willy

A dumb western sometimes buys things that become more valuable over time and when you always have to earn more value than you will be taxed on sometimes you have to do stupid things like borrow to invest to avoid some taxes. It is the difference in tax rebate that ends up making you a greater return. It would be much simpler if the money you made off an investment was yours but when you have to pay up to 45% back to the government it makes people do strange things to try and make a little money. I guess we out west could learn something from you easterners, please continue to enlighten me as mostly easterners made up these tax laws.

Your poll is worded such that any answer I give would not reflect what I believe. (yes or no to your questions) Answer to the Poll: I believe in God, so I must accept his superiority. If not he would not be God. My faith is built and understood from a Christian perspective. This has an impact on how I view the world and why I think people do what they do. Government, governs and thus if I were involved in setting laws the previous things would impact my opinions. That being said, I believe it is consistent within the Christian religion that one can not legislate morality. We have the choice to follow God or find our own way. Within our society I believe we should protect the ability to make that choice. Where not legislating morality becomes difficult is when one person’s immorality affects others. Pimps, recruit prostitutes. These young women are then exploited with drugs and violence. We may not be able to eradicate prostitution but making it legal would condone the abuse of these young women. Abortion is very tough. When is a fetus a baby? I don’t know, but I do know that it is a negative thing when someone has to go through the process of abortion. It needs to be a negative thing. In the feminist world if we support it and celebrate it then women won’t feel shame. This is lunacy as anyone who has an abortion will think about it every day of their life. Options, abstinence and caring support would all be preferential to abortion. These things need to be promoted and supported more than pro choice. Prevent as many needs to make the choice and we are all better off. Should the choice be available, maybe but restrictions are necessary. There are two contentious issues that my faith does impact. I could however be secular and hold these same opinions for different reasons. My faith guides may ethics, what guides yours?

Good debt is the kind that is tax deductible. If you borrow to invest it is a good debt. What makes it good is that it is tax deductible interest. In Canada, we can not write off mortgage interest and thus they are bad debts. Really wanting a house does not make it good debt. In fact if you sell it and it isn’t your primary residence you will have to pay capital gains and then it is a really bad debt.

Christianity does have a centrality. We are all deserving of God’s displeasure, but that is okay because he loves us so much he sent his son to die for us that we might be able to live in his presence now and forever. The beginning part of the statement is most relevant to this conversation. Defining what makes each one of us sinful is not relevant to the answer in Christianity. This does not set homosexuals apart from anyone else. Christians would say that we all do need God and anything less would fall short of our purpose. This discussion should probably be under Religion and Politics but when people start talking about Christian theology I hope they know what they are talking about because the nuances and detail can be very important to the outcome. For non Christians it is safe to say that God in the Christian view doesn’t accept any sin but it is not up to us to change but to follow Christ and the spirit changes us. Christ died for the propitiation of sin and for our redemption. I am happy to discuss religion more but it should be done under something other than a topic about Jack Layton.

August1991 was quite clear that balancing the budget in this regard is irrelevant. With legislation demanding balancing the budget, all one would do if they spend to much is tax more. (this was the cheque book part of the analogy) $100 million is a far cry from $180 billion annually, and he was only one councilor. This is a far cry from PM and that is the job he is applying for.

BG have you ever noticed that when the NDP have been in power in provincial governments they have done nothing to save your beloved vision of healthcare. They did however inflate wages of healthcare workers (cleaners and cooks) to only add more burdens to a system. They can pay more using my tax dollars but they fix nothing. I did notice during the NDP 10 year run in BC they chased out a number of businesses. Alcan and Finning are to major companies that Quebec and Alberta now benefit from. In BC at the beginning of the NDP we also had a billion dollar mining industry and today we have none. This was and is a tragedy to communities and families where these businesses operated. The big growth in the NDP era was tourism. I would also like to point out most tourist jobs are low paying service industry jobs. Good job NDP for the real Canadian workers. That is right they managed to limit employment options and drive down wages for the bottom end of the curve. There is nothing compassionate about the NDP political policies, and they were not a model of ethics either. Call in and ask Moe why he is a reporter now. The BC NDP were the best argument for less government.

