playfullfellow

August, if you are talking about seeing what happened during WW 2, yes I have seen the camps. I have seen the graves, I have seen the buildings and I have seen the bullet holes that still remain. I grew up seeing the haunted look in peoples eyes who actually witnessed what happened. The difference was that I was not a tourist, this was part of our growing up. This was part of my heritage or legacy or whatever you want to call it. This was also part of why we chose Canada as our new home. This is also why I speak out against the big brother syndrome. So, no need to feel sorry for me, I may be a sarcastic SOB but I have seen things that the average Canuck my age hasn't even read about in the history books. I love the freedom we have in this country and I love the fact that Canadians of the past have fought long and hard for the freedoms we now enjoy. I am proud to be a Canadian.

well if you were going to ban any foreign languages in churches, then should you not ban any foreign langauages in places like, say, the Italian/Canadian clubs, Yugoslav/Canadian clubs, heck might as well add Huterite colonie to the list, they are a religious sect too. My family and I came to Canada for it's freedoms and opportunities. Banning the usage of a persons home language in a place like their church smacks way too much of Big Brother. The Soviets tried it, the Chinese are trying it without much success. How do you think we can accomplish it here. Maybe it is time to have just one official language, then we can settle this problem with Quebec at the same time too.

It's not always about getting an instant return on an investment. We know the US economy will rebound one day. As our buck increases in value, why not buy the low US buck, sit on it for a while and then sell it when it increases? Buy low, sell high. We as a country also have to be careful in hoping the US buck will drop more and ours increases more. We are not in any sort of trade position to be able to afford that. If the US stops buying our products because they cost too much, then we are in deep doo doo. Then all those nice cooshy social programs will take a hit. Health care will take a beating and people will lose their jobs and homes. Not a pretty picture.

I do know a few who are not, well almost not, they are farmers, mostly in BC though. And they were not always organic. If you would have used the word mostly instead of all, then you would have hit it right on the head.

I was just wondering where the physics and math figure into this idea? Put an ice cube into a glass of water, mark the edge of the glass where the water ends. Let the ice cube melt and see what happens. I would guess you would see little to no change as ice displaces more volume than water. Sit down and figure out the math to those numbers. Figure out the area of the worlds oceans in meters. Multiply that by 60 and you should have the total volume of water that would take. In all reality, these are very simple figures but they put to light how silly some of these predictions are.

MS, you yell and shout and slam the alter when it comes to people being able to chose abortion or a gay life style yet you want slam the door shut on all religion because they do not agree with your views. Well I should say, Christian Religions. Though I may not agree with each view of the different religions, I do feel they are a very important part of the daily lives of many people. You start banning different religions, you open the door to all kinds of sensorship and chaos. Look at your idol, Russia, they tried for over 6 decades to wipe out religion, didn't work. In China, you can get imprissoned for being openly religious, they haven't been able to wipe it out. But I guess you follow your own religion set out by your heros like Stalin and Mao.

You are not far off the mark newf but what the heck, I am not going to complain when I see the revenue brought in by such high oil prices. Can you just imagine if we didn't the BSE problem right now? Agriculture would be pumping tonnes into the coffers too. There are issues of course in Alberta and Ralph does not necessarily always do or say the right thing. Well, he is human and an Albertan, we tend to say what we think. I see people defend Parrish in one sentence but condemn Ralph in another. Double standards across the board. Though I may not agree with all of Ralphs statements, he makes it clear he hates it when people misuse the system set in place to help the disadvantaged. As most Albertans, he appreciates hard work and innitiative. I am glad to see a wide variety of issues being brought up this election by some of the new parties but in the end, we have to decide who is going to stand up for what we Albertans believe as being important. I think Ralph still does care though he is getting tired and it's probably a good thing this is his last turn at bat.

Just like BC, rent in Alberta depends on where you live. In our area you can still get a basement suite for 500 a month. But you are right, AISH in Alberta needs an update. The current level is not sufficient at all.

