takeanumber

I think so. And I think it's true. I can see alot of National Post subscriptions being thrown out, and people instead keeping their Calgary Sun's and the rag that passes for a newspaper: the Calgary Herald. If Alberta tries to seperate, I can see a lot of their human wealth leaving Alberta. Sooo many people in Alberta are really from other provinces. (I think most of Calgary wasn't actually born in Calgary). And Alberta relies on eastern work forces as a hedge against wage inflation. So yeh. When the oil runs out, Alberta will be calling back, cap in hand, the same have-not province that it was before it found oil and then believed that they were better than everybody else in Canada.

Classic. I enjoy the wit. And I agree. Thx for being a good Canadians and running a business. Hopefully you're honest with it. Chances are that you are. I think we need more entrepreneurial education for the youth that want it. And perhaps more capital pooling and capital matching opportunities. I think that would a be a positive policy.

The party was never 'merged'. See, because if it was 'merged', then the socially conservative MP's would have been drowned out by the howls of the socially centrist and socially progressive conservatives. But see: that didn't happen. Myron Thompson further chidded socially progressive cons by saying "we dont' want'em". You combine that with all the statements comming out of the Alliance wing of the party, and you get a huge agenda problem. The socially conservatives need to be purged from the party for it to have a chance. It literally is, that easy. Get rid of the Cheryl Gallants, the Randy White's, the John Reynold's, the Stockwell Days, the Jason Kenny's, the Diane Ablonzy's, and the Rob Anders...and substitute them with: The B. Lords, J. Lords, the Stronachs (even though I'll say blergh), and the Charest's. Right now, the party is too Alliance top heavy, and too Alliance bottom heavy. And all of the anti-progressive statements do NOTHING for building bridges to ameliorate the situation. If anything, at least pre-merger, there might have been a chance for a PC-Alliance coalition government...one that would be moderated by the old PC's. But, we all know how good MacKay's word is.

It's a neat idea, but I can't agree at this point. I just think all of Bay Street is dirty and scuzzy. They've lost my confidence, which means, yeah, I'll have to be an indepedant investor to make my money work for me. Which is fine. I've watched all the boomers get burned by Bre-X and Nortel. The financial industry simply can't correct itself because they're not taught, nor really have many, ethics. And it'll bite them in the ass in the end.

I've come to believe that Canada without Quebec will be rought. It could be a messy divorce. (Especially with Quebec Cabinet ministers on the Canadian side of the table). But I also believe that if Canada is divisible, so too is Quebec. I think though, in the end, it'll allow the Rest of Canada to move on with their dreams and become, finally, a sovereign people. It'll also be nice to not have a gun pointed at your head all the time, and it would pave the way for a better electoral system. Ontario and Alberta will be sending their transfer payments to other provinces, instead of sending a large portion to rural Quebec. I seriously don't know how Quebec will support all of their seasonal workers and welfare people. But, they'll no doubt try to extort some sort of transfer payment, which simply won't work. So yeh. Other countries are divided geographically, like Malaysia (Sarawak and Sabah), Russia (Kaliningrad), Amernia (that exclave in Azerbajan I think, and Azerbajan has a enclave in the other), and France (A number of regions are considered departments of France, like New Caledonia), and finally, the United States (Alaska, Hawaii), so really: it's a big deal. But it's not fatal. The Rest of Canada, and Canada itself, lives on, if not stronger, after Quebec leaves.

My proposal for a truly EEE senate has been rejected by the people who support a fake EEE senate. I won't go into details, but my proposal is better. In short: make the votes equal, make them direct, and make the feedback loop ultra-responsive.

They need to move to the centre. And the people who control the levers of power in the party (agenda control), won't allow it. And if you think it's all grassroots, just know this: yes: the grassroots members have voting power. But it's the people who control the agenda that control the party. All of this 'democratic reform' crap is just that: crap. The party is intellectually dishonest. Slightly better than the Liberals, a lot better than the NDP...but a far cry from what they proport to be.

Yup. And Martin is filthy for avoiding taxes. But the same goes for most of Bay Street. Insider Trading, questionable accounting practices, and very weak shareholder rights, you know, and all policed by who? Crooked securities regulators and crooked accountants. I'll invest my money in Main Street before I ever invest in Bay Street. The Royal Bank for instance has branches in Bermuda, St Kitts and sexy St. Lucia. Now what on earth would they being doing down there? It's just terrible and disgusting. Rent seeking. That's all it is: rent seeking. And it's time we put a stop to it. But of course, the momment you start to discover corruption, the execs fire off a round of layoffs to make the public all scared about rocking the boat. God dammit, what is gonna take to get some real freaking shareholder power?

No. The price of oil pulled Alberta out of the crapper, in SPITE of Klein's incompetance. I guess you'd agree with his bullying of an opposition MP. Alberta is a corporatist province. The public service is as much of the PC party as the party itself. I think the millions of volunteer hours had more to do with that than Klein did. He's lost touch, just as Chretien had and as Martin has.

Patently false.

If that's the case, then corporations are the shittiest of citizens.