Conservatives are of every age class, ethnic background, religious affiliation, socio economic group and gender. Our goal is to make more resources for everyone, not share pieces of a small pie. Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, freedom of religion, and self determination. We also believe in a strong world role for Canada, access to health care, keeping violent criminals off the streets and helping those who can not help themselves. Taxes are a mean and not an ends. If taxes are inhibiting the growth of job opportunities they should be cut. Conservatives are just socialists with a reality check. We know government can't fix all problems. We know that as hard as we try, some people will still struggle. The goal of any government should be to eliminate barriers to opportunities, support those who can not support themselves and hold people accountable for injustice. BG, as for your rhetoric. You need to stop drinking your own bath water. Right now 29% of Canadians support the Conservative Party. This number is likely to grow. We are real Canadians and we may be your next government.

BG, Gordon Campbell, has now the fastest growing economy in Canada and a balanced budget. That is a real balanced budget with generally accepted accounting principles at work. Bush is at war and modern war is very expensive. The cost of the tech bubble and the uncertainty of war has been hard on the US economy. It is turning around, business to business spending is way up this quarter and the US dollar is starting to strengthen again. Mulroney had to fix Liberal problems. He brought us free trade and the GST. Two major reasons the Liberals were able to bring in a balance budget. (Other than offloading responsibility onto the provinces) Your arguments are weak and not based in sound economic thinking. But the left will always think they can create jobs. Thanks for your emotional but not logical thinking.

Ujjal Dosanjh, Shirley Chan, Dave Haggard were all NDP. I don't know about Chan but Dosanjh and Haggard have been life long NDP supporters, activists and in the case of Dosanjh even primier. In India Dosanjh was also a member of the commununist party. Interesting "all star team" for the liberals.

Forgive me for pointing this out but Martin has appointed life long NDP members. How is this Layton uniting the NDP? And one other little point. The Green party growth is directly related to the split between the environmental movement and the labour movement. Not all that united. As for the Conservative unity: Clark and Orchard are on there own. The Conservative movement is united. Clark has hurt feelings because he lost his battle to take out the western movement. Orchard should have been NDP to start. Can you please take him. We don't want him. Really you can have him. The Liberals are close to civil war. So for the first time Maplesyrup we agree on one single point.

Michael Hardner, The Conservatives will take away Liberal support and if not they will not form government. With the radical left (and a couple separatists) becoming so prominent in the Liberal party as candidates the business support the Liberals enjoys will soon disappear when they realize the Conservatives can actually form government.

You don't deploy education for results. One needs to take on the world, not be prepared for it. Business growth and opportunity come from ingenuity and being competitive. One must apply ones education not for an ultraistic satisfaction but to identify needs and then fill them for a valued transaction. (we live in a modern capitalist economy) People don't need an education for this, but for those that need a skill, find a trade, learn computers, study detailed existing technology but when your work becomes obsolete don't look to the empowered economy to pay your way. Ayn Rand should be a must read for all first year students. She may have missed the need for government in her books, but at least she attached significance to the leaches in the system. Those that bleed the money and productivity out of our economy. The entitled.

I have seen posts talk about how much university tuition has gone up in this country over the last few years. Students that rely on loans have debt between $20 000.00 and $30 000.00 by the end of a four year degree. I personally graduated 6 years ago and came out of school debt free; in fact I had money in the bank. I worked hard, sport scholarships, academic scholarships, part time jobs and side businesses. If I would have had a loan it would have been an investment in my future. Why should people not be responsible for paying for a majority of thier post secondary education? Most small to midsize cars today will cost $20 -$30 thousand. Is an education not worth the same or more?

Completely unfounded. I am a boss and I take a chance by employing someone with no experience and unleash them on my customers. I spend $1000.00 at least to train them and then I pay taxes(workers comp, cpp, ect.) for the right to employ them. Get off it. I just want to run a business and if I keep an employee past 500 hours they make more than $8.00 an hour because they will earn it. As for the $2 dollar spread. This is 25%. Look in the past and you will find a comparative percentage in other provinces. If companies don't follow the law they should be put out of business but don't make that into the governments fault. Lastly, at least young kids will have jobs with this government. The BC economy is finally growing again. We all need jobs and if the NDP come back in, I now my business will move to Alberta and so will many more. I can afford to work under the NDP. Maybe everyone can get government jobs if they get back into office. (I hear they pay well)

I am not the only one who doesn't trust PM PM to put the money where his mouth is.

