Visionseeker

A merger makes perfect sense if the ultimate aim is to phase out Veterans Affairs entirely. And that appears to be exactly what this government is on course to doing. “As it is, Canada’s decision to award a maximum lump-sum $250,000 to badly wounded vets sounds generous, but it’s really a cop-out if it negates long-term care and responsibility.” http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/30/peter-worthington-the-kiss-of-death-for-canadas-veterans/#ixzz0wdcfxN00 And that seems to be precisely the point. Toss a trifle to those who’ve sacrificed much and then have no further responsibilities thereafter. Then just sit back and wait for the older alums to die off and ask the last employee to turn off the light when the last WWII or Korean War vet dies. Personally, I’m stunned by how little exposure and attention is being paid to this issue. I mean, where are all those outraged supporters of the troops who so enthusiastically donned red each Friday to show their solidarity for the men and women who face death and maiming in the pursuit of our country’s foreign policy aims? We have veterans who’ve suffered traumatic brain injuries that leave them cognitively incapable of sustaining a conversation, let alone a job. Others will spend the rest of their lives with significant mobility challenges that require extensive and expensive mobility assistance devices ($250,000 might cover every wheelchair, lift vehicle modification and other adaptations to their home… If they die in their 50’s). For many if not most, $250,000 is simply a payout that will delay their eventual and inevitable application for welfare. A government policy that is crueler in the denial of dignity would be hard to come by.

This Contradicts this Your outrage is quite palpable. But does it really serve any purpose here?

Hey Mikedavid00, You should apply to the OPP. I here they have an opening north of London. Some guy name Vu Pham was felled in the line of duty. No doubt because he was lazy and inarticulate... Not. People like you make me sick. Not too long ago, I was on a board that promoted a recently hired black woman in an internal competition. Her test score was the highest ever registered in the 3 years the test has existed and at the interview, she nailed every question. Add to this her superior performance in all measured variables in the work place; she made it an easy decision to offer her the job because she earned it. On a Friday night two weeks after the announcement was made, I was at a pub where a number of subordinates often gather. One of them had the temerity to come right up to me and vocally proclaim that the spot was awarded "to satisfy diversity in the workplace" for the benefit of a wide audience. As the room stood still my mind raced as the professional in me screamed IGNORE while the humanist in me demanded a retort such as: "if diversity were our primary concern, we'd let you go as we already have too many assholes". But I managed to compromise and state: "you are entitled to your uniformed opinion." Last week, the individual was suspended subject to a hearing (read: fired) after calling the promoted woman a "coon" in public. I, for one, will not miss him.

My take of Jaffer: move on. Sure it's politically titillating (former Con MP busted drunk driving and with coke), but at the end of the day is society better served locking-up someone who (to my knowledge) has no priors and who is seen as unlikely to re-offend? I'm no friend to the prevailing brand of conservatives in this country, but I think a little perspective is warranted here. Let Jaffer pay his fine so that those more worthy of state accommodations get their cell. If Jaffer offends again... throw a heavy book at him (in a cell).

Your stereotype is not only ill-informed, it is dated; and on both counts wrong. Governments use computers today, so you might want to update the screed you learned from your elders with a more modern flair. Something directed at keyboards or monitors might do the trick. This might be hard for you to understand, but government... isn't a business. Businesses are governed by a single motive: profit. Governments are required to satisfy expectations of peace and order without bankrupting the polity in the process. Oh, and it's not the private sector that funds government salaries, but rather society. There's a difference. One that I suspect you'll have difficulty assimilating, but I digress. Businesses facing hard times don't just blanket freeze salaries to adopt austerity. In fact, most don't freeze salaries at all. They chop-off lesser performing units and give bonuses to managers and executives who are most effective at implementing entrenchment targets. If we were to apply pure business models to the federal government, we'd end up closing all federal functions in Alberta's ridiculously inflated labour and rent cost environment in favour of call centre delivered services somewhere in India, cut our military in half (after all, what conquests have they attained recently?) and pulled out of the EI business in NFLD and the Maritimes for lack of profitability. The deficit challenges we face are very serious. Lashing-out at the people who deliver government services will likely do more harm than good to such effort.

