Wild Bill

For some things the stats just don't seem to be available! Conveniently so, perhaps. While in general I agree with you about the value of anecdotal evidence, in the absence of hard data it's a little cavalier to dismiss A LOT of identical anecdotal evidence! We enter the territory of common knowledge. Hence my point about the StatsCan inflation basket. Any observer knows that from the late 80's on the increase in taxation, particularly in the cumulative effect of innumerable small ones, user fees and the like was incredibly high! In his book "The Trouble with Canada" Bill Gairdner showed StatsCan data that put the increase around 1200%! This was at the end of the 80's. I shudder to think what it could be up to today. Not including inflation is really disingenuous. Taxes are a real expense and deduct from disposable income. You can issue stats showing inflation at less than 2% yet due to taxes disposable income may have dropped far more. Yet the political benefits of such "rigged" data cannot be denied. As for the super houses you describe, I can't say. I live beside Hamilton, ON. We're a much poorer city. The economy was largely based upon manufacturing jobs, which over the last decade or so have taken a HUGE hit! So incomes dropped within a comparatively short time. There's a difference between over-extending your budget in the first place and and suddenly having the rug pulled out from under you. Who can plan for your household income dropping by up to two thirds! overnight? With no prospect of a similar paying job in a similar industry? Of course, this strays from my original point, which is the cost of living for today's generation. It is easier not to overextend yourself in the first place but hat only means you can more easily sustain a lower standard. As I had said, today the toys are cheap and it's the house and car that are far more expensive. Many younger folks reason that they may never be able to afford a home as good as that of their parents so they choose to have an apartment-based lifestyle, which leaves much more disposable income for the toys and for luxuries like travel. I mentioned live music because I have intimate experience with that field. In the early 70's it was normal for clubs to host a live band for 6 nights a week. Even small towns would book 3 nighters. And there were a LOT more clubs! This revenue stream meant that even C level bands could go on road tours for months at a time. We rec'd $2400 for a 6 nighter, perhaps $1600 for 3 nights. This at a time when a GALLON of gas sold for $0.25! A package of cigarettes might be the same! In 1971 my best friend's father bought a brand new Plymouth Duster for $1800. This scene was based not just on popular tastes and the times but on how much disposable income the average citizen had to spend on entertainment. At least here in Ontario the number of clubs and the pay scale dropped precipitiously by the end of the 80's. Today clubs are far smaller and rarely can pay for a band more than a one-night gig for a Friday or Saturday. The usual pay is perhaps $250 for a night, for the entire band and not each musician! There are other factors, of course. The RIDE programs made many uncomfortable with driving 20 miles or more at the drop of a hat to see a favourite band. Anti-smoking laws were touted as a way to BOOST attendance but of course this idea was unsubtantiated and simply pulled from some nico-nazi's butt! The story was that once the stink of nicotine was gone there were 2-3 times as many non-smokers who had been chomping at the bit to come to the clubs and tobacco had been the only negative factor. The reality was that those non-smokers didn't seem to have really wanted to come out at all. The smoke cleared out and you could see all the empty tables. The barkeeps lost smokers and didn't see them replaced. And for the record, I'm NOT a smoker! I'm simply citing direct experience. Still, these were minor factors. Common sense tells us that people likely didn't suddenly lose all inclination for drinking beer and dancing/listening to live music. They just no longer could afford it! Clubs adjusted by shrinking and by trying to be everything at once. They wanted to be a corner pub restaurant pool hall. A club that can hold maybe 50 people cannot possibly sell enough drinks to afford any but the most mediocre band. No, kids today are used to having less money for entertainment, and spend a lot of it on cheap, cocoon-favouring choices like an Xbox. Yet constantly they are told that the times today are no different than those when their parents were young. Wages and prices are implied to have been similar, once adjusted for inflation. Any financial constraints are dismissed as being THEIR fault, for being too greedy and wasteful! By my life experiences, I simply can't agree with this premise. Now, consider that many of my musician customers still make a very good living, BY PLAYING IN OTHER COUNTRIES! They will spend a few months in countries like Denmark, where the culture is such that people can and do afford to spend most nights in clubs, and will come home with a NET of perhaps $20k in US dollars! Young "slam-dancing" bands regularly go on tours from Britain, to Norway and then Germany and earn a living. I am unaware of any similar opportunities in Canada, at least here in my neck of the woods. The reasons are obvious. In those other countries people have a higher level of disposable income, which brings us back to our initial premise. Canada has become a poorer country over the past few decades.

