August1991

Women earn on average about 75% of what men earn. This percentage has been rising. The discrepancy is largely explained by such factors as experience, education and attitude to risk. But frankly, who cares what the explanation is. (I have no doubt that blue-eyed people earn more than brown-eyed. Blondes more than brunettes. Professional hockey players earn a heck of lot more than teachers.) If a woman doesn't like the salary she is being paid, she can go across the street to another employer who pays more. If she doesn't like that, she can set up her own business. In my short experience of life, I have found that the best protection against stupidity is to be able to go elsewhere. (It appears the two lesbians in Red Deer came to the same conclusion too.) BD, you seem to see some kind of secret male cartel to keep women out of the loop. Why doesn't someone hire all these underpaid women, get top-notch work skills and beat the competition? Hey, that's happening now! I would argue that the decline in the salary differential between men and women mirrors the decline in union membership.

What kind of mealymouth answer is that? "some of the above practices were state-sanctioned"? If they weren't state-sanctioned, who sanctioned them? "market plays a significant role in maintaining discriminatory practices" How? Discriminatory practices require a monopoly. "slavery was sanctioned by the state becuase the market (ie. the white-upper class) demanded it" So the State can be taken over by a minority and used to pursue the minority's ends. Black Dog, you really say the weirdest things. [/wry grin]

OH MY GAWD, Black Dog. What are saying? It was the South African GOVERNMENT that enforced apartheid, not the South African market. It was the American GOVERNMENT that enforced slavery, not the market. It was the NAZI STATE that systematically applied anti-Semitism, not the German market. The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights were intended precisely to ensure no single person obtained absolute power and to ensure citizens were protected AGAINST THE STATE. The State is a monopoly. Our relations with the State are involuntary. Market relations are voluntary. There is a profound difference here.

Kitty? Check this out (or show to a girlfriend): Cute Kitty Pic The web site is good for fixing your system too.

Words are one thing. Actions another. What did Harper say? What did Martin do? MS, these are opening salvos. In fact, we are watching democracy in action - something denied to places like Jordan, Palestine and China. It is wonderful because we will somehow collectively decide. It is Canada in question. The truth will out. (Black Dog believes all this is manipulated.) I'm curious to watch, and see how the NDP will play a role. (I suspect it will not be a small role.) The NDP represents many English Canadians. Manipulated? Can anyone of us now predict where this several million, collective conversation will lead? (Well, I am sure that we will all accept the end result with respect.) Does anyone here believe that we Canadians will not decide collectively our own fate? Whaddya think BlackDog? BlackDog, will the US get involved in our election and ensure it gets the dollars it wants? (Sorry, dumb question. The US already has our cash/oil/coal/stuff/country and because of the Americans, we're innocent victims living in dire ignorance and poverty like many in South American flavellas.)

This is the latest topic in Quebec forums. A good one too. Did Martin make a boo-boo with Lapierre? Quebecor Lapierre in French Martin can't push this election to the Fall. And a federal party must accept people of different beliefs. But Chretien would never have done this. Canada is already a different country.

I think you are wrong. Martin is not Chretien, and Harper is not Day. Chretien had an instinctive feel for French Canada and a learned feel for English Canada. I saw him in action on both sides. Martin has no feel. English or French. His touch, believe me, is not working here. But the Liberal Party is still something (smart ambition, at minimum). (Rent the CBC double DVD about Trudeau and watch the CBC documentary extra on one side about the 1968 Liberal Convention. Martin's Dad is almost Martin now - just more ambition, less sense.) This Federal Election will be very interesting to watch. And I think that it will be very important. (Maybe I'm wrong.)

I'll believe it when I see the hundreds of ADMs in their 30s without a job. No, we're talking golden hand shake and so on.But that's not my point. The story in Ottawa is told in English, and French-speakers are out of the loop. Chretien himself loved to repeat the anecdote (foolish in my mind - but English Canada lapped it up - he never told it to a French Canada audience) of sitting through an important meeting as a young MP and having Mitch Sharp turn and say, "Jean, this is all secret national information. Don't repeat anything." An older Chretien would pause and then deliver the line (in English), "I told Mr. Sharp that there was no danger for Canada because I understood nothing." Senior unilingual francophone civil servants in Ottawa simply don't exist. À Québec, il y en a.

I noticed the same thing and was curious. I think Martin is like Clark. After leaving a place, his ratings go down. Both guys confuse movement with progress. The Tories have realized this and have let Martin take as much rope as he wants. But don't get me wrong, the Liberals are not Martin. These guys, Lapierre and the rest, are something. We now have an old fashioned 50 day campaign, and not the 36 day modern Electoral Act campaign. Watch for TV debate negotiations soon. I suspect that this campaign will be unlike anything in Canadian history. Pacific Scandal meets TV.

It's a good schtick. The Liberals may well get re-elected with it.Here's the subtext - we pretend we don't take from you and you pretend you give all to us. End result? Canada's a wonderful country! The Liberals make sure everything works well (despite all the silly noise the TV people make). You can get on with life and your family affairs. Canada is a wonderful country! Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you. Vote Liberal. Welcome to modern Canada.

Do you mean I'm a 6 year old, and you're my 4 year old sister and Paul Martin is Dad? WTF? Is that Canada? (Holy bejeezzers as a friend from Nova Scotia used to say.) I agree completely. But what do you mean by "social programme" (Canadian spelling)? Does that mean a person in Saskatchewan has the right to walk into someone's home in Ontario and take a chesterfield? (Well, you know, times are tough in Saskatchewan and those Ontario types are rich...)Would you teach your daughter to do that? PS. Your last comment, "It means recognizing that someone who is different, is also a Person who hurts and bleeds and loves and cares.", is the one I treasure most from having Canada make me.

