Wild Bill

There's no need to be insulting or to make personal attacks. Perhaps I should lodge a complaint.

And if I did win the nomination (considering that nominations are not open anymore, since Reform died, that would mean necessary political connections that I do not have) and I did win the riding, should I really want to spend my remaining years as a trained seal? Why don't I spend the time beating myself on the head with a hammer instead?

Simply that the LPC traditionally does much better than the CPC in big cities, especially Toronto. Conversely, the Tories do better in the rural ridings. There are exceptions, but the trend seems clear. And an incumbent can fall victim to a major faux pas on behalf of themselves or their party. Consider Diane Findlay's chances after the problems in Caledonia.

Hey, its not my argument. It's Steyn's! He talks about fertility rates, or births per couple. For a stable population he says you need 2.1 births per woman. I guess that .1 is to take care of accidental deaths. He says Canada has a rate of only 1.48, the whole of Europe has 1.38 and Russia is 1.14! He cites Spain as having a fertility rate of only 1.1! That means half as many children as parents. A quarter as many grandchildren as grandparents. And and eighth as many greatgrandchildren as greatgrandparents. What policies do you suggest governments implement to encourage larger families? What's your best guess on how likely our governments will ever implement them? After all, the real reason we have smaller families is because since the past few decades we seem to have been getting poorer and working longer hours with less time for ourselves. People have the number of children they feel they can afford, both financially and with time. For governments to come up with successful policies to reverse this trend they would have to address the MONEY!

Well, this trend towards a resource-based economy at the expense of manufacturing has been going on for a lot longer than Harper's term. Incidently, isn't having a resource based economy with little or no higher level manufacturing the very definition of being a third-world country? One that tries to compete by selling its natural resources cheaper than the other guys?

Which would tend to confirm the notion that the LPC caters only to those in big cities and offers nothing to those in outside areas. Not placing any value judgement here. After all, the success of this strategy over the past few decades can't be denied.

When you hear about polls in Ontario you folks in other parts of Canada may not realize the whole story. Ontario has the lion's share of its population in Toronto and the immediate area. Yet ridings are spread out all over the entire province. This skews the poll results. The Liberals always do better in metro Toronto, for a variety of reasons. They don't do very well at all in the rest of the province. The Liberals could sweep Toronto with 40% of the polls and not get anywhere near a majority of Ontario's seats. I'm sure that the parties themselves commission polls that break down things much more accurately, riding by riding. I'm also sure that they're not gonna share them with us! The polls we get are those paid for by the media. They have no need to get anything but a surface picture. That's enough to sell their papers! You get what you pay for...

A minority government means that those parties that got the least number of votes get to call the shots! Is that democracy?

As an addendum to my previous post, I read in the Hamilton Spec today a column from their parent, the Toronto Star, which quoted some talking head that said the "fixed election date" Bill had nothing in it to prevent a Prime Minister from going for an election IF PARLIAMENT HAD BECOME DYSFUNCTIONAL! So it would still be legal for Harper to trigger the election. To be fair, perhaps the present shenanigans from Tories obstructing committees is just an attempt to emphasize appearances to justify dissolving Parliament. I say again, it seems kinda odd that the ruling party are the ones who seem to understand that a government with an Opposition that refuses to do its job and oppose the government is actually bad for the country. Surely a large number of voters must see that Dion has been far more worried about the fate of the Liberal Party when he refuses to risk bringing down the government than what's good for Canada. If Harper has to do it for him it will seem even worse! Dion might be smart to try to launch a pre-emptive strike.

After reading Mark Steyn's book that spends a chapter or two discussing the low replacement birth rate of western countries, particularly Canada, all this seems kinda academic. In short, replacement births have been so low that we couldn't possibly take in enough immigrants to hold our own. The next 20-40 years are going to show a huge decline as old folks die off and there are fewer youngsters coming up to take their place. He also makes a good point when he says that there seems to be something morally wrong with depending on stealing the best from other countries to try to keep your own country afloat. Anyhow, this may not be totally a bad thing. It should become easier to find a good job and there should be surpluses of homes available. It might make the tax base a bit tight but if we didn't have to pay for AdScams and gun registries we could probably cover the losses just fine.