As an employer I can tell you that this is just not the case. It cost more to train an employee than the wage increase saving would be to fire and hire new. It does happen that these young workers traditionally have high turn over. This is their choice as they have changing life circumstances. These are mostly high school students. This is a good program. The program gets new employees their first bit of experience. I hire people when I need them; I keep them when they provide me more value than I have to expend to keep them. Businesses are not a welfare office but I am always excited to find an energetic young learning employee that would like to learn and grow within my company. They will make me money and the $6/hour helps me get them experience until they provide full value. I can then afford extra training and limited time requirements that young employees have.

Chantal Hébert, has an interesting conclusion from this committee process. Confusion to her means some form of admonishment. I just see a flawed process for accountability. The participants were after all senior bureaucrats and politicians. These people can obviously spin the yarn. Many inconsistencies did occur in testimony. There is plenty to be concerned about and the advertising business does not operate that way within the private sector. The facts remain: * Lots of money spent * No paper trail * No real or perceived value received * Obvious tendering issues * These practices seem to be in all departments (finance and defense at least) * The result can still be more of our money spent on political patronage I don't have an answer to how you prove who set the culture in place, but it is safe to say many in the Liberal party lived within those cultural norms and still the most senior don't question the ethics of thier behavior. In politics we have a choice. Vote for the other guy/girl.

BD, you are full of rhetoric. No where in this post has anyone argued for the American system. I argue for a new system. Enough with the who owns the delivery argument. Focus on outcomes. In Canada right now you have to wait two years for most none life threatening surgeries. These include extreme back pain, hip replacements, knee surgeries, ect. Should our system be defended as the one to keep? What is the difference between no insurance and no access? The only difference is that no access happens to everyone. Public prevision is a mandate not a prescription.

“No where did I say we had to abandon everything else to invest in health care. Indeed, under funding of infrastructure, municipalities and public services other than health care is chronic as well. The problem is we have a province that has thrown billions away on debt-elimination (as opposed to a sensible debt management policy) and still accumulated vast surpluses while drastically slashing programs and costs. This has, predictably, led to a decline in quality across the board.” BD, do you have a personal budget? If you do you might pay 1/3 to housing. Say you own your own house and you thought the cost were fixed. Then your roof went, your boiler, and you had mold. No problem you borrowed the money and now the house is up to ½ you budget (must pay the banker). Do you now drop your car, your clothing, or your food budget? When more of you revenue focuses on one area others will be reduced. Scarcity is real. This example is too simple but it really isn’t much different. The only answer to your riddle is to increase taxes. When you increase taxes you run the risk of shrinking your economy and then not necessarily increasing revenue. August1991, yes the US has similar problems. The one common element that most of the western world has was an evolution into a healthcare system. At no time was it planned. Hospitals were made by the churches a lot of the time and then the state got involved. Hospitals were where you went to die. Family doctors used to be fixtures in the community and were where most people went for health care. Now it has evolved and the system focuses around hospitals. Now weather it is private or public we have a cultural system of how we use health care. Solutions for the challenges in Canada. (will always be some problems but you either get better or worse, nothing stays the same) Have your family physicians as the major entry point into the health system. Have them work in small teams who know each others files (24 hour care). Have nurses treat and diagnose simple cases and the physician’s just check their work. (Similar to the dentist model) Have the government run grant programs to help these physicians buy and maintain equipment. This will help reduce multiple tests for the same patients. An electronic health record that can be accessed will also cut down on expensive testing. With expensive equipment have private run clinics for MRI, CTs, ect. Quick access and investors pay the bill for a return over time. Regulate prices in the industry to insure the public insurance will not be taken advantage of. Private or public hospitals are not a useful debate. We need hospitals for surgeries and long term care. How they are run and paid for should be based on a pragmatic situation. If you have a hospital in Vancouver that will always be busy, a private company could offer all services and make money. The NWT need hospitals and they may not ever be profitable; the government has a responsibility to ensure access to health care. The services that are not profitable should be provided by the government. (run and paid for) Have a clear set of civil litigation and realize a good Doctor or clinic will attract patients. Charge a small user fee but don't refuse service. (chronically ill could get exempted) I would also reduce the patent laws on drug companies. Right now from my understanding they get 10 years of monopoly. I don’t know the number but 4 or 5 years should suffice and where it doesn’t drug research should be subsidized by the government. These aren’t my answers, they come from many sources. We just need the political will to have it happen.

"He didn't indicate he was absolutely stepping down forever and a day. That leaves open possibilities, I suppose. But really, it's going to depend on his well-being," Layton said yesterday." A week later and they are already talking about Svends return. The tears were for all the bleeding harts that think all he needed was treatment. His show was a strategy. The strategy worked because at this point I would be surprised if he didn't run. Combine that with the Liberals mess in Burnaby Douglas and they probably think he is likely to win again. Let’s hope the young Conservative running can show well so we have some credibility left in our political process.

