playfullfellow

MS, you should try to live in an area where you get no FM radio, just AM and thats only during good weather or clear nights. And that is only 1 AM station to boot. I now live in an area that has 3-4 FM stations and I think it is great. Vancouver has, what, 20 radio stations if you include the US ones you can pick up? At least most of the morning shows are pretty good, they are silly and start your day off with a chuckle. If you don't like it, change the channel, that's what the little dial on the right is for or the seek button.

And I suppose someone buzzed out on weed has never done anything stupid? Personally, I couldn't really care less if someone drinks a beer or smokes a reefer, thats up to them. I think part of the problem may lie in that we have roadside tests to bust drunks but we don't have any road side tests to bust someone who is stoned. Both alchohol and weed affects your reflexes. Drunks and stoners behind the wheel are both an accident going somewhere to happen. Figure out a roadside test for weed and you would make your million and quell another arguement against weed.

Uh huh, the feds are really open with their books and spending now. If the feds were in control, you would see all the best go to Ontario and Quebec while the ROC can suck eggs. At least under the current system, each province can decide what is best for them instead of some desk jockey who lives 2000 miles away.

MS, this situation was unacceptable, whether you agree with Klein or not. Would you be yapping the same speech if someone did this to your hero Layton? Probably not, you would be asking for life in prison. Yeah, it was just a pie this time but what about the next time. This sort of crap has a way of escalating if left up to the devices of people. Do we really want to see armed guards around our politicians at all times? Probably not. The guy got what he deserved. His life isn't ruined and he only has to serve weekends.

There are plenty of decent paying jobs in Alberta, largely the result of the patch doing good. We all know agriculture is not doing much to help the situation right now. If these jobs are cut back because federal interference, then does Canada not lose the benefit of receiving the income taxes from these higher paying jobs? Does leaving the money in the province enable more businesses to succeed through lower taxes? Do these businesses not create more jobs hence more income taxes collected which is the distributed to the ROC? No matter how you look at it, the ROC receives a piss pot full of money right now from Alberta. You take the royalties and you take those jobs away and lose the long term benefits. Short sighted thinking is what keeps us getting into trouble in this country, there is no long term vision.

Is this not because the Feds cut transfer payments to begin with a few years ago? Does the Federal government not impose rules and standards that the Provinces have to ruh their healthcare by but the feds don't necessarily pay enough to keep this level of care up? I don't necessarily disagree with cutbacks. The system was/is flawed and needs to be fixed. Healthcare is one of the things that the feds can dangle a carrot in front of the provinces with. It can also be the albatross for provinces. We all know the system is screwed up and is in such a beaurucratic mess that it is almost impossible to clean up. First the Feds pay around 50% of healthcare costs. Then we are told we have to tighten our belts because the country is in a financial mess. The feds drop their share to less than 20% but still impose what level of healthcare is acceptable. When this is not possible, then they turn around and blame the provinces for the mess. Now the Romanov report suggests the feds pay around 25%. The feds say fine, no prob but we want full control of how it is spent. This way they can always blame the provinces again if things dont work out, they will just say that the provinces didn't do as they were told as their always seems to be some standards that are impossible to meet. Look at Alberta, they accepted the cutbacks with a grain of salt. They cut back the beaurucracies, elliminated a lot of the pork barrel jobs, ammalgamated health regions and cut back on the services the system woud not pay for. Yeah, it hurts at first, the doctors and nurses cried saying that people were suffering, waiting times went through the roof but the system was working as well as could be expected with what we had. The fight really started when Alberta wanted to privatize some non-essential services. The feds said whoa there, you can't do that or we will cut the rest of the money we give to you. Alberta finally had to relent and back off privatizing some services. We still pick up the extras that the feds dont pay for out of our own pockets. It amounts to around a 1000 bucks a year for a family of 4. Centralizing of services is what has put us in the mess we are in right now. Ottawa dictates the level of service each province has to supply but pays less than 20% of the cost. Letting Ottawa have complete control would not eliminate the problem, they would just use it to buy more votes in friendlier regions.

I have been to Ontario, twice in fact. Not a bad place, too many people though. The skies were always grey, polution I figure. The people were friendly enough but always in a hurry. I can't afford to go to Ontario now let alone if I was sick and maybe out of work. Right now, Ottawa can't figure out what each province needs so how the heck woud they run healthcare for each region. Look at it this way, in Alberta we deal a lot more with industrial accidents because of the patch and agriculture, this means we would deal a lot more with limb loss than BC or Ontario. Ontario with probably deal a lot more with chemical type problems or enviromental afflictions. BC needs their funny bone replaced, they would need special surgery for that. Each province should deal with their own health care. At least they are closer to the people and know what to do.

