roof_top_eagle

I sent him (McGuinty) a letter laying out my concerns about the HST and all I got back was a form letter he probably sent out to every other citizen of Ontario. It didn't even remotely address my concerns. The letter (Which he probably didn't even write) just stated that he thinks it's best for Ontario. Man I hate it when politicians don't address the real issues. It also drives me nuts that I will have to vote Liberal for my riding in the next Provincial Election because I really like my MP. We really need to change the voting system, it's not right that I have to vote a party leader I don't like into power if I like the local candidate!

I'm pretty sure McGuinty wont downsize the staff. He'll probably reassign them, public sector employees have the most job security out of anyone in the workforce. Even business owners have less job security.

You know this whole thing makes me sick, that Sarah Kramer who messed this all up could get so much in severance after 5 months on the job! I worked for a company for 4 years and got no severance when I was laid off and didn't even get EI benefits! Somehow anyone who works for the government gets job security and handsome payouts when they mess up! I heard on CTV news last night that Kramer got over 300k in severance, not to sure about that figure but it's what I heard. It makes me sick!

Personally I don't want my kids (when I have them) in public education. The public education system doesn't teach the worldview that I believe in. So I'd probably go private school if I can find a good one or home school my kids. This is why I'm starting my own business so that when I get married my wife doesn't have to work once the kids come. I want to be financially independent, debt free and capable of taking care of my family on my own without government intervention or assistance. The public schools indoctrinate kids with a liberal, messed up word view. I don't want my kids brain washed by the gay rights, abortionist, etc, etc liberal worldview.

Is it just me or is question period at any level of government a waste of time? The parties just list off insults like little children and no one actually answers the question. All they do is read a statement that has been party approved. You could ask 6 questions on the same subject but different questions and get the same answer 6 times word for word. I think either the question should be answered truthfully and not these "propaganda" style answers or we should just have question period scrapped. Any views?

First of all the whole term "separation of church and state" means that the state keeps it's grubby hands off the church, however that isn't the way it is commonly known. Personally I can't vote liberal as an evangelical Christian because (Like their name would suggest) they have way to liberal views. I'm currently not happy with any political party but if I had to vote today I would probably go Conservative Party. The NDP only care about unionized workers despite what they want to admit, the liberals and greens are to liberal so by default I'd have to go Conservative. I'm far happier with the Conservatives than any other party.

1) It's a public forum that anyone can join, so it's anything but private coversation 2)No 3)Maybe 4)No 5)No 6)No 7)No Feel free to use any post I've made in your paper and feel free to PM me if you want to talk more. It's good to see people looking at actual people's point of view for papers instead of only formal studies, articles and polls

That's true I misspoke on that one.

What do you suggest? a search of every car that crosses the boarder? We'll have to add 50x as many boarder guards and add mechanics to put cars back together after the searches. The drug war can't be won, we need to educate people on the evils of drugs and catch kids young so we can stop them from becoming adult users.

Here is my problem with this, it's good legislation yes but it doesn't solve the problem of gangs? What we need is a program that will get parents out of poverty so that the kids can play hockey or something instead of getting into a gang! I don't think anything Nicholson can do will stop gang violence it will just add to the street cred of a thug when he gets out after a longer jail sentence. What we need is to dig people out of poverty. I understand that people in poverty need another 10-20 thousand dollars a year to get out of poverty. What we need is a plan to get families this money. Be it better education, more grants and bursaries for adults to return to school or more adult learning programs that increase the ability people have to earn a better living. To me what it boils down to is more kids feel safe in gangs because they don't have anything else to do after school to keep them off the streets. Yes there are good programs out there for kids to get into but we need a better system to lower the poverty rate. (BTW I think child poverty is junk, parents are in poverty so kids suffer) I was lucky, I played football after school from the age of 7 up through high school and when it wasn't football season I was at the gym preparing for the next season. I had a blast and gangs never even entered my mind. We need more kids who's parents can afford to do stuff like this for their kids to keep them off the streets! However I do support the legislation to put criminals behind bars, I just don't think it's the solution. Harper is being lazy and not doing what needs to be done to fix the problem properly.

