August1991

All 60,000 swore allegiance? That is nonsense. The Quebec Act was written under very different circumstances than you imply.In addition, your reading of Acadian history is selective and biased. More pointedly, your repeated suggestion (in this post as elsewhere) that the French language survived in North America because of the kindness of the British is wrong. It survived because French-speakers had very large families. Argus, it seems that you don't like French-speaking people, and Quebec in particular. Many people have such emotional biases. It's not a big deal. But your opinions are not objective and your knowledge of history blinkered. That is unfortunate for someone with an apparently sharp mind. Argus, can you say anything good about the French-speaking people in Canada?

Thelonious, you have written utter nonsense. It's not as simple as you state but even so, do you not see a distinction between the United States and the Soviet Union? Or do you see them both as agressor, imperial states? [i see a large difference between the US and the Soviet Union.] But the causes were utterly different. Churchill, a good man defending goodness, was fighting against the evil of an evil man. I use strong words because I know no other to describe this fascist regime. There was no moral relativism - no attempt to understand the other point of view except with a view to defeating it. Are you suggesting that Bush sacrificed 3000 citizens so that al-Qaeda would not discover that US intelligence had a mole? That's silly.More likely, thelonius, you simply believe that Bush organized this for some convoluted reason. The Left claims to stand for human rights but is quick to criticize anyone who takes concrete measures to protect them. The Left similarly claims to stand for freedom of thought but is intolerant of anyone who disagrees. The United States, ultimately, is a country that allows ordinary people to find their own way. The country was founded, for God's sakes, on that principle. Why can't the Left admit this obvious fact? Are you blind, ignorant or just thick?Like children, we don't know what our parents have done.

How far down? What has the farmer done to 'own the surface' that he did not do to own what is underneath? Well, you'd have to look at his deed. What did he buy exactly? What does he own? Typically, he doesn't own the "mineral" rights. Nor does he own the overflight rights. And even if someone owns the mineral rights, they will have to pay special taxes once anything is extracted and possibly sold. It depends. The "sovereign" had different ways of collecting these "royalties". These roylaties are designed to collect "rent" on the use of a resource.

This is not communism at all. The farmer owns the land (at least the surface) and provides any effort to produce anything.The Albertan government has arbitrarily said that it will impose special taxes (royalty payments) on any oil taken out of the ground. (Why does it do this? Because it can.) My question is why not let the federal government impose this kind of tax. IMV, provincial governments should raise tax revenues from activities more closely related to their own policies.

MS said: IMR replied: I rarely (if ever) agree with MS. And frankly, I don't see this as "sharing" someone else's wealth. But I'll agree with MS for once. What did the Albertan government do to deserve this wealth? It is not as if someone in Alberta worked and created it. It's not even as if someone in Albertans' ancestry worked and created it. This was a chance gift. That's all. People have noted the NEP. Well, the economy went into a recession in the early 1980s and things were bad every where, not just Alberta. But Trudeau was standing up to the Albertan government in a perfectly constitutional way. The idea that Alberta is paying everyone else's way in this country is nonsense.

I somehow doubt she got no benefit - when she phoned you, I suspect she expected a benefit . And I suspect you got benefit too, or the expectation of a future benefit.I obviously don't know the details. And I certainly don't mean that people make a cost-benefit analysis. But when we say "To do good is to be moral" then I take the idea seriously. Maybe you both should have gone to sleep instead.

The Albertan government hasn't done anything to deserve the royalties either. How does that change anything? Other jurisdictions in the world obtain the royalties from natural resources in different ways. I see no obvious reason for the roylaties to go to the provincial governments, and many reasons for them to go to the federal government.The royalties from oil and natural gas are far and away greater than from any other natural resource. In the case of fish, none unfortunately are collected. Indeed, the federal government collects all royalties on offshore oil. I have not found any reference to support the idea that kerosene influenced the framers of the Constitution. But who cares anyway, that's not my point.At present, the provincial Albertan government is winning a lottery every day. This game is rigged. I see no reason for that to continue. The federal government has the means to collect the difference between exploration/production costs and the market price. In fact, it does this now in part. More fundamentally, provincial governments should tax those activities over which they can have an effect by their policies. ---- Reading through this thread, I see comments from posters who don't realize that Canada is one of the few countries where local jurisdictions receive oil royalties. And those same posters are quick to blame Quebec for supposedly using the federal government to get what it wants. In Canada, we have the official CBC/Liberal Party prozac version and then we have reality. A bunch of children afraid anyone will touch their toys which, I must note, were gifts in the first place. And the biggest babies apparently are Albertans.