Guaranteed income does not work because it is just an incentive for people to sit on their butts and do nothing. Denmark tried a similar thing in the 70's. The program was not so much as a guaranteed income for but a guaranteed income for people with disabilities, out of work people and people who were on welfare. The unemployment rate shot through the roof, taxes shot up and the working class carried the 18-22 percent who were not working by their own choice or not. Inflation went up, debt went up and job loses were rising. The government had to change it's ways or go bankrupt. It took almost 20 years to repair the damage done by these programs and it produced a generation of people who do not really want to work for a living. MS, if you want to further explore the socialist or as you prefer far left way of life, do some research on Denmark and Holland. They have tried these types of programs you like and they have failed.

Ceasar, your theory sounds good but does Ottawa listen to us now? Will they ever listen to us? As for duplication of services, exactly what do you mean, service level or bearucratic level? If you mean service level, then under your proposal, all the best surgical and diagnostic services would be in Ontario, gotta buy more votes you know. The rest of us would have to travel there or the US to get those services. We will never get rid of the beaurucratic level because everyone is scared crapless of laying off government workers. At least under the current system, you would have better access to the politicians and let them know what you want. Right now, Ottawa doesn't give a flying fig about the west, BC included, it is after the election again.

Thats very true TN, a lot of our kids friends have to be continually reminded about proper courtesy and manners here when they visit. Over time, most of them get the idea and improve their attitudes around here. Our kids have definate unbreakable rules when it comes to courtesy and respect and their friends know it too but they don't mind it seems. They great plenty of compliments and that makes them all feel pretty good.

The big deal is that I have to pay for it one way or another. Why should one province be allowed to do whatever they want just because they are unique? It is not about preserving their language and culture, it is more about thumbing their noses at the ROC and going neener neener. I would much rather my money be spent on my own province for actual healthcare than in Quebec to upgrade their highways and protect their language. Whats sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander as far as I am concerned, why shouldn't every province have the same rights? In this family, Quebec can be viewed as the loud cousin who does whatever he wants but expects the family to pay for it and to bail him out when he runs out of money.

When I lived in BC (over 15 years ago), things were a lot more moderate and centrist was the predominant view. BC was flourishing and life was overall pretty good. There were plenty of good paying jobs. Then it seems that after the Vander Zalm fiasco, everything went down hill. Special interest groups starting ruling the politicians, especially enviromentalist type groups. Unions got everything they wanted to buy their votes. Things went downhill from there. Debt went up, incomes dropped and taxes went up. There has been one scandal after another over the past few years and it doesn't seem to matter which party is in power. The problem lies in that no decent person who might make a good politician wants to get involved in that chaos. They will only get villified and hung out to dry if they don't toe the party line or suck up to the right groups. BC needs to give its head a shake and decide whether they want to continue to trade out their government every 4 years or settle down and get things back in order again. They also have to realize that special interest groups don't always look out for the best for people as a whole, they have their own agendas.

As with any occupation, you have good teachers and bad teachers. It doesn't matter what profession you look into, you will have poor workers and good workers. The main difference is that when you have to deal with unionized workers such as teachers and postal workers, it is extremely difficult to get rid of poor workers. If things are going to be downsized or the fat trimmed off, then seniority rules, not the quality of the work you do. Aside from breaking the laws, it is almost impossible to get rid of a poor teacher. I consider myself lucky with my education, I had some very good teachers for the most part. I am also from the generation where we had to show teachers respect and they in turn did the same. The few not so good teachers I had were frustrating in that I felt deprived of learning things properly. I think some of the teachers out there should have to take the same provincial exams as the kids and see how they do. If they are not well above the average, then they need to look into upgrading their own education.

Was watching the news last night and they showed an interesting story on the health system in France, which is supposed to have one of the best systems in the world. They have a two tier system and it seems to work quite well. There are very minimal waiting times, even for elective surgery. They have done away with a lot of the waste when dealing with doctors visits. Their in home care is second to none to eleviate the strain on hospital beds. France is not the only European country that has a two tier system that is working. Most European countries have two tier systems now and it seems to work fairly well. They gave up on a totally public system and deemed it unworkable.

Thats because you generally advocate shorter work weeks, more time off, higher wages, no cost education, no cost healthcare and all without you working harder for it. You generally propose that we take from the rich and give to the poor whom have to give nothing back in return. I think everyone of us in this forum know of people who do or would use the system to sit at home on the butts and get a free cheque every month to do nothing. I know people who are considered quite wealthy by anyones standards but they got their money through hard work and taking initiative to better their lives. They invested and they built businesses that have succeeded quite well. I know that these people would not have invested so much time and money to achieve their goals if the government was just going to take it away to give to others who did not feel like taking intiative. So, that would leave us with a country of poor people who do not want to get ahead because it will all be taken away from them anyways. Myself, I do not really like having to work for over half a year before my taxes are paid off so then I can start to work for myself and my family. At the moment, I am not getting a good return on my tax dollars and in the real world, would withdraw my money from such an investment.

How come they don't have some of the Scandinavian holidays on there since they were the first to discover Canada?

