Wild Bill

Hey, I won't argue! However, the reason many non-natives in Caledonia do not any longer support native claims is that the native protesters took actions that affected the townspeople, not the government. In effect, they used them as cannon fodder. We've never heard of those protesters marching on Queens Park, or Parliament Hill, or even the local MP or MPP's office. Old people and tv camera men get punched out. Nobody punches McGuinty. And why punch out cameramen? The only logical reason is that the protesters didn't want their actions seen and recorded on videotape. Otherwise, why would they care? No, the protesters at Caledonia burned all their bridges with the townsfolk. That community had had good relations for generations. Not just as neighbours but in many cases as extended families. Now the town's businesses are dying and people can't even afford to sell their homes to move somewhere else. Worse yet, there are those on the native side who will call any townsperson who complains a simple racist who should just suck it up! Frankly, your post seems to imply that all whites are guilty. If that's not true racism I don't know what is! Perhaps you would care to clarify your meaning. If a protester had roared his ATV through Dalton's backyard I would have felt differently. The problem was never native claims but rather the TACTICS of the Caledonia protest! It made enemies out of friends and ignored real enemies. No matter what is the resolution of the land claims, the bad feelings in the town will take generations to heal, if ever.

I think you're simply being partisan. You don't like Conservatives so you don't like Duffy. If he was a Liberal it wouldn't bother you. Perhaps the bias on Mike's part that you seemed to sense was simply a case of more clear and practical thinking? Mike always struck me as being much more logical than many CBC commentators. He would ask the deeper questions, like "Where is the money going to be found?" or "How can that WORK?". Since these questions are rarely raised by the Left, I can see why Mike would bother you. Whatever! Any real or imagined bias on Mike's part as a private broadcaster is now moot, although as I implied I doubt if you have any complaints about bias on the part of the CBC. Mike is no longer in media! He is a Senator and now is SUPPOSED to air his own views! That is what he has done in his comments about Danny Williams and Joe Ghiz. He was not appointed to be their cheerleaders, although he also has the right to do that if he wishes. His words were fair comment. They represent the beliefs of many other Canadians. Moreover, his candor contained a fair dollop of humour and wit, something desperately needed in Ottawa since the exit of John Crosby. This illustrates another reason why I've never found the Left to be appealing. They often seem to be a preachy, cheerless bunch! They often lack humour, as with Al Franken's attempt at a left-wing talk show. Long on sarcasm but short on genuine laughter.

Ah, must have hit a nerve if you are retreating to accusations of thread drift! Let me see if I understand you. The native protesters commit acts of violence that only directly affect the townsfolk of Caledonia. I figure that it's obvious that these are actions of conflict between two communities, since only these two communities are affected. You counter that that it's NOT between two communities! Then who else is involved? None of the protest action has affected any level of government. Both the feds and the province are just hiding! To my knowledge, no direct protest action has been taken against the federal or provincial government. Perhaps you can explain how the town of Caledonia has NOT been used as cannon fodder! You are asking us to deny what is plain and obvious! And that makes ME the 'centre of the universe"? You expect me to believe you just because you say so and ignore what I've seen with my own eyes! Did you just come down off Mount Sinai?

Well, I've always been more of a "Robert Heinlein" kind of a guy...

Yet that is PRECISELY my point! The violence and tactics of the native protesters have been virtually entirely against the townsfolk! It IS a struggle between 'communities of people"! Have we even seen one protest sign waved in front of a politician's home? Has anyone blockaded Queen's Park? Did anyone blow up a power transformer to black out OTTAWA for 3 days? Has anyone punched Dalton McGuinty?

I think I understand why there's some confusion and disagreement between you and others in this thread, PT. You seem to define a conservative as someone comfortable with the old Progressive Conservative party. Similar to someone wearing a familiar hockey jersey, if you like. However, many other folks use dictionary definitions. The confusion comes from the fact that the old PCs never fit the dictionary definition of a conservative! To be fair, neither did (or do!) the Liberals. This is a very common misunderstanding that can prolong arguments past the point of sensibility. I'm not making any value judgement. I'm not a conservative myself. Still, I'm more comfortable with dictionary definitions. It keeps everyone on the same page, so to speak.