"healthcare is nowhere near collapsing." We have a huge age bubble that will retire and use our health care system to the max. Boom then bust. New procedures and drugs are very expensive. We have a skilled human resources shortage. We have to few doctors and when they are becoming doctors they don’t choose family medicine. Nurses are also in shortage. Especially nurses with specialties like surgery or trauma. We have an aging infrastructure that is centered around hospitals that do not reflect the needs of our changing population. Is this a system that you would want to get sick in? We have good doctors and nurses but they are overwork and don't have the tools to do the job. Our governments don't have endless pockets as 1/3 of the provincial budget is already allocated to health care. Maplesyrup, do you not see any problem with this? No pressing need for a change? Anything at all? Example in one province. They are all similar with the issues. By DARREN YOURK Globe and Mail An interim report into the SARS outbreak calls Ontario's public health system "woefully inadequate" and says the province was saved from further disaster by the heroic efforts of dedicated front line health care and public health workers. "SARS showed Ontario's central public health system to be unprepared, fragmented, poorly led, uncoordinated, inadequately resourced, professionally impoverished, and generally incapable of discharging its mandate," the report, written by Mr. Justice Archie Campbell, says. "The SARS crisis exposed deep fault lines in the structure and capacity of Ontario's public health system."

90% of our population lives within 100 miles of the boarder. Can we say cross boarder shopping and black market bartering for goods and services. I don't think it is quite this simple. Nice thought though.

"There's just not enough staff, bed's and cash to meet the needs of the growing population." Staff is a North American/the world problem in health care. Not enough nurses and physicians are available. It is not the support staff that limit surgeries or services available. It is cheaper to operate than it is to wait but they can’t because of the limited human resources. They are moving away from a bed model and into community care model. I know I would rather be sick at home and not in the hospital. "In the end, it's not a matter of affordability (that the system is inherently unsustainable is merely a canard), but of funding. " Here we will have to agree to disagree. With the aging population resources will be stretched to the limit. It is about affordability. If we only invest in health care the education systems, transportation, etc. will negatively affect our ability to pay for healthcare. (Reduced revenues) "As for the "1/3 of provincial revenue"claim: it's not how the money is being spent, but what it's spent on." Health and Wellness program spending will increase by 8.4 per cent to $8 billion in 2004-05. With a population of 2.5 million that is $3200.00 per person every year. Total budget is 23 Billion and that makes it 35 percent of the budget. That would make it look important to me. Alberta did reduce spending in the early 90's to get out of the position that Getty put the province in. Now they will be debt free next year. Think of the long term resources they will have to invest into their communities. This took 12 years to accomplish and they did it. What an amazing accomplishment. "As for service fees: we already have 'em: they're called health care premiums, themselves a form of hidden taxation." Insurance premiums (which are not paid by people who make less than $20 000.00) are not the same as user fees. User fees are thing people who use the system pay, unlike a premium that is paid by most tax payers. As for this notion of profit, when was the last day you worked for nothing. Should those that provide a valuable service not get paid? Put another way should they not profit. The public model as it is, is sick and needs some medicine. The union contracts make is harder to change and are restrictive to management decisions. Contracting out is not staff reductions, it gives managers the ability to organize work more efficiently and hopefully reduce cost effectively. Nuff said.

Again, They are going from a hospital based system to a primary care based system. New system. Teams of physicians in the community working with nurses as a team. Radical and just happens they will probably own there own practices. Not a private public debate. Not that simplistic. This does offer a real positive change for you or me who need help from someone who knows them, when they need it. What they have also done with electronic health records is also very progressive.

1/3 of all provincial government revenues is not starving a system. The system is one we can not afford to have. I personally don't want public health care if it endangers my health when I need to rely on it. The Alberta government is looking at delisting non essential services and you are right they have talked about a nominal fee for service. This is not to generate revenue but to communicate to the public that this is not a free service. They want to curb the misuse of the public system. GPs run private offices and are paid by public insurance. Is this the privatizing that has you so concerned? Alberta still has the best run health system in the country. As I said, compare them. If Alberta is starving the system and that is the problem what is the problem in Saskatchewan and Manitoba with good NDP governments. When health care started we did not have the expensive new technology, and drugs to afford. We need a rethink on this one.