kengs333

I'd rather have politics dealt with in the legislature than on the streets. The legislature is intended to be a place where the people are represented, and if we happen to have a large immigrant population that doesn't feel their concerns are being taken seriously enough, then it only stands to reason that they could start a political party. Anyone can start a political party, so long as it has an agenda that is lawful. The fact of the matter is that we have a large immigrant population in this province--which includes me--and nothing can really change that now. The person who seems to have the biggest issue with this may want to reveal what party (ies) he votes for so that we can see whether he supported parties that allow such immigration to occur. The problem with all of the complaints about MMP is that FPTP can also have its probelms; in Britain at the moment there are minor parties such as Health Concern and Respect-The Unity Party, both with one seat each. Is this not an example of how the FPTP is a flawed system? Perhaps we should get rid of FPTP as well.

This is the kind of absolute nonsense that just leaves me so dismayed about politics in Canada. Is it just me, or does it seem like there are a couple of nutcases here who MMP to fail on the grounds that MMP will supposedly make it easier for nutcases to get elected? Irony?

Nobodys arguing that disease didn't kill some Indians, but there's no way of determining how many. Using a figure like 95% is irresponsible because the Indians didn't conduct a census in 1491, or any time before that; nor did they keep records of births and deaths. What we do know is that basically all Indian groups did survive "Conquest" and in order for that to happen there could not have been systematic attempts to exterminate them. Incidently, the only Euro I know is the currency.

I'm fairly certain that all documents from that period are now publically accessable.

Universities in Canada are simply not the hotbed of political aggitation as they are in Europe, which always makes me have to laugh when people complain about Canadian universities being a haven for Leftist radicals. I think the only exception may be radical feminists. Canadian universities are concerned about their image because anything that smacks of political aggitation lessens the chance of getting corporate support. In Europe, given it's troubled past, students are much more aware of their rights and are more apt to voice their discontent with politics, how a university is run.

Don't they have mock elections federally and don't the youth actually tend to go Liberal, NDP, Green in that order?

I think given our population, a party that receives about 600,000 can hardly be considered "fringe". If that many Canadians suddenly died, it would be a catastrophe. That many Canadians not being represented in Parlaiment is, however, quite acceptable? Politics in Israel is irrelevant in this discussion. You've mucked things up here a bit. While there are technically SIX parties in the Bundestag, the CDU and CSU actually form one party. It's one of those little quirks about German politics that Bavaria still maintains a certain degree of autonomy. The CSU is essentially the Bavarian wing of the CDU. So that results in FIVE parties" CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, PDS and Die Gruenen. You'll notice that there are no really small parties with one or two seats; all of the parties have a minimum of 8%.

The real problem here is your classification of things to be what they are not, namely using the term "fringe party" to refer to minor parties. In Germany, for instance, which uses the MMP system that is proposed for Ontario, there are I believe only five parties represented at the federal level. Coalitions are formed, but in the case of the coalitions between the SPD and the Greens it was usually the Greens that found themselves having to conform. I think it's fair to say that coalition governments in Germany have worked quite well, although I suppose one of the reasons is that many Germans are much more politically aware than are Canadians. Canadians have been conditioned for too long the the system we have to be apathetic. Our role has simply been reduced to voting every once and awhile in order to elect the same old kind of self-serving politician.

All of my statements are based on fact. When I've quoted sources, I've provided links. Links to credible news sources, not crap like MNN. I'm still waiting for a source for your claim that the Gautieris claimed to have been attacked by FIFTEEN Indians. I doubt it will ever be forthcoming, but I'll ask again anyway.

And yet I've never seen a specific reference to any one of these pages by any member of the Sixi Nations.

From what I've seen the Great Law doesn't seem to be taken all that serious by members of the SN. It's a nice ideal, but not much more.