Never said it was in the article! It was in a video clip on CHCH-TV, the local station. The claim came from one of their employees, who stated that the town's business sponsors "didn't like us much anymore". That being said, I agree with you about the state of radio anyway. Also, the employee claim is strictly anecdotal, although we must credit her with being much closer to the situation than we are and likely has a more accurate perspective. We don't know how much advertising came from the town before. We also don't know how much fell off due to the politics of the situation and how much just "followed the economy". However, if you turn the questions around, it would be surprising if the sponsors from the town didn't have SOME feelings about continuing to buy commercial time! Caledonia has taken a huge hit. I think it is easy for those of us who live elsewhere to nitpick over where the Caledonia ship is leaking while it slowly sinks beneath the waves.

How do you know that your vision of a Canadian identity is shared by the majority of citizens? Have you polled them? Speaking only from personal experience, I would say that it depends on whether you follow the philosophy of John F Kennedy or Jack Layton, where JFK said "Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country!" and Jack (and most Liberals of the past few decades) have said " Here's what we'll give you if you vote for us!" I'm old enough to remember pre-Trudeau times and one thing I vividly recall is that before Pierre we didn't use a hyphen to describe our nationality. We were Canadians, pure and simple. Which leads to one of my favourite quotes: "Makers, takers and fakers. There are no other kinds." ---P. T. Barnum

I saw in the local papers that the Six Nations radio station, "CKRZ - The Voice of the Grand" has gone bankrupt and will shut down. There was a clip on CHCH TV from an employee who admitted that advertising revenues from off-reserve took a big hit since the start of their protest. While I don't take any pleasure in watching people lose their jobs I really don't see how they could have expected anything different to happen! From doing a google it's obvious (and understandable) that they have been squarely on the side of Six Nations in their reporting of what's been happening. That's their editorial right. Still, didn't anyone listen to whoever was in charge of selling advertising spots? Did no one expect that businesses in the town might resent the hurt caused by the tactics of the protesters? It's too bad. http://www.thespec.com/article/505069

Well, at last a post with a civil tone! I was beginning to wonder if you are a different person using the same alias. Anyhow, allow me to reiterate. I don't live in the West. I just have had the opportunity to read some of the history and be exposed to many Western Canadian views. You don't have to convince me. The danger comes from the millions of people that live there becoming more intent on separation. Your tone didn't seem to me to be very helpful to the situation. It still doesn't. As for the Coalition, I believe I agreed that it was probably constitutional. Please don't use me as some kind of Conservative straw man and put words in my mouth. I said the idea was UNPOPULAR and it's obvious by the polls that is the judgement of the majority of Canadians! I believe that few Canadians give a hoot about whether a coalition is constitutional! The idea seems to me to be a very poor defence for politicians who must care about garnering any future electoral support.

Interesting premise. If true, then many of us are truly left with no choice of party to vote! Consider, if it's true that Harper has brought out a 'wussy' Liberal style budget because Iggy has 'put a gun to his head' then what do we do? Vote for Harper when he seems to have abandoned his principles or vote Liberal after Iggy FORCED such a budget to happen? Either way, we don't get what we want. So who DO we support? The answer is still Harper, but as I've ranted about since I first joined this board, only by default! He may be a poor choice but the alternative is even worse. It is ironic that we are witnessing a repeat of the 'Mulrony times' when millions of Canadians jumped for an alternative with Reform. We just don't seem to have such an alternative. However, there is one important difference. This time around, we KNOW that we are taken for granted! We KNOW that the Tories believe that we have to stay with them for lack of any other choice! This means that we can wait and bide our time, letting our resentment fester until we finally DO get a better choice! Meanwhile, no need to get all hot and bothered. As the Klingons say, revenge is a dish best served cold!