Didn't Maureen McTeer and Joe Clark run at the same time? Both Chow and Layton are very "Tony" Hogtown. Slick CBC insider types living in the Beaches part of Toronto. Gentrified shops and so on - boring version of Montreal's Plateau. Reform didn't takeover the PCs. The Toronto Left tookover the NDP. Ugh.

Benjamin Franklin, an American with interesting ideas, wrote in 1789: "In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes." What a fateful year. Tax revolt? Vote for the candidate that makes the most credible promise to cut taxes - then wait and see.

You're funnier than usual Hugo. True, the Charter of Rights is the law of the land but in the grand scheme of things, this is not what protects us against discrimination. It is the freedom to cross the street that protects us against idiots (such as this Red Deer bar guy - IMO). I think any member of any minority understands this instinctively. Who operates most of the small businesses in Canada? BD, have you ever wondered why? Fad minority of the month. I'm sure tonight somewhere there is an old drunk Indian (can I say that?) being tossed out of some bar some place. How about a Korean-Canadian who can't pronounce English well being misunderstood in some hospital waiting line? Will anybody even notice? (In a normal world, there would be Korean speaking health clinics, run for profit, but paid by the State. Instead, we've got in loud, guttural English: Take a number!) Do you really want equality, BD? Should we really treat everyone the same? Should everyone earn the same salary? Get the same marks in school? Would you really want to live in a world where everyone is treated equally?And what about freedom? If a woman refuses to go out with a man because of his race, can the man sue the woman for discrimination? Should a company be able to refuse to hire a person on the grounds the person is too "ugly"? The problem, BD, is that Americans (the country you adore) have elevated this idea of equality of rights to the equivalent of our Canadian Health Care System. And you, BD, have bought in to this American Self-Definition.

You can choose where you buy your groceries, Black Dog, so I don't see why a grocery store shouldn't have the same right to choose who to serve. As to bars, have you ever heard of a "dress code"? How about "face control"? The best protection against discrimination is to go across the street to another bar - assuming one exists. (State monopolies unfortunately don't offer this kind of protection.) In this case, that's what the women did. I suspect the Human Rights complaint is PR thingy.

Jeffrey Simpson is a bland, boring, "old" political columnist. Even pre-retirement Richard Needham was more more interesting. Where does Simpson research his columns? Internet forums? Canadian politics are in a sad state of affairs.

Democracy - a Disney Movie.

I mean this very honestly CR. Did you ever tell your daughter that she should take toys from "rich" kids because she was "poor"? Did you ever encourage her to take toys from "rich" kids and donate them to "poor" kids? CR, you think the government should make me (a constituent) do something that you don't encourage your own daughter to do. Apparently, these words "freedom" and "share" have elastic meanings. This is no "head-game". I simply think that Canadians have lost their moral compass. This thread's title is "What's Being Canadian Worth to You". I have a clear idea. It involves sharing. And I think my idea will stand the test. What's your idea, CR?

On the contrary, hjalmar, the left wing would all pass such "intelligence tests". The left love preparing others to pass committee designed tests, committee decisions about attainable competencies, intricate State tests and bureaucratic intrigues. Free thinking individuals will lose against any committee. And BTW, Ian Smith was the ultimate closed-shop union, or closed-minded committee. What are you hjalmar? Closed or open-minded?

He's a BQ candidate in the riding of Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, north of Montreal, outside of the city. He will win. And then he will become a household name in English-Canada. (I was surprised and heartened to learn he would be a federal candidate.) We'll see what English Canada makes of him, if anything. The web site (in French) below does not do justice. (Ménard first took on the bikers.) An English search of his name comes up with a hockey player. National Assembly bio We are two solitudes. Hugh MacLennan borrowed that phrase from a German poet. I never liked it.

I guess that's where we part ways.I don't think the occupant of the job of head of state should be determined by birth, or "that method", as you say. (Think of what "that method" symbolizes for all the other jobs to be filled in a society.) Since I see no benefit, I think the constitution should be changed. Yes I am. I have always wondered what would happen to the Canadian "psyche" if our passports and money said "République fédérale du Canada". (Heck you're right. It's absurdly irrelevant at this stage.)

Take a gander at this: A Newf Speaks White

I was more interested in what children think unadvised. Precisely. Children have a refined sense of fairness.But please, Hugo, don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting children have some insight to ethics that we adults lack. I was thinking rather that parents don't advise children to go and take toys from another child simply because the other child has more toys. In my experience, even very young children know it's wrong to take something without permission - although you might say they have learned this. We encourage children to share, play together, be friends, "socialize" I guess is the word. If an other child is selfish and won't share, we don't encourage stealing toys as the solution.

What does the government do? "Encourage to steal" or "encourage to share"? It is one thing to encourage a child with many toys to share and another thing to encourage a child to take toys from other children who happen to have many. Would you teach a child that is "good"? You posted in this thread the idea that children have basic values (or as children we had basic values) that somehow adults lack. I thought I would take your idea and see where the problem lies.I tend to agree with your original idea. Children often have a refined sense of "fairness" or values. I'm not so certain government, as you present it, is an extention of these values. Compared to today, Canada was a very different country when it was first founded. It was even different as recently as 60 years ago. Aside from all the modern technology we enjoy, is it better now? [PS. The hierarchy is purely Maslov's - and no one else's. Each person is different, thank God. Does rich Conrad Black care less about himself but a stressed air traffic controller more?]

Your sense of exclusion is quaint and cute. Does it apply to Newfoundlanders and their speech?