Visionseeker

I appreciate the compliment (particularly from someone I often disagree with) . And I think the Trudeau/Mulroney split is best understood when one considers our national preoccupation. Trudeau gave us both structure and process in April 1981, but he also left a lot of unanswered questions. Mulroney sought to answer those questions before the country really had a chance to think about them. Under the gun, Quebec arrived at certain (guided) conclusions, the West developed their own, and somewhere in between were the other Canadians who just couldn’t understand why they weren’t given the appropriate hangover recovery time. A Constitution simply cannot withstand modification with every mandate. That being said, the course of time should allow for the melding of divergent views toward a consensus. I for one believe that proper Senate reform can provide the political buffer that some provinces desire with respect to federal spending powers. This model actually melds the centralization of Trudeau with the provincialism of Mulroney in a national arena; one whose structure and process should be the subject of debate.

You get your training where you can get the best. That the best in the business is a private firm in the US and not the US military is quite telling IMO.

Why draw the line at kindergarten? Hell, let’s get rid of the line altogether and scrap public education. Let parents be responsible for paying for their kid’s schooling in a market environment. Utter nonsense! The economic model that shapes our education system stems from the 19th century. Our economy already faces remarkable labour shortages – just ask the RCMP about their latest recruitment drive – and sticking to an agrarian education model isn’t going to help. We need to look at year-round schooling as well as early childhood education. Our economic survival demands it. You campaign on early childhood education and, when elected, nix the $100 to help pay for it. Most will be happy to give-up a $100 check when it reduces their $600 - $1,000 a month sitter/daycare bill to $200 - $400. At $14 billion in surplus and now on pace for $18 billion, we can afford a childcare care program and tax cuts. Yeah, right. Just like they did with the Conservative incentive.

Most Canadians are not opposed to considering reforms to our system of governance and I believe that is healthy (to a degree). Senate reform has often been raised in such discourse, but inevitably fixates on how such a body shall be formed rather than focusing on what it shall perform. As a country, we seem to have become remarkably concerned about structures with little care for the more important components of systems and process.

Yup. They're controlling that Iraq thing exactly as they would like.[/sarcasm] CBS News Poll. Sept. 14-16, 2007 "From what you have seen or heard about the situation in Iraq, what should the United States do now? Should the U.S. increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, keep the same number of U.S. troops in Iraq as there are now, decrease the number of troops in Iraq, or remove all its troops from Iraq?" Increase 6% Same Number 21% Decrease 39% Remove All 29% Unsure 5% 68% of Americans what to reduce troops in Iraq or get out altogether (71% excluding the "unsure"). No doubt they'll all be back home by Christmas.[/sarcasm] The US system has its own flaws and its own merits. It may "work" for them, but I for one don't see it as a suitable import to supplant our own model.

74% of all statistics are made-up on the spot.

Nice post. I agree with most of it accept the last sentence: "Quebec's status within Canada has been a source of uncertainty since the mid-1960s and only now are we beginning to see maybe the end of the tunnel." We are nowhere near the end of the tunnel and I'm afraid that Harper, in pursuit of his majority, is apt to collapse the tunnel altogether.

Must be that small, insignificant number of immigrants in rural areas that is to blame. Study: A comparison of urban and rural crime rates "The overall crime rate in small urban areas was 43% higher than in large urban areas, defined as census metropolitan areas, and 58% higher than in rural areas. Rates of total violent crime, total property crime and break-ins were also highest in small urban areas."

Your criticism is bang-on. I neglected to specify intent. I shall modify the statement as bolded below. "Anyone who uses speech to deliberately and maliciously denigrate a group is engaging in formulating terror in their victims via an implicit threat of violence."

Mulroney has very little claim to turning the page on debt. Yes his government took some measures to tackle the beast, but the real work was done under Chrétien (not that he deserves credit either IMO). Our debt was born from the provinces taking full advantage of the 50/50 social program spending formula initiated under Pearson. Armed with this dollar for dollar subsidy, each province began to spend outrageous amounts on social files. Provincial debts spiraled and the federal treasury was dragged-down with it. This 50/50 formula essentially left Ottawa with little budgetary control as the outlays on provincial social spending were entirely out of their control. Marc Lalonde (a Trudeau era finance minister) made some tentative efforts to reign in the beast, but the government rightly feared the political repercussions of facing a ten front fiscal war with the provinces. Once Mulroney came in, the problem was becoming ever more dire. Mulroney made cuts in areas of explicitly federal spending, but largely avoided the social file because of the same fear. His own ill-advised constitutional gambit meant that he could do very little to stoke provincial fiscal ire. All he managed was to choke areas of federal responsibility and promote asymmetry within the federation. The real cancer was left to Chrétien to excise. As for Chrétien, the issue of mounting public debt had reached such proportions that it became politically tenable to deal with the gorilla in the room. This made it politically feasible to cut federal contributions to health, education and welfare to 16, rather than 50% of matching funds. This reduction in contributions eventually forced all provinces to deploy more sustainable spending behaviours on social programs, which further reduced the amount of federal outlays. I’m sick and tired of arguments regarding who caused and who slew the debt. For it was greedy electorates and then fearful ones created the setting for both outcomes.

Are you talking about Boissoin?