Honestly, if you tried to prove a point this way in a university classroom, you'd be laughed at and ridiculed. The outbreak of smallpox would most likely have come as a result of direct contact with contageous people. Payment in blankets was done because it was considered an object of value. Had the European really wanted to "exterminate" the Indians, it could easily have been done. The fact that every known Indian group in Canada except the Beothuk and the Neutrals (who were largely exterminated by the Five Nations) remain indicates that this was not the policy.

Oh, that's interesting. I'm wondering if genocidal behvaiour committed by Indians against other Indians is going to be included in its mandate. Probably not. Nor will it dwell on the fact that many of the earliest colonists, who came here in peace and who were in no position to defend themselves were routinely slaughtered. I guess the only way to fight biased, one-sided history is with biased, one-sided history. How will such a museum accomplish anything positive?

Why would anyone want to resort to such a thing?

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Again, oral histories have nothing much to offer on this subject. I'm not sure where dna evidence comes into this; how exactly can it contribute to the understanding of how disease spread among Indians? And why is it that "whitey" science suddenly has merit when it supposedly can bolster one of your claims? One thing dna evidence has shown is that the Indians were not native to NA at all; they originated from around Mongolia and Siberia. Except for the Ojibway, who evidently come from southern Europe. The true first invaders from Europe...

Yeah, this was predictable enough. I think there is only one verifiable instance of the British using disease to do away with a few tribes, but this in Michigan, I believe. The accidental introduction of European diseases would have spread through the Native populations on their own accord, and just because it was rapid--it is supposed--doesn't mean it was deliberate. Whatever the case, the population of North America can only be surmised, and of course those who want to make the coming of Europeans more brutal than it was like to conjure up nice large figures.

In northern Europe they did face some Waffen SS units, but these were members of the Hitler Jugend Division, boys of sixteen and seventeen years of age. I think many people put to much stock in the fact that Waffen SS units were somehow all elite units. They weren't. The first few that were formed early on could be considered elite, but even they were worn down by such high casualty rates that by 1943/44 that they were no better than the average Wehrmacht division. Granted some SS units fought tenaciously because the men knew that they were dead anyways if they surrendered. Anyone who has studied the N. European campaign knows that the units were second rate. The German's main concern was with the Russians, that's where most of the men and equipment were deployed. Were the Germans not at war with Russia, the Allies never would have been able to set foot on the Continent.

Oh, I really don't get that impression. People seem to want no change in the electoral process, let alone the system of governance. The only people who make an issue about it are Albertans and some other western radicals who still carry the ideological dead weight of their immigrant American ancestors. Currently we have a party in power that in some respects is founded on those principles and yet it's leader, our PM, goes about acting as though he has the best interest of Canada in mind. The faster he gets the boot, then better. I really hope there's an election this fall.

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It's supposed to be a blend between parlaimentary democracy and "traditional" consensus decision making, but during the five minutes that I watched the election, there was a piece about how it doesn't really work and that party politics will likely become the norm. So I guess what we have here is an example of how all this talk about how things were done way back when is overly idealized and ignores the fact that there was always one factor involved that always mucks up ideal forms of governance: human behaviour.

Actually, I read quite a bit about Canadian military history, and that's what I base my opinions on. I don't "buy into" things, I base my opinions on fact. Militaristic societies are those where the military plays a prominent role in society, like pre-WWI Europe, for instance, or medieval Japan. Canada has largely relied on volunteers to man its armies, and while they usually performed well, I think that the majority could never have been considered exceptional soldiers. The Canadian Army in WWII in N. Europe was always plagued by poor equipment and poor training. They accomplished what they did because Canadians usually fought against second-rate troops in the last few months of a war that saw the bulk of Germany's army engaged and decimated on the Eastern Front. No disrespect to the Canadian soldier who did fight in N. Europe, but let's face it, that's the way it was.

No they aren't. They're hired guns, mercenaries who believe that they are above the law.

Men who are supposed to defend Canada are being trained by guns-for-hire--that doesn't seem like a problem to you? I can just see it: The Royal Blackwater Regiment of Canada. How sad. My declining respect for the Canadian Forces has just dropped another notch.

Do we really need another thread about this kind of subject?