Sorry! I intended to reply to post #22 by msj. I really should try to post AFTER coffee!

I think it would be wise to avoid pride and jingoism when trying to defend the accusation that Canada is no longer as rich a country as it once was. I'm 55. I remember living standards and disposable income when I was 19 and today. I remember being told that Canada was rated 6 or 7th among developed nations. Now the last stat I saw was more like 17 or 18th, after Norway. Perhaps age brings the perspective of history. We can all google up stats, often from biased sources, to bolster our arguments. I think instead of how in the early 70's my mother did not have to work to help my steel worker father pay the mortage and feed and clothe 4 kids. In a year or so I worked an entry level unskilled job for $85 a week. I had a modest apartment, a magnificent stereo and spent 6 nights a week with friends drinking and listening to live bands in the bar scene. Now there are no 6 nighter bars with bands! The two income family is the norm. People have fewer children because they don't feel they can adequately provide for as many as before. And NOT because they're simply greedy and materialistic! In the 60's a working man could afford a car and home. A colour tv was very expensive. Now the tv and other toys are dirt cheap. It's the car and house that are budget killers! Figures lie and liars figure. I feel sorry for kids today. Things are NOT the same financially, simply scaled for inflation! I remember how shocked I was when I read that the "expense basket" used by StatsCan to calculate inflation did not include tax increases...

The issues in this thread are starting to remind me more and more of how the press treated Preston Manning during his first campaign. The Liberals were mired in all sorts of scandals. Chretien regularly went to an imaginary Shawinigan pub to share some imaginary molsons with imaginary locals. There was Jane Stewart and the HRDC. There was suspicious money floating all over the Liberal Party. Finally they found something to hang on Manning and for a few days were trumpeting it to the heavens. It seemed that someone had found a dry cleaning bill that somehow had gotten paid from party funds instead of by Manning personally, which was against some election rule or other. Imagine, a dry cleaning bill! If that wasn't equivalent to all the stuff on the Liberal side then what could be? The media was bitterly disappointed that the first reaction was a snort of laughter from most of the electorate and after a few days a bored yawn! The issue died quickly after that. As I said, all this dirt on a dinosaur like Mulroney who led a party that no longer exists seems similar, at least to me.

Gee, I'm really surprised no one had already noticed this and posted it: http://www.spaceandscience.net/id16.html Note how near the end the spokesman mentions how with all the focus on GW and the IPCC it's very hard to get any different word out.

Source, please?

Not quite. He may have used a bit of hyperbole but it is obvious that if the HRC case wins so do those who wish to implement Sharia Law. Such advocates would not be the first group to use different issues as cover to further their own goals.

Actually, I just can't believe that. From the info given and the tone of many posters here it seems obvious to me that they are intimately involved with the protesters, to the point where they may as well be considered part of the same group, no matter what their ancestry. Consider the initial post in this very thread! The event had barely occurred when this post was made, complete with a video clip purporting to be "proof" that McHale was in the wrong. The video clip proved no such thing, in fact it suggested quite the opposite but the intent was clear. Someone or someones set McHale up and posted a "putup" here as fast as possible, trying to get some favourable spin launched for their side before the truth might make them look bad. There have been a number of such attempts at spin. They tend to be rather poorly done but it's obvious there's some kind of organization behind them. When someone posts to me that reality is a mere perception that tells me they're involved in propaganda for sure!

