Visionseeker

Oh they'll be blowback. My own conversation with a chief of staff had him express it roughly this way: It's over. You know you've lost too many games in the regular season and won't be competitive in the playoffs. Nothing will change that. But suddenly the coach wants you to move down to the second line and kill penalties instead of working the power play. You know that you're not the reason the team is losing and they know it too. They're just fiddling with the lines because they've got nothing else - they've simply given-up on solving the problem. I was left speechless.

Right. Success measured on a boom/bust cycle. Thanks for making my point.

Which sectors of government have grown? Are they addressing needs like education, health care, or some other area? MLA wage cuts won't amout to anything financially, but would deliver a limited PR success. Beyond that, where the specific "pork" you'd cut? Sure they do. Dippers do as well. The difference is that when they say them, they pay for it by resigning. When conservatives say them, a half-baked apology is offered in the hopes that the offended will eventually forget. But that only works if the misstep is a rarity. But I digress... The stupid things said in these instances are evidence of anything but progressivism existing within the ranks of the present government.

Um, conservatives have been in power in Alberta for 40 years. So they wear both the success and failure record over the entire era. History proves that the impressions of success or failure for Alberta governments are directly tied to the yield of royalties from oil and gas. In the 80's, NEP was blamed for what was fundamentally Alberta's excessive dependence on an elastic industry. That elasticity has emerged again and, without NEP to blame, people are apt to look for real answers to the province's over dependence on a commodities industry. Alberta has twice failed to take advantage of windfall periods to invest in economic diversification. And these failures reinforce the notion that the province has become nothing more than a great big boom town where the riches are soon to disappear and all that will be left behind are some ranches and big swaths of pollution.

These are progressives!: Alberta Finance Minister Iris Evans Evans stresses one parent should stay at home Conservative MLA Doug Elniski "don't give me that 'treated equal' stuff" And these are but the most recent public displays of Leave it to Beaver nostalgia from the government ranks. I think your response is somewhat lacking... if only in the labelling department. Seriously, what is your solution to Alberta's current economic woes?

No. The problem with voter turnout is not a question of the medium given to the voter to voice their preference. It's a deeper question of disengagement. For some, this disengagement is born from growing frustration with a system that offers them a choice between a few unrepresentative figure heads that will have no power unless they win their riding and the PM brings them into cabinet. For others, it's simply an admission that they know too little about the issues and/or candidates to make an informed choice come election time. Making voting "easier" solves neither of these problems.

Aaargh matey! Finally, a party for the likes of me. Yarrr!

Alberta's deficit, original thought to come in at $4.7 billion, is now expected to grow much higher: Alberta's record deficit expected to jump by $2B The province that only recently prided itself on eliminating its $25 billion debt is well on course to re-accumulate it in just a few short years. Now the government faces choices that were almost laughable as recently as last year: cutting spending and raising taxes. With natural gas and oil prices fetching far less than projected and a number of planned energy development projects all but abandoned by the oil and gas sector, serious questions are bound to be raised about the province's reliance on royalties from commodity based industries to fuel the public coffers. To make matters worse, the true environmental costs of some of the projects that are in operation are only now coming to light. We've seen what happened to the seal hunt when committed activists focused their attention on vilifying culling practices that have gone on for over a millennium. What will happen if such attention is brought to bear on "dirty oil"? Are these fiscal problems just a one-off, short term problem that will sort itself out shortly (like in a year or two), or are they but a symptom of a more profound crisis facing the province over the long term?

The two situations are in no way analogous. The NY Senate has experienced a reverse Cadman or maybe a Belinda Stronach moment in that unprincipled and indictable Democrats have crossed the floor. The threatened December pull down was a legitimate parliamentary exercise where representatives for parties that had almost 2/3 of the vote suggested that they might act.

I was in Florida not too long ago and found myself amongst a number of my fellow Canadians and a smattering of our southern cousins when the topic of world affairs came up. By rights, the Canadians were winning the day. The "other side" was becoming disheartened. So I, the fecal agitator, secretly fed them questions about Canadian history. My first feeds were kind of obscure. But then I gave simple items like first PM, date of confederation any WWI battle involving Canadians. The results were...abysmal. I came to realize from the experience that the “moneyed class” of Canadians don’t know all that much about their country. The worst example was a follow-up to the softball question (which CBC personality was a coach of the Boston Bruins?) - all correctly identified Cherry. But the follow-up asked “What city, which is also the city that house our Royal Military College, does he call home? They went 0 for 14.

A programming error! What a let down.

It's all moot. She'll be out of her job soon after the writ is dropped next week. Brace yourselves, we're headed for a summer election.

That little piece of information gives me an idea as to your annual earnings. Some pay it off in May, others by July, but most actually go as far as December because it is deducted as a share of earnings. About a quarter of employed Canadians contribute less than the maximum.

WRONG! The maximum allowable CPP contribution for 2008 was $2049.30 regardless of income (check your tax forms)See line 308. That represents just over 5% for someone earning 40K a year, and less than 2% for someone making 103K a year. But I don't dispute that contributions will be forced higher in the future.

