Molly

Are you serious?! I assumed you were just being sarcastic in a poor attempt at humour.... a la Rick Mercer "talking to Americans'.

I couldn't disagree more strenuously. Parties (and governments) are merely the sum of the folks who participate in them. ...Regardless of party affiliation, a government made up of honest and sensible individuals will function honestly and sensibly ....regardless of the offical policy or ideology of a party, honest and sensible representatives will respond to issues in an honest and responsible manner. The flip side is that crooks and fools are crooks and fools regardless of their political affiliation... and when parties become dominated by ideology-driven crooks and fools then they form ideology-driven governments dominated by crooks and fools and despots.... If you don't care what sort of individual you elect- don't bother to look after your own interests- then you are pretty much guaranteed to end up with the most self-interested of all of the prospects. That doesn't serve you well, but it certainly serves you right.

....But anything that breaks the party/leader stranglehold is well worth trying. (Anything that might strengthen it to be avoided at all cost.)

Sorry to come off as a knee-jerk partisan yet again, but to agree with Milliken's observations (and I do) is to call the lie to the common Tory obfuscation about authourship and policy through labelling some initiatives as privately-held opinions. In this parliament, if a leader doesn't want an issue to come forward- questions, opinions, --private emebers bills-- then it doesn't. Thus, if Rob Bruinooge is publicly yapping an anti-choice line, it is the policy of the leader/party- just like Hoeppners (private member) anti-gun registry bill is--- and both of those, just like the hang-'em-high plans and other stuff that the party actually claims right out loud. It can't be disavowed with a wink.

Dave.... I'm beginning to believe that a february trip between Winnipeg and Sudbury, in an overloaded U-haul truck should be a mandatory experience for anyone wanting to discuss Canadian east/west relations. While income from maritime coal, timber and ports (and fish) no doubt paid some portion of the $25 million invested in a rail link to Britich Columbia, believe me when I say that Western coal, timber and ports are much more accessible to the west than those same resources from the Maritimes. It strikes me more and more that this needs to be pointed out: If you begin driving from Halifax, in two long days behind the wheel, you can leave the maritimes, pass through Benz' version of 'French Canada' and cross the vast majority of that area that refers to itself as 'Central Canada' finding yourself at or near the centre of the universe, the GTA. From there, if you continue driving for 3 more long days through a whole lot of rocks and bush and swamps and random moose, where you are so far out in the middle of nowhere that you can't raise anything at all on your car radio for hours at a time... after those three additional days, you'll pop out the other side of the shield near Winnipeg, and you'll be at the east/west middle of Canada, finally having arrived at the lead edge of 'western Canada'. Seriously, spend a minute soaking up the implications of those proportions.

I'm reminded of a small child to whom family relationships were being explained. It was all fine until someone said, "...and Poopsie is our cousin." The child was prepared to draw blood of anyone claiming that Poopsie was anything at all other than 'MY SISTER!!!'

The creation of more jobs does nothing to benefit those who can't perform one. Reliance on children and grandchildren for ones support presupposes fertility/a social connection to a family unit.

Oh piffle. The ultimate bottom line on all things political is the consent of the people involved. While we could argue the legal questions up down and sideways, the real answer is 'because western Canada would refuse to go along with it, and then you would have a bit of a problem'.

Mmmm. He must have something specific and obscure in mind, because the generalized notion that 'the grain elevators' were built by 'the East' is 'through the looking glass' kind of rediculous. I'd like to know what he's got in mind.

What about them? What grain elevators did the east construct in order to provide an oh-so-generous gift to the west?

The Pacific rail line cost $25 million, and 25 million acres of western farmland complete with rights to the coal and petroleum underneath it. (For perspective, New Brunswick is only 17 million acres. The entirety of all three maritime provinces is only 33 million acres.) The East did not 'spend billions' giving anybody anything. The East saw an opportunity to profit, and milked it. The East swapped a few billion $ worth of western Canadian real estate to the CPR to gain themselves a rail link to BC, to beat the US to the punch. There's nothing wrong with having done that, but don't expect anyone to grovel in permanent gratitude over it either.

Here. A thumbnail: http://pushedleft.blogspot.com/2009/12/i-agree-with-andrew-coyne-parliament.html 'Helped' is accurate. '.. we all paid for the oil fields not just albertans and lets remember the ''scum of the east''helped in a huge way to built alberta to what it is today.' is , IMO, too strong an assertion. Diefenbaker managed to bring something of a western perspective to parliament hill for a bit. It was a short interlude in a long history.

The criticizm is a gushing fountain of ignorance, sour grapes and flagrant misogyny. Noahbody, Harper is a scary person with a (not so) hidden agenda... but that doesn't speak at all to folks' apparent expectation that Ms. Brosseau must be either a 40-year-old man, or a Conservative party hack (or both) in order to be a legitimate MP. In a completely normal manner- a manner common to all parties- she was nominated to be an also-ran (as in, 'was used by her party to fill a space'). Oops! The folks of that riding were so unimpressed with the other options that they elected her. How is that her fault? Nobody gets to declare a mulligan. The cheezy slander and bizarre expectations are exactly that: cheezy and bizarre. It is my personal opinion that Mr. Harper is cheezy and bizarre as well, but the recent inclination of folks to compare and contrast him with this surprise NDP backbencher -- well, I find that pretty ironic, too.

It's rather precious that the way she's being criticized is stuff that is patently untrue/ outside her reach/just as true of everyone else/ more illustrative of the speakers ignorance than of anything improper that this young woman has done or left undone. It's both entertaining and disappointing to read. (Like watching 'Jackass'.)

