playfullfellow

MS, there are several places that foreign ownership can help our situation. First off, they never really do own the resources, they only own the right to get it out of the ground. The government collects their royalties and landowners can collect access fees. The collection of these resources generates jobs, usually local people if they are available. These people need groceries, clothes, houses, etc., which generates more jobs. So on and so forth, all of these people will collect wages, which is spent in the local economy. From these wages come taxes which the government turns around spends or throws away as they deem to do so. Yeah, some of the profits made by the company leave the country but the turn around is that there were jobs created, wages paid and in the end taxes were paid. Even domestic companies know how to hide their money from the tax man, just ask Mr. Martin how this is done, he seems to be an expert.

What I really don't get is peoples idea that welfare should be as much as what they could make as a wage. It seems very obvious that if the welfare was higher, there would be even less incentive to go out and find work. What is wrong with capable people having a job? EI and welfare are supposed to be temporary solutions to a persons lack of a job. When Alberta changed their welfare rates, it didn't take the welfare abusers long to head for BC, whose welfare programs were still in tact. It just seems strange that they will head out on a bus to another welfare province but they will not do so to find a job. We do need some forms of EI or welfare to help people out in times of need. We do not need these systems so people can sit around on their butts, drinking beer in front of the tv all day. The minimum wage levels could be a bit better but it should not be so high as to kill jobs. That would be rather counter productive in my mind. A lot of people feel that the sky is the limit when it comes to the amount of wages an employer is able to pay. Most employers would probably think "I wish" to that sentiment. I think most people would like to be able to pay their staff a bit more but also have to be careful not to put themselves out of business.

wow caesar, I sit here and drink my coffee, getting ready for a day of work, wondering what the situation of the world is like and I read your thread. Your threads and posts are all about equality and fair treatment to everyone, very anti-american in your sentiment and then I read what you said about these boys. You systimatically put these boys in a cage without a trial just because their mother was a user and drunk. What you are suggesting smacks a lot of what you scream against when it comes to the US and the Geneva convention. You say that these boys may have been caged because of something they "might" do. I know lots of kids and adults that were the product of substance abusive parents that have turned out pretty damn good because they were raised in a good enviroment by caring people. These boys were forced to live in a cage for many years. Eat their own fecal matter to survive, wear diapers etc. I can imagine their adoptive parents lived in fear, they should for treating humans like this. How would you feel if you were forced to live in a cage because your mother was a user, I am sure you would demonstrate a certain level of anger or agressiveness too. You scream of American injustice in almost every thread for assuming all their war prisoners are terrorists. Then you turn around and defend parents for caging kids because of something they "might" because of the crappy mother they had. I guess if the Geneva convention protected these kids, then you might want to protect them too.

you are wrong, I did not imply such a thing. Read it again. All I stated is that the laws made by our government states maximum/minimum sentences. No where did I imply that this is at or near the maximum sentence which would be even more grotesque than it already is.

It is hard to say exactly what Mr. Harper will tell the Cons on Wednesday but I think the heart of the speech will about the Cons getting organized and keeping together. Party unity has to stay strong this time around or the next few months is going to be a gong show with nothing positive getting done in parliament. The Cons should concentrate on getting their policy convention over and done with so there is no more of this hidden agenda crap flying around. Then they need to keep after Mr. Democracy about the promises made during the election. They also need to sit down and talk with the NDP and BQ to find any areas where they are walking common ground together. Let's get over this childish way of running our government and lets get back to making Canada one of the best countries in the world.

I was just wondering how many people out there have been the victim of a crime over the past few years? If so, were the perpetuators of these crimes ever caught and did they get sentenced for their crimes? Did you feel that these sentences were fair given the circumstances? If not, how do you feel the sentence should reflect towards the crime against you? I am just wondering how many others are frustrated and are hapless victims of our ineffectual judicial system?

In 1968, the year trudeau took over, our debt was 16.7 billion dollars. When he left power in 1984, or national debt was 200 billion. He went from an annual budget of 43 billion per year in 1977 to spending 109 billion per year by 1984. check it out yourself government expenditures The numbers are there and it is an official governement site.

