idealisttotheend

This differs from communism and is inherently democratic. Most of the anti-NDP rhetoric on this forum is not factually based and is just that, empty rhetoric. Mr. Hargorve had a significant falling out with the NDP after his leadership candancy never really took. The NDP revised it's rules to make it less union oriented. Many union members routinely vote liberal or even conservative. Mr. Layton may or may not be any better than Mr. Martin or Mr. Harper insofar as being a political opportunist but is by no means worse. I'm livid with the man about the Clarity Act (and may very well vote Liberal because of it) but he seems like a good man who does stand for what he believes in.

Has there been a Conservative regieme in the history of the world that hasn't counted on economic growth it can't guarentee (resulting in bloated surplusses) to fund it's promises? The Cons want to cut taxes and spend more money on all sorts of things. They justify this by quoting economic growth that no one can guarentee. In fact it's about time for a recession doesn't everyone think, have you seen the US deficit and/or trade deficit. I'll give this to the Liberals, since their budget is the lowest cost they are the promising only the cake and not the eating.

That is a great story MS. The guy is hilarious, we should try to get him to post here lol.

Australia has a lot less territiory to defend than Canada, and so should require less for what the Yanks call "home defence". That northern patrol the CA just made cost a whole lot of money and it wasn't even very comprehensive (I think the lost every single snwbobile they left with). Plus, I could be wrong, but it seems to me Canada is oversees a lot more often than Australia. I know the Aussies have a token force in Iraq (more for political reasons than practical reasons like most counteis) but they don't have 2000 troops in Afganistan, or troops in Haiti and are almost never seen on peacekeeping missions. It is the oversees missions that are expensive. I completely agree though that there are too many generals (who are actually more like politicians) and too many civilian DND employees. Very inefficient and can actually hurt more than they help in ways beyond only their cost.

I think the point is that one must read Mein Kampf to understand Hitler and prevent his kind's return. Whether this is Argus' point or not remains to be seen.

I don't think anyone knows that the Greens are right wing. Enviromentalists are just assumed to be left wing and I doubt anyone here could name one plank of their platform without checking the wesite ( I certainly can't).

Oh really. So then you are ashamed. Surely if you are defending the NCC's right to advertise their views to the general populace, on your behalf, and with your money, you would be proud to have everyone know that you support them. In fact it would be necessary to acknowledge that you are one of the citizens supporting the NCCs message otherwise people might simply assume it was rich people and corporations. Either you support them or you don't, anonymous membership conveys no benefit whatsoever if you do support them and your argument holds no water. I will source my accusations that the NCC is funded moslty by corporations if it is necessary but the source I want are their membership lists and funding records which they refuse to provide me. Nevertheless, as Leonard Cohen put it "Everybody knows......."

Now that I think about it you are right, but I'd still like to find a way to promote adoption.

All right I apologize to DAC, the NCC does have some citizens as members. But the majority of it's funds do not come from people paying the $35/ year or month. If it is otherwise, the NCC would open it's books and it outright refuses to do this. Unless of course people like DAC are ashamed of their membership?

Well I would MS, but I am adopted and so have always had sort of an interest in it. Men do have something to do with the process I believe and I consider my birth to be my buisness. Is it really time for a men's rights movement? Lol Say a women has sex with a man and tells him she's on the pill but she is not. What are the man's rights? If a man does not want a child but the women does should the man have to support the child. What is the man's rights? This could get interesting.

I think defining abortion as a right is a fallacy, better to define it as a choice and let each individual decide whether is is a right or not based on their own personal beliefs about what does and does not constitute a life. Abortion can be quiet emotionally traumatizing but I think the solution is better sex education not restricting abortion. As to councelling I'm all for it as long as the women in question has the choice of who does the councilling. Promoting adoption in unwanted cases might not be such a bad thing -- so long as it is done respectfully and with the women still have full and free choice.