Base = 18.5% (I think) But most companies cheat on their taxes by using offshore banking. And then legitimize it by saying that our corporate taxes are higher than in the US. When in reality, they're equal. In spite of that fact, using offshore tax shelters to cheat taxes is still wrong, and not justified. Last time I checked, corporate Canada benefits from a healthy, well educated workforce and consumer market. Why shouldn't they pay their fair share? Exactly. It's rent-seeking. Anybody can see that. Time for a crackdown.

Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party Herb Gray said: "At this point, it remains to be seen whether or not CCRAP is here to stay, or if it's just a movement." It's the old word for "Alliance".

The Cons need to do it. But the Elite don't have the hair on their balls to go through with it. That was the thrust of my posts above.

It's this type of inequality-advocacy that causes me to lose faith in my fellow Canadians.

The world according to Argus: When Libs go negative: it's crass and trashy. When Cons go negative: it's classy and the truth. Oh no, a marijuana grow op was found the house Mr. Smith rents out. Mr. Smith must have a hidden agenda. Idiot.

I don't think that most Albertans 'get it' yet. But that's okay. If the 20th century was the Quebec round, the 21st century will be the Alberta round.

He's now officially, worse than Chretien ever was. Makes me wonder about the waste going on. He's already been caught giving millionaires BSE aid money. Of course, the media never looks for corruption or waste. They're too busy rimming King Ralph.

Provincial government control curriculum. In Alberta, they really stripped real history out of the books and replaced it with units on "How the West got screwed". Stories like, the Pipeline debate, and the Charter, and how trudeau fingered everybody, and the NEP. And it's just a litany of atrocities. Seriously, you'd think by taking social studies in Alberta that Albertans are like oppressed people, like the Jews or gypsies or Moldovans by the way they make things out. Of course, not a word about the treatment of aboriginals or Chinese. (Of course not, that doesn't gel with victimization.) Sigh. Sound the Independant thought alarm. The difference is, when you get to university, if you're bright enough, you learn to question the shit shovelled at you during your education, and you realize just what it was. So, I don't know. The less history the better really. I think politicians try to massage history and use it as a weapon against other political parties, like they've done in Alberta or Quebec, or even the Maritimes.

I didn't read any of it. I don't read dribble from people who don't know basic skills like typing without caps lock.

Ever notice how many businessmen inherited everything they own? Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto are filled to the brim with such people. The difference in Canada, as opposed to the United States, is something called Social Mobility. It's a concept that most people who inherit everything and then pompously claim that they 'earned' it -- don't like very much. But it's the main reason why most Canadians came to this country...social mobility. And it's a principle that I defend, in SPITE of Conservative and Liberal attempts to shut it down. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Argus.)

Speak for your own kids. Your abilities to overgeneralize is truly, truly impressive.

It most certainly is. You and I have intelligent debates, I think, very civil. The problem isn't just Flannagan...it's just that his views are repeated by many of his students, as gospel. Moreover, they're echo'd in the halls of the Calgary Herald editorial board, and for a long time, at the National Post. It's the party elite, and it's all sides...the academe side (which I'm most familiar with) which by and large, synthesizes thought, and is disseminated amongst the party elite and MP's. For instance, Randy White's comments, virtually word for word, could be taken out of two books by Morton an Knopff. , and to a lesser extent, from Brodie. (A student, now PHD, of the 3 wisemen). That's the reality. Now I'm not going to say that they're evil -- I've been pwned repeatedly by several of them, and I'm a much better person and thinker for it. However, I'm going to say that most Canadians don't agree with them, and even more wouldn't agree with them, if they were able to understand the real substance behind their arguements. However, there exists social conservatives who'll use their material for, in my view, regressionary purposes as opposed to static or progressive purposes. So, that said: Will Harper, and really, the rest of that academic elite/business elite; say to themselves, look -- Manning sacrificed himself for the party and for the West, maybe we should do the same? Or Are they going to cling to the Flannaganist belief that the median voter thinks the same way that they do, and that they're really the victim of 'liberal' media and general negative ads? Perhaps the Court Party is just a nut too hard to crack? And they gotta keep at it, because the Median voter believes in them. And for me, the belief that the median voter agrees with them is patently false. I see it with my own eyes in the CES 2000 and CES 1997, I see it in Cardy Cross and Young, and I even see it in other datasets and studies. For any electoral success, the party needs to move to the median voter, and morevoer, the elite need to move even farther than it's members. And you know, I don't think the elite of the party can bring themselves to 'water down' any of their beliefs. But you can't just glaze over social policy and then expect a blank check. And most Canadians won't do that.

I don't like the traffic. I'd be much happier if Calgary was it's own province. But meh. Don't get me started on Section 92/93/94/95/96. Sigh.

Ask Argus if youth matters. He'll tell you that we're a bunch of drugged up, impregnating, ungrateful rapists. Youth matters more in the long term. The quality of life of the boomers really depends on youths willingness to pay for them. And the neat thing is that if the tax burden is pushed too much, the underground economy flourishes. So the boomers might hold all the votes, but the youth will hold all the real political power.