Machjo

i could see two solutions to this. one is to simply privatize health care and leave it to the private sector. Or alternatively, if we prefer a more socialistic system, then at least make sure all make an effort. So for the poor and destitute smoker or drinker, help him, provide free health care, but raise taxes on his cigarettes and alcohol. I don't mind helping you as long as you help yoursself too. So the poor man, if he chooses to smoke, obviously can afford to pay more for his health care. But when we subiside roads, it gives a false impression of the real costs. Two solutions I can see to thai are either to privatise roads altogether or at least make sure that taxes are more related to road use.

Again, I have nothing against my money helping the poor, destitute, or less fortunate. But that's a far cry from helping the chain smoker with terminal cancer, the heavy drinker with liver damage, or to pay to build more highways to alleviate traffic caused by too many joy riders or people who choose to live farther from work when they could just as easily move closer to work, etc. We need to make a distinction between need and luxury.

What about when individual usage or consumption itself correlates to the common good, such as gas contributing to asthma and other ailments as well as pushing up the need for more roads? The antonym of fair is unfair. So by definition if it's not fair, it's unfair, and it's supposed to be fair I'd think. Sure, for essential services. Barely unused quiet suburban dead-end roads are a luxury, not a necessity, so it's only natural that their users should pay more. it's not the same as essential services such as common roads Not at all. Government is not a business and has a totally different purpose for its existence. That doesn't change the fact though that a tax system with incentives to promote more personal responsibility would not be such a bad thing. Universal access would still apply, but those who choose to harm themselves or to make themselves more dependent should pay more, though this should not apply to those who need more help through no fault of their own. Agreed. And how would the proposal of a resource tax limit one's access to the roads? he'd still be free to use them free of charge. But he'd be discouraged from doing so through a gas tax so as ot ensure they're used for essentials not joy rides. Not exactly. All would have equal access to the roads and all would be equally subject to the rrules of a resource tax. How is it a very right wing concept? It would help redivert money that is currently going towards personal ireesponsibility to actually helping those who need help through no fault of their own. Rediverting funds to the basic necessities of the most destitute would be more of a left-wing concept, no?

That's why I'd suggested alcohol to be added to the vegetarian menu as the non-halal alternative. Though most alcoholic beverages are technically vegetarian, most vegetarians I know don't drink it anyway. But the important thing of course is that, unlike carrots for example, alcohol is not halal. Yes, we should just ban vegetables and fruits while we're at it. God forbid a secular society should eat halal products.

You can read the article here in English: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8524056.stm Or here in French: http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2010/02/20/le-quick-halal-de-roubaix-fait-le-plein-meme-si-certains-clients-se-sentent-limite-un-peu-choques_1309029_3224.html Here's a short excerpt from the BBC article: On this note, I'd like to call for a national boycott of all vegan and vegetarian restaurants in Canada because they're all halal. All grocers in Canada who sell only vegetarian products ought to be boycotted too for not having any non-halal option on the menu. They might not be aware that everything on their menu is halal, but by Gawd as real Canadians they should go out of their way to inform themselves to ensure this doesn't happen. Generations ago, it was fine to sell only halal food because we didn't know what it was. But now that we do, we absolutely must go out of our way to emphasize our laïcité, even if it means banning anything that might be halal, like vegetarianism. May I suggest that we legislate that all restaurants and grocers in Canada must sell a non-halal option on the menu so as to not offend non-Muslim sentiments. Maybe your local vegan restaurant could add an alcoholic beverage to the menu (I doubt they'd add pork), even if few vegetarians actually drink alcohol and it would be a net loss to the restaurant to carry alcohol. It's all in the name of our national pride and our laïcité after all. What are those protesters thinking? Do they know what the word 'halal'even means? Do they realize how many of the products they consume every day are halal? Really, the only difference between a 'halal' restaurant and a vegetarian restaurant is that the 'halal' restaurant advertises that it's halal whereas the vegetarian restaurant doesn't, and might not even be aware itself that it's halal. So is it really the halal menu that offends them or the fact that the halal menu is advertised as halal? Obviously it's the advertisement that offends them more than the actual products themselves, because if it were the actual products, they'd be yelling and screaming that vegetarian restaurants must carry a non-halal option on the menu too. Oh the hypocrisy.

