takeanumber

I'd love to see the study that proves that Homesexuals were sexually abused as children, and are self-loathing abusers, who, for those reasons, wouldn't make good parents. Sounds like Hugo ate too many Muslix for breakfast. If anything, since homosexuals are forming families complete with kids and the house and the picket fence, doesn't it make sense to protect those families with the institution of marriage. Why are anti-gay people so anti-family. It's typical though. After years of going after jews, negroes and later, aboriginals, the churches need to go after and victimize another group that they find offensive. It's pretty sad when an institution like the Catholic or some of these pagan fundamentalist 'christian' churches need to find some group to hate in order to sustain themselves. I have an idea. Why don't fundamentalist Christians and Catholics focus in on loving god instead of hating some other group. Why don't they try doing that for a few centuries and give minorities a break? Because the way I see it, this whole marriage debate, is just hatred. You can try to justify the same way the Church justified going after negroes, jews and aboriginals, but in the end, more people turn away in disgust.

Absolutely. Pay something. But when policy is dressed in the guise of waste reduction, but the real intent is to restrict competition for the elite, then there's a problem. That's the case in Canada right now with health care. The Elite, Paul Martin inclusive, don't see why, since they have the money, why can't they pay to get way, way superior health care than everybody else. They're blinded by their self-interest and total disregard for the majority of Canadian society. A healthy public makes businesses money. It's profitable for them. So why not pay their fair share through their taxes? Why not use the same system as the rest of us. And if healtcare and education are flawed, why then don't the elite work to improve the system FOR THE WHOLE LOT OF US, instead of saying, "Well, poor people and the middle classes deserve what they get." They're just trying to segregate themselves from the rest of Canadian society, and then bar the door to social mobility. It's illiberal what they're trying to do. Thank god for elections.

Now Klein is trying to fix things up for the Seniors. He's also widening Highway 2. He's also going to give the farmers 300 million dollars. (Instead of you know, using it for capital for expanding capacity here in Alberta.) There's an election comming. And Albertans really are that stupid to be bought with their own money.

Look people: It supposed to be based on Merit. That's the great thing about Canada. If a Doctor has a son, and that son screws around in school, and drinks, and doesn't do their schoolwork, the Doctor shouldn't be able to get his son through university and then into Med School solely because the pool of eligible people has been reduced through the cost. High tuition is a price floor that reduces the supply of bright, brilliant people into the schools. Should somebody, a bright kid, who has busted his ass all of his live to get out of the trailer park, have to pay a share of their education? YES. Absolutely. They should have to pay around 25 percent. BUT: Should a mediocre person from the Hamptons be allowed to buy their way into a university, taking a seat away from a more worthy person? Hell NO. And this is how the Tories are waging class warfare. Just because you became a Doctor doesn't entitle your Son or Daughter to get a free pass. If your son or daughter isn't so bright, or, is better with their hands at doing things, they should go to tech school. They should go take journalism or something else that doesn't require much intelligence. It really pisses me off when a group of people struggles to make it to the top, and then tries to destroy the ladder that allowed them to get so high, in an effort to keep everybody else down. Yes, the world needs ditch diggers. But those who are best suited for those jobs, be them generationally poor or generationally rich, should fill those jobs if that's what they merit. You can't get any more liberal than that. If you disagree with this point of view, go back to Britain. Seriously. This is the principle that Canada was founded upon; and we fought hard in 1837 to keep it. You might be happier in the United States too. They don't seem to like social mobility down there either.

Social mobility. That's why the government should pick up 75 percent of the cost. I accuse Conservatives of trying to hold the poor down. They know full well that somebody from the trailer park can't pay 14 grand/year tuition, even if they have to work full time at some menial job (and remember, they're supposed to be going to school.) Oh, and I think that somebody who is from a rich family, but not that bright, who gets to go to university because they have the money, whereas somebody who is poor, much brighter than the rich person, but since you have to be absolutely brilliant to get a scholarship, the poor -- yet superior person, doesn't get to go, solely because of their background. That's anti-social mobility right there. And that's bullshit. If Conservatives hate social mobility so much, maybe they should hop right back on that garbage barge back to Britain and join Mr. Black and the rest of the Tory thieves in the House of Lords. Go on, get out of here. I know my ancestors came here to move up in the world, not be locked in the same tory hell-hole that was (and still is) Britain.

