Carinthia

It's ironic that you should mention the Russian/Canadian hockey game. I had absolutley no interest in hockey until I got swept up watching the Canadian women's team win the gold a few years back. Then the men's team won too. Wow, that was amazing and due to these games, I am now an ardent hockey fan.

I am spending my own money...by the fact that I support the Government to spend my tax contributions in giving a mere token of it to our Canadian athletes for a job well done. It's well known that Canadians do not celebrate their own. We are modest to a fault. We want the medals, we want the winners, but some of us are not willing to give support to our fellow Canadians who spend their youth working their butt off to make us all proud to be Canucks. The Olympics are one of the funner, nicer things in life for us all to enjoy. What is so wrong with spending money on things that inspire us and give us a lift? In my mind, there is no reason why we cannot spare a few bucks to give our young people an incentive to represent us. The Government has spent a lot more money on things like statues. Our athletes are symbols too, a symbol of our talent as a nation.

If we had paid our athletes who won gold, silver and bronze medals from the last winter games, it would have cost a total of $360,000. Whoopee ding! I take great pride when our athletes demonstrate what their personal sacrifices, hard work, and personal expense can yeild in regards to representing Canada at the Worlds Olympics. Good grief, does everything always have to come down to politics, the poor, etc? Where is the sense of pride in just being Canadian? If this was $360 million, I might think differently but it is a mere token to give thanks to such fine representatives of our Country. Speaking of Canadians and self loathing...as per another thread on same. :angry:

LOL, agreed! They're all self serving crooks.

Campbell apologized, as he should have and as I said in my earlier post, this is very unlike him. If it wasn't for the upcoming Olympics, he sure wouldn't have been so quick to humble himself. Too bad he is isn't always this transparent.

After watching the video myself, listening to and reading the thoughts of a few ex RCMP officers, and the fact that the BC Premier has apologized to guy's Mother, there is no doubt in my mind that the cops blew it big time. There is no rush to judgement happening. We are not all riddled with predjudices and we are not all too stupid that we can't comprehend what we are seeing either. If that tape was so inconclusive, then why has a formal inquiry been called and why has the Premier already apologized? Very un Campbell like, if you ask me.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home Although many of the people involved in the discussions between the Mulroney and Schreiber camps have elected not to speak publicly, it can be said with certainty that Mr. Mulroney did not disclose the cash payments as income in the years that he received the money. He later exercised the legal right of any Canadian to come forward to the Canada Revenue Agency and paid what he owed. The CRA created its voluntary disclosure program in 1973 so that taxpayers could declare unreported income without fear of prosecution. Tax lawyers and CRA officials often refer to the program as a “win-win” situation; it's an opportunity for taxpayers to rectify past errors and an opportunity for the government to collect funds it might otherwise never receive. CRA literature calls it a “fairness program that is aimed at providing clients with an opportunity to correct past omissions.” None of the government officials or tax experts interviewed by The Globe and CBC spoke directly about Mr. Mulroney's case; rather, they were asked to answer questions about the process and provide insight into hypothetical situations. CRA officials are forbidden by law from discussing the filings of individual taxpayers. According to the agency's data from 2005-2006, there were 7,300 applications for voluntary disclosures, of which around 2,200 were denied. The program helped uncover $330-million that had yet to be assessed for taxes. One of the key stipulations for making such a disclosure is that the income has to be declared without any hint of an investigation by the agency. In other words, people can't wait until tax investigators discover they made a mistake on their taxes and then try to make things rights by disclosing the income. A valid disclosure must also provide a complete explanation of the circumstances behind the unreported income. Those facts raise questions about when Mr. Mulroney filed his disclosure and what he told investigators about the income. If Mr. Mulroney made his voluntary disclosure any time after Nov. 2, 1995, he would have been aware that he was the subject of an investigation by the RCMP, a highly publicized probe that focused specifically on his relationship with Mr. Schreiber – the very person who provided him the undisclosed income. According to CRA spokeswoman Béatrice Fénelon, a person who is the subject of a criminal investigation can still file a valid voluntary disclosure, but the taxpayer must be completely upfront with investigators. “If he is the subject of an investigation and is aware of it, [he] is under the obligation to disclose that they are under investigation as part of making a complete disclosure of information,” she wrote. Also, Mr. Mulroney's spokesman, Mr. Lavoie, has repeatedly referred to the cash payments as a “retainer.” Stevan Novoselac, a partner at the law firm Gowlings and a tax expert, said in an interview that a retainer isn't taxable income until the funds are taken out of a lawyer's trust account and a bill is rendered to the client. Is it possible that Mr. Mulroney waited to pay his taxes because he had been holding Mr. Schreiber's payment in trust and didn't immediately consider it income? If so, he wouldn't need to file a voluntary tax disclosure. He simply would have disclosed the payment on his annual tax return the same year that he took the $300,000 out of trust. Moreover, Mr. Schreiber maintains he never received a bill for the services Mr. Mulroney provided. ________________________ You guys can defend him all you want but the whole thing stinks and stinks good!

It was just announced on CKNW radio from Vancouver, that BC Premier Gordon Campbell is trying to reach the polish man's Mother to offer her an official apology. Gee, guess that means that even he thinks the cops done wrong.

He didn't pay taxes on the money until he had to. I hope the taxpayers get back the $2 million. And let's charge Chretian while we're at it. Maybe the two of them can share a cell. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/02112007/3/tops...ngerous-pm.html The program also revealed that Mulroney did not pay taxes on the payments in the years he received the money. He later made a voluntary disclosure of the income to Revenue Canada.

