idealisttotheend

It looks like the Cambell government is being opposed by the right now as well as the left. I suppose the lesson that you reap what you sow is catching on. If you compete for the lowest cost you'd better be willing to work for the lowest wage. In any case, I wonder if the BC liberals aren't giong the way of the Mulroney conservatives, they seem to have very little to redeem them. oneworld link

four canadian cities in top 16 in world for expatriates Vancouver 2nd best city to live in --many Canadian cities near the top Canada third in world in human developement in 2002 ...and previously 1st for six straight years [applause] [/applause] This is less than scientific. I wonder if your negative approach to Canada does in fact represent your political bias (which you actually claimed as socialist once) and the people you talk to reinforce this. Canada is becoming Argentina.... evidence????

Manitoba debt growing up 1.6B in 5 years -- good comparative provincial debt table at end of article Guess Manitoba could use some oil royalties, no? (though I'd post on Manitoba and Saskatchewan, since BC, Alberta and Ontario seem to be represented).

Globe story Mr. Ouellet "resigned" after it was revealed that he had spent more than 300K on travel and hospitality last year and has a history of not properly accounting for the money. He also tends to hire his friends for key positions and spend millions on unsigned contracts. I disagree with all the above practices but I think the interesting dynamic is this. With over 60,000 employees Canada Post is the counrty's 44th largest empoloyer. I wonder if the practices Mr. Ouellet is being fired for occur in the country's 43rd largest employer or in the 45th. Is it Mr. Martin's intention to hold Crowns to a higher standard than private companies? Should this be true. If it is true that public companies be held to higher ethical standars than why don't we have more of them? I wonder also how much of this is motivated by a desire to punish the Chretienites for their role in the scandal and just pushing them aside in general.

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Globe story I have to admit that I always shop at either the Bay or Zellers. I never shop at Walmart (though I don't shop at Walmart due to their labour practices more than their nationality). Does this make me a hopeless nationalist, pining for the days when we had a national economy? Does the lack of a national economy mean even more trouble for the country? Are we going to a system on two or three giants in every industry and no room for the little guy (though in this case, HBC is hardly little, but apparently too little to compare with Wal mart)? If this is the case ought we not put a stop to it? Can capitalism survive the lack of competition?

It appears that Turkmenistan's "leader for life" is banning facial powder for TV news anchors. He is also planning to build an ice palace in the middle of the desert and has a theory on when people can be called "old." Just when you thought Canadian politics was crazy. CBC link

1) The market is supposed to be demand centered. If people need a store there than a store will continue to be there, if not by WalMart than one of their very few (but higher priced competitiors). 2) WalMart can (and will since the market really isn't that demand centered in many respects) protect it's profit margin by raising it's prices. It's competitiors will either be similairly affected or become more competitiive as WalMart's ability to race to the bottom is curtailed.

I agree wholeheartedly with TN's post. An education is the key to your earning level as you can work as hard and be as smart as you want and will still have trouble just getting into the 30-40K bracket without an education, never mind above it. At some point our lives will depend on someone with a higher education. (like a doctor say). We have a choice as a society about whether we want the person whose parents were the richest to be that doctor or the person who is the smartest and most capable . It's clearly a no-brainer. There was a time when militaries were organized on the basis of the most privileged commanding (the nobles). I think we can say categlorically that when they changed the officer class so that it was based on merit based careerists commanding instead of the 'nobles,' armies all over the world were greatly improved. Playfull comes down the middle as always. I think they have had the problem in Germany of 'career students.' Goverment assistance should be capped at some point to prevent this (like four years unless in a longer program that you have passed the aptitude test for). The artsy fartsy courses can produce critical and creative thinkers that are highly valued these days. They shouldn't be considered necessarily useless simply because they are not teaching a 'hard skill.'

Exactly. Canadians have to pay for their prescriptions anyway and it would likely be cheaper if the government did it on their behalf (cutting out insurance companies like Blue Cross also which are for profit). Therefore Martin has just proven that he has no vision and has spent too much time in the buisness world to see all the possibilities.

