playfullfellow

Sorry, but I have to disagree with this sentiment. Religion is not based on superstition but rather belief and tradition. Superstition is when you believe you will have 7 years bad luck if you break a mirror. Religion is also passed down from one generation to another, just like many of your family traditions. Religion is a persons belief in something which guides their lifestyle, this is no different than any athiest who believes in letting laws guide their lives.

How is what I am thinking nonsense? If waht you propose, that people can do with their bodies as they see fit, then you will see people claiming to be able to do all kinds of weird things in our society. As to the incident in Red Deer, that should be up to the business owner what happens in his place of business. I am sure you would have a totally different view if it was a couple who went in there and sang church hymns and had a prayer session.

KK, I do agree and do know that overseas trade has more to do with individual companies and not just the Canadian Government. I t does help a lot if the Canadian Governement is on side with such individual companies. Trading with other countries is also a give and take where we generally have to take their products in return for them taking ours. The government has to be also willing to allow these products in with no extra duties or tafiffs. No point in making big deals overseas if the government has no intention of backing that company.

So MS, it would seem that if some old pervert wants to fondle himself on the sidewalk beside the school where your kids go to schoold that should be allowed because he is doing it to his own body. What about the guy who walks unto your lawn every one and takes a leak on your rose bushes or your front step, should that be allowed? People could take your statement to allow all freaks and creeps to do whatever they deem fit as long as long as it involves their bodies. That is one very scary and revolting thought, just imagine what the streets would look like every Friday night once the bars shut down..........shudder

So far to date, doing business with the US has been done because it has been easier to ship products down there. In the past there has not been much pushing by the US government for Canada to change their ways. Since 9-11, the US has had continuous pressure on Canada to change various parts of our immigration and security policies. These protectionist activities has allowed certain lobby groups in the US to get the US government to apply protectionist tariffs and closures on Canadian products. Canada has been caught with their pants down and are scrambling to protect our industries. All of a sudden our neighbour to the south is not such a kindly neighbour and we are in shock. The US will be our friend as long as we say "yes sir" every time they bark an order. Mr. Martin will always be the under dog in any negotiations with the US because the US will always view us as the poor country cousin. The US has ensured that Canada as a whole can not hold back our resources from them through NAFTA so what do they care, they don't have to suck hole to us.

Very true August, I live out West and I hear all the "we are getting raped by the East" rhetoric all the time. Some of the arguments I agree with and some I don't. What I do see is that Premier Klein went to bat for the farmers of Canada long before Mr. Martin even thought to go to the US and swing a deal. I personally have no hard feelings towards the US in general, I just dont agree with their attitudes a lot of times. I am extremely proud to be a Canadian and one of the best days of my life was when I got my citizenship along with my family. As to how I view the US is treating Canada is like this. At the moment, there is no scientific reason why the border is still closed to a majority of our beef. The main reason the border is still closed is because the US farmers enjoying record prices and record profits because of the border closures. The grain tariffs the US has imposed on Canadian wheat has been deemed unfair by the WTO. The amount of wheat that Canada sends to the US is marginal in the way it may affect their prices. The US has deemed all subsidies around the world as unfair trade practices but yet US farmers enjoy record amount of government subsidies. My problem with the US government is that they dont practice what they preach. Martin is way out of his league when dealing with the US. The US is still pissed that we didn't back them in Iraq and that we as a nation do not bow to their whim. I still feel that Canada should try to diversify to trading with other countries and ease some of the dependancy on the US.

Sorry, still new to forums, yes, I mean the Chinese government when stating China. I also mean that when the living standard for the average citizen of a country improves, they tend to have less to complain about which in turn means the government relaxes a bit. Through work, I have dealt with people from China who are been members of the communist party and some who have not. They both tend to say the same thing, that China as whole is becoming more modern and that the Chinese government is allowing more freedoms to its people. They are many years away from becoming a democracy (if ever) but their standard of living as a whole has improved vastly in the past 10-15 years.

