Wild Bill

You don't seem to get it. I suspect you also think more gun laws make a difference. To put it simply, this street racing law is nabbing one or two tragedies like what happened to that poor boy in Hamilton and thousands of others who may have been speeding but were not racing or reckless at all. It's easy to give a cop a radar gun and call all the folks caught at higher rates of speed "racers". It costs MONEY to hire some more police and have them patrol the roads looking for REAL dangerous drivers! Can't you see that this law is a cheap cop-out, if you'll pardon the pun?

Argus, this point has been raised in a number of threads. Someone cries "Hey, the Greens deserve this or that because they have an MP!" Someone else points out that the MP in question was never elected as a Green but merely switched parties. Then there's a deafening silence. Have you seen anything by these Green supporters that answers the fact that they still haven't ELECTED an MP? I haven't.

Having ONE MP or so in each of the regions you mentioned is hardly coast to coast representation. It's more like a statistical anomaly. It's like a lawyer's answer, technically correct by the letter of the law and often totally lacking in its spirit.

I see a conflict! I think some folks are not seeing the whole picture. It has nothing to do with May being a "nice" person. It has everything to do with having a common heritage! How can someone who grew to adulthood in a different country have a "gut" feel for being a Canadian? Only those who believe that Canada HAS NO culture might think that this is a non-factor. And that, sadly, is part of why this country has some deep problems.

Regional party, huh? We got nearly a million and a half votes in Ontario! You might even have been surprised at what we were pulling in Quebec at the end! We were a lot less regional than the Chretien Liberals, who had essentially zip outside of Ontario and Quebec. Why do you think the PC's finally gave up? They were clinging to life with a few seats in Atlantic Canada and the trend showed that within an election or two they were going to lose even that.

Well, that's the OFFICIAL line!

You're right, of course. This is yet another example of how the new Tory Party abandoned a Reform/Alliance principle of free and open nominations at the riding level in favour of HQ calling the shots. However, since the other parties have ALWAYS appointed their candidates and made a total farce out of the idea of folks in a riding picking their own candidates for nomination, this also leaves me without an attractive alternative.

Reminds me again of the old Reform days. Once in a while a bad apple would be discovered on their candidates list. Reform would boot them out, even choosing once when the writ had already been dropped to go with NO candidate rather than a crook or a racist! The Liberals of course had the same thing happen a few times but chose instead to just wave their hands and say" Well, what can we do?". They tended to make their bad apples party leaders!

Yep, she does seem typical of the environmental set! Nothing I've read or heard about her or from her has made me think she has any real scientific background. From her bio she appears to be just another lawyer with a cause. I would give her more credit if her bio had said something like her parents gave her a chemistry set in the 3rd grade that she played with for hours, or a telescope, or she built a ham radio or even a simple crystal radio set! SOMETHING to show she has some kind of scientific background, at least on an enthusiastic amateur level!

Wrongo! Reform ran candidates EVERYWHERE! Including Quebec! "Down the memory hole, Winston!"

You've got the horse and the cart mixed up! Once it's in the constitution or Charter of Rights it's Law. Theoretically the people have chosen. That's supposed to be how it got to be a law! Mind you, it would be a completely different thread to discuss how true and democratic that process actually is, or was. Anyhow, I was referring to the people's right to make their own laws. The debate on same sex marriage came before the Law was enacted. Or will you tell me that I was wrong about that as well?

Apples and oranges. Internment is not death. In the case of the Japanese Canadians the act was obviously racist but still, hindsight is 20/20. Up until Pearl Harbour there was no internments. The camps were considered prudent security against spies and fifth columnists. That the act later became a sleazy way to steal their property was a separate issue. Can you cite any polls or referenda to prove that interment was approved by a majority of citizens? Even if so, I would support their right to be wrong. If I had lived at the time I would have tried political protest. I may even have sheltered Canadians of Japanese descent. However, I would never have advocated removing the right of the majority to choose.

I think you've got it backwards. Slavery ended and women were given the vote because the majority of the people WANTED it to happen! Otherwise no one would have addressed the issue at all and the status quo would have continued. As for my "bias", don't put words in my mouth! If the majority of my fellow citizens want us to pull out of Afghanistan or pass useless gun control laws then I will champion their right! As long as the questions are clear and not "weaselly" to skew the results. This is one of the main reasons why I supported the Reform Party and why now I only will vote for the new Tory Party by default, with no real satisfaction other than knowing I'm helping to block out elitists.

Apples and oranges. Show me an example of a democracy where the people as a majority voted to allow lynch mobs. You need to do better than that.

So what? You've declared how you WANT things to be! You still didn't answer my points in any way, shape or form. You just ignored them. Business doesn't care how you feel about things. If you get your way, then you will need guns to keep business from pulling out, period. If you disagree with me then give me an argument that says differently. Don't just keep on trumpeting your wishes. How you expect to keep businesses actively working would be your problem. I guess you'd need a cop over every shoulder all day long. Meanwhile, at night they'd be making balloons out of raincoats to float themselves and their families out of your country.