Sorry. You seem to be simply cheerleading, asking me to take it on faith. I'm a techie. I don't believe in faith. I believe in proven confidence but that's not the same thing. I'm also 58 years old. To achieve any sort of meaningful change would likely take longer than my remaining time. I also am recovering from a quadruple heart bypass. I don't have the physical energy that I had in my 20's, or even my 30's. Look how long Manning led the charge for MP's to vote freely and that attempt failed. Once again, you sound much too academic for me to accept your arguments.

Depends on what you mean by "meaningless". This was a new idea for Canada. On the surface it seemed to have a lot of advantages. I doubt if anyone imagined we'd end up in the present situation, where we effectively have no opposition 'cuz they're afraid to vote against the government and we get nothing done in committees. This Parliament is not serving Canada. I'm with Harper on this one. The only purpose of waiting till the 2009 date is to give newbie MP's more time towards their gold-plated pensions. We're getting little done for the citizens of Canada.

Desperate bluster? What do you base your opinion on, your own immediate circle of friends? If you look at things objectively you might be surprised to see that in many other parts of Canada it's Dion who's seen to exhibit desperate bluster. I can understand rooting for your own team but if we here in Hamilton tried to tell the rest of the country that the Ti-Cats are going to take the Cup this year it would be written off as mere "desperate bluster". You may or may not prove to be right but you really don't give us much substance for your opinion.

+1! I was there too! Isn't it amazing that when the merger occurred all the talk was about the poor PC party being so small and being swallowed up by the big bad Reform/Alliance party. Now look how things turned out. That tiny PC rump has taken control of the new party and for all practical purposes it is a clone of what we had in Mulroney's day. Makes you wonder why Manning ever bothered! I keep saying this but it bears repeating. There were millions of loyal Reform voters. It's very unlikely that most of them feel the same inspiration and loyalty with the present Conservative Party as they did with Manning's movement. They've had the choice taken away from them and likely are staying with the new Tories simply by default. Still, if another Manning comes out of the wilderness it would be very interesting to see how much of the present support would stay with the CPC. Harper is fortunate that the other parties look so bad to the typical Reform type voter. Meanwhile, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see voter turnout drop even more as some folks simply lose heart.

+1! I've been doing the same! I'm glad Harper has instituted label and packaging laws that will make the country of source more plain. A few months ago I was standing in a supermarket aisle looking at cans of beans, trying to decide which ones were actually Canadian. The biggest puzzle was with Heinz beans. The label told me that the can came from Leamington, Ontario and that it was made by union workers. That was it. I noticed an older gentleman beside me also reading labels and I commented to him "You think if they won't tell you plainly if they're Canadian beans they likely aren't?" "Absolutely!" he replied. Turns out he was a label reader like me, for the same reasons. We avoided products from China and even Sultana raisins from Iran! I don't know if there's a significant trend starting amongst Canadians but I do know that I'm not the only one!

Only theoretically. I lack the financial resources to campaign and I have a growing family with a debt load that needs me to keep earning money. If I wished to run for an established party I wouldn't be able to post a candidate's bond. To any local riding association I would not be their first choice of candidate. Even if I did run and win, all the current parties practice rigid party discipline. If I couldn't have the freedom to vote according to the wishes of the majority of my constituents, like what was promised by the old Reform Party, I couldn't look myself in the mirror every morning. Look what happened to John Nunziata and Garth Turner. I could make a token effort, like a Libertarian candidate might do. Still, what good would such an effort do? The best that could be achieved would be to show that at least in theory an ordinary citizen could indeed stand for office. In terms of actually achieving any positive change it would really be a futile effort. So unless you have a solution to these challenges of MY specific situation you'll have to forgive me if I don't give much heed to your advice.

Well, I was a Reformer and I'm disappointed as well. Worse yet, I'll still have to vote Tory for the same reasons I did back in the Mulroney years - a lack of a better choice! They ALL reek to me! Just one a bit less than the others. I keep hoping for another Manning or his successor to come out of the woodwork...