Good point. I think a larger police force is benefitial but maybe a different type of police force than we currently have. - traffic violations: provincial or municipal police - personal property theft: provincial police - scams: RCMP - violent crimes: RCMP - sexual abuse: RCMP - murder: RCMP Lets take the RCMP off of traffic duty and get them fighting other crimes. The lure of huge fines in the coffers ( I know they do not get the money for their own coffers but rather provincial) is there.

People are just unenchanted with the whole process. Who can blame them? We get nothing but broken promises and childish rantings. I think if the 3 main parties were to actually start pointing out to Canadians why Canada is good and what makes this country great plus producing positive ideas on how we can make this country even greater, we would start to see better returns. This tabloid style of campaigning sucks and is getting tiring, makes me wonder why I even vote.

I left agriculture to do the renovations business. I am lucky to work for a developement company that does both new and old housing. We are also lucky to have a booming economy so the construction industry has to pretty well go year round to keep up. It has been that way for about 5 years. I also give you credit changing careers (though it sounds like it was out of necessity rather than deep choice). More people should have your perserverance.

Could be, it is just not my taste, each to their own.

The government sets the minimum/maximum sentences that the judges use so in all reality, yep it is the governments fault. I think 9 months is disgusting no matter what. These people should be put away for a good long time. I just saw that the kids only asked for 6-9 years for them. That is the least the judge could have done for these kids. What a gong show our judicial system is!

MS, I am a minority, I am an immigrant who is now a Canadian citizen. I grew up with discrimination, got picked on a lot in school for having an accent. What did I do, learned to speak english with no accent and learned how to write english the best I could. This has all made me a much stronger person now. I think we as a society are beyond picking on the minorities in our laws. Obviously biased laws would generally be unacceptable in our society. And are the wishes of minorities always the right thing too?

My other post reflects my opinion on how much time he should spend. I view svend as just any other person who stole a hugely expensive ring. Yes, he did return it, call that restitution. Now how about a fine and jail time.

As my words state, I am clearly pissed off at the utter disregard for other peoples property. If I ever stole growing up, I would have been on the receiving end of the biggest butt whooping ever and I knew it. The young offenders act needs to be tossed out first of all. All victims should have a say in sentecing but this will not happen. This would be in violation of some kind of human rights I am sure. What about my rights? What about the fact I have to tell my kids no camping trip this year because I have to work extra hours to make my losses? Where the hell is it going to end?

In what way? We are already producing more than we can consume. If local consumption matched our production, then you would see a much higher price and hence higher profits (theoretically). If you have fewer farms producing for the many, look at price fixing, especially if the killing plants are involved in the process. Just look at Tyson and Carols in the US.

I for one am getting pretty sick tired of all the bloody crime out there. In the past 4 months I have had my truck stolen and just this past Friday I was cleaned out of tools and could not work till I replace them. So with damages, lost wages and stolen property, the total has come to around 9,000 bucks in less than 4 months. That is a pile of money to eat just because some idiots don't feel they have to work for a living. Here are some options I would like to see implimented. - theft below 5000: 1 year jail, a fine of equivalent value to theft (failure to do so, another year in jail), restitution in full (failure to do so, another year in jail) and 2 years probation (zero tolerance for any deviation). Jail time to be labout intensive. - theft over 5000: 3 years in jail, a fine equivalent value of theft (failure to do so, 3 years in jail) restitution in full (failure to do so, 3 more years in jail) and 5 years probation (zero tolerance for any deviation). Jail time to be labour intensive. - sexual assault: 10 years in jail and 5 years probation (zero tolerance for any deviation). Jail time to be labour intensive. - sexual assault of a minor: 15 years in jail to be served with the general public and 5 years probation (zero tolerance for any deviation). Labour intensive jail time. - any murder or manslaughter below first degree: 15 years in jail and 10 years probation (zero tolerance for any deviation). Jail time to be very labour intensive. - murder in the first degree: life in jail of hard labour. there are plenty of other violations that could be listed but these are the ones that have the greatest impact on our lives.

