Moonbox

and if you look for a few minutes you can find actually fairly nice houses in the <100k price range.

While we're pointing out the obvious, how about we mention that you've not supportted a single point you've made with any sort of relevant facts. Period. Also, I'm well aware of the sub-prime crisis in the US and certainly understand it better than you do. Canadian banks are regulated much more heavily. In the US people were getting mortgages without having to even provide confirmation of income. The banks deserve what they got there, and the people did too for being dumb enough to buy a house they can't afford. That's common sense. When your mortgage payment by itself is 40% of your gross monthly income, it doesn't take a genius to figure out it's probably not a good idea. Check the MLS listings (if you even know what that is) and you could find more than you could count. If that's beyond you, I could link some to you. It took me literally 30 seconds to find 10 houses in Ontario under $80,000.00. Sure, they're not exactly 2000 sqft in Toronto or anything, but that's pretty affordable. Again you show you're really having trouble grasping simple logic. People are paying what they can AFFORD for housing and building the houses they can AFFORD to live in with the lifestyle THEY WANT. It's simple supply and demand here. You can whine and carry on all you want about artificial demand, and about the vampire lawyers, ghoulish bankers and leeching real estate agents, but they provide a service that most people can't do on their own. All you've really done in this thread is cry that you don't like things the way they are and you've failed at every chance to link the effect to the cause. Yes, our economy relies on resources to a great extent and more so than it recently has. That being said, this has helped ensure that our unemployment rates haven't skyrocketed over the last year and ensured that our economy hasn't gone into recession. With oil, food and mineral prices at record highs, I think you're putting too much stock in the TSX too. How does that relate back to immigration again?? You're not even making sense. If you're going to make ridiculous claims like this you have to elaborate and provide proof of some sort. What you've told us has no more substance to it than a fart in the wind. That doesn't even make sense. Well done. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your observations mean squat. My observation is that employers fish for skills because they believe that skilled employees would be better for their company. It's stupid not to do so. Once again, however, you're not making a lot of sense. Immolation. Maybe if you keep repeating yourself people will start to think you're even making sense. I suppose you are the one to tell us what Canadian culture 'should' be right? HEY! GUESS WHAT? BRITAIN HASN'T REALLY HAD ANY HAND IN THE GOVERNING OF OUR COUNTRY SINCE AFTER WW1. WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????? This is the most ignorant collection of postings I've seen on a forum like this in forever. You make me sad that Canada even has people like you in it. TINFOIL HAT!!!!!!

Dion has been threatening an election all year, but as soon as Harper announces he thinks it might be a good idea, everyone just pounces on him. Ha....Ha....Ha... All it seems to me is that he's just throwing it right back in Dion's face. Dion doesn't want an election. He can't win right now. Canada holds him in contempt, the Liberal Party is broke, and the Left is divided. Dion says, "We're going to call an election soon and bring your government down," but he's just thumping his weasely chest. Harper replies, "Alright bring it. We don't like how parliament is going either right now." Lots of Liberal sheep bleating ensues, but Dion shuts his mouth and hides his head in the dirt like the weenie he is, and allows the CPC to govern as if a majority for yet another year.

Whowhere I'll try to keep this a little more diplomatic and just call you completely mis/uninformed. This is supply and demand. It's not the greedy corporations driving housing prices up in Toronto. It's single families buying homes, building homes and selling homes based on what they're prepared to pay to live in certain neighborhoods. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that generally the closer you get to the important areas of business, the lower housing prices will be. The further away you get from Toronto the cheaper your housing will often be. You can find decent houses in Ontario for around $80,000. They're just not going to be exactly where you want to live. Whining about housing prices is about as useful as whining about the weather. Prices go up because people can and will pay for them. Really. It's really hard to take you seriously when you talk like this. You're not really connecting any of the dots. Nobody is arguing the oil companies are screwing us. What does that have to do with immigration??? Oil supply is based on world demand and thus would have nothing to do with immigration at all. I can't argue that housing prices would be influenced by a rising population, but that's all there is to it. The fact is we NEED a rising population and a growing economy because of the economic policy of the esteemed (I'm laughing when I say that) Pierre Trudeau and his Keynsian economic theories. Our current level of debt is in large part thanks to him and if not for that we wouldn't need a constantly growing population to support A) The debt and Baby Boomer Pensions. Once again you have failed to make the connection that links our 'apparent' family-unfriendliness to immigration. I'll repeat once again: We are not having large familes any more because: a) Women have a choice now and aren't expected to just stay at home and pop babies out Families are choosing to live extravagant (relatively) lifestyles and they can't afford to do so with large families. Here's another thing you'll find interesting. Low income, uneducated families, on average have MORE children than higher income and educated families. Why? It's hard to say, but it's certainly not because the lower income family somehow has more money to raise a child with. It's likely just a phenomenon of the educated western world. It probably has a lot to do with the focus on individual achievement in Canada/US/Europe as opposed to the focus on family and social achievements in Asia and elsewhere in the World. I'm probably wasting my breath trying to convince you, because all you've been able to offer is doom-mongering CPC conspiracy theories and you haven't backed it up with anything aside from "The Conservatives hate Canada". The CPC are not looking to increase the number of immigrants we get in Canada. By making it easier for people with work permits and Canadian university educations to become landed immigrants, we ensure that we don't have to bring in as many non english speaking welfare seekers from outside.