The Olympics are not a Federal department. Though as I've said before, since they are funded by the Federal government, that is the only reason they should have some French representation. Having said that though, I am in favour of official regional bilingualism as opposed to official personal bilingualism. In other words, in most of Quebec the government ought to have an obligation to guarantee services in French. Likewise in some parts of Eastern Ontario and Labrador. Inversely, the BC government ought to have an obligation to provide services in English. But as long as individual bilingualism prevails, then certainly any event in receipt of federal funding should be bilingual in French and English, as I've said before.

French-medium schools, yes, but they aren't French schools from France. I know you know, but it seems a few in this forum have some difficulty distinguishing between the Frenchmen and French Canadians, so I thought I'd clarify.

Oh come off it. I was married to a French-speaking (in fact, that was our habitual language of communication) Ethiopian from a Muslim family. The local African American, Muslim and Ethiopia communities dragged us both through hell because I was white, non-Ethiopian, and non-Muslim. In the end, she ended up using me, and I'm quite disappointed in her today; I'd married her because I actually thought we was a good person. Today, however, I harbour no ill will against Blacks, Ethiopians, or Muslims. I can differentiate between the racists, fanatics and bigots within their groups, and the group as a whole. I also recognize that some of the things she did had to do with her own character and not her ethnicity. Any mature adult worthy of the name ought to be able to distinguish between individuals and groups. If you hate French-speakers because of what one French-speaker did to you, then should I hate all English-speakers around the world because of what some English-speakers called me in the past for being French-speaking? It's people like you who start gang wars, or even military conflicts between nations, and who promote hatred and division between communities. You need to learn to distinguish between individual persons within groups.

So because a few bigotted Frenchmen hate you, you'll stoop to their level and hate the whole of France back? How magnanymous of you. Now, what does that have to do with Canada, or were you referring to French Canadians?

I remember reading an article on the Statistics Canada website awhile back (bearing in mind that I think it was based on the 2006 statistics you're referring to) that the rate of official bilingualism was dropping among youths but rising among adults. Also, I'd be curious, the other links you'd read, were they based on self-assessment or objective test results? Remember, some people call themselves bilingual because they can function as tourists for example, which requires a much lower level of competence than the language skills you'd need in a trade or profession for example.

Not quite. According to the link below, it's about 17%, and bear in mind that this is based on self-assessment. One particular experiment in Europe in 2001 had compared the results of self-assessment and objective tests and had found a 10% drop in the objetive tests. Based on that, we can conclude that even the 17% might be high, based on rudimentary knowledge only.

And that's perhaps the main problem. Gas taxes (or any other resource-based tax for that matter) should not be lumped together with income tax. Instead, gas taxes for example should be used only for those resources that they logically relate to, such as road and airport construction, for example. No gas tax should be used for healthcare funding unless it could be shown to corelate on some level. Asthma treatment, or other respiratory ailments related to emissions caused by gas consumption, perhaps, but certainly not hearlthcare in general. The same should apply to cigarette taxes. They should be used strictly for services related to smoking, such as addiction therapy, lung cancer treatment, etc. Same with alcohol taxes, etc. Income taxes should not be used for the things mentioned above, but should be used only for those services that cannot be logically linked to any kind of resource tax. Such a tax system would make the real cost of various government services more accurately reflected in the costs of goods and services in the economy, and this woudl naturally cause people to react accordingly in their spending habits so as to encourage more efficient spending.

Language is a means through which culture is communicated. At the height of the Roman Empire, I'm sure it was believed that the Empire would exist forever. At the height of the British Empire, I'm sure the British likewise believed that the British Empire would remain forever. It's human nature to believe that your society will never change. Our demographics and our world views are changing and this will affect how future generations perceive their own country. That is as the same reality that ran through all of the nations and empires of the past.

