. In a minority situation this means that they are unwilling to work with opposition parties, they have great difficulty passing legislation (because they want it their way), and we end up seeing the extreme partisan bullshit in parliament that we are currently witnessing. A government that does not produce legislation and prefers to concentrate on partisan attacks instead of on looking after the country's interests is a disfunctional one that is more a of a detriment than a benefit. In a situation where a government requires 50+% of popular support, we would not be witnessing the absurdities of QP and a completely paralyzed disfunctional government. Harper is unwilling to work with the opposition to pass legislation because he wants it done his own way. He is entirely concentrated on gaining another 5% of the popular vote by extending the life of his disfunctional government just to toss money at the public and engage in name calling and finger pointing in the meantime, so that he can get a majority and do things his own way. If he required 50+% of the popular vote, which he knows he'll never get, he would instead be trying to make parliament work.

Could posters here trim their posts a bit? It's difficult to navigate a page long post of quotes of quotes. Some of the arguments I saw here: 1) Employers don't set wages, the market does. If employers set wages, we'd all be working for $1. Correct. Small town of 500, one employer (manufacturing operation employing 50) aside from the owner operated general store and gas station and the 1 postal worker. You would be working for $1 even if the employer could pay $30 and remain profitable. Your other option would be to sell your home for $1 and go off to TO to pay $1500/mth rent and work for $10/hr. Nothing wrong with your logic - the market will set the wage. But the market sucks. 2) The real question is if society feels it is inhumane that an individual survives on such a low wage, why does it impose the obligation to make up the difference upon the employer? Why is this not an obligation of society in general? It is an obligation of society in general. The employer is part of society, not some independent party on the Moon. Both the employer and the rest of society should ensure that no worker goes hungry. 3) Minimum wages force businesses into bankruptcy. Possible. But so what? A business that cannot afford to pay minimum wage and remain profitable is a bad business. It's not the job of workers to donate their time and keep inefficient businesses afloat. If your business becomes unprofitable when you pay $8/hr, I hate to break it to you but your business is junk and if you cannot improve it, it's time you put it out of its misery. Inefficient junk businesses are of no benefit to the economy (and society). 4) Minimum wage legislation is costs governments nothing. The government is screwing employers. Incorrect. The absence of minimum-wage legislation means that more people end up on the welfare rolls. This will cost governments quite a bit of money, which in turn means that it will cost both businesses and workers money. Businesses benefit greatly from government imposed rules and regulations that allow them to raise funds more efficiently, to operate in a peaceful environment and not worry about their property, to be able to recruit from a healthy stock of capable employees, etc. Clearly, business is expected to provide something in return, namely reasonably well paying jobs. Finally, no labour is worth less than $9-$10/hr in Canada. Most businesses paying less than $10/hr are very profitable and can easily afford to pay workers a living wage. Those that cannot afford to do so, are not businesses to begin with - they are corpses that sentimental owners don't want to recognize as such.