I think you need to talk to the business men out there in BC. Here in Alberta you tend to get paid rather well for doing dangerous work. Heck, a person make over 13 bucks an hour making heart attack burgers up in Fort Mac. Until you have lived here for a while caesar, give it a break on knocking Alberta for a while.

In this area construction workers are a major source of "under the table" work being done. Back yard mechanics, handymen and cleaning crews are a major part of this under ground economy.

ummmmmmm, Alberta has loggin, truck driving, you forgot minning, construction, agriculture, heck we even have commercial fishing in Alberta too. This province revolves around a lot more than just the energy sector. As I recall BC used to revolve around more just than enviromentalism and growing marijuana.

Caesar, you have obviously never worked in the oil patch by the ill conceived tone of your post. It is also clear you do not know anyone that works in the oil patch. Oil patch work is extremely hard work right from the time that seismic work is done until the hole is punched in the ground. Yeah, Alberta is lucky to have oil in the ground but we work extremely hard to get it out. I am sure you appreciate that the next time you hop into your SUV and fill it up. But I guess we are just as bad as those nasty yanks in your mind.

Right now we have maybe 3 contentious issues in Alberta that people are concerned about. Thats health, education and insurance premiums. You could throw in utility rates in that basket too and have a debate going. Health just got a boost from the feds so everyone and their dog will come up with diverse ways of spending this money. Alberta is not the only place that has problems in this area. Education just got another shot in the arm with the teachers union signing their contracts. Money has been promised to build more schools. Insurance premiums are a big issue as anyone who drives needs it. Is it an issue that can make or break a party during this election? Probably noy unless someone says something really stupid. Klein will win again as times are pretty good right now unless he really sticks his foot in it again. He will lose some seats this time around as it's kind of hard to go up from where he is and some areas will send him a message by voting either liberal or alliance.

I do agree with you here caesar on the government has to have better accountability these days. Things are out of control all over the place. On the issue of a stronger central government, I am definately a fence sitter here. If the right person is in control, then it can work very well but the track record shows a constant favourtism towards Ontario and Quebec in the past. With a stronger central government, I feel this would only get worse. This would only lead to more people being disenchanted with the whole voting process. Currently, I could not back a stronger central government, until we have proper accountability institutions in place.

I agree with caesar here, there is a pretty good underground economy all over Canada. It seems almost anyone who has a trade is willing to work for cash or trade at a much lower level than if it is an invoiced job. It has become widespread enough that Revenue Canada recently sent a delegation to host a public meeting here to discuss and discourage the problem with local tradesmen, it was not a very well attended meeting as far as I know. Working "under the table" is a direct tax revolt by these people, a sign that people really feel they do not get a good return on their tax investment.

Eureka, have you ever been to any of these European countries for any extended period of time? Do you know any people that live in any of these countries? I guess August has been there from his posts. Anyways, a lot of people in these countries have grown tired of the high taxes, expensive goods and regulations coming out of the ying yang. Denmark has currently enacted a new law stopping all future tax income tax increases as people are growing tired of being over taxed. Living conditions are by no means any better over there and the unemployment rates remain fairly high to our standards due to the fact many people chose not to work because welfare is easier. Denmark has chosen to have user fees on non-emergency medical visits, this greatly reduced people running to the doctor everytime they got a fart stuck. Canada is not perfect but it is a pretty damn good place to live. Our government is pretty screwed up at times and needs a major overhaul but we could be much worse off. As some say "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". Realistically, what level of tax do you think is fair to pay for these benefits?

Finland has a total (direct and indirect taxes) income tax rate of 58.2 percent. Sweden has a total income tax rate of 59.4. Norway has a total income tax rate of 53.6 percent. Denmark has a total income tax rate of 59.1 percent. The US has a total income tax rate of 33.4 percent. I think a lot of the problem has to deal with how many other bs programs we have to pay for in a country. The Scandanavian countries do not have to deal with issues of seperation, land claims issues and a whole whack of petty little issues which we spend millions on each year. The Scandanavian countries also belong to one of the largest trading blocks in the world, the EU. The EU has certainly brought many benefits to smaller countries of Europe. It seems we face one scandal after another in this country when it comes to government. Until we quit fighting over these pissy little issues and decide that Canada a great place to be, then we will never crack the top 10. We will focus on too many other trivial issues and not building a wonderful country that looks after all its citizens. The US succeeds because they are proud and more or less united. Their companies also have tremedous power in government.

