Bryan

Phelps and co. wave signs and says insensitive words. They're annoying, but not dangerous -- and they're the worst of the worst when it comes to extreme Christian groups. Compare that to the kinds of things Muslim extremists do (bombings, beheadings, flying planes into buildings, etc), and it's obvious why "hard line Islamists" have to be taken very seriously and monitored very closely.

Criminals ALWAYS say they didn't do it. Everyone in prison says they were framed, or that the witnesses against them lied.

They probably just haven't been there, so they don't actually know.

Have Sasktel's residential rates tripled in the last 10 years?

I agree. Announce that you won't seek re-election, fine, but quitting mid term shouldn't even be allowed unless it's an emergency.

Or a seat as a member state at the UN.

McFadyen has not shown any interest in selling Hydro. He's certainly never claimed he would. The problem is, the NDP have taken what was a tremendously profitable resource under the previous PC govt, and turned it into an anchor. The NDP bled it dry so that they could pretend that they weren't really running deficits. Instead of Provincial budget deficits, now we have Hydro in huge debt. It was only once they ruined Hydro's financial position that they started showing those losses on the provincial books. Regardless of who's in power, we may have no choice but to sell Hydro now. I hear you on MTS though. The prices for phone service in Manitoba have gone through the roof since the sale. Competition has been a very bad thing for Manitobans in that respect. I'm paying more than triple for my phone service now compared to when the sale went through.

Where can I sign up for that deal?!

My point was that you're picking and choosing. How long someone or their ancestry has resided in a given geographic area is a different thing from their citizenship. You can have a historic tie to a place that has no connection to the citizenship of a specific officially incorporated country. Khadr is either a citizen of Canada (in which case, he's should be tried for treason upon his return), or he's not and we have to reason to repatriate him.

If Canadian citizenship actually existed that long ago, you might have a point. Since it hasn't, you don't.

Not even close.

What can we as Canadians really do though? If we interfere more, we aren't respecting self-government, if we stand back, we're somehow responsible for the results. IMO, aboriginal groups need to be more clear when they define what self-government means. Either you sink or swim by your own decisions, OR you're beholden to the what the government tells you. This middle ground is just asking for everything to blow up in a way that results in a lot of finger pointing but no chance for solutions.

Conservatives Extend Lead in Canada http://www.angus-reid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2010.10.27_Politics_CAN.pdf CPC: 37 LPC: 26 NDP:19 Leader Approval: Harper: 28 Layton: 27 Ignatieff: 16

If we go up any higher, we'll be invisible!

They don't need to necessarily. Successive minorities can actually be an advantage in that it can make the opposition crazy that they can't beat someone "so weak". Makes them tear themselves apart trying to overcome that without the benefit of the full term to rebuild that they would get if they lost to a majority.

The continued exoneration of people previously convicted of what would otherwise be capital crimes makes me MORE in favour of the death penalty now, not less. The advancements in forensic science and investigative techniques that led to their convictions being overturned also means that we can be far more certain that those who are convicted now actually are guilty.

Close-ish. Not an Audi, but a new vehicle was part of it. There were a bunch of other things too. The new kitchen was the really big ticket item.

LOL!!! Quite literally in the opposite order, but that is way too funny to go back and fix.

It's a dumb idea. Plastic grocery bags are probably the single most reused and repurposed item there is. I use them for garbage. I use them for picking up after the dog. I use them for bringing my lunch to work. I use them to put my daughter's wet stuff into after swimming. Heck, anything that is wet, might be wet, or you might want to prevent from getting wet is a perfect use for a ready supply of plastic bags. Schools and daycares can never get enough of them. Banning these bags from being distributed at stores is not going to stop their usage, all it will mean is people will now need to BUY them separately. Same environmental impact, just more out of pocket expense. This seems to be the standard M.O. of self-styled environmentalists: make sweeping changes that don't really improve to the perceived problem, but do increase cost and inconvenience. Not only that, but what about preventing contamination at the grocery store? You're going to put meat, milk, vegetables and dry goods in the same reusable bags without a sanitary disposable layer to separate them? Really?

There is no question that my tax bill is noticeably lighter since the Conservatives have been in office. $3000/yr is about right. It was actually more than that up until this year, but my daughter is in school full-time now, so we don't get the UCCB anymore. That's not even including the GST reduction actually. On that front, I've saved another couple thousand at least this year alone. I also took advantage of some of the new tax credits (and the economy) to make some big ticket expenditures that I would not have been able to afford a few years ago, and paid several thousand less than I would have otherwise.

Maybe he should start doing it then.

Third world countries are where you see people using protests in the street. It's precisely to avoid going down that path that we shut this crap down. The only thing the cops did wrong was not coming down harder. They should have moved faster and with more force.

And yet 10 years ago a right of centre party forming a government seemed almost as improbable as a left of centre one doing it now. Not only is that base still there, it has grown.

Did they use a time machine?

Perhaps a matter of semantics. I'm just referring to people who identify themselves as being conservative, regardless of party affiliation. The kind of people from which the Reform Party ended up replacing the PCs. They cared not that the PCs had the word "conservative" in their name, what they cared about was that Reform actually was... conservative. Those people form the base of the current Conservative Party, but they are also the most vocally critical of Steven Harper* specifically because he's nowhere near as conservative as they were expecting. My position is that Maxime Bernier's comments speak directly to those people, giving them hope of better things to come. *at least they sure are at the riding association meetings I've been to!