maplesyrup

This winner take all mentality does not work. It is short term gain for long term pain. This idea that you have to crush the workers and their unions results in substantial increases in poverty, illness, and crime. That is the old school mentality. Is that the kind of society you want? I don't. The reality is we have an abundance of material things in Canada. It is the greed factor that is creating our problems, and we need our governments to control it. Business is an important part of our society, but by its very nature, will never be the most important. What Canada lacks is a progressive media outlet with a worker's point of view. I keep hearing rumblings about it, and it sure would be nice to see it get off the ground to offset a lot of the nonsense eminating from places such as Vancouver Sun - Province, etc.

The CanWest Global empire needs to broken up. The media is too important a factor in our society to be controlled by so few. This is an area where we need some strong government intervention although I don't expect to see it coming from the Martin Liberals. Now maybe if the NDP are able to secure victories in those possible two by-electons in Saskatchewan, there might be a possibility to see our federal government move on this flagrant abuse of Canada's communication systems.

Chernobyl was not being run in a democracy, it was run in a totalitarian society, not the kind of society I support or believe in. Anytime a group of people get too much power in society is where we run into trouble. It is essential to have a healthy balance, like we try to do in Canada, or at least in a lot of our provinces, with our alternating of left-of-centre and right-of-centre governemnts. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We Canadians need to revive our solar energy programs and research, where we are using renewable and non-polluting resouces.

It is not healthy to generalise about any group of people. A lot of the problems we encounter in life we bring on ourselves by our own "POOR ME" attitudes.

It would be useful to have a policy for our civil servants that no relative (parents, children, aunts & uncles, cousins) be allowed to work in the civil service. This would help to prevent a lot of the problems.

Willy.......that statement says a lot. Slavery was abolished quite a while ago I believe, although I realize some people would like to revive the practice. One works with people not for people. Employers do not own their employees, and that is the reason we will always need a strong labour movement in Canada. No one is forcing any employer to be here. If employers don't like the Canadian protections for our workforce go someplace else. There are lots of alternatives. Business leaders are not the heroes our business run media make them out to be. What was it Dave Barrett said: "The easiest thing in the world to do in a capitalist society is to make money".

There is no proper appeal process in place, and that is why the churches are involved.

Maybe it is our private media in Canada that is causing the problem here, creating these stereotypes. Maybe it's time educators had a lot more say in what our media reports on, and how they report it.

Canada needs to upgrade our school system so that students are taught the advantages of a healthy union movement in our society. Our healthy union movement has brought advantages such as weekends off, summer holidays, overtime over 8 hours a day, and/or 40 hours a week, statutory holidays, days off for sickness and sick benefits, safe working conditions (I.E. WCB), pension plans, etc. The people that brought the above kind of conditions for our work force are the real Canadian heroes.

Freedom is code for crushing the weaker elements in our society. They have already started to address the issue of bullying in the schoolyard. It is time we started addressing the issue of bullying in the workplace and in our media.

Refugee claims at lowest level in 10 years Nothing like a little dose of reality instead of the hesteria being promoted by certain groups in our society. People really need to get off their soapboxes and stop their fearmongering, when in reality there is very little or nothing for Canadians to fear about refugees.

The one other important area which they left out is the polluting of the discussion boards on the 'net. If Canadians don't stand up to these bullies we will lose our country, and all the wonderful values it represents.

Toll-highway dispute goes international This is another example of the fallacy of the advantages of privatizing. This sale by the Harris government is turning into a nightmare for the citizens of Ontario. Canadians had better wake up and realize it is not in our interests to keep on electing these right wing governments.

Here is the article about desirable cities referred to in the previous post; Canada rules best-cities list

A study just came out showing Canadian cities taking five of the first six spots in rankings of desirable places to live. The only US city to make the list was Honolulu. Canadians do't want to buy the American trip. Canadians don't want to be bombarded with American culture - we have our own.

Your response reminds me of the tobacco industry. Denial and attempt to confuse. There have been major problems with fish farming from day one. It is just that we are now beginning to see concretely the devastation that is being created by their presence. It is time to put an end to this industry that is poisoning our natural fish and also jeopardising our food chain.

Farmed Salmon Raise Concerns I wonder what the connection is between the Campbell Liberals and the Fish Farming Industry in BC. I have heard these Fish Farm operators are big donors to the Campbell Liberals. There is no way these farms should be operating, yet they continue to do so, creating more and more problems. People better find out where their salmon comes from when they purchase it from now on if they don't already. What an absolute nightmare these fish farms are turning out to be.

The latest polls show only 28% of women in BC support the Campbell Liberals - shades of the Harper Conservatives!

Japan begins probe into nuclear accident This situation exemplifies in a very clear way why it is not good to privatize. We just can't trust business to act appropriately or ethically. We need governments with very strong inspection agencies. Can you imagine if we privatized our road systems. We would have bridges collapsing all over due to business cutting corners on inspections. Some people think nuclear power is the way to go. Not me. We need to slow down, start consuming less, beef up our public transportation systems, do more walking and less driving.

Crude oil price hits record high I suppose we can thank President Bush for this mess. Where is Canada going with R & D for alternative sources of enery? At one point we were primed to enter the solar energy field but it seems to have fallen flat. How shortsighted we are.

Both the Latimer situation and the Robinson case are quite unique, and need to be considered individually on their own merits. Comparing the two is absurd. Getting back to Robinson, does anyone know what the condidtions are like at these auctions? When one first enters there is a registration desk and one does not go any further than that without producing identification. Everyone has to register, and often one is required to leave one's driver's licence at the registration desk. It is returned when you leave. You must register because it is at the registration desk one receives one's bidding card - usually a piece of cardboard or plastic with a number on it. There are security cameras usually trained on the security desk as well as on areas such as the expensive jewellery. Quite often the premises are patrolled by security guards as well. The point I am making is that no one is unidentified or unseen, particularly a prominent person in society who everyone recognises. That question is not even an issue, not up for debate. So there never was any rationale attempt by Svend to try and get away with stealing the jewellery.

Let's see - distinct provinces: BC for its rain! Saskatchewan for its dust clouds! Ontario - Canada's Head Office or so they like to think! Quebec for its poutine! Nouveau Brunswick for its bilingualism, officially, that is! Alberta, for Mapleleafweb, and Calgary for its schnooks. Nice, especially in February!

Still at it I see! Don't you think it is time to move on over the Quebec issue. Quebec is unique or distinct, and Quebeckers have, as their special mission, the preservation of French within Canada. Anyway, I was listening to an English radio commentator in BC the other day and he had a message for his French listeners: " The referendum score is two-zip for les federales, but hey, anytime Quebeckers want to go best out of five les federales sont pret! Or we could add the Canadian content rule, and invoke the Stanley Cup finals accounting system, and go best out of seven! It is a joke but actually what is wrong with looking at Quebec sparation like a hockey series, where one side has to win the majority of games, or as in this case, the majority of referedums.

Canada's distinctiveness is bound up in our culture, and like Quebec efforts to preserve the French language and culture Canada needs to do the same. If you have satellite dish can't you get all 500 channels that I am sure no one could possibly live without. As the announcer says on City TV: Maybe it's time to get off the stinking couch.