+1, Rue! What do these folks think will happen? The "outed" students will immediately hang their heads in shame and reform? Even telling the parents won't likely help. It seems most times the parents either don't know or don't care. Perhaps they are doing drugs themselves. Perhaps they simply are ineffective parents! What effective measures are they likely to take at this point? Besides, these approaches tend to degenerate into "reefer madness", being promoted by people ignorant of the different effects of different drugs. The testing tends to be broad-brush, identifying any and all drugs in someone's system. The assumption is that the young teen who smokes a joint or two at a party a few times a month is equivalent to a crackhead. The problem is really not that some school kids are doing drugs. That's been going on since the 60's or even earlier if you consider alcohol. The problem is bad behaviour. It's a fallacy to think that the simple use of drugs rots their minds into instantly showing behaviour problems. The kids who exhibit bad and violent behavior would likely act no differently if they were totally straight! They are delinquents who happen to do drugs, not angels made into delinquents by the use of drugs. Sadly, too often today we tend to "touchy-feely" approaches to discipline problems in our schools. These tend to only be effective in textbooks. Teachers have been severely limited in how they can respond to bad behaviour. Not surprising, with no check or balance the bad behaviour becomes more prevalent! No one wants to admit to this. The Emperor has no clothes, after all. So the bad behaviour runs amok but few are willing to talk about it.

+1! There is a naive belief among many Canadians that minority governments force some sort of consensus, that they are inherently more democratic. How that can be true is beyond me! We saw many examples of how minorities actually work in past parliaments. Mostly the situation worked like this: the Liberals were shy a few seats of a majority. The NDP promised them support to stay in power and govern like a majority but only if the Liberals would enact a few planks from the NDP electoral platform. So the party with the LEAST number of seats and the LOWEST percentage of the popular vote gets to have some of their pet beliefs made into the Law of the Land! In other words, the price for having a majority government is to have the will of the few imposed on the many. This is democracy? This is a GOOD thing?

What's your point? The initial premise was that there is a "fairy tale" history out there that Natives were and are pastoral flower children who lived in bliss, in harmony with nature. You respond with an attack citing some negative examples of Christian history. What happened to the initial premise? Seems to me you're simply pulling the old trick of "Forget that! My brother did something worse once so forget all about me and focus on him!" EVERYBODY has some negative issues in their cultural history! That's because we (hopefully!) have improved over the years! Somebody's been swallowing a lot crap about how Man is born as a "Noble Savage". The real issue is how well we deal with reality and what we do TODAY! However, if you define reality as something you can just change at whim according to how you feel about it then I guess there's not much point.

Well, we could make up all sorts of analogies with this one! Suppose we owned a condominium development. We had a culture in our development that we were proud but one day a group within us stated that our condo culture was too homogenous and we should open it up with preference given to new arrivals from specific different cultures, who once they were set up in our development should not be expected to adapt to our existing culture but rather would be encouraged to maintain their own. This policy eventually reaches its inevitable conclusion. A new culture becomes the majority within the development. The incumbent culture feels uncomfortable as there are many aspects of the new culture (Sharria Law?) that are in conflict. Still, the new culture has become the majority. What to do? Well, first off, if you truly believe that this is a negative result then admit that you made a mistake! Things didn't work out the way you wanted or expected! Once you've admitted your mistake then now you have to decide what you're going to do about it! If you're lucky you will actually find some support amongst the "immigrants". The higher degree of personal freedom in your incumbent culture will always be attractive to many folks. Whatever, you'll have to decide if you want to fight for your cultural existence or go quietly into the night. There is no right or wrong to the decision. Whoever wins will decide if the result was positive or not. Culture is a subjective thing, not an absolute to the universe. If you no longer have the will or resources to fight then perhaps the kindest thing to do is to LET your culture die! You really don't deserve to win, at that point. Either way, you'll have given yourself some hard choices.