Change that to 'Leach' and 'CPC', and you are describing my own riding. The major difference is that everyone knew the CPC appointee in this riding would be an MP (in this case, cabinet minister) whereas no one with a lick of sense would have dreamed that folks of that riding would vote NDP.

Actually... um... yes, I have. Less than a month ago in fact. ...And found quite a lot more English spoken there than you'd find French spoken in my old home town that was, at one time, deemed 'bilingual' by the federal government.

Through at least the 60's some instruction was mandatory pretty well across-Canada and a requirement for entry into almost any post-secondary institution. (In many post-sec, the alternate language was a normal requirement for graduation, too.) While people were generally very willing or even eager to learn, there was nothing like enough qualified teachers to meet the demand. (Several of my family members came from Switzerland during the 50's and 60's to teach French/English.) Most people had teachers less useful even than mine- a better than average teacher, but with a heavy Welsh accent and an 'Elmer Fudd' speech impediment. Well-structured (written and) Diefenbaker French was about the best you could hope for, and only if you were lucky. It was largely futile in any case, simply because language must be exercized to be properly learned and retained. If there is no application for it.... no one to speak to...

Oh, get stuffed. Few things could be more disgracefully pathetic than citing employment in healthcare as your basis to whine linguistic persecution. Hospitals exist to help the sick, not to reserve employment opportunities for people based on the language they speak. Show me qualified but unemployed health professionals in this country and I'm pretty darned sure we can find a job for them right here in this county, complete with accommodations for linguistic complications when and if such accommodations are needed. My sister recently retired from work in healthcare... Folks in the hospital where she spent most of her career might-- and did-- chat in English, French, Cree, Tagalog, Arabic, Russian, Africaans with one another or with patients.... English was the language of record of course, because it was the likliest common vector in that area, but so long as folks could communicate clearly with one another, what is the benefit to getting your tail in a twist? There is certainly no benefit to patients for service providers to stand on some percieved right to be stinking self-absorbed. Language is a tool. (Not a culture. Not a nation. Not even a province.) It can be used to illuminate, communicate, and to connect people--- or it can be used to obfuscate, dissemble, to confound and to isolate people from one another. Choosing the latter is lame and pathetic.

What?!?!? How flipping segregationist can you get?!! Enemas and blood transfusions come in one universal language.

Yeah, that was pretty darned snotty. (Sorry. I was out of line.) I won't type my fingers to the bone over something so paltry, but neither am I likely to ever percieve: 1) Harper staying home from the wedding as a praiseworthy act in defense of democracy. The only reason he was on the invitation list at all is because he was, at that moment, the Prime Minister of Canada, and he stayed home to protect his phoney-baloney job - which was in jeaopardy at the time. or 2) any meaning at all to the fact that a space-holder candidate with no reasonable expectation of more than a few dozen parked votes, actually went on with her life while the election swirled on. I'm surprised that anyone would see any meaning at all in either event, much less those particular meanings, and then tie them together? Uh-uh.

Federal government is not 'local' ever- it is national- so the answer is a resounding "No, the onus should not be on you to learn another of English or French in order to deal with the federal government." Inuktitut, on the other hand, is a very 'local' language, and not a national one. Let's be very clear, though. This is not a 'European' advantage. There are MANY European countries in which English, French and Inuktitut are equally foreign. If we are drifting into ad absurdum, though, the most cost-effective of all would likely be to outsource most of the civil service, and offer services only in the language of the lowest cost contractor, leaving the onus on citizens to learn... maybe Hindi, or Tagalog... or Mandarin.

spe·cious/ˈspēSHəs/Adjective 1. Superficially plausible, but actually wrong: "a specious argument".

Meh. I'm sure he just thinks that I'm being disgracefully partisan, but I've never misled anyone about my opinion of the CPC, and I very truly am surprised at this parade of items. None of them were top of mind (except for my dread of the 'control your wimmin' social dinosaurs). A functioning opposition would be having a field day with these things even without a sitting house- but they are all 'otherwise engaged'. Instead of discussions of federal/provincial roles in healthcare or the desireablity of punishment vs. reduction of harm, we have dopes babbling about how to make Bob Rae the leader of the Liberal party now and forever, and a bunch of hyperbole (read: slander) about an unlikely MP having gone on a long-planned vacation.

I hadn`t checked the websites, but I did watch it on both CTV and CBC news loops, right there next to the flooding in Manitoba. (CBC is talking about it again at this very moment.) Will this do? http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110512/supreme-court-insite-110512/20110512/?hub=EdmontonHome Or this? http://www.cbc.ca/m/rich/politics/story/2011/05/12/bc-insite-supreme-court-canada.html If you are short of info on the story, it`s one of the lead stories in almost every print outlet in Canada.

Have you ever been to Calgary? While it's not the global mix that Toronto is, folks from all over have settled there. It has been a boomtown and a frontier for a good long while. I've certainly done business in English in Quebec city, too, and once-unilingual friends have moved there. This is a nation of in-clusion, not exclusion. While it burns my buttons to be smugly greeted in French first and preferentially in areas where weeks, months, even years could go by without encountering a French speaker, I value the confidence Canadians may have that they can deal with their government in the official language of their choice, whenever and wherever they have dealings with their government. $1.6B is a tiny price to pay for that. (I've no doubt, though, that the universal service could be provided for much less money, if it is spent sensibly.)