I think the Canadians would welcome some help in Afghanistan. We're taking the brunt of the fighting there right now.

I don't think we need to worry too much about the Arctic North. While we may be slow out the gates, North American Capitalism will have us catching up in no time. The Americans will support any claims we make against Russia, and Russia wouldn't dare move in on recognized Canadian territory for the same reason the US won't support Georgia meaningfully. They both respect each other's boundaries. Canada, as far as the Russians are concerned, is an independant protectorate of the US. Moving in on Canadian territory would have the Americans in arms almost immediately. We don't need enormous military investment. Talking about upgrading our airforce to F-22's is ludicrous considering they cost 250 million each and the prospect of full-fledged military action between Russia and Canada is about as remote as Switzerland vs Thailand. I agree we need to upgrade our military to the point where we're even capable of independant action, but not to go toe-to-toe with the Russians in the Arctic.

I'm not really sure what this post is supposed to be all about, but I'm a strong supporter of immigration. Economically, I know we need it. With that being said, I'm abhored by our current immigration policies. We need productive immigrants in Canada. We do not need unskilled non-english speaking immigrants who are more likely than not just going to mooch off our social welfare system. I'm completely against our current refugee system, because basically anyone can claim that status and end up here forever, and they seem to be the worst offenders in the afore-mentioned problems. The absolute most positive thing I've read about so far with the Harper government is that they are amending immigration policies so that skilled applicants will get to skip ahead of the rest of the pile and get here first. The Liberals are complaining that it's 'unfair' and 'contrary to human rights' but personally I could care less. I would be more than happy to have an unskilled immigrant wait for infinity to get in if it meant the ones we were taking were likely to become a boon to our country rather than a liability.

That's not being disputed. Obviously low-end retailers are going to provide service for lower-income families. My dispute with Wal-Mart is thus: Every corporation has obligations to its three main stakeholders: It's employees, communities and shareholders. With $13B in profit last year I think they've covered the shareholders pretty well. Now, as far as giving back to the community and looking after its employees, I think Wal-Mart fails on almost every level. It provides pitiful incomes to its employees and has been widely criticized the world over for its bullying tactics against any employees looking for a fairer deal. It drives smaller or more specialized business into bankruptcy (where employees often earn better wages) and contrary to popular opinion, its prices are NOT substantially better on most of the items it sells. I remember doing case studies at university specifically on Wal-Mart and its pricing strategies. What it DOES do is make sure it has the absolute lowest prices anywhere on weekly-type staple goods and then little to no price advantage on the rest of its goods in comparison to similar bargain competitors. When people see that the milk they buy every week is always cheaper at walmart they naturally just assume that it's the same for everything else. Take a more careful look at the price comparisons and you'll see that a lot of the non-staple household items are often MORE expensive than at other stores. It's REALLY intelligent marketing on their part, and 95% of people don't know any better.