That's their priviledge, if they have the money, then they should be able to do so. Who really cares as long as they got theire the honest way, either working for it or inheriting it. Sitting around waiting for a cheque from the government if you are capable of working is none of these. If my net worth is going to be 300,000, then I want to get there the old fashioned way, working for it. You should try it, a little sweat never hurt anyone.

LMAO, I must at least thank you MS for giving this poor old hammer jockey a laugh first thing Monday morning. They obviously forgot to check my bank account but I am part of the working poor as they call us. As Caesar says, just about anyone who owns a house in Vancouver is worth over 300,000 but the same house in Newfoundland is only worth maybe 80,000. Caesar and her husband have paid their dues and are near retirement age so you want to take away from people like them who own their own property to pay for others lack of initiative? Why should someone who has worked hard their whole lives pay for someone who just wants to sit on their ass and do nothing to get money? Caesar and I may not agree on a lot of issues but I respect people who have worked hard to get their money and paid their own way through life. Besides, where does a 300,000 dollar threshold come in? Does this mean that anyone who owns a house worth more than 300,000 now but was only 80,000 20 years ago have to pay through the nose to retain that house? What you are proposing is an initiative killer. Where is the incentive to improve? Where is the incentive to go after that higher paying job? Where is the incentive to keep your house nice so it's value grows? There would not be any as none of us working type people really care to pay the way for people who have no initiative to do better but sit back and collect the dole.

Get your facts straight caesar, every farmer who owned cattle received money from the help given by government. Anyone who owned beef cattle was entitled to receive money, this included the cattle owned by killing plants that had cattle in feed lots. You can not exclude some companies just because they are american owned or own a large portion of the cattle. That opens you up to the biggest lawsuit you can ever imangine. You are correct that the NEP was also supposed to keep out foreign ownership of Canada's resources. The plan was to set up PetroCan to keep competition and pricing in Canadian hands. But in all honesty, when was the last time you saw PetroCan having the lowest price at the gas pump? When does PetroCan start any price wars at the pumps? So in other words, every aspect of the NEP went over like a lead balloon. Now, the Liberal government has put the rest of PetroCan on the selling block, you want to place a wager that the devil you know will sell it to a foreign company? How will you make wine out of that?

The same can be said for just about every disease known to man kind. But what do say since there have been no new cases found in all the animals tested to date? Was this cow a random case? Was this some form of naturally occuring BSE? There are naturally occuring forms of similar diseases in ungulates such as deer and elk known as CWD (chronic wasting disease). Science can not tell us enough about prions yet to know how or why they occure. To date, this is the accepted view and I am not going to disagree with it. In all actuallity, I have never been a fan of feeding animal byproducts to herbivores just cut a few days off the time to market. A lot of farmers never did feed fats to their animals so they are not a worry. Now, I think all farmers (well, at least the ones that think a bit) have taken animal byproducts out of their feed. So we are looking at a situation where we have found no new cases and we have eliminated the possible cause of infection from the food chain. Canada has demonstrated quite well that they are doing the right thing. Even US scientists are saying that this is purely a political move on the part of the US. It may not be because we have a bunch of bone heads in Ottawa but the current "we hate the US: stance of the Liberals does not help the situation.

Yes, I know this, I do know my history fairly well. My point being was that for 40 years, Alberta has not received any such payments. Ontario is the only province that has never received equalization payments. BC has only received payments the last few years. Ontario has never received equalization payments but it's industries has received money over the years. My point is that in all reality, we are talking about 2.4 billion dollars based on projections for 2004. I know every province loses 70 percent of their royalties in transfer payments. My point is that I know more or less how this money is being used in Alberta, how would it be used if it went to the ROC? Short term job creation? Pay out for more feel good programs in Quebec? My fear is also that if Ottawa gets their hands on controling royalties, will they be able to resist increasing the amount they collect? Probably not because we are only talking about 255,000 direct and indirect jobs in Alberta. Who cares about Alberta, they are only a bunch of whinners, right?

uh huh, and we wonder why BC went from being one of the richest provinces to being one of the have nots. We have better things to spend our money on in Alberta, like education, health, etc.

that is total revenue from all resource royalties as far as I can figure.

the 8 billion is a projection for 2004, it could be even more but that is the numbers we are given to date.

China is even more protectionist than the US. You fail to see the logistics of trading with a country that is several days sailing away compared to a day or two by truck which the US offers. You figure to send 20 or so tonnes by truck to anywhere in the US costs around 3000 dollars, what would the cost be to send the same amount to China? Yes, I agree that Canada has to diversify it's export market but exactly to where? China is only interested in our raw resources, they have 2 billion people to keep fed and working. Agricultural groups have been trying to get into China for the past 10 years without much success. Plenty of agreements have been signed but they are all short term and conditional. The US remains the main market for all our agricultural items. The EU is even more hopeless than the US and Russia is broke. Not too many choices caesar and that is frustrating.