I think you mean 'profitable', not 'moral'.The Terrible Sweal wrote This should be expanded to not only include the detrimental, but also the amoral and unethical. No, I meant moral - although it may be profitable too. Thelonious, why would you undertake a task if the effort exerted was greater than the benefit received? To my mind, that's foolish and, let me say, immoral. [Why immoral? Well, in purely practical terms, some good could have been done if your efforts had been otherwise employed. That good is now lost.] As to profitability, forget about money and think in terms of how you spend your time. Do you not choose to spend it in a way that makes you happiest (or will make you happiest) given the choices available?

They most certainly are.Anyone receiving welfare will lose one dollar of benefit for each dollar earned in work. In effect, the tax rate is 100%. In fact, the effect is worse. To work, there are transport costs, clothing to buy, babysitting expenses etc. In addition, welfare recipients need not pay certain medical costs. This policy is an invitation to fraud and a disincentive to find work. ---- Our social service system has become a large bureaucracy that few want to fall into. There are forms to be filled, documents to show, offices to go to, numbers to take, rooms to wait in and agents behind glass to talk to. I sometimes feel immigrants manage better in this minefield because they get advice from fellow recipients in their community. The homeless in large cities are clearly people who want nothing to do with bureaucrats or bureaucracy. In any case, the single greatest group in poverty in Canada are native Indians. They are also treated like children by the federal government.

This is a really dumb debate but it does show that the Queen, like some cities in the world, gets to have different spellings for her name. The Artist formerly known as Prince must be jealous.I refer you to this communique from the British Embassy in Paris.

The BNA Act gave control of natural resources below ground to the provinces. This means royalty payments for extracting oil go to the provinces, primarily Alberta. These payments are large when the world price of oil is high, like now. But why should that be? Why should only the Albertan government benefit from this chance gift of geology? The federal government has a variety of Constitutional ways to collect all of these royalties. It should do so. The oil beneath the ground, by rights, should belong to all Canadians. Royalty payments should go to the federal government, not a provincial government, and then be shared among all Canadians. Why do Albertans through their provincial government get this largesse - but no one else?

My sympathies were never with the violent Chechens. The Russians, over the years, have given the Chechens ample opportunity to assume their sovereignty. Even the most radical Quebec separatist would have been happy with what was offered. Other republics in Russia have accepted and benefited from such terms.Ultimately though, certain western values are worth defending. The following is not evidence of that. The Guardian The journalist presents the Chechen view as truth; they are underdogs who have no means to defend themselves except by slaughtering innocent children. And there is nothing at all even suggesting the context of this conflict. What is it about the Left? Why does the Left insist on seeing "small countries" as victims and "big countries" as evil perpetrators? There is a kneejerk defence of the downtrodden without ever a thought that the downtrodden might be wrong, or manipulative. That's not objective thought; it's superstition.

Jerusalem Post There needs to be some genuine, soul-searching amongst intelligent Muslims, and certainly not the kind that confuses pride and childish frustration with the West. This thread got off track but I thought I'd resurrect it with this article.

Not in French, caesar, her name is spelled Élisabeth. Noblesse oblige, I guess.Cdn Dept Natl Defence

You sit here in Canada and draw conclusions about how millions of Russians perceive these events. Such is punditry.You seem to have drawn your ideas from events of 25 years ago. If you want to believe in the competence of some, go ahead. The kind of terrorism we are facing now is of a different order. To my knowledge, flying airplanes into buildings is something new. Mass hostage takings in which children are randomly shot or denied water are new. Even the so-called elite SAS could not have dealt with this any better. Those seem like good questions eureka, but don't fall into moral relativism. The values of the west - freedom of thought and the right to criticize - are worth defending.Don't, for two seconds, stop and say "We bombed Dresden but then they bombed Coventry." Nobody should bomb anyone, true. But our values are worth defending.

Are you part of the Red Scare now ceemes? Otherwise, keep your voice down.

They are all people, right? They all voluntarily work together collectively in this thing called a corporation. If you do not want to deal with a corporation, don't. Nobody will force you. The burden of all taxes must fall on a person. And you might be surprised to learn who pays corporate taxes. That is false. Our trade with the US has grown faster in the past 15 years than our trade with other countries, and indeed trade with ourselves. The FTA have reduced artificial barriers between people in the two countries. This has been to the benefit of individual Canadians and individual Americans.If you want to be anti-American and not deal with them, then that is your choice. But I don't see why you should hinder me if I choose to deal with an American.