While I'm not a huge Wal-Mart hater bought my milk there yesterday, what they did was absolutely illegal and against the best interest of everyone. If you think Wal-Mart is actually doing your community any good, you're sadly mistaken. You're never REALLY saving that much money shopping there. They undercut their competitors barely so as to keep their margins high enough to be one of the most profitable corps in the world. Wal-Marts don't create wealth for communities. It's a veritable siphon of wealth sending money down south and overseas to shareholders while employees working there don't even make enough money to live on. These low-wage employees are burdens on our social welfare and healthcare systems which, in the end, cost the average Canadian taxpayers more than they would if they were being paid fairly. Wal-Mart is a HUGE polarizer of wealth wherever it goes, and while I applaud their successes in supply-chain management and material cost-control, I'm disgusted by such blatent bullying.

Americans are even more ignorant than they are capitalist. It's completely laughable to even think that Canada is a SOCIALIST country. Americans like to frame and label things that are different to what they understand and declare them evil. There's a reason my family calls down south Jesus Land instead of the USA, because their political beliefs are about as well-founded as Catholic dogma. Sure, Canada may lean more towards socialism than the USA, but it's still one of the most capitalistic countries out there.

Your economic theory isn't very sound. Having kids costs money. Agreed. Why are things so much more expensive now though? Because women everywhere in the world work now and Canadian women have to as well to remain competitive. Yes, this means daycare and more expensive housing etc, but is it the fault of immigration? Not really, it's just a changing economic paradigm. Canada, being a first world nation, is actually BETTER equipped for large families than most other places in the world. Canadians simply don't want to have kids because they'd rather spend their money on vacations, useless SUV's, big-screen tv's and houses they can barely afford. Without immigration our population would shrink, and the workforce wouldn't be able to sustain the economy. Read up on Liberal immigration policy first. What the conservatives are trying to do is get and keep SKILLED immigrants. They are also trying to push through legislation to allow ministers to more quickly process QUALIFIED, LITERATE AND SKILLED immigrant applications rather than a first come first serve policy that the Liberals support. Liberal immigration policy is about as lax as it can get. It's no secret why Toronto and Vancouver are liberal strongholds. It's because the populations there are largely asian immigrants and the Liberals pander to them. This is FACT. How could you possibly argue against bringing skilled and qualified immigrants into Canada ahead of unskilled beggars unless you were pandering to the immigrant population?????

I live in Guelph and try to follow even the bi-elections fairly close. I'm finding that people don't really seem to care about it. Voter turnout I anticipate will be really low. One thing that I find funny, however, is that there are people going around town destroying CPC signs everywhere, as if for some reason that would sway everything. Guelph does have a very strong CPC constituency, but it is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada (on a per capita basis) and is quickly becoming another satellite commute of Toronto. The LPC has basically dominated here federally for the last 15+ years and will probably do so again. Even with the loss of long term MP Brenda Chamberlain, I don't think Kovach has a chance here, although i will be voting for her anyways. Urban Ontario will continue to vote Liberal, while smaller communities will continue to vote Conservative.

Quote your source if your going to start using specific numbers. As far as breaking them down, the Liberals have less support in Quebec than the Conservatives do. The Liberals cannot be elected without Quebec. They've never been able to. Ontario has favored the Liberals forever, and that's only because the GTA contains over 50% of Ontario's voters and the Liberals have always pandered to it's gigantic immigrant population. Aside from the GTA and Vancouver, Liberal support is nothing remarkable. What I really find interesting, however, is that the minor parties on the left command 3/10 voters. That helps the Conservatives. The left typically never votes Blue anyways, and the more support the minor parties get on the left, the worse off the Liberals are. Harper is no fool, you're right. He knows things could not look much better for an election.

Harper is hoping to call an election because Dion has proven himself to be a completely inneffectual leader. Even supporters of the Liberal party don't believe in him. Dion has absolutely zero charisma and won't be able to convinece Canadians of anything. He's been threatening an election all year, but all that's for show. He has to show his supporters he's doing SOMETHING even though he knows he can't. Canadians laugh at him, his party is broke, and nobody wants ANYTHING to do with his retarded carbon tax plan. I don't think the Liberals could have made things any easier for the Conservatives in a fall election.

It's because Canadians don't have enough babies. That's about all there is to it. Think about that for a few seconds............. There...you're 0.05% less retarded now. The Liberal Party is the immigrant party these days. There is a reason the liberals garner the VAST majority of their support from large urban areas in Canada. It's because they are largely immigrant communities now and the Liberals have made it VERY easy for immigrants and their entire extended families move to Canada.