Correct. Unfortunately many a boomer failed (and continues to fail) to understand this. Changes to contributions are noted elsewhere above. But the other change was the creation of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board charged with investing existing CPP surplus contributions in more aggressive ways than the plan previously allowed. Over ten years, the board has averaged a 4.9% rate of return. As I've posted elsewhere, this is wholly insufficient and, without other changes, will only delay the funds' bankruptcy by 2 or 3 years. CPP can only remain solvent by increasing penalties for pre 65 retirement and, more importantly, raising the retirement age to 70. What most people don't understand is that the 65 year retirement age was set when only 49% of males and 53% of females lived that long: CPP was simply a big 50/50 paying out to the 50% who lived long enough to collect it. We're living longer and, relatively speaking, working less. CPP won't survive unless we recognize this.

Damn, those Liberals are good! They think in the long term. Guess they have to with the deficits they keep inheriting from the Tories.

Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt called the medical isotopes crisis "sexy," said she wanted to take credit for fixing it, and expressed doubts about the skills of Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq on a recording obtained by The Chronicle Herald. Hum, toying with the fears of cancer patients is sexy. That's some strange political pornography if you ask me. Nope. No morals here people. Time to look away. Wait a minute! I thought you said it was all about money. You mean you haven't solved this already? What!? There's more!? Yes, for it seems that Ms Raitt expense practices as CEO of the Toronto Airport Authority are at issue. Not only that, it seems that John Baird has been dragged into the equation with accusations of manipulating/intimidated the Board of said authority in order to prevent such expenses from being "overly" scrutinized. Add to this the Mayor O'Brien trial in Ottawa - its potential of a guilty verdict - and you've got a rats' nest of scandal confronting this government. Is it no wonder that they're having a hard time staffing? Who signs on to join a sinking ship? This is what the industry calls a snowball. For Ignatieff, June 21 seems so far off; for Harper, it seems far too soon.

It hasn't been demanded before. Now it is. Some will comply and get a passport. Other will just make other plans. I think it's a shame personally. Considering that the only known terrorist to cross the border was tipped-off to US customs by CSIS and apprehended, it seems a shame that cousins now need a secret handshake to meet. We use to be neighbours who could camp on each other's lawn without any fuss. Now we've gotta jump some hoops. It's too bad really. But life is a temporary state where only the circumstances change.

Ownership of the land is sometimes disputed, not with rifles, but through the ledger of history: rifles only come out when governments refuse to read. Man, you really got issues don't you. I gotta ask, when you wake up in the morning, do you pick the object of you hate then? Or do you let a few hours pass before you pick a target to piss on? Repeat after me Argus: I am a visitor on the big turtle... Once you understand that basic premise, we can explore the remaining verses.

Yes. To Sam. Raise a glass or, better yet, your own personal expectations. May Sam's spirit give the eagles a new member.

Stats Can population projections Canada's Population Estimates

If that was indeed the standard being applied, it would be meaningless. But what the province is correcting is the notion that allophones necessarily produce anglophone children. My daughters French language school has maybe 60% French as mother tongue pupils. The rest come from allophone parents with a greater familiarity of French over English or families such as mine - perfectly comfortable in either official language. I am born from two solitudes. And it is my duty to hand down this hybrid gift to my children. As for the allophone parents, I see there desire to effectively engage in their child's education as their primary motivation: that, and the warm inclusiveness that the Francophone community affords them. Minorities seem almost innately attracted to other minorities. And it is my and my children's experience that a marvelous and diverse community springs from this. Where's the waste? Are my children less worthy than others? No, the real waste is found in the countless numbers of Canadian children whose parents refuse their children of the gift of learning other languages and cultures when it is readily available. At my daughter's school they offer a weekly Spanish lesson in her before school program. About three weeks ago my daughter decided to recite what she's learned. Now I know enough Spanish to correct her when she's made a mistake with basic words, but my wife is the "expert" on this front so I play dumb and defer to her. But two weeks ago, she started counting in Spanish and I answered each number in German. We counted to thirty together in our chosen languages at least six times and then she switched and counted flawlessly in German. I congratulated her on the result and she responded «merci papa pour me faire apprendre» or "thank you daddy for helping me learn". That my friends is what languages are: a window to vast stores of knowledge and culture - to indulge in it, you need only open the window.

As do I. My wife's mother tongue is Romanian, her first language is English and her third is French. By definition, my mother tongue is English yet I am fully bilingual. My kids go to French school or daycare and I almost always speak to them in French. They can all speak English, but their first language is French. By the earlier definition, they would not be considered as Francophone. Not only is this wrong, it's rather insulting.

Indeed. Alberta's employment figures are certainly better. But then Alberta has never really had a manufacturing sector to speak of. Further, Alberta's oil fields draw many a migrant worker. When these people get laid-off, the go back home to NFLD, and the Atlantic provinces or wherever else they may be from. These exits help keep Alberta's unemployed numbers down while raising the figures elsewhere. On the deficit front, $4.7 billion for 3.5 million inhabitants versus $18.7 billion for 12.9 million souls is pretty comparable: Alberta per capita = $1343 Ontario per capita = $1450 Now if we turn to the social and environmental implications of each province's economy, a different picture emerges entirely. Alberta is both blessed and cursed by dinosaurs having been buried great quantities under its soil. On the one hand, she benefits from the exploitation of an extremely lucrative commodity; on the other she pays the price of the dirty boom town that will eventually go bust. Believe it or not, Alberta has bigger long term problems than Ontario will ever have.