idealisttotheend

I see your concern RB but I don't think it would be reasonable for Manitoba to have the same number of votes as Ontario or Quebec. The latter would never stand for it. Manitoba and Saskatchewan together could counter balance Alberta I think (or at least I would hope).

I agree with CR that this is not a problem best solved by new legal mechanisms. Restricting actaul child porn should be done on the internet just by making it illegal for ISPs to host them and putting the onus on them to prevent illegal activities. But much as the popular sentiment may be more jails and longer sentances I don't think that will work. I wonder if we couldn't put more money into psychological research and dealing with the problem directly. Maybe sex education earilier in life would help with this or redirecting the urges in adults. In any case I think this is usually is "passed down," people who have had it done to them want to do it to others when they are adults. If we could eradicate it for a generation we may get rid of it all together. Still, I think that we need direct solutions to this not new legal ones.

I wonder if the easiest way to the Senate would be as a proportional representation excercise. Let the federal party leaders appoint a new senate every election from lists drawn up by party members in each province based on the popular vote in the H of C vote. Make the number of seats equal by region under the five region model. But the question, as August reminds us is how to get Quebec on board to any Senate change?

The question is by how much? Are you of the opinion that people on welfare are living high on the hog or can survive at all any more cuts after Harris? If you put people on welfare to work do you not replace paid jobs? If not, why not make them paying jobs and give them to people on welfare. Lotteries are a form of voluntary tax to start with and the money generated can't be much at all in the scheme of the multi billion dollar Ontario budet. this is a decent idea along with lowering them for more carbon friendly vehicles. Sin taxes can only go so much higher as they are raised nearly every provincial and national election. Cigarettes are up over 100% in the last five years with alcohol close behind. If you capped doctor's salaries at 60K there would be a doctor's strike from the time you introduced such a cap until you recinded it. Doctors make more in the 150K-250K range in most parts of the country. Might be a good idea.

Whoa there. My quote says that I don't think it's an attack on Alberta at all never mind the West. Says who? Who treats us like hicks? Or grudging indifference? Not to be too vigiliant in defending the Liberals but Martin did make the Finance Minister and the deputy PM from the west. What more can you want realistically? People from the east also know these values and some of them vote Conservative. People in the west sometimes vote NDP, some are lazy sometimes. Hawk your penchant for dramatics and your inferiority complex regarding the west can go too far.

I believe Mr. Martin's GP is simply someone who runs a private clinic but that Mr. Martin has never attended the clinic himself. I don't think Mr. Martin is attacking Alberta as much as Klien's secret plan for "reform." Martin never would have said anything had Klien not opened his mouth and made it so obvious that he was waiting until after the election to release the package.

You forgot Klien MS. Alberta's flat tax basically raised taxes on the middle class and lowered them for the rich (with the poor doing slightly better because of the higher minimum cutoff).

I think it is interesting (as BA pointed out) that a film that no one has seen generates almost 4 pages of discussion. Is it really true that the name on the title screen means more than the film itself? Can we discuss the thing before even seeing it and would it be reasonable to assume that no one would change their opinion after seeing it?

"I think a friend does not mean you kneel in front of him" Gilles Duceepe, English Debate 2004 I was going to change my signature to this but didn't on reflection, too bad I can't vote for Mr. Duceepe he is a wise man. The above saying sums up how Canada's relationship with the US ought to be perfectly. We did nothing to harm the US by not going to Iraq or by rightly critisizing their position. History will show Mr. Bush's problem with Mr. Hussien was personal and unless Mr. Bush invades a lot of other countries he cannot sustain his argument that he did it for the greater good of human kind. Mr. Harper is very wrong to argue that we should have gone to Iraq blindly. Mr. Harper argues against the wisdom of the majority of the electorate and for no good reason, something that does not speak well of his chances at a long political career. I think it is Mr. Harper whose faith is blind in this case not RBs or anyone else who argues that it is okay to criticize the US and gets called a 'socialist' for it.