So is Swiss some new planned language now being taught in Swiss schools? Must be a recent thing I suppose.

Would you mind elaborating on my 'routine'? Maybe you could teach me something about myself.

Taking that logic to its logical extreme, then assuming I didn't know French, would I be entitled to a government interpretor paid for by taxpayers to accompany me to Quebec City so I can shop around more comfortably in some Quebec suburb? I'm sure you'll agree that that's not a necessity like education is for example. So if we make a distinction between essential services and non-essential, I'd classify the Olympics in the non-essential category along with tourism. So where do you draw the line? Again, as long as federal governmetn funding is involved, I do agree French services ought to be provided. i'm just talking in terms of ideal conditions where federal funding werent' invovled.

Seeing that the GG is supposed to be above politics, we'd need to know his accomplishments outside of the realm of politics, obviously.

Now there's a non-partisan appointment

Seeing that the GG is supposed to stand above partisan politics, does it really matter what 'party' picks her? In the end, it's the Queen that decides, not the PM. Sure he may select, but in the end the Queen must approve. She usually does, but if the PM made a blatantly partisan pick, she could decline.

I just looked at the list, and it seems we make much more use of the GG than the Queen, and this woud make sense seeing that with the UK having no GG, the UK is thus more dependent on the Queen than we are, and so we depend on the GG to free the Queen from too many duties running around all over the world. So if a future monarch resided in Canada, I'm guessing the roles would be reversed. Canada would no longer have a GG, but the UK would adopt one. As a result, the monarch would represent Canada much more abroad while the UK would have to make due with the GG more often. I'm guessing this would likely be a blow to the British psyche, would probably make the world news for a least a day and make the news in the Commonwealth for a few months as we analyze what this would really mean for the future direction of the monarchy. After all, we take it so much for granted that the monarch resides in the UK that it would certainly cause a real shift in how the monarchy would be perceived around the Commonwealth, with Canada being its new geographical centre. this would also likely mean a shift in relations across the Commonwealth. We generally associate the monarchy with the head of the Commonwealth, so if the monarch moved to Canada, this would literally shift the centre of the Commonwealth from London to Ottawa. That would be a significant change in the psyche of the Commonwalth, and would likely make Ottawa the new centre from which Commonwealth relations would be maintained.

I look forward to it. I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong. Though I respect the monarch and monarchy, I'm certainly not a rabid follower of the monarchy myself, which may explain why I'd never heard her speak much French till now. I'll certainly look out for that when she visits.

Maybe she knows French; maybe she doesn't. But for the monarch him or herself, rather than just his or her representative, not only knowing but also using the French language extensively in public would undoubtedly have a symbolic value in French Canada at least. How this would impact Canada and the monarchy, I'm really not sure, But it would certainly impact it in some way, and positively I would guess.

That list is questioned just below the list itself.

Fair enough. Good point. So I suppose a reigning monarch residing in Canada would be representing Canada when invited to the US, for example, while the British PM would then be inviting the British GG to go to France with him. Or would I be off base in such an assumption? Certainly the monarch of so many countries cannot be running around the world with all the PMs all the time without damage to health in the long run.

Are you sure the Queen speaks French? I found the video below where she'd be most likely to use French (as she is addressing the President of France and his spouse). However, except for titles, the speech is entirely in English. She may know French, or knew it at any rate, if you are correct. However, even if she does know it, far off in the UK, she clearly forgot that she is the queen of Canada too. Had she kept that in mind, and if she genuinely knew French, she would most likely have used French. A monarch residing in Canada would likely be more conscious of this fact, and thus more conscientious in his choice of languages. A much more publicly bilingual monarch would likely influence not only Canada's perceptions of the monarchy, but also those of the commonwealth as a whole. We should bear in mind though that this would likely cause some discussions in new Zealand about its other official language, Maori; and Canada's First Nations, Inuit and Metis might have some interesting comments on the subject too. But regardless of the discussions it would spark, it would certainly lead to much discussion of the role of the monarchy at th level of the Commonwealth.