August1991

My understanding is that the NDP is funded as a branch of a Korean party.

Are these guys the gang that couldn't shoot straight or what? This is turning into comedy. And this is all happening during a five week election campaign! CTV Liberal Party Funds

Martin wants to add $9 billion over 5 years to health care. Layton wants to add $29 billion to health care over 5 years. Total expenditure on health care between 1996-2001 1996 $74.2 billion 1997 $77.3 billion 1998 $81.9 billion 1999 $87.9 billion 2000 $96.5 billion 2001 $104.3 billion On average, we are now adding about $7-8 billion every year to health care. Is this too much? According to Jeffrey Simpson, health care expenditures are out of control. But on a per capita basis, in 2001, we spent 9.7% of GDP on all health care whereas the Americans spent 13.9%. As incomes rise, health care takes a bigger proportion of expenditure since health care is a luxury good. In a sense, we are catching up to Americans. The real issue with health care is not the dollars spent but how disorganized the medical "system" is. I think that's the main gist of David Frum's article once you get past his smarmy take on "socialized" medicine. We can expect increasing billions to go to health care in the future. That's normal. What is maybe more important is for provinces to experiment with delivery.

Kidding aside, Maple, I wonder why the voting age isn't dropped to 16 or even 14.

In Quebec, the Liberal vote is concentrated in about 15-20 seats. The Libs can get even 40% of the popular vote but that won't translate into seats. It seems the same in BC with the NDP. The NDP vote is concentrated into certain regions. BC Riding Predictions Of the 36 BC seats, which 18 are going to go NDP? [incidentally, in Ontario the NDP problem is different. The NDP vote is spread out. PR would be to the NDP's advantage.]

There's another issue with an inheritance tax. It invites evasion. For large sums, there are many ways to create special funds or offshore thingeys. I think that's what the McCain family did. This proposal may come back to haunt the NDP. It invites all kinds of questions and confusion. People think the government wants to take something away from them. At the doorstep, people will ask about this. Wow! BlackDog says something good about our American cousins.

Just sign up. It's free.

It's not anyone - it's any family. The $1 million threshold is based on the total amount. Given the value of houses in Toronto and Vancouver, many family inheritances are worth more than $1 million. But why exempt farms and small businesses? A dollar is a dollar is a dollar. Of course, this policy will never be enacted so we're pissing in the wind. But I think the NDP was unwise to propose it.

There you go again. What do you mean by "foreign"? "Assimilated" into what? What is Canada? More specifically, should immigrants be selected based on some criteria about their willingness to assimilate into something called Canada? There used to be points for "personal suitability" but I think that's gone now. This is more or less the case now. Family class cases refer to spouses, kids and parents. A Canadians should have the right to marry whoever they want and have that person become an immigrant. One point you have missed in this thread is the whole refugee immigration process. Frankly, this is a mess and I suspect is the basic cause of all the bad stats and problems you refer to. The Charter says that "anyone in Canada is entitled to due process". In the case of a potential refugee, this means anyone who gets here is entitled to a long drawn out process to hear their claim.

Where did you get that number? Did you notice too that farms and small businesses are exempt? Geez, this policy will really be popular in those urban ridings with baby-boomers - knowing that rural types, for some reason, are exempt.

Get with the beat. Toronto Star Walkom Ontario

You're in Hitler/Nazi 1933 territory. Would our GG object? Or, could a minority leader become majority PM? CanadaRocks, what would you do if PM PM sets up a Parliamentary Enquiry and arrests Opposition members so that he has a majority? What if PM Harper orders the RCMP to arrest NDP House members to get a Tory majority in the House? Canadians, endure? Do you understand democracy? CanadaRocks, what would you do? Stand in front of a tank as the guy in Beijing? Is it worth it? Capitalist Democracy and Corporate McDonalds, same deal? Really?

Such a line goes over well with the HEC in Montréal. Is it accurate? Will Harper come and give a speech to the HEC (even in summer)? He must! Ces francophones veulent savoir ce qu'il pense. Replace the word Alberta with Québec and many in the Beauce would agree. Les Québécois francophones fédéralistes comprennent bien le désir. Is it a true statement?

Jack Layton? Sorry, but I'm more worried about him losing his day job without the rug: Layton's Day Job According to the Dippers, there's enough structural/frictional unemployment. Let's give Layton a break; and pay for his hat.