Well, it seems to me that FTA is more objective in his predictions than you are! He stated clearly that he didn't agree with everything that came from Harper. Your posts have clearly implied that you'd never vote for him anyway! That's your right, of course. However, if you assume that the majority of citizens agree with you I'd need more than a vague reference to the poll snapshot of today and your opinion of Harper's handling of a minority government before I'd cover any of your bets. I think I'll start cutting and pasting some of these predictions to review after the next election. The proof is in the pudding, after all.

Quite right. The system should always have civil liberty safeguards. Quite right also that most of us are not deeply steeped in the nuances of the law. Still, I believe that these criticisms and attacks on the defense of those like Khadr are really an expression of a loss of faith in large segments of the public that the system any longer values things like citizenship and honour. If trust in the "system" was more widespread you wouldn't see so many of these complaints. I still remember back in the Kosovo war there was a young man of dual Serbian/Canadian citizenship who chose to go and fight with Serbian forces against Canada and Nato. It made for a great deal of newspaper copy but what has always puzzled me is that when the police action ended I've never seen any more about the issue in the media. The contention had been that he intended to return to Canada! We also recently witnessed the expensive "rescue" of Lebanese Canadians, many of whom returned to Lebanon afterwards! I personally see examples in my daughter's elementary school of families here as refugees, supposedly who fled for their lives, who return every year to their old country for a month or two to visit relatives, apparently with no fear at all. I'm glad you reminded us of the civil rights aspect of the Khadr case but it's too easy to forget, after some of the utterances from his mother in the press. Respect is earned. It cannot be simply assumed without relying on force. When citizens get too many issues such as Khadr, Homolka, an unpoliced honour system as to who is accepted as a citizen to get on a riding's voters list, gun control that attacks law abiding owners more than criminals, and many, many others it helps to create a breakdown in the concept of "consent to be governed". When an OPP dispatcher tells a housewife in Caledonia that "You're on your own. Don't call us anymore!" is this not ENCOURAGING vigilantism? What else is a citizen to do? Not to mention scandal with political involvement of the highest levels of the RCMP. No, what's sadly really happening in cases like Khadr is that too many of us are being conditioned to EXPECT that he will go unpunished even if his crimes are proven! This is NOT a good thing for a society! I fully realize that this is not an entirely logical perception. It's much more political than legal, after all. If every such example is taken in its own context there's usually good legal reasons as to why things work out as they do. The problem is that for many citizens it appears to be a disconnect between what's legal and what's considered just. Years ago institutions like our legal system seemed to have a much higher level of public respect. Now cynicism seems rampant. Does the "system" not bear any of the blame or is it all the fault of a biased media? This loss of respect for institutions seems to be a growing trend. The way to fight it is not by scolding people for not being well-versed in the details of the law. I'm truly concerned about the direction things are heading and I sincerely hope I'm wrong! I'd just like a little more positive evidence.

I don't follow your argument. Hadn't this family and the young lad specifically become Canadians? As Canadians should they not be honour bound not to wage war on Canadians and their allies, such as the Americans? If they did feel they should go and fight for Al Queda in Afghanistan should they not first have renounced their Canadian citizenship? By what right can this lad claim it now to get out of Git-mo? Does dual citizenship mean you can shoot one set of countrymen and then demand their rights as a citizen? I just can't follow this idea at all...

Why? I live in Ontario too and for 50 years I've witnessed the same January thaw. Sometimes it's been warmer than others and sometimes it's lasted for a few more days but it always works out to the same thing - a big tease to disappoint us when the cold returns and we have to wait another couple of months for warm weather! What's so different about today?