It's pathetic when somebody who earns minimum wage can't make ends meet. What kind of country have we let our tory business elite create?

The CRTC got over 90 complaints from CHOI broadcasting racist material that was clearly offensive to blacks and women. CHOI was warned to clean up its act. CHOI CHOSE not to. The CRTC revoked CHOI's liscence. It's an open and shut case. We got broadcasting standards for a reason folks. Do I need to remind anybody here what happened in Rwanda? There's a reason for those laws. Personally, I liken the protest by CHOI listeners to a skinhead protest. They're mad that they don't have the right to broadcast hate. I also find it hillarious that some Quebeckers are comparing the CRTC to the Nazis. If anything, the broadcasts on CHOI are closer to Nazi propaganda than anything else. I sincerly hope that not Quebeckers are anti-black and anti-woman. CHOI simply crossed the line between freedom of speech and responsible speech. When you abuse that responsibility, you bring legitimate speech under the microscope. It sucks how some people just won't grow up and take their duties as citizens seriously, and respect their fellow Canadians.

As though the world should spend less time on Math and their OWN history to study the all important, all mighty United States. You know, if the advice was comming from anybody but an American, I'd take it half seriously. Enjoy your 27th ranked status in education.

I find it funny that those who argue the loudest that the institution of marriage should be protected from 'the queers' are always the ones cheating on their own spouses, or who are divorced. There is seriously no legitimate arguement that can be made that homosexuals make worse parents than straight people, or that allowing same sex marriage in some way damages the institution. Seriously, there is no such legitimate arguement to be made.

And the Federal governments quota system is anti-liberal. I think that it's a course of policy though. Aboriginals do get the shitty end of the stick on education and health. That ought to be corrected. How are they to get onto their own feet unless they have an education that is equal to the off-reserve world? If the problem is a lack of aboriginals in the civil service and in industry, let's tackle to the problem that causes it: low university degree attainment caused by a series of factors (which I don't think anybody here would understand), and solve the problem that way. Quotas do nothing but cause people to have the image that all aboriginals suck at their jobs, and if an aboriginal actually does a good job, that accomplishment is dimished because people think "quota". Solve the problem at the root with policy.

I find it funny how people on the extreme right wing of this country don't understand the balance between minority rights and majority rights, nor do they even understand the principle of progress. That they continue to invoke the sacred arguement by induction process repeatedly, and have it defeated repeatedly, yet persist in their dialectic position like a scientific communist, is a monument to the ignorant spirit of radical conservatism.

@August Wheeaaaaa Wheeeaaaaaa. Cry me a river about the Constitution. Poor Quebec. Always the victims, never the perpe-traitors. It's a province just like the others. The difference between New Brunswick and Alberta is sure as hell a lot greater than the difference from Normandy and Marseille. The difference between Saskatchewan and Quebec is sure as hell a lot greater than the difference between Mass. and Mississippi. Every province is a distinct society from another. It's the North-South nature of the country.

Most politicians dont' even admit it when they steal. In Svend's case, he confessed, and resigned. Should a Conservative be so honest. (And you would never expect a federal Liberal to admit fault) I think for the right wing, the issue that he's gay is the real issue, and they'll take anything and beat him with it. Who says the media doesn't have an agenda?

Affirmative Action is a new anti-liberal policy which ultimately does more harm to minorities than it supposedly helps. I prefer to see minorities earn the positions they get. Does that make racism right? Absolutely not. The fact is, no two applicants to a job are ever equal, nor are they ever equally qualified. The supposition that such situations occur is clearly false. There is always some factor that makes one person better than the other. If a company has 300 whites, and zero minorities (by the way, there are white miniorities -- homosexuals, jews, deaf, blind, and physically handicapped people, and women...african americans arn't the only minorities in a society), so then lets say, a company has 300 white, anglophone men, all able bodied, and all of the heterosexual muscle pumped jock types....alright, and somebody applies, now if the minority is more qualified for the job, and isn't hired, that's discrimination, and that's a lawsuit. But there is never, ever, a situation where two people are equally qualified because no two people are totally alike. Ever.