I think every cop should have a taser, just like every cop has a baton, handcuffs, a two way radio and a gun. What I think is lacking is the proper procedure for using a taser. Right now cops use them all willy nilly when ever they feel like it and don't get down and dirty anymore. Clearly if you take four guys from this forum with average intelligence we'd come out with a different outcome if we took on Dziekanski and all we had were a set of handcuffs. What is a problem is the fact that these four officers couldn't handle a lone man. They had plenty of chances to wrestle him to the ground and cuff him and used a taser instead because it's easier and safer for them. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the taser is a good and useful tool. It just needs a place on the use of force continuum. As I understand it, the taser isn't on there or just isn't in the right spot. If there is clear when, why and hows on using a taser then it can be valuable to every police officer. I do think it is used way to liberally right now.

I obviously wasn't clear enough. You don't need to know english, It's just a good idea to know a few words. Two things come to mind here though 1) his mother is a Canadian now, you'd think he knew the airport enough to be civil. He's been here before as I understand 2) You don't fight with cops! Yes the cops were a little dumb to taser the guy with 4 of them there but Dziekanski wasn't acting smart either. He's dead because he acted stupid, not because he didn't speak english.

Agreed

Um? Dishonorably discharged? These aren't war crimes! Jailed? Hardly, the taser is an approved weapon. The officers in my opinion are only responsible for their actions. The problem is that the taser doesn't have proper protocol for it's use. Guns aren't used to subdue a person nor are they used to gain control of a situation without a firearm being involved on the side of the perp. The glock on their hips have proper protocol that must be followed before it is used. From what I understand there is none of this in place for the taser. These policemen are victims of a flawed system. Look at this, we're saying they should be fired, jailed and who knows what else is being thought in secret. You say these officers should be jailed for criminal negligence, they weren't negligent, the RCMP call the taser a "safe" weapon. That alone implies that they weren't negligent. Maybe the RCMP is negligent but not the officers. No one can see what is going on in a guys heart when he is being tasered, I can guess but that is not a scientific or medical guess. These four guys knew nothing more than the hundreds of thousands of other deployments of tasers in the world that didn't end in death.

While I agree it's easy for us to sit here and criticize I do think calling us the delicate elite is a little off base, you don't know us. I do agree with the statement you made about the officers getting a bruise to some extent. Four RCMP officers should be able to control a guy with a stapler for crying out loud! The tazer is overkill in this situation. In my opinion signing up for the RCMP or any police force is accepting the fact that you might get roughed up a bit on a day to day basis. The tazer was a good tool but it is being misused all the time. Of course it's not like police aren't clearly distinguishable in public, Dziekanski should have been able to know that they wanted him in a pair of cuffs. In this situation it would have been smart to surrender and work it out later with an interpreter. I still think there are better cases of misuse of a tazer to use for a inquiry into their use than some guy who contributed nothing to Canada's economy or anything. I think someone posted some links above that show gross misuse of the taser. One thing with me is I'm sick of police officers getting paid leave when they mess up or something has to be looked into. This is basically a paid suspension, if I get suspended from work I don't earn a dime so why do these guys? They get paid well and paid leave and if they are allowed back on the beat after this they will have to go through training again, yet another taxpayer expense. This is why I say either let them work or fire them don't pay them to sit at home and watch TSN. The rest of the country's citizens don't get paid when they don't work so why are the police so different?

I talked about this a little in my blog in a post called No charges in death of Robert Dziekanski Today I heard on CBC that the defense for the RCMP Officers who are blamed for his death is going to cite that the officers were doing what they are trained to do how they are trained to do it and that Dziekanski was a threat when he wielded a stapler. Personally I think 4 highly trained RCMP officers could control a guy using a stapler as a weapon! However I stand by the side of the RCMP officers, I mean if you don't speak english do you think it could be handy to learn some before coming to CANADA! I mean what do you think we speak here, German? That aside, what I find appalling is that these officers have been on paid leave for 16 months! This inquiry should have been over and done with in a week. Nothing will bring Dziekanski back so why 1) waste taxpayers money looking into his death for 16+ months and 2) not put these officers back on the beat? I mean they are being paid, so why not have them work? Is this how we manage our money now? Some dude who walks into a Vancouver airport, dies because he's to dumb to get some english under his belt before coming to a dominantly english country and we have to spend millions of tax payer dollars on looking into his death. How wacky! How much tax has Dziekanski paid to Canada? None? that is what I thought, so why do Canadian taxpayers have to foot the bill because he couldn't learn a little english? What do you guys think? I think this inquiry is a waste of money, and that the RCMP must be desperate for officers if the guys they can get are scared of staplers.