The terror of hate. "On May 27, Chanthapanya, a Laotian-Canadian, emerged from the house he had moved into the day before to find racist notes attached to several cars in the laneway. The tires of the cars had also been slashed. Chanthapanya, who lives with his mother, sister and wife, said they were living in fear, not knowing who had committed the hateful act." Now to those who argue against prohibiting hate speech, consider what those notes represent. Anyone who uses speech to deliberately and maliciously denigrate a group is engaging in formulating terror in their victims via an implicit threat of violence.

Now THAT's funny.

I said generally. And I believe I alluded to occasions where safety would require specific headgear. No matter, the point of the post seems lost on you so I'll not place anymore effort into clarifications. I see, our institutions must be shaped solely by cultural influences stemming from our immigration patterns of 150 years ago. Their must be no evolution to such “long-standing traditions”. Well, this would lend credence to those who say there is no Canadian culture, for it died long ago from a failure to evolve.

Huh, I thought that I read in one of your exchanges with Xul that you professed to be a Catholic, my mistake. Please let me take this opportunity to apologize to Catholics everywhere for any offense I may have caused.

Don't hurt yourself. You might become insightful.

They mostly didn't apply.

Jefferiah, You might have missed my question, but which passage in the bible (re: homosexuality) was condemned by the courts?

Well, the reasonable accommodation debate in Quebec is leaning otherwise (i.e. no religious symbols for public employees). And this is fitting as it represents the logical extension of the assimilations argument. Headgear jefferiah, headgear. Every military or para-military outfit plays reasonable on the score: the navy generally wears no helmets, nor does the air force. If the argument was that the hats worn by the RCMP were contributive to their personnel’s security we'd have a different argument; as we are talking about a decorative adornment, well, you might as well complain about drapes. No, you understand it as an unlikely accident that is unlikely to occur frequently and therefore easy to "accept" and thus convenient to your argument. It would be quite different if the synagogue was to become society at large I suspect (i.e. toss the RCMP headgear everyone, you must now wear the yarmulke). I don't think the group needs insight into your hobbies. And yet we allow some of our troops to wear skirts, or rather kilts, why is that?

No, it is moronic and asinine. Your comparison is entirely wanting. How one behaves, dresses or otherwise comports themselves in a house of worship is necessarily predicated by the mores of the congregation. If you don't like the rules, you simply don't go. But in our secular society, those mores are a lot more lax, but allow for the nominal expression of religious custom. Would you like it if an atheist managed to forbid you’re wearing a crucifix? That's where Quebec's debate on accommodation has brought them. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/st...796&k=12856 Right and I should meet you half-way on any issue why? It's a fuck!ng hat! Now if someone said their religion requires they be nude 24/7, I'd have a problem with their demand to have a uniform compliant with their beliefs, but headgear? You and I should have more important things to worry about. No, the onus is on us not to be pig-headed. As a Catholic, you need to recognize that your religion was enshrined in this country in spite of the wishes of protestant overseers. I'm as sure JB Globe has a brain as I am sure that you selectively use your own. This is not Saudi Arabia, and to draw parallels to the perceived weaknesses of that country to support arguments within your own reveals an appalling level of intellectual dishonesty. You cannot on the one hand argue moral superiority over a society and then suggest that yours can be equally vacuous.

The supposed "sales" are the centre of the entire dispute. The DOJ has failed to present unassailable bills of sale. That is why the stand-off continues and expands in its reach. kengs333, my two-way familiarity with the file tells me that the Haudensosaunee are going to the near entirety of their claims by rule of law, not extortion. Putting lands aside, the theft of monies held in trust be the Crown were (and are) completely indefensible and will number in the hundreds of millions when restitutions are made.

Which passage was it?

You have the nerve to question anyone's English skills whilst giving us this paragraph of error ridden filth!?

I'm failing to see your point here (maybe I missed something in this thread). Your numbers suggest that Canadian identity becomes increasingly apparent the longer the individual has been here and with successive generations (which one would think intuitive). Further, you are making forced conclusions when you say "the MAJORITY of Immigrants and SECOND GEN don't even consider themselves Canadian" because your own numbers demonstrate that a majority of second generation immigrants clearly identify themselves as Canadian. Lumping second gens in with recent & earlier arrivals may suit your own motives, but it doesn't represent clear and effective analysis.

I would add a couple of reasons to your list: 1- the 60% provincial total with 60% of ridings approving formula 2- concerns about the undemocratic nature and public accountability of lists candidates 3- Concerns with failings of PR models in places like Belgium 4- MMP not representing a preferable alternative to first-past-the-post (you want to see a system that creates members for life even more than FPTP, than MMP is your model) I too will be voting against the proposal for a number of reasons. While I am grateful for the efforts of the citizen’s assembly, their reformation task was at the outset configured to find a replacement rather than consider reforms within the existing process. The unproven premise was that the current system was irreparably broken. Three measures I think would greatly help the first-past-the-post model would be the institution of a public financing model (as exists federally) and doing away with the disproportionate weight of rural constituencies vis-à-vis their urban counterparts. A vote in Brampton must be as valuable as a vote in Algoma. Lastly, any party that earns 10% or more of the popular vote must be invited to participate in the televised debates during the next electoral contest. With 10%, a party earns credibility and a right to promote itself in the debates IMO. Maybe that promotion can eventually be leveraged into seats. I for one am not convinced that FPTP is so onerous.