You really are that selfish, arn't you? Unbelievable. We look after each other in Canadian society. It's a basic Canadian value. If Canada is so miserable, why don't you just leave? Because from where I sit, you don't even subscribe to the basic Canadian values of human rights and collective security.

Every single province is distinct. The culture of New Brunswick is totally different from Alberta. Alberta and Saskatchewan have totally opposite social and political histories, not to mention the differences between Ontario and Alberta, Manitoba and PEI, Newfoundland and the any other atlantic province, and hell, even Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It's true. Every province is distinct from each other. Many Quebeckers seem to think that they're more different than everybody else, they should be treated as the superiors that they think they are. (Hence the demands for more EI money and more money for cultural events -- the source of the sponsorship scandal from 1995-2003, only ceasing their demands when the ROC caught them.) I think it's funny that they're always portraying themselves as 'victims'. lol.

Kazemi is a Canadian. I think Sweal's problem might be that Kazemi wasn't white, because if she had been, every single anglo-saxon religious group would be outraged and demanding the Iranian ambassador flogged. When it comes to Sudan, same logic. If those were white people being slaughtered by Arabs, we'd be all outraged. Since it's black people, the majority of Canadians (who are white), don't really care. Same logic with AIDS. I'm not suggesting that Sweal came out and said any of this, but s/he certainly implied it with his attitude. If those were white people, it would be a different story.

Caps Lock hit it.

Klein gave the packers the most money. And attacked anybody who complained about him doing it.

1957 I believe. And only because the Federal government gave them an exemption from equalization (they wern't subject to clawback as NS and NF are.) Anyway... Albertans, by and large, are selfish. It's just in their nature. In part, it has a lot to do with the NEP. The NEP literally ruined thousands of people overnight. I don't think people in the East really understand that. The problem with Alberta is that this selfishness is hyper-extended, to the point where they become anti-social mobility. They say, on one hand, that if you work hard enough, you can make it anywhere, but say, from the other side of their mouth, that those who work hard shouldn't be allowed to work their way out of the gutter because the world needs ditch diggers. The distinguising feature of an Albertan is the desire to hunt down a vaporize anybody who dares to point out this contradiction. When it comes to the charity of Albertans, it's truly pathetic. Calgary and Edmonton's corporate community are very long on self-congratulatory praise for their genorisity, but astonishlingly short on actually supporting the community at large. The constant back patting by its citizens is equally sickening. I refuse to pad my resume with my volunteer experience. Sadly though, in Alberta, padding is often the sole motivation behind volunteering. There are other aspects of Albertan culture which I'd love to expand upon, but I'll spare. The dynamism of business in Alberta though is false. Largely, you have immigrants and a few third-generation Albertans who actually do work really hard for their money, but most of it, especially in the petro-sector, is all government corporatism at its worse. I can only imagine the kind of Enron-esque sleave that's going on downtown. But I believe it is happening given the close relationship between the Alberta Government, downtown Calgary, and the Alberta Securities Board. One thing is for certain: if it wasn't for the real, hardworking business elite and emigrant entrepreneurial class in Alberta, the province would be a shadow of itself. Alberta succeeds in spite of the efforts of big business and those who reside in Mount Royal.

Have Not Province: Every province except Alta. and Ont. Wasting Money: Patronage, rural development scams, job training scams designed to rip off EI, buying lawnmowers and ice machines instead of doctors and nurses with healthcare money...the list goes on and on.

No, not a Liberal. A British Columbian Tory.

A review of the ballot from 2004: Grumpy, grey, white man who thinks everything is a priority. Grumpy, bitter, white man who would have sent young ppl to Iraq. Grumpy, grey, white man who is slimey. Grumpy, grey, white man who wants to break up the country. Such choice!

Not 'just like you'. I'm of the opinion that if a province is a have-not province, they shouldn't be wasting money.

Denial of compensation to eugenics victims and threatening to use the notwithstanding clause to shut prevent any compensation. Yup. He certainly does what needs to be done.