No, Dion TELLS me that what you said was true! And of course, he got to pick the economists and scientists that lent him the support. It's like the old story about how 4 out of 5 doctors prefer Aspirin. You may have to ignore hundreds of doctors who disagree to get that final fifth one but once you do you can legally make such a claim. I'm sorry but I give M Dion's story as much credibility as a Witness at my door on a Sunday morning. When you claim the Bible that you yourself wrote to be infallible because you yourself believe it to be, then I politely shut the door.

Wilber, there may be another reason for the confusion. You seem to be arguing from a more scientific definition of carbon and emissions, considering the actual carbon in a fuel, the amount formed from combustion and so on. Your opponents may not be so scientific. A carbon tax can be a purely arbitrary thing. Some government committee made up of people who couldn't even tell you how a light bulb works will put out a list of applicable carbon taxes to different products. The list won't necessarily be based on pure science. Rather, it could be based on political definitions of what is harmful and how much in comparison to something else. I suspect this is the sort of list we would get from Dion and company. Trying to question a specific amount of tax with specific fuels with scientific facts would be futile.

Good points! My local paper just finished up a series on crime with contraband cigarettes. They gave a figure of 1 out of 3 cigarettes smoked today are contraband from First Nation suppliers. The reason for the smuggling is obvious - the taxes taken by all the various levels of government have put the price up so high that it's so easy for crime to knock them out of the competition for the profits. Unfortunately for the governments, they have a conundrum in that on one hand they have the right to tax the hell out of the product (only for our own good, of course!) and on the other we see First Nations, who are in a dicey, politically correct category in the first place and in the second are also perfectly willing to use violent civil disobedience to defend their activities. As you point out, it's really all about the money.

I dunno. After HRDC, Shawingate, AdScam, gun registries and who knows what all else I guess you just have more faith in the "system" than I do.

Fair trade! First off, I'd demand the Chinese get serious about knockoffs and software/DVD/media piracy. I would demand that if our farmers are banned from a particular chemical or spray then any Chinese agricultural products that DID use such sprays be banned from entry. I would demand "pollution tariffs". Not just simply on carbon. If it costs our steel makers $50 per tonne in scrubbers and things to clean up their emissions then if Chinese steelmakers are not doing the same then they should pay that $50/ton as a tariff. I would add up each and every "green" or labour law extra cost on Canadian business and see it applied to all imports. Such extra costs were supposed to keep us safer and healthier, not give foreign competition an unfair advantage. Give me a while and I could come up with more but one that jumps to mind is an audit of the Canadian Wheat Board. There are dark murmurings around that they actually end up keeping the selling price LOWER to the benefit of countries like China! I'd like to know if there's any truth to that. They practice ruthless capitalism towards us with their products. We should deal with them in the same fashion. Also, if China has any import restrictions on our products at all that are designed to preserve an advantage for their domestic industry then we should immediately impose identical restrictions on their products being shipped to us. I believe in Fair Trade but I don't believe that "rigged" trade is free.

Ah, here you are echoing my point! It's who you know...

I've lived here for nearly 50 years. In all that time I have never lived and worked at locations that suited the bus! I would have walked more than I rode. My wife figured out that if she took public transit to work it would take her nearly 90 minutes, assuming no delays due to bad weather where the buses slowed down. Meanwhile, she drives there in 10 minutes! Hamilton's bus service was designed in the years when all the factories were at one end of town and all the workers lived at the other. Since then I swear they've never updated it! Plus, they have the problem that the city has grown on two levels, the old core and above on the escarpment. The "up-and-down" connections are very awkward and slow. Last but not least, we have suburbs forcibly amalgamated into Hamilton by the Harris government. (McGuinty promised to reverse this. Another lie...) These suburbs get little or no bus service at all and fiercely resent paying taxes to services "not rendered". It's a situation that just keeps getting worse and worse. Some day someone's gonna go postal!

Finally, some numbers! Ok, we've established that diesel is a LOT cleaner than gas! Now you state that a diesel owner will save the enormous sum of 3 cents on every litre. If that's all, as a buyer I would look VERY carefully at the total cost of owning a diesel. If it's at all more expensive than a gasoline engine it might take a very long time indeed to convert that 3 cents into breakeven, let alone a saving. Unless there is something else of practical saving to my budget, I would buy a gasoline car. So what if it puts out a LOT more carbon! I would expect a LOT more of an incentive!