Even though I believe that this incident was completely unnessary by the cops, I do still think that tasers should and can be used by law enforcement. Much more training is required and limitations imposed regarding their use on the general public. Tasers can have a useful place in an increasing violent society. The lack of training for the cops and the negligence of the airport staff are more to blame in this incident than anything else. If serious criminals are tasered and die, then that's the risk they take for breaking the law and resisting arrest. For one thing, cops should be trained not to jump on top of someone who has just been tased. This is overkill and doesn't give the recipient a chance to comply. Writhing around in pain on the floor is quite different than resisting arrest. Tasers should be used as a last resort only. Not charge in, rush up, stun someone, and then everybody jump on top of them to boot. The people who were seriously out of control in this situation, were the cops.

Ya, I stuck my nose in a couple of American sites as well. Got slapped down a few times. Good to see a Canadian forum like this one. If folks have something to contribute, who cares where they live? I kind of understand their sensitivity though. If our country was on the worlds hotseat, we might become more defensive too.

What I find more than curious is the fact that when the owner of the video turned it over to the cops, they told him it would be returned to him in 48 hours. Then they had a look at it, and lo and behold they wouldn't give it back. He had to obtain a lawyer and go public to get it back. Now, ya don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that they knew, that what they saw on that video, was not going to look real pretty to the public and the powers that be. Then the next day, we have some head cop on TV telling us all, that what we saw on that video, we didn't really see, as they have other witnesses blah, blah, blah. Do I smell a Rodney King scenario happening here? Millions of people around the world, according to the assessment in the early days of that event, didn't see cops acting like thugs on that video either.

Actually the opposite is true. The media drug their feet and took far too long in exposing this regime. If they had done their job, Bush would not have been elected again in 2004. I remember the media lauding him after his first congressional address and lauding him in the weeks after 9/11. It wasn't until after it came to light that he had lied about the WMD that they started to report the truth.

A dismal failure that has changed the world as we knew it. The very first thing that went wrong was the fact that he was appointed by the Supreme Court. It went downhill from there.

Geez, I would never have thought I might die for making a mistake at an airport! Chances are this guy had never flown in his life before. This was tragic, yes. Accident? No! As far as the RCMP frequently being on the firing line goes, I don't recall ever seeing them on the firing line by the media unless they deserved to be on the firing line. And without videos to record events, they are a bunch of liars to boot. They are seldom held fully accountable for any mistakes they make. What about the guy up north who was shot in the back of the head by a cop? This was self defense? I don't think so.

I sure hope so too!! Let's hope that the press keeps on it, and on it, and on it.

Thank God it was noticed, as now this taser thing is under scrutiny. Lucky for all those who have apparantly been tasered daily, haven't died! Sixteen others in Canada have, not to mention what's gone on in the U.S. Not one single person, who is unarmed and has comitted no real crime, should die in such a reckless fashion at the hands of our law enforcement, ever. I'm sorry, but he didn't look that out of control on that video. They walked in and tasered him wthin seconds, with no questioning, nothing. The cops are using these tasers in a power trip manner. Looks to me like they think they're having fun. A boys and their toys scenario. Sick! Well, now each one of those individuals will have to live with the consequences of their impulsive action.

I would think that when the cops get tasered in training, it is done with care. When they rush at somebody who they want downed, they press a whole lot harder and are not quite so gentle or descretionary as to where they aim the damned thing. Big difference!

And they didn't tell her he was dead even though they knew this when they phoned her.

According to all the reports that I saw, his Mother was there to meet him and spent hours trying to find him. She said she couldn't get assistance from anybody. After a few hours of trying to find him and getting no help from anybody, she probably assumed he had missed his plane in Poland and went home to try to figure out what was going on. A very tragic series of events, as he was tasered far from the gate where his plane had landed. He had obviously spent hours wandering around trying to figure out where to go. Airports have interpreters and none were called to assist this guy.

I would agree, if we had seen a certain percentage of terrorists at our airports over the last six years of constant terror mongering. Seems to me though, that all we have seen over the last 6 years, since 9/11, is 100% percent of ordinary citizens going about their business at our airports. As was previously stated, he had no weapon or he wouldn't have been on the loose. A few questions on the scene and a proper evaluation of the situation was clearly missing. If cops are not being trained properly to use these weapons and/or these weapons are killing people, which they obviously are, then there needs to be a moratorium placed on there use until a thorough investigation has been carried out. This was a senseless death. If somebody does have a mental issue, does this mean that the cops have the right to rush up, man handle and kill them? Where the hell has our compassion and patience gone?

The wrongly convicted is about the only reason I would hesitate to support the return of the death penalty. I have a hard time getting past that one too. We have had 2 or 3 people wrongly convicted in Canada that we know about, in the past 10 years and that's 2 or 3 too many.

Our laws are already based on revenge. Revenge is the preliminary emotion that leads to justice or the desire for it. Not much difference between revenge and justice really.

Equating public toilets with child killers is unfair, I have more respect and compassion for public toilets. When Richard Speck, the guy who slaughtered 8 student nurses in one afternoon, died of a heart attack, it was reported that one of the nurses who was on duty that day, said that they tried so hard to revive him they used a toilet plunger. Fitting! When a vicious killer takes the life of a child, they have killed two things...the child and the soul of the childs Mother. Yes, I'm sure many a Mother who has suffered this kind of grief would want to continue to breath the same air as a beast who took her baby away for no other reason than selfish, unspeakable pleasure.