I think this is the key to the thread I looked up the trade numbers here (table 4B) and found some things that really ought not have suprised me but did (like our trade as a % of GDP went up for 26% to 41% between 1989 pre FTA and 2004). The most telling is that we import pretty much the same amount of manufactured goods and machinery as we export. We have a bit of an advantage in Automotives (hurray for the Stronachs) and take a big hit in consumer goods. The only 'products' where we have a lot of goods to sell is in resources. This is our 'competitive advantage.' We sell a lot of resources and it is here we need to diversify. It shouldn't be that hard either. Everyone needs our agricultural and forest products, our gas, oil, and most of our other resources products. The only question is whether we can get a good price for them somewhere other than the United States. I'm thinking China might be a possibility but who knows. If we concentrate on our resources trade we could go back to producing our own industrial and consumer goods to make up for any losses of exports we might suffer to other markets. That's the key diversify the resource markets and a lot of people in Western Canada won't have their ability to earn a livelhood determined by the congress in Washington. But this diversification would require the help of the federal government in one form or another.

But maybe the would trade for some sort of special status provision in the constitution? I think you are right though, since Quebec has been quite lately we out west tend to fortget that Quebec would not relish having the same amount of seats as Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan. One could easily argue that with the supreme court, the areas of provincial juristiction, NAFTA and the MAI and the practical realities of living next to the US there are already enough checks on the power of the prime minister.

Isn't the rub here though that marriage is a religious institution to start with? I mean, the word "marriage" is more of a religious term than a legal term. So churches ought to have more say on it's use than the State. My own position is that gay people should have absolutely every right that straight people have. But they might have to show enough respect for people with "traditional values" that they should choose a term other than marriage to describe their "unions." Any other term. To argue that civil unions are discrimitory when they confer all the same rights and responsibilities as marriage is to argue that refering to someone who has sex with someone of the same gender as a homosexual,l is discrimitory. IMO, it is a question of terms not rights in this case and at this point.

I agree with RB and bring up the case of the Alberta farmers who went to jail for illegally selling their wheat to the US without the approval of the CWB. It is still possible in this country to go to jail for your pollitical beliefs so we can't cut off people's voting rights because they are in jail unless we are willing to do it to people like these Alberta farmers who are going to jail for an expressly political purpose in the first place.

Late last week it was reported that Bernard Lord stated that if Harper was elected his province would elect their next senators. The leader of the conservatives in Ontario is introducing a bill to do the same and there is talk that if Harper were to be elected then the next three senators from Quebec could be elected and possibly elevated directly to cabinet if conservative. Heady talk. Is senate reform really possible? Senate reform has been a favourite cause in the West since the elected Mr. Waters was appointed by Mulroney to fill one of Alberta's vacant senate seats. Real reform has always been seen as impractical as no one in their right mind wants to open the constitutional Pandora's box. Consensus may not be that hard nationally on senate reform itself but as there is no way to restrict the discussion to only senate reform that 'discussion' may never ensue. Alberta however is stubborn. In 1999 Alberta elected one Ted Morton and a Mr. Brown who are still "in waiting" to this day. Chretien wanted nothing to do with the scheme and always protected his right to appoint senators among all the other patronage appointments Chretien felt were valuable and sacranest. In 2003 Alberta again called for a triple E senate. Despite the constitutional problems, simply having the PM appoint elected senators is possible without an amendment to the constitution. And the momentum for this is apparently building in conservative circles at least. It is seen as an easy and relatively inexpensive if the elections are combined with municipal elections. Of course there are many questions. Do we need an amendment to rebalance the number of seats between the provinces, (I believe that Alberta has 6 seats to NBs 10 or Ontario's 24)? Will it make a real difference to the quality of governance in this country? Are the provinces (especially conservative ones) so keen on it only because an effective senate could make it harder for the federal government to pass any legislation, further reducing it's efficacy and improving provincial control of the national agenda? Will an effective and elected senate better represent the regions (and if so why are the Ontario Conservatives now pushing for it?) In short is Lord doing the right thing by holding elections for senators, does it matter? Sources: Ontatio PC leader release Lord vows to elect senators if Harper wins mapleleaf's in-depth information

Possibly but elections are also about how much tax to collect and from whom and that decision is made by all of society. Or economic decisions like interest rate levels which could reduce unemployment and affect people on welfare. In any case, if government has been reduced to simple redistribution of funds and has no role in the maintenance of the nation (which is actually quite possible with NAFTA and to a lesser extent the Charter) we have come to a sad state of affairs vis a vie being a democratic nation where laws are made by the elected representatives of the people. All the people, regarless of their economic situation. And have you ever considered the slippery slope argument inherent to denying people on welfare the vote? What about people with jobs that pay them so little that they don't really pay any taxes? In fact they say anyone who makes under 30,000 gets more taxpayer funded services than they pay in taxes, so maybe none of them should vote? Where do you stop with this? The easiest and the most morally defensible way is to apply the engineering principle of KISS and give everyone the vote and not try to judge who is worthy of participating in society and who is not.