There is a lot of differences between the 2 countries to begin with. For instance, the US spends a whole whack more of their GDP on theor military. But you still have not addressed the issue of government waste that we seem to have here in Canada. There seems to be a whack of piggies at the trough and they only seem interested in taking more out of our yearly income. Where is the incentive for the average, hard working Canadian to keep paying taxes? How can we afford to lose more of our wages? As it is, we find it hard to keep up because there seems to be less value in our paycheques at the end of each year. There needs to be more accountability for the money we send to Ottawa each year.

Isn't there a point though where the government takes more than it gives back? You talk about the sad state of our healthcare and social programs is due to cut backs by the government. This is true in a sense but the system failed to eliminate waste. We have several departments that all seem to do the same job. When you have to contact the government to ask them a question, how many times do you get transfered before you get to someone who actually has a clue. How much money is wasted each year on expense accounts? There is too much waste in government departments and not enough money being spent to the good. Look at our fuel taxes. These taxes are collected for the purpose of rebuilding our roads. Only around 16 percent is put back into our roads. Other countries spend around 60 percent of their fuel taxes to rebuild roads. I guess that is why we have third world roads in this country. Then you hear about the government spending a bucket full of money on golf balls with the intials JC on them. This is the kind of waste that makes us wonder what the hell is going on and frankly a person gets tired of working over half of the year this kind of crap. It is like any investment, if you felt you got a good return for your taxes, then you wouldn't mind. But right now, we seem to be getting a real crappy return for our hard work. As for New Zealand, they spent themselves into oblivion and near bankruptcy on social programs before they realized the mess they were in. They cut every subsidy and social program to get back out of the crapper. The general consensous is that cuts hurt like hell at first but the people got used to them and now the people are happy to see the country getting rid of their debt.

Personally I couldn't care less if there was Sunday shopping or not. I like to be able to get parts to fix peoples furnaces or stoves on Sundays if need be. But that is about the extent of my Sunday shopping. I don't know if stopping Sunda shopping would help people relax and be more productive. Due to labour laws, at least in Alberta, in regards to part time and full time hours, most retail people work less than 35 hours per week so companies do not have to pay benefits of a full time employee. Most places offer rotational weekend shifts so people don't work every weekend or weekend shifts are offered to students. If you want to change Sunday shopping, you have to convince the consumers first that they need to stay home, once you do that, retailers will follow suit because it will not be profitable to stay open on Sunday.

I agree with you here MS, there should be some kind of reward to people who have never or rarely used the EI system. I disagree eureka, why should I pay the same as someone who goes on EI every winter? Why should I subsidise their income every single winter? It's a different story when the country is facing financially difficult times as a whole, then we can all be in trouble. Of course it is difficult to assess risk factors but I think it would be a little easier than automobile, especially during financially stable times.

MS, then why call it insurance? Why shouldn't I be rewarded for never having used the system in over 19 years? And it sure isn't because I am rich that I have never had to use EI. It is because I have always moved to where the work is that I have never had to use it.

Yeah, but our troops have be extremely shafted over the past few years and we still expect them to put their lives on the line for us everyday.

I know there are other countries that pay more in taxes than we do but those countries also offer more to its population. Right now I work for half the year to pay taxes. I think that includes most service fees too. EI should be treated like regular insurance, if you dont use it, you should pay less. If you are a regular user, seasonal, then you pay the full level. Thats only fair.

And how many criminals are free now because they are good liars? How many people have lied at their parole board hearings, been released and then hurt or kill someone shortly after getting out of jail? Where are the protections for the victims of these crimes? No system is infalible, people will slip through the cracks. Who do we protect first? The general public or someone who is perceived to be lieing and the evidence may show this person may be involved? As time goes by, technology will exonerate a lot of the innocent will be released.