You fail to get it caesar, the whole mess was not started by mulroney, yes it was perpetuated by him but the whole freaking mess was started by trudeau and his buying of votes. He left a debt of over 200 billion dollars and a whack of programs that mulroney had to continue to pay for during one of the worst economic times since the 30's. I am not a fan of mulroney but if you are going to blame everything on him, then maybe you need to look at what started the whole problem. It took the politicians and the Canadian electorate until martins time to figure out we were in deep doodoo and our way to bankruptcy.

It might have something to do with what they call ratings in tv land. The CBC, even though it is state subsidized, still has to show decent ratings to warrant the beacoup bucks it gets. A bilingual channel wont do it, not very many people would watch it. Heck, hardly anyone watches cbc anyways and their radio is even worse.

MS, what is the point of making all signs bilingual? All they do is state speed limits, names of the next town and distances. We all know that an octogan is unversial for a stop sign, yield signs are an upside down triangles etc. Why do you want to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on this kind of bs? Oh yeah, money grows on trees somewhere. In BC anyways, it would make more sense to add mandarin to the signs as there are way more chinese people there than french.

What? This is very typical socialist type views that goes back to the party mantra of "power of the few over the many". If we start using the free vote system, then politicians have to start voting the way their constituents want them to vote, not toe the party line all the time. If they don't vote the way the constituents want them to, then they will get booted the next election. What makes you think the party's always know what is best for us as a society?

Well caesar, I see that you have fallen for the media hype about factory farms hook line and sinker. These so called factory farms are in all reality owned mainly by families also. There are exceptions of course. You also do not realize that an animal that is not treated with respect does not do well whether it is on a family farm or a large operation. It is in any farms best interest to treat animals with respect so they produce better. There is no such thing as a factory farm, these animals are raised exactly the same way as on a smaller farms, it is just on a much larger scale. The exception is organically grown animals. As I explained, some of the money went to meat packing plants, yes. They do own cattle and feed lots. They bought these cattle off of the farmers, the ones that didn't want to wait for the governement handouts and sold out. Do I agree with them getting the money, not really. Two of the meat packing plants are indeed american owned, they have been owned by the americans for years. As for insurance, most farmers are involved in insurance programs to help them through short term disasters. BSE is not considered short term.

No it doesn't, you do not know the fundamentals of producing food. You have absolutely no concept of what goes into making your groceries at your local safeway. Production wise, agriculture is pretty well at it's maximum. How can fewer produce more when they can not force a cow to produce more offspring? How can we effectively produce more pounds of meat per acre than we are now? Yep, technology helps but technology put the bloody industry into the situation we are in now. Feeding meat protiens to a herbivore and we end up with BSE. And what is the incentive for the fewer to produce more, hence lower prices hence lower profits? What do you think caused the collapse of the hog industry of 97-98? Fewer producing more with less, what a freaking disaster that was. Corporate models do not work for agriculture.

The difference is that Sweden has a very long history. Sweden also has dozens of trade agreements with other countries. Sweden is also a part of the larger entity called the EU. Very much difference. You also have to take into consideration that the Swedes are an entirely different culture than Quebec. Geographics and numbers are about the only similarity there are.

And how on earth does this equate? How do you intend that fewer farmers will produce more food? The math just isn't there for this statement. You have never worked on a farm, have you? You got your fancy little education, feel you know what ails the whole damn country. You need to spend some time working on a farm and studying farm economics before you can justify your statements. You know nothing about the real issue. The implications of the farm industry failure goes a lot further than your local grocery store. Be careful of what you wish for, you may just get it and I hope that your job does not relate to agriculture at all because it would be gone too. Just look at any country that does not have a sound agricultural base. They are what we call third and second world countries. Crash agriculture and you crash the background of any nation. I guess you wouldn't mind going back to the dirty thirties, a time when agriculture was just about wiped out.