Argus I think some of your points are good (ty for pointing out that the same sex marriage decision was not SCC I forgot). I realize that it is not cut and dried either way but I disagree very much with some of your last points. I read the summary and some parts of the legalease but not the entire thing. I think I read enough to get the gist of it though. Some would argue this happening now vis a vie media concentration. In any case since there is a finite amount of media space that the average citizen will 'consume' it is a real danger that rich people would and do dominate the democratic discussion. As you yourself have pointed out the net effect of this law is to make advertising nearly impossible so the issues must be debated by other means. Furthermore the party financing law would not work without this legislation since the Cons could just get the NCC et al. to do their advertising for them. Kudos to Chretien for recognizing this. My spider sense is telling me you will disagree vigorously but there is no doubt in my mind that the NCC is not a group of citizens but a group of corporations and wealthy individuals. This really isn't debatable or the NCC would release verifiable membership lists and donation amounts that cover all it's operating expenses. It only supports positions that help corporations, including striking down this law. In fact the reason I dislike it so much, is that be using Citizen's coalition in it's name it tries to appear as something it is not in the best Orwellian fashion. As to the other groups they are supported by major donors such as unions or church groups and not individual donations from citizens. All institutional. That's the job of the other parties. If the other parties can't do that then the Liberals deserve to be re-elected. If the market exists to meet my demands than I have all the say in how they spend it. If it exists to further the interests of said corporation than what you say is true. I argue for the former as the latter encoaches on fascism. And so we have financing reform and this law is an adjunct to it. If ordinary citizens can't be persuaded then why advertise in the first place? Isn't it the assumption of the advertisers that ordinary citizens can be persuaded by the ad on TV and isn't that why they spend citizens' money on such ads? If the ordinary citizens were such dullards why would their government pass such a law on their behalf? Furthermore, isn't it more paternalistic for the SCC to deny the ordinary citizens the right to pass such laws through the Commons? Is upholding the democratically elected government's legislation paternalistic? Mine and yours. Perhaps people who read and participlate in this forum will think more of my arguments and yours than the 30sec spot sponsered by the NCC on any given subject. They will agree or disagree but maybe we can dumb up the debate. Maybe the leadership debate will hold more sway, maybe water cooler talk among ordinary citizens will carry more weight, maybe someone will question the candadate who comes to their door more closely. I suppose I am arguing for demand-side politics. People will get their information from somewhere, and if that somewhere has nothing to do with advertising by the people who can afford it by virtue of controlling large amounts of money, I am all for it. P. S. If you really were thinking of mortgaging your house to buy adveritising, what does it say about democracy that you need to do that? What does it say about democracy that it is the bank who will ultimately decide whether you may or may not do that advertising? What does it say that your mortgage will not buy you very much 'voice' at all anyway?

I pulled the average income by state and there is a definate correlation between union membership rates in each state and higher incomes in most cases. Stats Can reports that unionized workers make 8% more but it can go as high as 19% in some industries. Numbers from the Daily in 1999 Better paid workers buy more things, keep more people employed and more corporations in buisness.

How exactly does a pasifist (aggressive or not) beg for violence, or a pacifistic dictatorship commit violence? Is this not oxymoronic?

Libs are driving to the left fairly hard to cut off the NDP and stop the vote splitting. This is different from previous elections (as someone else pointed out here) when they drove to the right and is really a tacit surrender of the centre right vote. As such it may be seen as an election ploy But then PM PM probably knows that the SCC decision is highly unlikely to allow for same sex 'unions' given the SCC previous positions and that of the lower courts. So it may also be simply heading off a potential problem in advance.

But the Tories were going to pay $5 billion for 50 But then the other ones are $5 billion and that's how much Mulroney was going to pay as early as '91 My oh my. I give up, we can only hope someone in DND knows how much the damn things cost.

AH, they were not mighty fine facts after all. This archived CBC story puts Eurocopter's bid at $2.5 billion for 28 and it is the lowest so $3 B would be closer than $5 B DND news release says 2.9 billion

Wow. Those are some mighty fine facts if you ask me, I thought the $5 billion came our of the air too but I guess not. Takeanumber has got my vote on this one. And can we please not get back into ad hominen attacks, I know I'm not the moderator or anything but it's really much nicer when everyone just sticks to the facts and argument. If you want to see a site with personal attacks look up Michael Hardiner and click on his WWW address. That forum is not pretty and no one posts there. Again, don't mean to be arrogant or anything, that's just my opinion. Thanks.

I thank you for explaining the new anti-liberalism thing, I think I understand now. Thank you again. I still don't quite understand your argument against the third party spending law though. Ok. But if everyone is equally restrained by the law how can it be unequal? Is it not by definition equal, since every citizen has the same obligations under the law (there are no quotas here). If I accepted your argument that the SCC has gagged the rich and taken away their right to "even responsible speech" where does that leave you and me? You and I can not buy the ads either, not now or ever, we don't have the money. So then does it mean that we never had the "freedom to even responsible speech." In fact, haven't you just made the argument for the law? I agree and try to never do that myself or let it bother me when people do it to me. But that's just my experience.