I think that the Cons are right on this one. The market can decide what areas any given airline should use any given language. There is no reason to make it law that a flight from Vancouver to Calgary on Air Canada must be bilingual. Nor is there a reason why Air Canada be held to any different standard than WestJet. Given the prevelance of French outside Quebec is very low there is no real justification for a bilingual requirement.

One week left. Anyone change their minds on the result?

Saskatchewan and NDP(ish) but I try to be as open minded as possible. Having said that I agree that Harper is a threat to our country given his past and current positions on certain issues like provincial rights.

The chance the poor have now in the courts is not that bad unless they are up against someone who can hire multiple lawyers etc. Legal aid is there for a reason and the more the poor vote the better their chances in the legal system ought to be. I don't mean to disparage your experience but it is not sufficient to decide the rights of an entire group of people. Plus, by agreeing that it is possible you are admitting that some people contribute you admit that some are, in your humble opinion, worthy to vote. Therefore you can't judge someone's worthiness to vote by whether or not they are on welfare. I agree on all three points. The more the poor vote though the greater the educational and training opporunties will be for them. So if you admit that the currency trader contributes little (and I'm glad you did) to society why should he get more of a vote than someone with Chron's disease or anyone on welfare who does contribute something that might be less tangible than tax dollars? Especially if those tax dollars are due to a system that rewards his version of contributing little over someone else's version of contributing little (or in fact more) to society.

I just wanted to put this thread back on top for the new people especially Blue Machine August seems to be on holidays.

Klien and Chretien are really almost identical. Klien is not the extreme right winger he is made out to be, he's actually a comprimisor, centrist and natural "man of the people." But there are elements of his party that push him far to the right and so he comes off as an extremist. The fact that he cannot fight those elements of his party off though will leave him to be judged by history on those elements' values if he is not careful. Democracy is very sick in Alberta these days, there is little opposition, government exerts undemocratic control of the media (by withholding information or appearances by ministers on media they feel is "unbalanced") and Alberta's "public affairs" beaurau (read, spin doctors) is larger than Ontarios. Unless the NDs and the Liberals unite in opposition and at least hold the PCs to the centre could it could indeed lead to disasterous consequences including to the unity of our country. As to the health care reforms: they are clearly based on ideology and not good economics. If Mr. Klien is so proud of them then he should not be afraid to talk about them before the election.

The reason for the "one person one vote" system of a mature democracy is that such a democracy assumes all people have equal rights under the law. The supposition that the weight of your vote should be equal to the weight of your wallet is an old argument and a bad one. To say people on welfare are useless, is stupid and samcks of the eugenic policies of certain mid century societies. People on welfare may contribute to society by being good friends, partners and parents. They may do volunteer work, they may be artists or they may be looking for work. In any case they may be better people under the terms of their religion or belief systems than people making lots of money. From a strictly cold hearted economic perspective people on welfare keep wages down which is seen by the 'right' to be good for society. The market determines which resources go where, it has no say in the worthyness of a given person to vote. What is the real value of a currency trader who does nothing but trade one currency for another and get 150K for it? You could argue that the reason some people are on welfare is because the system of laws have failed them and so they must vote to change those laws. In any case, equal voting rights counter balance the free market, putting pressure on law makers to consider all elements of society not just the elements all ready with money. It is therefore essential and any other system is clearly unconstitutional and morally wrong.

Or Stalin. I have never heard of this group before today and they don't seem to have a lot if any support on the Left.

I agree that Harper got McGuintied (great title MS) by Klien. It's that old Alberta foot in the mouth disease rearing it's head again. Now can the Libs and NDP use this the way the Saskatchewan NDP used the Crown protection issue to score major points. Maybe Martin should call the Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft to get some help. Taft knows health care very well and is an excellent politician,

I think Martin will hold on to his dream to finish his father's wor,k without that he is nothing. The Liberals will smarten up and while a lot of Chretienites will take their pound of flesh (notice Martin is now running on his record, coming full circle) they won't throw him out after this. After all, the Liberals have been in power for 11 years and their are legacies not Martin's. The stuff about Martin being overthrown is coming out of the National Post and it is not exactly unbiased.