I don't think you are looking at this from the proper perspective. If we assume that the Conservatives want to keep the present level of productivity and service delivery while simultaneously freezing spending, you can't accomplish this be creating a negative incentive environment within the ranks. No, you need stable and consistent professional hierarchy to have any hope of attaining that balance. Every member of the public service who opts to retire early because of this environment will actually cost the taxpayer between 33-50% of that person's salary in lost efficiency and productivity. In my experience, decisions arrive at out of anger tend to be considerably sub-optimal.

The Liberals didn't plummet in the polls when attacking the deficit in the 90s, their numbers actually grew a bit. Fearing a confidence vote is not simply motivated by a desire to avoid an opposition triggered election, it's motivated by a fear of elections. I'll wait to see the budget, but me thinks the party might be over for the Conservatives. Remember, they were ostensibly taking 2 months off the Parliamentary calendar to come-up with a plan. I suspect that the direction outlined in this speech falls considerable short of public expectations. It's pablum for people who are angry. A deflection exercise that will prove extremely damaging to the public interests as we move forward. It will accelerate retirements in the upper ranks which will, in turn, create a cascading crisis in efficiency and effectiveness at every executive and managerial level in government. If you'll forgive the Stalinist reference, this amounts to an involuntary purge of effective leadership that will have serious implications on productivity, morale, and diligence in the public service. Filling increasing vacancies will mean that a good number of leaders will spend considerable efforts just learning their new jobs. And that's when the biggest mistakes are made.

Really! Based on what exactly, speaking truth to power? Colvin's stock at the chocolate box (term the FS uses to describe the exceptionally ugly building that is our foreign service HQ) is actually quite high. Most career foreign service personnel see him as a hero who embodies the spirit of Pearsonianism (the religion of our foreign service). If I were a cynical person, I'd think your post is nothing more than a juvenile attempt to malign the man's character. But I'm not cynical, just knowledgeable. And my knowledge tells me you are talking out of an orifice ill designed for speech.

The GG will not prorogue a second time without consulting the opposition to determine whether he can gain the confidence of the House. The government must do the crown's business. If the current government can't do it, another must take it's place. If Harper and co are betting that the GG won't disolve, they've made a very bad bet. Westminister rules are rather clear on the subject.

In a less than stunning turn of events, Minister Prentice suggests that the oil & gas sector deserves special treatment with respect to emission controls and targets. Prentice won't rule out oilsands emission breaks Well Mr. Prentice, what about logging? Or mining? Or automotive manufacturing? Or any manufacturing for that matter? What makes the oil & gas sector so special? Oh, right, they're in Alberta. One wonders what kind of reception the Prime Minister of Alberta Canada will receive when in Denmark. My God when will we be done with these putrid excuses for leaders?

We cut the federal fat in the 90's. There's not anything left that could be categorized as painless. The largest remaining expenditures are the military, Old Age Security and prisons.

The Liberals have been the "natural govern party" because they adapt. Their leadership changes are a manifestation of this inherent need to capture the imagination of the electorate. But changing leaders in and of itself is not enough; they have to supply a direction in which the country agrees to move. August, you are more apt to die before the LPC ever does. As a centrist party, it has too much room to maneuver to marginalize itself.

Up until Thursday, most of the frustration was targeted at local health authorities. But after claiming that 3 million doses were on route and yet now the talk is of shortages, Ottawa has become the focal-point of anxiety driven frustration. People with health conditions or young kids want the bloody vaccine. Now, on top of poor delivery planning from local health authorities, they have to worry about the basic availability of the vaccine. And that availability is squarely the responsibility of Ottawa. There are many questions to be answered following this crisis. Some of which are the following: Why did our vaccine program get entrusted to one firm and one location? Would it not be more prudent to instill redundancy in production centres to avoid singular vulnerability? Why wasn’t a uniform plan for delivery deployed to prevent utter confusion and line-ups? Why were provinces promised delivery of X amount of product, only to be told that a shortage is now to be expected? Why was the federal government publicly stating that any form of the vaccine was safe for pregnant women, while privately ordering the sole supplier to produce vaccine specifically for women at a given stage of pregnancy? To those in the group who decry the Liberals “politicizing the issue”, it must be noted that the role of the opposition is to take the government to account when they f**k-up. And from what I’m hearing from the parents of pre-school children, the federal government has f**ked-up royally on this file. Harper is not personally to blame, but the government he heads is. This is not Harper’s finest hour.