Whooooooooooaa horse, damn near fell off my chair. I whole heartedly agree with what MS has to say about expanding our trade with other countries so we are not so dependant on every whim of the US. Canada has access to a vast amount of resources and products that are sought after world wide. Even with the the BSE and avian flu problem, our agricultural products are still deemed some of the best in the world. Canada's reputation for new and innovative products is also well known. Canada has probably one of the best reputations world wide when it comes down to respect. The US still looks at us as a bunch of redneck, dog sledding, igloo living simpletons. The US believes we are their uneducated little cousin who should do whatever their whim seems to deem. If Canada as a whole was more agressive landing other foreign contracts and started shipping our natural resources elsewhere, eventually the US would back off on some of the trade issues we are dealing with now. Unfortunately, in the mean time, Canada will have to be a little more assertive with the US to deal with our current problems as Canada is losing millions everyday and many more people stand to lose their livelyhoods. I for one do not wish to become apart of the US as I feel our beautiful country would just get raped. The US is an awesome place to visit but it sure feels nice to come home again, even if we only have 2 seasons, coming into winter and coming out of winter.

I still dont see where this will help the NDP as they have made little to no headway in Ontario or Quebec and they are losing ground in the Atlantic provinces. They have also lost ground in Saskatchewan and Manitoba according to MS's posting so the only place they are making any strides is BC. I fail to see the logic that they could possibly form the next official opposition party.

Yeppers, I know my boss celebrates everytime I get a paycheque but then again, I dont feel bad or ripped off everytime, I know I work hard for my boss and she treats me right in return. China, as a trading partner has tremendous potential to any country that wants to negotiate in trade. But this has to be a country that does not try to negotiate human rights and such into the deals. China will continue to do as China sees fit to when dealing with it's own populace. But I think that the trade off will be that if China becomes a more prosperous country, the living standards will improve for most Chinese. China still deals with disidents in a very brutal manner and that will not change with threats. If the populace has a better living standard, then there will be less dissent.

Kind of thought you could check it yourself, but since you insist.

Funny, the poll I read doesn't show the same numbers as you MS. http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/Z04_00bp...polls0428.lasso Thats our local paper and in all reality, I think it is a little early to count your chickens yet, the eggs haven't even hatched yet. So which poll is right?

The sad thing about this law is that technically, most religious books such as the bible or koran could be construed as hate literature. The laws are in place that forbid people from beating or killing people because of their race, religion or sexual preferences. Peoples sexual preferences should be left at home in the bedroom and not become part of our charter system.

Hugo is right that voters are disenchanted with the current system as they feel that their voice is not heard so why vote. It's not because they feel that voting is a pain in the butt. Look at it this way, legally you can take off from work and go vote anytime you want to on election day and the boss can't say a thing to you. More education in schools about modern politics is also a step in the direction and kids having mock elections in school on various topics might help. I also feel that as long as the employment rate is fairly low and the economy more or less stable, people will stay at home. The current scandals floating about might bring a few more voters out but not significantly. People will think that as long as the baby is quiet, why rock the cradle.

I should also state that most good debates should not end in name calling or threats just because there is a difference of opinion. Debates are supposed to allow everyones view points to be shown and then arguments presented as to why each view point is valid.

Some people will always take offence to views that differ from their own. Free speech is free speech and we are gradually losing our right to have an opinion that may not be politically correct or based on our religious beliefs. I do not believe is spreading hatred but I should be able to say whether I agree with something or not based on my personal beliefs. Just because a person does not agree does not automatically make them a hate mongerer.

I agree that mathematics and prices have made property rights tradeable. But if this was the case in the middle east, then one faction could just pay off the other faction and get them to leave. This can not work in the middle east because the fundamental disagreement is about religion and it has been this way for thousands of years. 2 + 2 = 4 does not mean squat when you feel someone else has wrongfully displaced you from your property. How do you propose to come up with a mathematical equation that will end thousands of years of hatred? If you could do it, I would very gladly bow humbly and buy you the best dinner money could buy. It is almost impossible to change peoples feelings about things they have been taught right from birth. The Palestinians will not give up this fight until all jews are gone from the middle east and the jews refuse to give up what they call their homeland. They will just keep killing each other whether we agree or not. For a very basic peace process to start, a couple of thigs have to happen. 1st Isreal has to get out of the occupied territoryand then stick to their word when they give it. 2nd, the palestinians have to get organized under one leader who actually wishes to see the killing stop. 3rd, the US has to stay the hell out of the whole process because they seem to be able to screw up everything in the middle east because they know nothing (or care) about the history of the middle east.