This Quebec newspaper site provides links to about 18 articles mostly in French but several in English about Lapierre. All I think were written in Feb 2004 when he got back together with Martin. Of the articles, IMV, these two are the best: Jef Lisée M. Vastel, le journaliste Balzac du Canada ---- Articles in English: Lysiane Gagnon L. Ian Macdonald ---- Who is Lapierre? Luc Lavoie, Mulroney's press guy, now Quebecor VP media guy, described Lapierre as the Brian Tobin of Quebec. Smart. Lapierre had André Ouellet as first mentor. As a 25 year old Liberal MP, he voted for the patriation of the constitution in 1981. Then he voted for Turner (over Chretien) when Trudeau resigned. He favoured Meech and then left the Liberals with the arrival of Chretien in 1990. (He had supported PM PM in the post-Turner leadership race.) Lapierre heeded the call of his new mentor in 2004. Is there any logic? This Lapierre quote in the Vastel article says much: No one quite knows how Lapierre voted in the 1995 referendum. (To my knowledge, he's never said.) It is hard not to come to the conclusion that Jean Lapierre is an "opportuniste". He seems more inclined to be federalist than separatist - but the distinction is small. Trudeau, Pearson, Mulroney and even Chrétien were genuine federalists. They all had to deal with the Lapierre sort. (Ottawa is filled with such 'federalists'.) But Trudeau et al somehow aimed for something higher. The Liberal Party (or PM PM) has apparently chosen, on an issue critical to its raison d'être, to go low. Why? Where is the articulate, genuine federalist Stéphane Dion? Why did PM PM choose the one over the other? What happened? Trudeau is not around to write a polemical piece to Actualité and Maclean's. But he may well be rolling in his crypt.

I thought the thread was about how low the the Liberal popular support will be on 28 June? How long to "meltdown, tipping point, change managers, bring back Kinsella" territory?

Between 1996-2001, we accepted 1,217,000 immigrants. In the same period, we had 376,000 emigrants. This is high by international (Australia, NZ, US) standards. StatCan Growth by Source ----- I remember reading this Globe article you cite (and other articles based on the same StatCan data). I believe that overall, people born outside Canada still have more wealth (StatCan on Wealth) I don't want to get into a Stats war (unless you think this question is worth pursuing). We might both agree to say that, for some reason, current immigrants to Canada are apparently not doing as well a previous immigrants. [is that even true? Dunno.] ----- This is critical, IMV. Family Class and Refugees make up the majority of our immigrants. This is a political issue and has nothing to do with economics. I think the 4 in 10 figure is too high. When a skilled person is accepted, dependants also get accepted. In terms of immigrant visas issued, how many persons were in fact selected by skills criteria? ----- The relevant point here is that the feds used to pick up settlement costs through agreements with the provinces. No more. Then the provinces downloaded to the cities. This is mostly a Toronto issue. ------ Turkish mail order brides in Denmark I fought my way through the verbiage of your source and never did find the stat in question. (I even did a search on '95' without success.) My point? For many reasons, the Muslim experience in Europe is not the same as the Muslim experience in North America. (That's why I gave the Dearborn example.) ----- 580,000 Muslims in Canada in 2001. Huh? ----- The most significant stat I saw here overall is that the Muslim population grew from about 1.2% of the whole population in 1991 to 2% of the whole population in 2001. Now, if this frightens you, then I guess we should be concerned about this issue. Otherwise, it's a tempest in a glass of water. Argus, with all this said, I share your concern about immigration, what it means to Canada, the fact that everyone is afraid to discuss it. But as an ambivalent Canadian, I am proud that our immigration policies are basically "colour-blind". That says something to everyone in the world. I also think that family re-unification should be a cornerstone of immigration policy.

I don't quite understand what you're on to here MS. Can you explain? I agree. Is that the issue here? I'm not so certain I would agree with all of that. The CBC, absolutely. But the other chains report the news. Perhaps because of the CRTC, they avoid controversy.IMV, MS does raise an interesting question though. This is the first federal election in which discussion forums and weblogs may well carry more weight (among political obsessives anyway) than regular media. What does this mean exactly? Is this a form of town hall meeting? Can journalists get a better sense of what people think by reading these posts rather than asking taxi drivers?

He was talking on the same radio station where he had his show during an interview with someone he knows. In context, I think he meant that a minority government would be bad because it would be unstable. His quote has not been reported that way.

The Liberals are using the same tactic in Quebec. (It's an old traditional line here.) Toronto Star on Lapierre Aside from its supreme arrogance given the past few months, the logic of this argument falls apart as soon as it becomes apparent the Liberals may not form a government. Then there's a tipping point. The big disconnect right now in Canada is that a majority of Canadians think the Liberals are corrupt but a majority also thinks they'll win.

That was exactly my opinion too. That too. This may really blow up for the Liberals. I think they will soon have to change their strategy.

The Liberal ad is here: Liberal Ad The new (and old) Conservative ads are here: Conservative Ads

Our emigration is almost one third of our immigration. I suspect many of these emigrants were not born in Canada. And I suspect too that most emigrants go to the US. Statistics Canada - Pop Growth by Source

Argus, please stop making these blanket assertions without some evidence: Proof? Do you have any statistics to support this claim? What percentage of immigrants go on welfare? You stated 90% in another post, refering to Danish Turks. This kind of hearsay is along the lines of "a friend of my sister-in law..." I'll do this for you.There were some 580,000 Muslims in Canada in 2001 (or about 2% of the entire population). Statistics Canada Now I understand. You do your research by casually watching TV.

We don't retain our immigrants. Our gross number is large but our net numbers are much smaller. (Indeed, many move to the US and so our immigration system amounts to a US immigration system.) "expected to blend"? I thought you were talking about extreme Muslims who want to impose Sharia law. According to you, these people have no desire to blend into anything anywhere. Should the US be worried too?