This is a myth. Walmart hires the people they need to run their stores, not one person more. Therefore Wal-Mart will not be able to fire thousands of workers since they have no supluss workers to fire. Minimum wage laws may be the most effective tool for social justice available. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. It seems to me that it is more difficult to make more money with fewer stores than with more n'est pas? Remember Walmart is not a local mom and pop but an internation beaurcracy that has the capital resources to run all the stores they wish. As to OP.... the corporation is becoming much more prevalant as the major force affecting peoplle's day to day lives. This is a result of globalization. The probelm, IMO, is corporations looking at their short term interests (stock price) without considering their long term interests. I think if we could find a way to solve that problem it would go a long way to improving the situation.

People can be poor but still have property. Even cherished property. Theives apply "flat" taxation as the poor have obviously benefited more from the state and it's educational, health and security services.

Must? Why must not Quebecs give some ground on a stronger federal state in some respects. Untrue. Alberta and Saskatchewan's history's are more alike than most people realize. They only began to diverge significantly when Klien came along and they're still not that far apart. But I don't think that would hold true of Alberta and BC or Alberta and Ontario. It's really the five regions (six including the North) that could be considered distinct from each other. Of course as casear points out they can be further subdivided from there. Rural Ontario versus southern Ontario, Edmonton versus Calgary. Westmount from Outermount. Trudeau wanted nothing of the sort. He didn't spend all that time fighting Dupuise (excuse the spelling) to put Quebec "n it's place". His ideal that French and English could come together and concentrate on the individual differences of each person instead of the ethnic differences that he saw as tired and passe. He travelled the world enough to know that fewer people kill each other when they strive for such "ideals" and are stronger sticking together than tearing themselves apart. His ideal is the very idea of Canada and it's greatest strength. As we can see from this board, "English Canada" is far less homogenous than your 7 million francophones. In fact there's a challenge, find a bloc of 7 million "English" Canadians who feel they are an ethnic group like Quebecers are. Alberta doesn't like Ontario all that much these days and would be Quebec's greatest ally in getting whatever the power du jour is wanted from Ottawa. The East is seen as dependant by Ontario, Saskatchewan is trying to keep it's economic policies viable whilst living next door to oil rich Alberta, northern Ontario resents southern Ontario and BC just does it's own thing. Everybody hates Toronto. Furthermore all the problems these days seem to be economic, no cares about the cultural element any more (to the detrement of Canada). And August, welcome back to Canada.

Far be it for me to sound like a right winger, but de-criminalizing theft would lead to chaos IMO. If you entrust the protection of property to private security forces, the net result is that the rich will have their things protected and the the poor will not. This is hardly ideal. Arguing that the poor should be able to take what they want from the rich through petty theft would lead to anarchy, looting and street fights. Wealth must be redistributed through the legislature not by the barrel of gun (or sharp stick depending on how poor the person in question is).

This link provides a comprehensive history of nuclear weapons in North Korea and the legalese attached. fas.org

This one is going to be tough for the US. 1) if the DPRK really has a sub launched delivery system this could be a major problem for the US. It likely could easily track a diesel powered sub but there would be a larger element of risk and I wonder if the US is ready to accept that risk. 2) An invasion is not practical. After all China and the US may be getting along much better (with China being the US's banker and manufacturer) and the North Koreans and China may not have all that much in common nowadays but I doubt China would stand for an American action in the DPRK besides perhaps a few limited airstrikes. Furthermore it is unlikely that the US would actually invade a country known to have nuclear weapons. 3) Pyonygang is clearly looking for a bailout in exchange for dismatling it's new program. In fact it has a greater interest in the bailout than the weapons. However it would not play well domestically in the US to bailout an "axis of evil" member. North Korea may be expecting the Lybia treatment but I can't see it getting it unless the funds come from SE Asia itself (like Japan). This will set an important precedant for the US and it will be very interesting to see how it turns out.