Well, we do and we don't! As someone else mentioned, it's only an Ontario thing. When Canada was founded in 1867 one of the documents akin to the American constitution stuff was the British North American Act. After it got through with defining Canada as a Dominion (no longer a simple colony of Britain) it tackled a few rights issues. At the time the two largest majority religions were Anglican/protestant (Churches of England)and Roman Catholic, particularly in french-speaking Quebec. The BNA act guaranteed the right of Catholics to educate their children in their own religious schools, with the Catholic Church doing the primary job of supplying teachers from their priests, nuns and such. For generations this was an entirely separate and independent school system, distinct from the public school institutions. In the 80's one of our Ontario premiers responded to a long-standing cry from Catholic citizens who felt it was unfair that they had to pay taxes that included a portion to the public school system, while they had to pay for their Catholic school system out of their own pocket. The BNA act was often quoted as entitling them to this funding in the name of equality. I downloaded the BNA act myself and read the entire thing. As expected it was kinda dry and legally technical for a layman like myself but while it plainly guaranteed the right of Catholics to have their own schools I couldn't see anything about guaranteed funding! I actually had occasion to ask a local Catholic principal about this and he told me that the right to funding was "implied", whatever that means. I'm not quite certain if in 1867 even public schools were government funded! Perhaps some other reader might chip in the passage I missed. Anyhow, it was incredibly politically divisive. The premier involved was Bill Davis and he had never campaigned on the issue. He simply passed it just before he was stepping down anyway and left his successor to take the heat. The non-Catholics were upset about taxes lost to a separate system when all were welcome at the public schools. The Catholics were ecstatic, of course! Forgotten at the time were all the non-Catholic religious schools like the Jews and various Christian sects, some Moslems and even non-religious private schools. They began to ask why they were not treated in the same manner as the Catholics? The politicians of course all dodged this one but over the years the issue kept growing. There was even a UN resolution condemning Ontario for being discriminatory! Other related issues have cropped up. With the Catholic system taking government money, isn't the fact that they tend to refuse to hire all but a few token non-catholic teachers discriminatory and against our Charter of Rights? If they take public money how much right does the provincial government have in overseeing their curricula? The pols have been successful in dodging these issues for a couple of decades now but last fall we had a provincial election where the opposition candidate was dumb enough to open his mouth about extending funding to other religions. At first glance it seems more fair but what his team seemed to have been ignorant about was that the entire idea of religious funding had been incredibly contentious when introduced in the 80's. It had never been publicly approved but simply passed down from on high with no formal sanction from the people as an election issue. Now this candidate reminded everyone all over again and he went down in flames at the polls! The incumbent had had serious worries about re-election but his opponent had obligingly "hung himself". So that's the story, as I understand it. As said, it's only in the province of Ontario and it's not well accepted. It's just simmering away while the politicians keep trying to avoid taking any stand. Who knows what the next election will bring! One idea that was proposed by a federal party was a voucher system, where every citizen/parent would get a voucher equal to his education portion of his taxes that he could assign to the school of his choice. If he wanted to give it to a public school, a particular religious school or even a different neighbourhood public school 'cuz he wasn't impressed with the one closest to him that would be his right! I had thought the idea had some merit. Perhaps it may crop up provincially someday.

The "child" was old enough to do to others what they should now do to him! I save my sympathy for those he murdered.

Toronto subway? You can't use Toronto as the only point in your curve! Just what we need. Someone else who thinks that Toronto represents all of Canada. No wonder the rest of us like to dump on the city so much!

Here we see a BIG difference in what we consider ethical! While I might agree with you that assimilation would have been far better for many natives than the reserve system the idea of forcing anyone because YOU believe what's good for them is absolutely abhorrent to me! Who's life is it anyway? No, it would be much better to let those who wish to fend for themselves do so. With one caveat: -with their OWN resources! At the same time, treat all natives as full citizens, no different from any other, but only when they live OFF the reserve! If you take away a human being's right to live his own life as he chooses then that is a cure far worse than any disease, IMHO. Didn't a previous generation about 60 or 70 years ago fight a world war against this kind of thinking?