I don't look at this as a partisan issue, but one of law. If the liberals choose to profit politically from it, well, that's their perogative. But the fact remains that ALL Canadians should expect their government to respect constitutionally guaranteed rights. No matter how this plays out, our government - no - our country, failed.

OK Kimmy, I will exercise my office and deny you your licence because of my suspicions. It will take you 3 months to get it back even though you have neither been charged, nor convicted. If she was committing fraud, then charge her. Otherwise, this sounds like frontier justice to me at best.

That might be plausible, but it lacks any proof. That too might be plausible, but it lacks any proof. If the Crown's position was that she was party to a fraud, the appropriate move was to bring her back to Canada to be charged and given a date in court - not some presumption of guilt detention period in a foreign jail.

What is the price of your detainment for three months? In another country?

You make it sound like liberals invented crime. Nonsense! Look, our society makes laws, some quite sensible, other quite pathological. Whatever their motivation, we have limited resources to house all of the offenders of OUR laws. As a result, we force the system to improvise. And how do they do so? The best way they see fit. It's not a liberal system, but an overburdened one in order to avoid placing the burden on the taxpayer. I'm sick of people like you who think that the solution to all our problems is to lock people up and throw away the key. Guess what? The bill goes up appreciably once that key is thrown away. Can I count on you to pay for it? I thought not.

Um, guess what? Young people have always been the biggest source of violent crime. The only thing the graph in the site you offered tells me is that even so, the trend is downwards. Gangs are not new phenomena. Gang related murder was at its highest in Canada in the late sixties and early eighties. Still, the majority of violent crime is domestic or pseudo-domestic (i.e. close friends or acquaintances). Your inability to effectively grasp the reality of your surroundings tells me that you could never run a gang.

Let me guess, you failed math. Our prisons are overcrowded because of simple demographics, and our ridiculous prohibitionist stance on narcotics which doubly motives addicts and immediate suppliers to engage in illegal acts. While our population is increasing, the age group most apt towards committing crime (14 to 25) is significantly diminishing as a proportion of the population. Able-walkers make for terrible get-away vehicles. "Raw" numbers are declining because our population is aging beyond the crime prone.

Yes, and one has the unfortunate name of Rizutto. I'm just saying...

Bha-Ha-Ha-Ha! August. Thanks for the laugh. This story is already losing its wheels in la belle province and the latest chatter is actually starting to suggest that Iggy might have made the right move. Cauchon is extremely articulate and camera friendly. He's a Mulclair killer and that's the point. The Liberals can't afford to let the NDP start to piss in their back yard. Le Prohon had an outside chance of beating Mulclair, Cauchon switches those odds and that's what they'll be talking about in Quebec at Thanksgiving.

What we have now mascarading itself as a Conservative movement is nothing more than a bunch of park yer brains at the door libertarians bolstered by "social conservatives". This Conservative Party knows nothing about conservatism. It is disheartening to say the least.

I see your point. But this is rather different from a self-help group model. Corrections Canada has a mandate to rehabilitate offenders. If Corrections has a proven, cost efficient, program at its disposal that greatly reduces recidivism, it has a duty to incorporate it in the name of public safety. I can more readily accept such drive-by generalizations if they can be supported by a relevant example. Can you identify an example of a rehabilitative program under Corrections Canada that has become an open spigot?

I care. Like it or not, these offenders are eventually released. Effective treatment reduces the likelyhood that they'll produce more victims. This program has proven itself to be quite effective.