And this is why unless they change I could never vote Liberal! First off, I have nothing against same sex marriage. Let them be as miserable as the rest of us! That being said, I believe in populism and representative democracy. Apparently you don't. Certainly many Liberals don't , as this is not the first time I've heard your "justification". TCCK is absolutely right that every poll showed the majority of Canadians to be against same sex marriage. If you are a populist and believe in democracy then that alone should have been enough. The government is supposed to represent the people EVEN WHEN YOU MIGHT THINK THEM WRONG! Politics is supposed to be about PERSUADING people to your point of view, not FORCING them! This "justification" is simple elitism, nothing more. This is a VERY slippery slope! Once you start down that path then ANYTHING can be justified, no matter how large a majority of citizens are against it! Once you start to believe that you have the only moral truth and also the right to impose it on your fellow citizens then you are in danger of becoming something quite fearful! Your post frankly scares the hell outta me!

I vividly remember those days when Reform was new and they had just elected Deb Gray as their first MP. Didn't matter. They were shut out of the debates. Period, end of story. ALL the other parties shut them out! Now somehow it's supposed to be different for the Greens. And they say there's no leftwing bias in this country...

Good Lord, what an elitist idea! You've just removed all geographic representation so that Ontario and Quebec would run the entire country and the rest of the folks would just have to "pound salt up their butts", as my east coaster gramma would say. Geez, with such a keen grasp on how to foster unity in the country it's a shame we can't vote for YOU!

Well, if the CA took on such an appearance as a convenient facade, they've done an excellent job! I haven't been able to see a single blessed trace of the old Reform Party in the new Tories since the merger! Other than your tin foil hat suspicions, could you cite me at least 3 things in common with Reform? Or two? Or one! Other than the names have a couple of the same letters? I can understand that you don't like them but you seem to be bruiting your opinions with your own set of facts. It makes you look simply partisan and detracts from the value of your arguments.

What are you talking about? I genuinely can't figure out the logic behind your post. Mathematically, 7000 out of a population of over 30 million is "mice nuts"! The problem is not in getting people. We have more than enough applying, or would have if we treated out troops better. The problem is that we have starved our military so badly for resources that after someone signs up we might need a year before we have a bunk available in training camp! Or an instructor available to train them! Even if we did need something as crazy as a mandatory draft to come up with only 7000 applicants per year we couldn't get them trained and into uniform until we fixed the REAL problems! Next you'll be blaming Harper for hurricanes and earthquakes.

While reading my morning paper I came across a list of candidates in the ridings around my area. I noted that in Haldiman-Norfolk the incumbent Diane Finley faces Gary McHale, the activist for non-natives who's running as an independent. I've never given independents much hope but this article and list made me stop and wonder a bit. This is an agricultural riding which tends to vote conservative. Finley won last time against Bob Speller, a Liberal who surprisingly understood farming and had held the riding for a long time. Even though he was a Liberal his agro experience and talent made him an attractive choice for this demographic. If not for the scandals in his party last election he might have kept his seat. This time the Liberals are running Dr. Eric Hoskins, who is a native (forgive the pun!) of the area and has been involved with groups like Doctors Without Borders and War Child. Now I certainly don't want to disparage these groups who I'm told do good works in dangerous areas of the world but are they the primary points to feature to attract an agricultural voter base? These type of organizations tend to be associated with more leftwing parties. Not that farmers don't care about children caught up in the horrors of war but wouldn't it be more attractive to have these points as secondary to a candidate's resume, after things like knowing which end of a tractor is the front? The Greens try mightily to come off as a middle of the road party but every time their leader Elizabeth May opens her mouth she comes across as leftwing. We hear "We must save the planet! By the way, we also understand business stuff!" The NDP haven't even gotten a candidate yet. Given Finley's disappointment to her constituents over Caledonia and now the protests in Brantford, maybe McHale has a shot! Heaven knows the other parties seem to be trying to make it easy for him!

There's always somebody eager to tear apart your model and ignore your point.

You know, businessmen are not genetically programmed to set up shop in Canada. If you ever achieved the power to implement your philosophy, you'd need to put a gun to the head of every businessman to get them to stay here! Perhaps you could get China to accept all our unemployed as economic refugees...

Given the resources available to our soldiers after decades of federal neglect, perhaps you could make the case that we ARE "...keeping the peace with hockey sticks and donuts."

Not quite a true comparison! The money for the UFO sighting is going to a municipal fair or something similar. Many folks enjoy these events, myself included. The Winona Peach Festival here in my area annually draws several hundred thousand people over a weekend. Arts and crafts, rides and a midway, live music and such make for a good time. How does the general public benefit from the older Liberal system of picking up the tab for some "artist" to visit the pot and sex shops in Amsterdam?