I won't pretend to even know what new anti-liberalism is. The difference is clear in the terminology used by the judge upholding the appeal and the dissenting judges in Harper v. Canada. The dissenters keep refering to "the citizen's" rights while the majority talks of certain groups or affluent citizen's rights. So lets apply the common sense test shall we? Name one group of citizens who've ever gotten together to purchse major election time advertising (which seems to be all anyone is concerned about) that are not affiliated with a major body. Be that body Focus on the Family or the NCC. The law is intended (along with the campaign funding law) to muzzle corporations from speaking as citizens where they ought not be entitiled to do so. The NCC (much like the Fraser Institute) will not release membership lists to prove that it is funded by average citizens because it is in fact funded by corporations. Corporations' money comes from the prices you and I pay for things. Focus on the Family is different and maybe they should be exempt but only if they can prove that they recieved all their money from relatively equal individual donations and it stays that way. Practically, this law is new. In the 140 or so years this country has been holding elections name one group of 301 people who paid $10 for lawn signs not related to a political party. The only signs I can remember seeing were Save our CBC signs, besides that I have seen no independant lawn signs. Name a group of citizens in your riding that bought election ads on the radio or television last year. Name anyone who mortgaged their house to pay for election advertising of all things. Practically, affluent people have less opportunity to advertise under this law. Practically the average citizen has as much opportunity to buy national newspaper ads as they ever have and won't notice the difference between before the law was in force and after. Practically elections should be about the ideas of the politicians, not what a third party buisness lobby thinks about the ideas of politicians. To argue for third party election advertising is to argue for paternalism. People ought make up their own mings. In a purely theoretical world this might be a bad law, but in the real world the only people this law affects is the buisness lobby and maybe some large religious lobby organizations. Therefore it is a good law to keep money's influence a little farther away from the democratic process and let more people be heard. If that's new Anti-Liberal then count me a new Anti-Liberal.

The Act specifies that it must be comprehensive . The question would be whether abortion is part of a comprehensive health care package and since NB does not fund them then we can assume that there would be no federal law requirement to fund abortions.

To have no opionion is A) to have an opinion that you have no opinion to leave a vacuum wide open to be filled by the loudest voices on either side. I believe Mr. Harper was adamently against the SCC in the gay marriage debate because it was parliament's jobs to make laws. How can he now want to govern and have no opinion on a law like abortion, that invites the SCC to make the decision for him if he has no opinion. If elected it would be his job to have an opinion on behalf of himself or his party.

Ed Broadbent the rapper, my God. How far must the NDP go to appeal to young people?? But oh well it is kinda catchy in a sort of frightning way. Notice how they got the reference to Jack in there too. Don't want any power stuggles in the NDP now.

Where is it costed then???

You must have more faith in people. Not everyone is a stark ideologue (Nazi, man-hating feminist) some people are quite reasonable, most people in fact we just usually don't hear from them. Yes there are ideologies on the Court and it can lean left since the Charter was put in but they are not that bad. I mean Arbour wasn't head of the War Crimes Tribunal because she was a yes woman for Chretien. As to scrutinization, I'm not sure the Bourque incident among others gives me a lot of faith in US style confirmation hearings, what is the point really. Are there cases of the Americans finding important legal biases through these hearings?. And if you want to elect them then you might as well get rid of them all together and put nine politicians in their place. I believe the argument was that while they agreed that it did violate freedom of speech that that violation was justified under S. 1. The freedom from people with money monoploizing the democratic process outweighed the freedom to people being able to spend without limits on advertising. This is the kind of blancing the SCC must do. Furthermore I recall that the Liberals weren't overly impressed with the SCC decision on gay marriage. In fact, it was supposed to be a major election issue and it divided the "Natural Governing Party" down the middle if you remember (and gave the Cons a great "wedge issue"). Chretien himself was uncomftorable with gay marriage but he went with the Court and refused to use the not withstanding clause even with almost open revolt in his party. This is different from Harper who blitely states that he will use the not withstanding clause as he sees fit. I think Harper's position on the unlimited use of S. 36 should send up a lot of red flags for those of us who believe in the Charter and limits on parlimentary power. I don't think there is an institutional hidden agenda among the Cons. Harper is not Day and I think Harper only mentions prayer and such as it is politically expidient for him in his party (which really annoys me by the way, to use religion as a political tool when you don't believe in it). Nevertheless there are a lot of individuals in the old Alliance-Conservative crowd who have been cropping up with all sorts of opinions on social issues that I assume the Con brass is trying hard to shush. I think these opinions could become law in a majority but never in a minority.