Oh, I see. Those millions of people are all just dumb! There's no way they could have been right! Thank heavens they have the Coalitionistas to do their thinking for them! Keep up the old 'Vanguard State', comrade! People need you!

http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/...11-118583d08a9f http://www.troymedia.com/NewsBeats/Politic...2/TMC121008.htm Those were just two after a quick google on the West and the Coalition. Here's some on Western alienation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_alienation We start with Sir John A MacDonald imposing discriminatory freight rates and tariffs that favoured Central Canada and locked the Prairies out of manufacturing and into a grain economy that favoured the East. Later we see the NEP. In the 90's we see the 'Salmon War' off B.C. where the feds left the west coast fishing industry high and dry till finally the fishermen there took an American ferry hostage for 3 days. There's also Quebec favouritism under the Equalization Act. Let's not forget Mulroney and his awarding of the CF-18 maintenance contract to Quebec when the best and best priced bid came from Manitoba, an act that ignited the flame that was the fledgling Reform Party. I like this one: http://www.canadian-politics.com/constitut...est_essay.shtml When Martin was campaigning in 2004, in his visits to the West was an often repeated statement that his leadership would be a failure if Western angst were not cured. However as his fortunes in the polls sank he reverted to Alberta bashing as a means to protect eastern seats. The political reality was he may gain 1 seat by playing to western interests, but he could gain 10 seats in Ontario by casting himself as a protector of a national health system against the vile Alberta government. That's enough to get started. Before you just blow it off (likely in a snide manner, it would appear) you might keep in mind that it's not enough to convince me. You have to convince the majority of Western Canadians! Go ahead, scold them too! Tell them their feelings are old news! That oughta work REAL good!

Well, to me 'ovine accusations' only suggest that there is no good reason for the western popular view. My years as a salesman lead me to disagree. If a brand consistently ticks off customers for years those customers usually lose confidence. Take the American car industry, for instance. For some decades the market has seen Toyota get a reputation for needing less maintenance and repair for a longer life. Domestics got a reputation for poor quality control. We'd hear black humour jokes about union worksmanship like 'Bash to fit. Paint to hide!' In the late 70's and 80's it was obviously true! Is it still true today? It doesn't appear so. Anyone who has bought a late model domestic can see that the quality for the most part is back. Yet domestics still have a perception problem. Understandably so! If a customer is 'burned' it's not enough to tell him "Ah, that was years ago! Forget about it! Give me your money today! Trust me!" That's just not human nature. Once a pattern has been established you can't tell someone, you have to SHOW them! Before the Liberals can make any strides in regaining Western support they have to SHOW Westerners that they will support them! While it may be true that to really do that they need to get back in power but nothing's stopping them from making the effort to be more supportive today. So far they've done nothing in that vein. In fact, some of what they've said and done implies the opposite. I find Alberta voting as a bloc for the Tories perfectly logical, not simply an emotional sheep-like reaction. What would be illogical is to give the Liberals another chance that is unearned!

This argument keeps coming up and has been beaten to death. It's nitpicking over the technical details of the process. News Flash! No party goes into an election without having ALREADY chosen its leader! They don't wait to see which party has a majority to THEN vote in the Prime Minister by the elected MPs! From the perspective of THE AVERAGE CANADIAN (who you keep ignoring with your argument) when an election is called he clearly knows who are the party leaders and who could end up being the Prime Minister. That influences his choice. Yes, a coalition would have been democratic but only in a unique and nitpicking way that would have been a shock to every ordinary Canadian. Polls consistently showed that if the Coalitionistas had succeeded the majority of ordinary Canadians would have hated their guts for it! I can see the Coalition supporters in my mind's eye standing outside every polling station, waving a Rule Book at all the pissed off voter streaming past them to vote to punish the Coalition for usurping their right to pick their own government. Yes, technically no such thing would have happened but that's NOT how the average voter would have interpreted it! Odds are that those Coalitionistas outside the polling booths would have been spat upon by many of those voters.

Um, don't you think that Duceppe signing the Coalition might have had just a wee, teensy-weensy thing to do with it?

