Molly

Flip-flopping is hardly a new Conservative modus operandi. Remember the horrors of floor crossers... followed by David Emerson's appointment to cabinet? Remember when there would be no unelected senators, or when there would be no deficit? Or when it was important to work with the Bloc... er, have nothing to do with them... er.. can't keep up with that one. Which is it now? "Black = white" is no challenge for this crowd, so long as it's expedient. They are just so apallingly full of horse pucks that it becomes difficult to listen to their spokespeople. (Used car salesmen should take lessons.) And it's getting steadily worse.

Fact is, if you aren't dealing with family planning, contraception, and abortion services, you just plain aren't addressing child and maternal health. They are integral. To remove them from the list is like removing food from the list of services your lunch program would provide. It is both sad and thoroughly entertaining to watch the political gymnastics as the Conservatives try to satisfy both those who demand that the money be spent usefully, and those whose political/religious mysogyny binds their most basic grasp of what women's health entails.

That's my take on mandatory minimum sentencing.

"...it's time to move on and get back to more serious matters..." "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

"What this shows is that the laws are only meant to be applied to us peasants while rich, connected assholes get special treatment." Amen. And it cannot be separated from his own, and his wife's, and their associates' persuit of even greater harshness for 'peasants only'.

That's right. They budgeted surpluses, and came up with even larger surpluses than were budgeted. I like that better than 'We're going to spend more than we make, and ... um... maybe sell some stuff, I guess.'

I'd be delerious with joy, for one. Preston IS a man of integrity.

But they are NOT donations to a party. In theory, leadership campaign donations could even be directly for the purposes of undermining a party. It's a curiousity as to the arcane workings of Elections Canada, but the only scandal is the ineffectuality of such mountains of red tape.

I'm being incredibly lazy here, but did anyone offer up a list of the things that died on the order paper?

"Qualifying NPO: is an NPO that receives at least 40% government funding;" Surely the Conservatives are more fully funded by their members than to qualify.... and the NDP, sucking the taxpayer teat, would qualify....

Breaking a gravitational link?!!!??? Who knew? Thanks for the insight. I'm already well-in on the design of my new anti-grav carpet.

Spot on. good post.

Wiki looked pretty darned accurate about Reform social policy. It's very nearly word-for-word bits from your own link of their policy, Bill. And it fairly reflects my own recollection of the birth of reform. Social Conservatism was not Reforms raison d'etre-- not even close. The policy link spells that part out fairly well, too: Folks west felt outright abused by the Trudeau Liberals, and betrayed by the Mulroney Conservatives, and had no other alternatives. Social Conservatives were numerous within Reform, but social policy was a very low priority, and those motivated by social policy were considered to be a serious problem by the party. They are proportionally fewer, but signifigantly more influential within the CPC. I have a whole lot more respect for Reform than I could ever drum up for the CPC.

Wow! The gender gap is HUGE! Far bigger than I expected.

"If the majority of those who elected him or her believed differently" then why the heck did they elect him or her? This is one of those Reform articles of faith that has never, ever made sense to me. It asks that our MPs become nothing more than overpaid, underqualified pollsters.

Well, August, when my mother demanded that I be honest, it meant a lot more than "Don't get caught at thieving for direct, personal gain."... yet that is the excruciatingly narrow definition required to make any claim of honesty for this man. How many years in office did it take for Mulroney and Chretien to personally fail that narrow test?

My, how the goal posts march! Honesty has now been redefined to mean 'hasn't been caught red-handed, shoveling stolen money directly into ones own pocket, yet'. Lying, cheating, bribery, misrepresentation and misappropriation... so long as you aren't directly caught with stolen money on your person.... no longer count. This thread is a bad joke, August. The greater part of my extreme distaste for these guys is based on their fundamental dishonesty. Born of the betrayal of David Orchard, elected with the help of fraud (David Emerson), sustained through misappropriation of public funds (in-out), they are completely consistent.

Cuzzin, that's a nothing link. You would know that if you had looked at it, but you didn't. I think that you are 1) too intellectually lazy to spell your own name right, 2) more interested in being a jerk than in addressing the subject under discussion.

Dancer, nobody, ab-so-lutely.....no..... body.... is all industry-specific when ready to take a short term, minimum wage, dirty-hands-and-sore-back, money-is-the-only-incentive job. No one. If you are in that market, it's anything for a buck. You would paint a fence, or dig a hole, babysit, or wash dishes, sit at an assembly line, or push a wheelbarrow. If you are talking industry specific searches, then minimum wage and 'whatever conditions the employer cares to throw at you' aren't likely to be part of any deal you'd make.

Duh! If I don't know where to look, why would any other potential employee? For pity sake! They are claiming to be recruiting, not playing internet hide-and-seek, expecting a staff to find them!

Enough anyway. I called BS on the 'looked but can't find a staff' garbage, and got tangled in a nitpickers nightmare. The fact is, Dancer, that if employers were sincerely looking for staff locally, they would do something to make locals aware that they were looking for staff. As a local, I see no such effort. As a local who pays close attention to exactly that kind of recruitment, I see no such effort Not just 'minimal effort', but no such effort at all..... so either these guys are very, very bad at doing what they do, or they are feeding us horsepucks. Since they tend not to be penniless, I subscribe to the latter.

Locals may or may not have internet, ... they may or may not be actively seeking farm labour specifically as opposed to general labour, and they may or may not know that an in-house ag-labour site exists, even after a search, but brokers/recruiters/importers of workers would know ALL about it. Locals looking for a job, though, would certainly look on more common sites-- job bank, kijiji, craigslist... even Monster, and any number of others, and they'd check the paper, see posters.... An ad placed where potential employees are likely to be looking would bring more applicants than posting it where they might, by some off chance, find it. Imagine hiring someone to find you a temporary labourforce. If all they did was put an uninviting ad on one obscure website, wouldn't you can their butt for sheer incompetence? I would. You actually might have a point wrt housing... if you assume that bodies would have to be housed. If they were local, they wouldn't.

You are just going to run right over to your fax machine and apply for that one then, since only the best people will work there? Seriously, if you see this ad as expressing any interest in the quality of worker, then you speak a different language than I do. http://www.agri-labourpool.com/showJob.aspx?id=10223

Well, Dancer, that ad is a lot more inviting than the one I was referring to. It actually acknowledges that employees might have some basic requirements too. I know it wasn't aimed at locals because 1) it wasn't offered where locals likely to be available would see it, and 2) because it offered conditions tailor-made for 'a desperate herd from offshore, getting in as many hours as possible before being sent home', rather than conditions a local would be more likely to find inviting, or agree to. I wouldn't, for instance, agree to '54 hours, 6 day weeks', but 'opportunity for extended hours' wouldn't be a bad thing. You don't have to demand 54 hour/6 day weeks from 50 people to get 2700 hours of labour. 40 hour weeks from 68 who are flexible accomplishes the same end....

No, you missed that point entirely. 9.09 is plenty to get people to work... but it isn't enough to get them to volunteer for abuse. That ad says plenty between the lines. It says that staff will be barely tolerated, and certainly not respected. It says 'We don't want anyone who would expect to make eye contact, take necessary bathroom breaks, or be called by name."