Machjo

I think free trade is a good way to help them. As for duping food on them, could that not hurt their agricultural industry by killing demand for their products? After all, why pay for domestically grown food when you can get free foreign food? I remember reading of one case where local farmers had taken to the streets in protest against the foreing food being dumped on their country by foreign countries. I'm not saying don't help, but rather that we need to be sure that our help really is help and not just a well-intentioned nuisance that destroys their local agricultural industry by dumping our own food on them. Again, I'm not saying don't do it, but jsut that we must think things through before acting.

By definition if I know how to say 'ello' in English, I'm an anglopphone. Not a fluent anglophone, granted, but anglophone none-the-less. Same applies to Francophone. Personally, I think keeping statistics on francophones and anglophones is useless precicely because of the ambiguity in the definition. Instead, I'd look at fluent francopones and fluent anglophones, and not by self-assessment but through objective fluency tests.

By dictionary definition, a person who knows French is a francophone, just as a person who knows English is an anglophone. Now of course if we take it at face value, a person who knows a word of French could call himself a francophone. At that stage, the word becomes near meaningless. But we could talk of fluent francophones to narrow it down to fluent French speakers. I still don't think taxpayers should be wasting money on this though.

Actually, helping developing countries could help with employment. As long as our country is wealthier than others, our products will continue to be too expensive, thus pushing us towards long-term economic stagnation. Helping other countries develop would help put them on a par with us, thus putting prices and salaries at par too, and putting an end to the stagnant economies developed countries have been experiencing in the last decades. Japan is suffering from China, so is Korea. The US is suffering from Mexico, and Western Europe is suffering from Eastern Europe. The sooner we can reach par, the sooner we can grow together. This does not mean we need to give them money necessarily, though that too would help to devalue our currency relative to theirs, helping to speed up equilibrium. But even without that, free trade alone would naturally advantage the poorer country owing to its willingness to work at lower profit.

When I give money to an organization to help the less fortunate, I benefit too. Mabe not materially, but spiritually in my knowledge that I am helping another. Though I do agree this should come from charity, not imposed taxes beyond what is absolutely required.

I agree with what you say. I would clarify though that we all have a duty to help as many as possible to go to school to learn to read and write and learn a trade or profession at a minimum, and to support free trade with them. This does not necessarily have to go hand in hand with taxation. I give of my after-tax income to charities, and would give even more of it if my taxes could be reduced. I'm sure many others feel equally frustrated by taxes that prevent them from giving evn more than they do already to charitable causes while their money's spent on petty political pet projects.

We coudl argue the other way around too. If I give you money but refuse to give ayou a chance to work, I'm then enslaving you. Giving you an opportunity to work must go hand in hand with help. This is where free trade comes in. If we have high tariffs against a country, how can we honestly expect it to develop no matter how much 'equalization' we give it.?

To pay people to celebrate is a pretty desperate act.

Better than equalization would be freer trade to give them a chance to develop their economies on a more equal footing with us. Equalization could be achieved through either tax cuts or making more taxes charity deductible so that we can give more to international NGO's of our choice. It's only common sense that we could give more if our taxes were either reduced or at least made charity deductible.

Then we have only the voters to blame if they choose to vote for irresponsible politicians.

Well, if they're not willing to increase taxes, then they forfeit the moral right to increase spending. To increase spending and then refuse to increase taxes or even promote more tax cuts is plain deveiving and dishonest. If I had a choice between a candidate to reduce spending, yet still willing to increase taxes if need be to balance the budget, and another promissing tax cuts but no commensurate spending cuts, I'd vote for the first one for his honesty.

I though it was simply saying that it would define anyone regardless of race who knows French as either a first or second language as a Francophone. I understood it to mean that whereas non-whites who wren't mother-tongue speakers and born in Canada who were once excluded from the definition, they will no longer be.

I think too though that even more importantly, it cannot be limited to the diplomatic level, but must extend itself to the grassroots too; and education reform would likely be the key to that.

The Liberal and Green parties, and maybe even the NDP are likely to be more able to balance the budget than the Conservatives, mainly owing to the willingness on the part of the NDP and Liberals to raise taxes, and possibly the Green Party too even though during the election it was for a revenue neutral tax shift. I support reducing government spending, but a government must not shy away from tax increases if it's going to increase spending. I'm not very fond of the stimulous package as it is, but if we are going to do that, then at least have the courage to admit that taxes will need to go up to cover this. The Conservatives are good at cutting taxes, but not so good at reducing spending. Granted the others aren't good at reducing spending either, but their willingness to raise taxes to cover it makes them more honest and brave and fiscaly conservative than the Conservatives.

The conservative Party of Canada is not an economically conservative party.

"Although today's announcement is purely "statistical," it could affect everything from funding for French-language services to per capita transfer payments from the federal government." Now this I disagree with. Governments spend enough money as it is.

"Around 50,000 Ontario residents will officially become francophones when Madeleine Meilleur, the minister responsible for francophone affairs, announces a "new statistical definition" of Ontario's francophone community today. Currently, Ontario's Office of Francophone Affairs defines a francophone as someone whose mother tongue is French, but today's announcement will result in the inclusion of many racial minorities whose mother tongue is neither official language, but who at least understand French." That would just bring the definition into conformity with the dictionary definition of the word. 'Francophone' is synonymous with French-speaker, not native French-speaker. I believe that every democratic government should strive to rid itself of legalese, and use terms according to their standard dictionary definition. So I applaud this move.

That quote was referring to intellectual property. How is a lock or a gun going to protect that property? Also, we need to define private property. For instance, is an idea public or private property? At the moment, we have copyright, patent and other such laws. Of course we could get into the philosophical and perhaps even religious question of whether one can own an idea.

Now you give me the impresion of being far more libertarian than I. I'm libertarian-leaning when it comes to economic, immigration, and foreing policy. This is not to say that I'm 100% libertarian. In other areas, I am in fact conservative-leaning, such as when it comes to the abortion issue, capital punishment, and such, but by no means a rabid foaming-at-the-mouth I'l-assassinate-you-if-you're-pro-choice kind of conservative. I do support respecting those with differing opinions and respecting rule of law. I'm also pro-UN, not too libertarian there either, but more internationalistic. And I'm not particularly militaristic. In the end though, in spite of my disagreements with the Libertarian Party, I'd be more likely to support it over the Conservative Party of Canada.

I would disagree with taking this to the extreme. I'm all for direct taxes on our income or wealth to be charity deductible (once the national debt is paid off of course), but the government should still reserve the right to tax resources and such, which we'd all have to pay of course.

One thing I've noticed in this thread and elsewhere is to refer to anything less than increasing funding to the military to be socialism. Isn't socialism about bigger government, not smaller government? At least I'm consistent when I promote government spending cuts acros the board, no socialist sacred cows allowed.

And between those choices, I'd rather my taxes be charity deductible.

I'm aware that there are different opinions on the idea of intellectual property. Some believe that an ideas belongs to the community, not the individual. Others disagree. As for me, I lean towards the idea that ideas are public property. But until that law changes, owners of patents will continue to get rich and I see nothing wrong with their having more say in how that money is spent.

And Bill Gates is in fact a known philanthropist, and has given his money to good causes. Does it matter who decides how his money goes to good causes? Why not him? it saves one bureaucrat's salary in deciding how that money is to be given.

And that's the people's fault. We should think beyond a four-year mandate when we go to the voting booth. I'm thinking at least 70 years ahead when I vote, thinking policy X will affect us not next year, but 70 years or more from now.