I think what po's most people about 2 official languages is that even though we are one country, there 2 very different sets of rules. We have the Quebec rules and then we have the rest of Canada. There no respect for the english language in quebec but the rest of the country has to take some french in school. If the score was even across the board, then people wouldn't care so much aside from the millions of dollars wasted every year on dual language signs, packaging, etc. There is nothing wrong with learning a second language and it should be incouraged in school but it should necessarily be french. I think this should be more up to each province where they want to spend education money and should be based more on the demographics of each province. As was stated earlier by lost, with new technology, it is doable. Should we have two legislated official languages, I dont think so. Should we have 1 official language and one secondary language, makes more sense to me. That way companies can chose whether they want to make their packaging dual language or not. My parents never asked for Danish on their packaging in Canada, they learned the language instead.

When my family immigrated to Canada, we had to learn how to speak English (or french dependant on what part of the country we decided to settle in) back in the 70's. There was not much tolerance for people who could or would not speak english. Now I know people who have been in this country for many years and they hardly know how to speak english and they can even become citizens. It used to be that you had to have to be able to communicate well in english (or french) before you could become a citizen. I still believe that all people who immigrate to this country should be able to speak one of the offcial languages fairly well within a few years or the shouldn't be able to become citizens. Adding other offcial languages is not going to help, look at the feelings a lot of english speaking people have towards the french because it is mandatory to learn french in school now where as Quebec still does not make it mandatory to learn English. Adding another "official" language is just going to piss everyone off, lets let the people make up their own minds whether they want to learn another language or not.

To me and probably a few others, it looks like it is a provocation of the Palestinians. As long as the settlements and troops are there, the Palestinians will keep attacking Isrealis. Thus Isreal can keep yelling the protecting their citizens angle. I am not a fan of what the Palestinians are doing. Bombing innocent people is just wrong. In all reality, both sides are wrong. The leaders like the chaos on both sides, they can then justify the use of force to try and force each other out. In one way or another, this battle has been going on for thousands of years in the ME, why is it going to stop now? We like to call ourselves more civilized than our ancestors but we aren't really. Our ancestors killed for more land, religion, better hunting grounds and wealth just to mention a few. Nothing has changed aside from the fact that instead of looking into your enemies eyes when you killed him or were being killed, we can now kill from hundreds of miles away. We speak out against one atrocity but turn a blind eye to others. That is just human nature, right or wrong, we chose what seems to be important to us rahter than what is right.

Boy have things strayed from the original thought of this thread. Before reading this forum, I didn't really know who Layton was. Couldn't really say that I cared either, never been a fan of the NDP but that is my choice. I dont need call people names and I prefer argeu my choices more sensibly. Getting back to Maples original thought about Layton uniting Broadbent as showing the NDP as being united and that for a party to show strength, they need to appear united. Very true but for bringing Broadbent back into the fold, well he is kind of old news sort of like Clark. All I ever remember of Broadbent was him screaming about something and a big vein popping out of his head. He was good at voicing his opinion but in all reality, who cares and who remembers? Broadbent wont be savy with the younger voters or get people off their butts and go out there and vote.

Do you really think anyone cares what Joe Clark has to say anymore. He is from the old school and does not keep with the new times.

Just wondering what is wrong with a two tier type medical system? In Alberta, we have laser eye surgery set up in private clinics. The success of this system seems pretty good as the cost has dropped over the years, the waiting time is minimal and the succes rate extremely good. Why can we not see more non-essential services privatised? What is wrong with people having a choice? We have a choice now, Canada or the US, is it not better if we had more services here in Canada and keep the money here at home?

very well put willy. I bet it is also a little easier on the conscience to ask for a raise when you know you have done a proper job for your employer and helped improve their business. The best job security you/we can have is doing a good job, make money for the boss and he/she will keep giving us a paycheque. I also know that if I do not make money for my employer or if it is just a bad year, I can not ask for a raise. When I do ask for a raise, I would never ever ask for a 15-20 % raise over 2-3 years. Holy jumping catfish, that is way out to lunch in most circumstances, especially for public employees who seem to forget that it is the average joe tax payer that has to foot the bill every time they get a raise. Everytime they get a raise, my taxes go up, I make less money so I need another raise to keep my standard of living where it is at, unions see that the private sector average pay has gone up so then they figure they need another raise and so forth. Things have to change or things will just keep getting worse.

I would have to say Anne McClellan. This would be rather of a big blow to the Liberals losing someone like that in the west.