kengs333

Well again, maybe you'd like to explain why Canadian law, in your opinion, is suddenly valid when it supports your agenda.

grannyrants, Writing evolved out of the need to keep reliable records of financial transactions and law codes. This implies that more advanced civilizations began to realize that there had to be some sort of concrete means of substantiating facts that could be open to interpretation. Whether you like it or not, the fact of the matter is that the only records that we have on this issue are written and printed accounts originating from the European side. We can only go on what is written in them, to try and determine how much what is written is tainted by bias is simply speculation. We can't ever know what was said in order to generate these documents, nor can we really ever know the personalities of the people involved; but much of what the Six Nations is trying to accomplish, however, rests upon these unknowns. In order to settle this issue in a manner that is acceptable to the Six Nations, we would have to accept their century-and-a-half unverifiable claims, and this is simply something that should not be happening in the 21st century. What the Six Nations is trying to do is regressive, it undermines the very basis of our civilization, and simply should not be tolerated any further. We need to start looking at things through reason and logic, not emotion and fantasy.

Interesting how our individualistic, anti-nuclear family society needs to import traditionally minded nuclear families in order to keep from imploding.

Again, complete misrepresentations of what MMP has to offer. There are other countries where the proposed system is used, perhaps you can proved some proof to back up your assumptions, and then we can enter into a really debate on the pros and cons of MMP. Candidates elected through the party votes would not be appointed by the party, but likely elected by party members in a process no different than the election of the party leader. How exactly were John Tory and Dalton McGuinty made party leader? Most people who voted Liberal in the last election had no say in the matter. Any party that "appoints" candidates on the party list that are not acceptable will likely not be voted for, and if those that do get elected don't conduct themselves in a manner that is accountable to the public, during the next election, that party will probably receive less votes. Minority government can often run smoothly and provide better results because the parties are forced to compromise. Sure beats having a majority government elected with 40% of the vote ramming things down our throat like the Harris Tories did. If enough people out there feel that a "fringe party" best reflects their views, then those views should be represented in the legislature.

The Green Party has some policies that I'm all in favour with, others that I can't stomach, but now that they've become somewhat more centrist, I find them tolerable enough that I would consider them over the three pathetic mainstream options that our media has conditioned us to accept as the only viable options. What I'd really like to see is a party that: 1) is socialist, but socially conservative 2) is pro-family farm and small business 3) values heritage and tradition 4) is monarchist 5) is conservationist, not "green" I want to see a complete revamping of the public school system so that it places more emphasis on intellectual development and competativeness. While all students should be encouraged to be the best they can be, those that excell should be duly encouraged and rewarded. I also want to see the province reverse the trend of manufacturing jobs being exported overseas; this is more than just protecting jobs, it's about reducing dependancy on foreign countries and maintaining a manufacturing infrastructure and workforce. The province should give more support to technological innovation.

Riding candidates and the list candidates are two seperate things. The riding candidates are elected using the current method of "first past the post" and what happens in the PR side of the vote has no bearing on the riding candidates.

That's why Canada wants immigrants, because of their money, and then they come here and they don't receive the benefits that they were promised, the money runs out, and they go on social assistance, or go back to their homeland. Like it or not, Canada is largely an English speaking country and many of the immigrants who come here don't speak English that well. It's not the good old days when they could get land and live isolated from the rest of the world in ethnic communities on the Prairies. The options for people who can't speak English well in a service-oriented economy are minimal. I personally would like to see an emphasis put on securing immigrants from Europe and the Commonwealth where one can expect people to have a good understanding of the English language.

No, he'll just run in the next federal alection and become one of Harper's cronies.

The word "niggardly" has no connection to "nigger" from what I understand.

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Why don't you, "sara" aka "grannyrants"? You've never offered much of anything to any discussion here, just misinformation and utter nonsense.

That basically defines most Indians, doesn't it?

Very interesiting...

Whatever the case, it's religious persecution.

Italy doesn't use MMP. Italy is always used by people who fear-monger about electoral reform. The sad fact of the matter is that countries like Canada and the US who proport to be the beacons of democracy in the world have electoral systems that are anything but democratic, while countries that were once ruled by autocratic monarchs and totalitarian regimes have now established working democracies that have some sort of PR electoral system. I'd say it's time for Canada to get with it, and we can start right here in Ontario.

Sorry, but this is completely false. If, for example, 35% of the electorate vote for a party and this eqautes into 60% of the seats at Queen Park, you feel that this better represents the will of the people? Hardly. Under the proposed system, a party has to receive a minimum of 3% of the vote for it to qualify for the PR seats. As it stands, this may result in the Green Party getting a few seats; otherwise, it should just make the seat count of the three main parties more proportional. That's about it. If you're going to make falacious arguments about supposed single-issue parties somehow "distorting... the people's will" perhaps you could provide examples of this from countries where MMP is used. Where do you get this nonsense from? This is not what is happening in countries where MMP is used. If 10% of the population believes that the platform of a party is the best option, then this should translate into 10% or so of the seats--not 0%. The whole purpose of a democratic parlaiment/legislature is to represent to people of Canada/a province, and any system that doesn't permit this is not truly democratic.

You can couch it in as sophisticated an argument as you can muster, but in the end oral histories are notoriously unreliable. It would seem to me that the courts have been forced into a position of having to accept such a thing as valid for the sake of being "culturally sensitive". Personally, I find it interesting how you place so much emphasis on the fact that the courts now accept oral history as having "much weight," while at the same time being critical of the Canadian legal system for up holding the legality of past land sales and surrenders.

The Greens don't have the same appeal provincially that they have federally, so I think that the Greens will be gaining much by making this sort of stand. In general, I agree with their stance on the environment, and during the last decade they have become somewhat more centrist, although still have a few issues that I don't see eye-to-eye with. But siding with peoples that resort to goon tactics in order to push their racial-nationalistic agenda is not going to improve their already precarious position. As for the NDP, well, two words sums up their chances of getting elected: Bob Rae.

Am I correct in thinking that this is her, too? http://profiles.yahoo.com/ckiddonline

This is a misrepresentation of the MMP system that is being proposed because the countries that are always used as exampes of how PR results in "indecisive governments and overly frequent elections" don't use MMP. I think the thing that frieghtens me most about the referendum is that it will likely result in a no vote because most people just plain ignorant.

The added cost is such a lame excuse for not having electoral reform. Given the population of Ontario, the amount of representation that we have is too small as it is. This is a system that is used in a number of countries and it works, it is more represeantative. It shocks me that people are so content with an electoral system that negates the majority of votes, produces such disproportionate seating arrangements at Queen's Park.

Wow, talk about juvenile.

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Oh the Mohawk have resorted to using child soldiers, have they? That sounds like a human rights violation to me...

In case anyone's interested, there's a video of some Six Nations "warriors" at thespec.com in the Local section's Featured Multimedia.