Wayne, you speak of "Corporations" as if they were extra-terrestrial beings. To my knowledge, corporations are composed entirely of people. There are managers, shareholders and employees who together form a corporation. We can't tax a corporation. We must tax people. I'll also add that all relations with the people in a corporation are voluntary. Nobody forces anybody to buy a Big Mac, Nike shoes or Microsoft Windows. Nobody is forced to buy shares in these firms. Nobody is forced to work for them. As to free trade, the Internet is a wonderful invention that makes it easier to communicate. Why would anyone want to deliberately impose an artifical barrier between two people - making it difficult for the two to deal with one another? The posters to this thread seem to want to do exactly that. They want to make it difficult for Canadians and Americans to deal with one another. Why?

I got your point, ceemes. Did you get mine?You seem to blame the Russian authorities for the nature of this attack. As you say, "they use the blunt hammer approach". You don't get it. These people took over a school with over a thousand people, mostly children. They provided no food nor drink. These terrorists were not disgruntled postal workers. Sorry, the SWAT psy-trained negotiators don't work in such a situation. The Russians were not dealing with anything civilized. I suppose you would say that Stalingrad was destroyed in the Second World War because the Russians took a heavy-handed approach to military affairs.

Burns, please just place a good quote and not the whole article. You are infringing copyright. Also, what is your opinion of the piece? Why did you post it here?

Do you have any knowledge of Hindi and Mandarin? You speak of language as if you can buy it in a box in a supermarket.Learning a language is not easy. Anglophones have a chance of learning and retaining a European language. French, Spanish, Portuguese and German are ideal. These languages - French and Spanish in particular - come with a large body of literature, cinema and music. MS has crazy ideas sometimes. But I see the value of children getting an obligatory hour a day of French. I think French immersion should be available on a voluntary basis. In effect, this is what we do now in Canada. Bear in mind, this approach to language education is new (about 20 years or so). I suspect that Canada has never had so many people who can manage so well in another language.And no, I don't think I'm off topic. If I knew some magic method to make people tolerant, believe me, I would happily write a book about it. I don't mean that learning a language necessarily makes one tolerant. It does mean that one has an understanding of a different way of seeing life. You've heard the expression , "Travel broadens the mind." That's what I mean. Argus, do you want to remain "Canadian" at least while you and your children are alive? That is, do you want to ensure that there is a place in the world called "Canada" with its own peculiar way of doing things?Well, that is no different than wanting to preserve your language. Argus, it is easy to say with bravado that you don't care what happens to your descendants. But you cannot imagine that your great-grandchildren will have to struggle in life because they speak Mandarin with attrocious accents. What you have written is just dumb. You don't know Canada's history.Argus, I sense throughout your post a basic "anti-Quebec" sentiment. I have always been astonished by English Canada. While English-Canadians are quick to describe Americans for being loud-mouthed, ignorant people who seem to think they own the world, English-Canadians don't seem to understand that they behave the same way in Canada. A majority is typically ignorant of minority ways. White Americans know little of black Americans. Americans know little about Canadians. English Canadians know little about French Canadians. Men know little about women. In general, a majority feels that the minorities are always complaining. "What is it they want now?" I am not off topic. I still believe that if an English-speaking Canadian learns functional French, he or she becomes a little more understanding about the world, and in particular what it's like to be a member of a minority. Do you think an American can ever understand what it's like to be a Canadian on this continent?

I will pause from your nonsense to say that I too would prefer to live in an ideal world of an insane hijacker, upset with a contract and demotion, who enters a building with a gun or two.The fire fighters who died in those buildings in NYC, did you see that? Have you been to NYC? Have you seen the hole that was left? Are you clueless? We didn't provoke them. We did nothing wrong. We are all like those firemen on the World Trade stairway. We are all like those people on the Madrid trains. We are all like the children in that Russian school. How have you explained this to kids in Canada you know? Now, what should we do?

You are mistaken, and wrong. I don't know if you are Canadian, but you are very naive about life.

Reading your post makes me feel good to be "Canadian" again. Thanks Idealist!The CBC is NPR, financed heavily by the Canadian Federal Government. The same whackos get free rein, but on taxpayer money. Radio-Canada? Une autre histoire. In Canada, we get NPR in two languages everywhere! Is all this a good thing? Interesting talk and no ads. No requests for donations. Imagine if American blacks had their own cable/radio channel. I like CBC, but it drives me nuts. Radio-Canada is maybe normal. (Detestable Europe parachuted here.) Canadians get a chance to listen/see this across the country. Go figure.

Let me think about your post in general.But you are right about one point. Landry, Parizeau, Johnson, Bouchard, Bourassa, Marois have all sent kids to English/international school. True?