Moonlight Graham

Agreed, but that just proves that knowledge/expertise doesn't necessarily result in being a good minister. But its safe to say that if a Minister has good credentials in one's area of concern it would make him/her a better Minister. I'm sure it wouldn't help if you were a Minister of Finance & had a degree in economics &/or past real-world business experience. But as u said it doesn't work that way in Canada.

I agree that tough gun laws are important. Thank God we don't have "the right to bear arms" written into our constitution like the U.S., mainly because we are not a country stemming from revolution or supressed by tyranny. But the gun registry is a good idea in principle, but it just doesn't work. Its very expensive, and it really wouldn't do a ton of good compared to the cost. I'd use that money to keep fighting illegal gun control.

Agreed.

Right on! In times of crisis, some people (like Churchill or FDR) rise to the occassion. Others just don't know how to handle it and make matters worse. Hint: Bush isn't FDR.

Ditto. This is what happens when a neo-con with average intelligence & poor decision-making skills becomes leader of the world's only super-power.

Tony Clement. He's the biggest nerd i've seen in my life. And he's ugly.

Thats because most Ministers in the Canadian executive don't often have a high amount of expertise in their area of specialty. What does Peter McKay know about National Defense?? Dumb, but thats the way it usually works in our polity. Many Minsters or cabinet members are typically former lawyers or businessmen. Baird has, i'd imagine, a good amount of support staff to educate and inform him on issues of the envirnoment.

The UN needs reform, not abolishion. It has certainly done more good than harm over the years. UN Peacekeeping forces have done some noble work, and at least we have an international check on some of these tyrants in Iran and Sudan....even though the U.N. actually won't do anything about them.

I don't really think it makes you a more moral person, though i tip my hat to those that do believe in it because it proves they are trying to be moral. But pacifism is a flawed theory. It only works when the people you are standing up to will have compassion for you. Its not going to work in Darfur, or Nazi Germany. Not fighting the Nazi's and having them slaughter & enslave the planet isn't my idea of logical thinking. But Pacifism works if your opressors won't kill/harm you because of compassion or public/private pressures, such as in Ghandi's case.

My opinion is that they are all idiots except for Dennis Kucinich & Mike Gravel, the only 2 guys who actually know what the hell is going on. Though Mike Gravell is a big old and doddy.

agreed. How can anyone be so ignorant to think that the U.S. Presidential election has little to do with every other country in the world. So goes the U.S., so goes the world in many ways.

How could anyone vote for Bush on that poll? You've got to be kidding me.

Smoking in vehicles with kids in it should be illegal. I grew up with a mother & uncle who smoked, and i was allergic to cigarette smoke. Sometimes they would smoke, sometimes put it out. But it always bother me, and its incredibly RUDE to do so anyways, even if its not a kid.

I don't support the death penalty in any form. I don't believe anybody, especially the state, has the right to end somebody's life (war may be the exception). Anyways, its a stupid punishment. You can't repay your crime when you die. Trust me, i'd rather me executed than spend my days working my fingers to the bone doing hard manual labour and sleeping in a jail cell alone. For those people who claim they are jewish/christian, they are hypocrites for supporting the death penalty. Jesus would not kill someone for making a mistake or crime, no matter how horrific. And last time i checked Moses held up some tablets on Mt. Sinai that had something to do with not killing people.....don't think there was an asteriks on there. The U.S. Republican candidates who support the death penalty and also claim to be religious make me sick.

17/21 not bad.

There's too many bad immigrants coming into this country. We need quality, not quantity. The gov't wants immigrants to keep the population up. Well, how about they give major tax breaks or other incentives for citizens ALREADY LIVING IN CANADA to have children. They should put as much money into incentives for new Canadian-born children as they do to bring in more immigrants, educate them, and provide them health care they've never paid a dime into. Stop punishing mothers who want to stay home with their children. Yes gov't we know you want both parents working because it brings in more taxes, but 2 working parents usually means less children for that family.

Well, at least Dion seems to care about the poor, unlike the Conservatives. Conservatives won't even support the Make Poverty History campaign.

Kucinich really impressed me. Edwards kept showing why he really isn't Presidential material, WHY is he 3rd in polling?? Richardson & Biden also did well i thought. Hillary & Obama did ok but nothing new from them.

Of course i can't, because i was wrong. Instead of getting all defensive at the suggestion i could be wrong, i rather asked you to provide a link so i could read it. I'd much rather be wrong & know the truth, than to be right (or convince myself that i'm right) & be ignorant of the truth. Isn't that the goal of debating? To learn the truth, rather than to just be able to claim you were right? It's interesting that you didn't have time/energy to post the link yourself, but you did find time to insult me. And how exactly is the nature of Iraqi civilian deaths "obvious"? I don't live in Iraq, haven't trolled these boards long, and they dont widely report such statistics in the popular news media (let alone civilian death tolls in general). By your definition, any of your loved-ones who are also unaware that Iraqis are responsible for more casualties than the U.S. are also "challenged". But thanks for welcoming me to the forums nonetheless

Ad hominem. You won't convince many people of your arguments that way.

Interesting. link?

I hope this crap they're gonna spray is as safe as Agent Orange was.

On the other hand, we have a multi-party system compared their 2 choices. We also brought down the Liberal gov't over a money scandal, while Mr. Bush & most of his cronies remain in office after lying their way into a war that has caused the deaths of likely 100,000+ innocent people (among other things). But yeah, we agree on the referendum thing.

The West has accomplished just about all they can in Afghanistan. Most of the terrorists have left the country, and we aren't going to defeat the Taliban, so let's just leave. This poppy spraying is just more of the West f'ing with another country. Who cares about opium? People who inject heroin into their arms do so on their own accord, its sad but i don't really feel sorry for them. I've never heard of people being held down by force & having heroin injected into their arms without their consent.

But no state uses direct democracy on every issue. Most issues at every level of govt are decided my representives the people vote for. Ontario just had a referendum on election reform, but the majority of decisions are still made by representitives as i'm sure u know. I agree that i'd like to see more referendums in Canada like they have in the U.S. In terms of liberal democracy, looking around the rest of the world & throughout history i'm very happy living in Canada as we speak. While not perfect, the best countries to live in throughout the world use liberal democracy. I'd like to see something better, but as we've seen with Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Fascism etc. its not usually best be the first country to employ a new political ideology. Until we see another country find something better than liberal democracy, i'm happy tinkering with what we have.