Sheepishly? There you go again! You aren't merely pointing out an ideological difference. You are being demeaning, if not rude! You sound like a poster on "rubble.ca". I've known many Albertans for years. Sensitivities with an appreciable number of them ARE that high! Given what they've had to put up with for literally decades, it is a logical resentment. Albertans do not vote Tory because they are sheep. They do so because Liberals consistently demonstrated over the years that they didn't give a damn for the West except as a 'wallet'. You've implied in some of your posts that that's old news and they should just get over it. What a trite thing to say, considering just weeks ago the Liberals were signing a coalition agreement that was a total kick in the head to Western Canadians! Old news? Hardly! It's more like the same old news, every day, that never changes. If you ever run for politics I suggest you stay local. Your ideas don't sound like a 'big tent' approach.

well, it takes TWO to negotiate! If I lived in Caledonia, after being used as cannon fodder by the natives in their fight against the governments with electrical transformers blown up causing a 3 day blackout, atv's roaring all night through backyards, tv cameramen beaten, police having to dodge to escape being run over, old men at construction sites beaten to the point of brain damage and on and on and on.... Frankly, I would give the protesters ZERO credibility! I cannot possibly see how anyone could expect someone of the town to feel otherwise. It would be totally illogical. Only someone politically correct and NOT subject to the same terrorist tactics could possibly think that it would be a positive step to form a "Rodney King" conference. If I lived there I would be attempting to get enough aid from some level of government to just relocate my family and never look back! The protesters have made it quite clear that they believe they are totally right, non-natives are totally wrong and that they are prepared to use violence and harassment. When someone punches you in the face because he's mad at SOMEONE ELSE there is no point in further discussion! However, before I left I would destroy my old home! The protesters could have my land back but only in it's original condition. Why should they have the benefit of any development?

Wow, you really know how to make Albertans feel better! How does one answer all the issues that have given them such hard feelings over the years? Easy! Just mock and scold them! You ought to change your alias to "Mr. Canadian Unity"! I doubt if you'd give a Quebecois poster the same hard time.

Excuse me? Say what? Wasn't Reform the only party to ever champion that idea? And didn't that idea die with everything else in the Reform platform when they merged with the PCs? Imagine, an MP actually listening first to his constituents instead of his party's Whip! Gee, you've got a great sense of humour!

Mark Steyn once wrote about an incident that occurred during the British rule of India. It seems a British governor of a community was shocked to hear that Indian widows were often burned alive on their husband's funeral pyre! The local Indian leader of the community explained to the governor that this custom was known as "suttee" and was a long standing part of their culture. The governor thought for a moment and then told the man "Certainly, we respect Indian culture. Still, we have a culture of our own and in our culture this is murder! So this is what we'll do. We'll erect a gallows beside the funeral pyres. After you follow your culture we will then follow ours." There were no more 'suttee' funerals in that community.

Well, part of it was the times. Janice was no knockout beauty but she sang with such passion! I still get chills up my spine when I listen to some of her songs. It's the same thing with singers like Etta James, Billie Holiday and the like. They are just so REAL, as compared to the 'plastic' of a Paris Hilton or a Britney Spears! "Plastic' was a word we used a lot in the late 60's to describe something that was merely a false facade or a cheap, glitzy imitation of something real. Does that not describe Paris Hilton? As for the bra, believe it or not the braless look rapidly became the norm to the point where we all took it for granted. I remember some friends and I at McMaster U. watching a girl walk across the campus and wondering why she looked strange to us. We finally realized it was because she was WEARING a bra! Like being at a nude beach. Those who DON"T strip down stand out! (If you'll pardon the pun!)

Well, laughing at Harper might feel good for some but it doesn't actually DO something for the country! We all laughed at Dion but it was really just a waste of time. Some may not like Iggy's politics but it can't be denied the man at least knows what he's doing, which is far more than could ever have been said of Dion. Judging things on a personal basis always seemed to me to be a cheap copout from actually deciding what works or who is actually working. We've all had jobs where being liked by the boss meant advancement while competence was simply ignored.

Somehow, it seems to me like Harper is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Iggy is in the catbird seat. Harper is first accused of being ideologically rigid by refusing to go into deficit. The Coalitionistas force him to run a huge 'stimulus deficit' or wear the name of being inflexible and uncaring. Later on of course if things don't improve fast enough they can accuse him of hurting us with an unnecessarily BIG deficit! Harper can't refuse to play Iggy's game or he'll get whacked by the Coalition Stick! It just seems so typically Canadian!

Looks like I was right! Iggy did as predicted! Wish I was that good with lottery tickets...