Just my opinion but if they feel like ignoring NAFTA and WTO we should lock the boarders down. I give my full view in my blog but the jist of it is that the world lock them into their own limits until they are forced to fulfill their NAFTA and WTO agreements. It's a bit extreme but I'm not a fan of cheats.

HAHA

Look at my Signature the sad thing is it is all too true. We've done so much more but no one knows it.

I don't think the flag is there to remind them of what it looks like. It's more symbolic. I don't think we need a flag in the classrooms but I'd settle for schools getting a new $20 flag once a year instead of those old warn out faded ugly ones you see outside schools. Three forks at a dinner setting? yes your right, my proofreading is flawed, I meant Allegiance What I was driving at was that Canadian pride seems so false, I go south of the border and I see flags everywhere, "God bless America" is all over the place. I'm hard pressed to find anyone wearing a Canadian flag their shoulder much less the Canadian Flag on one and a support the troops patch on the other like myself. Good luck finding anyone but a soldier sporting a Canadian Flag. I mean in the USA every cop has one either on a shoulder or on their chest. It took me months prior to Christmas to find a belt buckle of the Canadian flag for my grandfather, they are common place in the USA. Canadians fall short when it comes to showing love for their country and this measure seems to take it all that much farther. I only agree about the Canadian history, I find it hard to find true love for Canada out there.

You clearly don' get it

In the USA they have a flag at the front of every classroom, they state the pledge of elegance every day and have actual pride in their country. Canada however can't seem to get any pride into a day heck we teach 'American history in school, the USA couldn't give a rats tail about Canadian history so why do we bother?....Pathetic

Yeah and if you look into it the fallen soldier was their COUSIN!

Yeah praise the Lord and pass the ammunition would be a bad thing, however we are talking our national anthem not some silly war song! Maybe teaching them the true history of our Nation instead of leaving out honoring our forefathers. I attended public school. I didn't have any trouble finding my own point of view and we did sing Oh Canada every morning. I think the true problem is not that Oh Canada promotes war, (I never got that from the song but whatever) but the fact that schools teach so little of our Nations true history. I got out of school and learned so much more than they taught me out of pure hunger for knowledge of my nations past. Schools have long since abandoned actual history books and started letting kids cite wikipedia and other crappy resources. How many kids these days can say they read an actual book? I'm 24 years old and I remember not having the internet at school so we had to research in our pathetic school library. Now kids get their papers online and dig for the exact hit on what the teacher wants instead of looking at a whole book to find the bits and pieces of what they needed. Ask any kid today what book they read last and you'll get "twilight" or "Harry Potter" or "I unno". I wont claim to have read 'war and peace' but I to this day go to my local library despite the fact that it's a pile of crap and read history books. Kids no longer have a hunger for knowledge they just want to be handed everything on a silver platter. Kids expect everything right out of the gate these days. None of them want to work for what they want in life, much less hunger for knowledge. I guess I'm a dying breed. However my point is that if we taught kids the true history of our great Nation we wouldn't have to worry that they will "never question any war". We are teaching kids a dumbed down version of what really happened. In essence we are raising a bunch of college grads who wouldn't have the knowledge of a kid fresh out of high school in the 50s. We aren't raising intellectuals or even kids with decent understanding of the world. We are raising a bunch of computer jockeys who wouldn't know truth if it was to jump out of their computer screen and yell out "THIS IS WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED". I think the real sad thing is that even to this day after all my reading and all my attempts to dig into my nations past I can still tell you more about the USA than I can about Canada. Even the CBC is dominated by American headlines.