Geez, sometimes I get a strong reminder that I grew up in a different time! Then again, my tastes have never been mainstream. The majority of women on this list do nothing for me. Where's Loni Anderson? Where's Mae West? I've always liked my women curvy AND smart! Many of the women on this list have about as much appeal as something inflatable...IMHO.

There's enough folks still reproducing that who cares about missing a few gays. You could make an argument against allowing breeding age females becoming nuns by that sort of illogic. As far as spreading negative values, there may indeed be a point. Some sage once commented that "The love that dare not say its name is now the love that won't shut up!"

Oh, for the most part they may have been honest! You're asking the wrong question. Most people would point to the Rae government as having been the most inept...

I think you have started to touch on what is perhaps the real problem: tribalism! Consider, the native culture is strongly based on belonging to a tribe. The "white" european culture, while often having had a strong nationalistic streak, still puts much more emphasis on the individual. We do not punish someone for the sins of his fathers, or praise him for acts done by his uncle rather than himself. The problem with identifying your selfworth by your tribe and not your own actions is that when you belong to a primitive tribe it's easy to feel outclassed. Europeans came to this continent with much superior technology and organization. Even native tribes that waged fierce battles with the "invaders" had to do it with captured or illicitly obtained weapons. The white man's musket was far superior to their arrows. So was his medicine, his wagons, his lanterns, his clothing and so on. As the years went by if you were part of a tribe you didn't have a single concrete thing that could compete. You could take pride perhaps in higher "spirituality" but not in a better house, where you didn't have to sleep on benches to keep yourself off the ground full of fleas and chiggers. Thousands of natives choose a different way. They left the reserve! They made their own way in mainstream society and many did very well for themselves. They rated their sense of selfworth as individuals and not as part of a tribe. Some reserves have done well for themselves by adapting to the modern age. They see themselves more as a community than a tribe. They have industry and revenues that promote their common welfare. Other reserves have stayed stagnant. Personally, I blame Canada's government and the Indian Act for helping to foster the problem. When a native cannot have clear title to property on the reserve he has no access to a loan of capital. This makes it very hard to create enterprise. So for many growing up on a stagnant reserve it must be very easy to develop an inferiority complex. This leads to defensiveness, especially with adolescents. That's why we see the rise of a convoluted "faith" in natives originally living in some mythical Eden as "stewards of the environment". Supposedly, they lived in peace and harmony with one another and with Mother Nature. No one starved because food was plentiful and they all shared. There were no wars but rather more "athletic contests". Captured warriors were not actually tortured but rather given an opportunity to show their strength and courage in a noble fashion! Blood was only spilled because some white man liquored them up by forcing whiskey down their throats and paid them to do evil deeds! It's all ignorance and pride! All based on putting the tribe before yourself! A native child is no more or less intelligent or capable than any other child. He has the same potential for greatness as any other. It is his TRIBE that may be primitive, NOT he himself! Sadly, if his tribe doesn't change he may never get a chance.

I was a navy brat and my family are all Bluenosers from Nova Scotia. We moved to Ontario when I was around 8 years old but still when I get drunk or excited I lose my Ontarioan accent! As a kid my friends and I would deliberately drive my mother nuts to get her to start cursing us in "Eastcoaster". We'd laugh for hours! As a young man I shared an apartment with some buds. This was the early 70's and there was a commercial going round on tv from one of the frozen food companies in Atlantic Canada. It featured a Newfoundlander in full regalia, gum boots and sou'wester rain cloak standing in the surf while a dark sleet and snow storm raged. He was extolling the virtues of the companies frozen fish product in a thick accent, while subtitles scrolled across the bottom of the screen like a foreign artsie movie. I just didn't get it! My friends would be laughing and I'd be scratching my head. You see, I understood him perfectly! I'd turn and ask my friends "Why the subtitles?" They'd shriek and howl at me, of course. It was weeks before I ever twigged to the joke!