I think that this case shows the privatization of Canada's civil service is well into the terminal state. It's the same as the US. Civil servants are now under more pressure to please the 'clients' i.e. the big companies hocing the products than the public. A more proffessional and independant civil service might solve many of the problems afflicting the management of government today. That and getting rid of the practice of letting private companies hire former civil servants at very high pay rates after the servants in question make decisions positively affecting them. It used to be that it was a matter of pride that a civil servant would not go to the private sector after there career but those days are done.

Good one MS. I read Juggernaught and it does paint a glowing picture of Team Martin though when I see Delancourt on panels she seems to be more objective. I would be suprised in Herle was around for the next election campaign.

The first gulf war was a UN action and I believe that is what they are refering to.

I think the new structure is working and thank Greg for his efforts. Hopefully we will have people from all parts of the country post and comment on provincial politics in their area (or I guess we could go another 11 pages on Alberta seperation ). Thanks again to Greg.

Israel is a virtual protectorate of the US (though it has been going against the wishes of the US administration lately and not been punished). You're the American, but I wonder what America gets out of the transaction besides the support of it's powerful domestic Jewish lobby. In any case, US support for Israel makes a lot of Arabs unhappy with the US for various reasons and is likely to continue to do so well into the future. As Israel makes more enemies and isolates itself further from the world, I'm not sure how happy the US people will be to also share Israel's enemies only for the sake of sharing Israel's enemies.

Affirmative action is racist to an extent but is an important counter balance to previously racist policies. In the US it wasn't until the 1960s that society was fully integrated and I saw a documentary that argued that blacks and whites still have their own seperate proms and such in parts of the south. I am a firm believer in merit based hiring and my natural instinct is to reject AA. But I realize that there are many people in this world who hire by race and religion for all the wrong reasons. I wouldn't want to be a Muslim looking for a job in New York for example. So I think we should continue AA for two generations after the last rascist policies are/were eliminated and then make AA illegal.

I've got a feeling that the trial of Saddam Hussien will take place close to the end of the presidential campaign and that this will give the Repugs the boost they need to win again. I say this even though it looks like the trial may find that Hussien cannot be proved to be guilty of all the things he was accused. Fox news won't differentiate. I think I am almost afraid of four more years of a stupid and unstable man running the US and taking it farther towards a corporatist police state trying to expand it's empire across the earth. But what can you do, the Repugs are portraying Bush as a war president though no one bothered to declare war on Iraq and Iraq was not considered a friend but an enemy of Bin Laden. The common people will believe it.

The mossad seems to have a pattern of using Canadian passports and has previously promised to stop. It could cause real Canadians trouble if countries start to wonder whether a Canadian passport means the person is Candian or an Israeli spy. In any case I think that the Israel's use Canada's passport should in some way be flattering. I mean, of all the counrtries in the world they keep choosing Canada's so their people don't get harrassed. Says something about the respect the rest of the world holds for us.

Alberta succeeds in spite of it's incompetant government. It does so because it posseses so much oil. I think people in Alberta are generally as decent, hardworking etc. as anyone in Saskatchewan or Manitoba but I don't think that they are more so even though every one seems to argue that they are because Alberta has more money. And this: is the absolute most "silly" thing that I have ever heard. Alberta had a Soc Cred government until was it 69 or 72? So the Conservative government has only been in power for about thirty years ("only" lol). In any case it wasn't all that conservative until Klien came along and has gone back to it's more liberal roots spending wise since 98 or 99. After Getty Alberta had the highest debt per capita in the country. Again, Alberta had the highest debt (and defici) per capita in the entire country and that's with all the resource revenues that their neighbours can only dream of. That was as late as 93. Saskatchewan was actually the first province to slay it's deficit under an NDP government and without the oil revenues Alberta has. This was done well before Alberta did. If oil is $5 less a barrel Alberta still has plenty of debt so thank OPEC not "60 years of Conservative government"