Bakunin

I agree, when we give too much power in the hand fo the same politicians, they actually use it against us. Canada was founded by BNA colony wich where converted in provinces. The provinces created the federal, its not the federal who created the provinces.... Its not a coincidence that most of the bush government is composed of oil and warfare business man. Its not a coincidence if they are busy since bush is elected... About NO, i was affected by the big ice storm in 1998, when we lost electricity for a few weeks in the middle of winter. Thats when you see who you can really count on... There where 2 kind of ppl, the one that made evrything they could to help, and the one using the situation to make money. Some store where selling battery and candle 10 times their regular prices... And forget about buying a generator... I am very sad for the ppl in NO, those thing are so much horrible, loosing all you had, sometime members of your family and having to restart all over again... And Forget about that town, they will never be able to rebuild it... they builded the town at a lower level than the sea... Not evrything is corrupt but actually you can't have corruption without power and what stronger power can you have other than a government ? its actually a magnet for corruptor...

The liberal's black hand will take care of it...

IMO, its tricky. I have another theory August. Its a well known fact that quebeckers get paid less, pay higher provincial taxes but get stuff at a lower cost (For sample: electricity, housing, etc cost less.) and get more services. We pay the public sector less money and the private sector pay their employe less money than in the ROC. It has been like this since our colonialist and religious past, it improved alot since the quiet revolution but the gap is closing slowly. We are not cheap labor anymore since we took in hand our economy but it will need a few more generation before our national wealth grow and expand to attain the level of our neighbor. Another factor is the religion, it played a major role and partly explain the under acheivment and evolution of our economy before the 60's. Some people tend to beleive that the quiet revolution slowed down quebec economy at the expense of ontario. Yes its slowed down but it was a good thing and it was necessary because the wealth was concentrated in the hand of a few very rich people and outsiders. Now it turned upside down, quebec is where the equity is the best but its at the expense of the richer ppl. Its not a bad thing for the middle class but on the other hand, its may not be the best way to build an economy. There is no conspiracy, quebeckers are less rich and forgive us because we only started to take ourself in hand and face our problem in the 60's but i think getting rid of the Eq payment would help us face our newer problem caused after the quiet revolution ( the fact that our government is too big). After the sucess of the quiet revolution, quebeckers started to think that the government could solve all our problem and it got bigger and bigger and bigger, just like our debt.....

I beleive you would be complaining too if your a liberal and the conservative would have been in power for 78 years of the last 109 years and almost 5/6 of the time since the 60's. You would be complaining even more if you live in a region of the country that would never vote for a conservative party but get imposed the same old party over and over again.

Then maybe we should concentrate more on paying back that huge debt to get our 37,3 billions back ! it would be a good way to invest in the futur of the country.

I was wondering if anyone would connect the dots and realize that regional subsidies are allow Alberta to keep the 'riff-raff' away. Eliminate those susbisdies and Alberta will end up with a lot more people on its welfare roles. Personally, I think Albertans are living in denial - the oil wealth translates into a huge amount per capital because the population of Alberta is so small - not because the oil wealth is so large. If we moved to a model where each province paid only for programs that it could afford then more people would move to Alberta which would then reduce the per capita value of the oil resource. At some point in time Calgary would have all of the big city problems that Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal have - including all of the costs associated with them. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> This is problably true though they would need alot of people before the change become apparent, but being wealthy isn't a crime, if they have a small population, good for them ! As i see it, some people seem frustrated about it. Why not be happy for them ?

I think we should get rid of the equalization payment. But if we do, we need a light and flexible central federal government too, to let the poorer province have a smaller government and use their share of the federal government surplus instead of EQ money. For a sample, in quebec, they get about 4 billions in Eq payment wich could be partly absorbed by getting rid of the duplication of the federal and provincial program evaluated to 2,6 billions in quebec. So they need 1,4 billions more to have a balanced budget. Then if the federal government redistribute 50% of its surplus wich is about what ? between 10 and 15 billions. so quebec's share is between: 5 * 23% = 1,15billions | 7 * 23% = 1.61 billions. (23% is its population) This way, if a provincial government have a good economy, they wouldn't be punish and if a provincial government have a less good economy, they would have no choice but to fix it. In other word, get rid of the Eq payment and the fiscal imbalance and this country will be on track. Canada lose 37,3 billions per year to pay the debt interest, another solution would be to concentrate all our money to pay back that debt.

I think that Paul Martin is a skilled politician and a good strategist. Not really good to improvise or to debate, he got nailed down by Duceppe last time. He was clearly an upgrade for the liberal party. Not any PM could have saved the liberal party in 2004 and not many could have saved them an election this summer. Maybe Harper helped the liberal too ! However many people are tired of this 12-13years reign of the liberal party. They are tired of the liberal vision of the country and want some change. Its well known that the more years a party is in power, the more corrupt it become.

Lib - 125 seats Con - 93 seats Bloc - 59 seats NDP - 30 seats Other - 1 seat Total - 308 seats It all depend on how the gomery report will affect ontario and the maritime.

theorically its right august, why does the provinces doesn't taxes us more ? but thats not the point. The federation trudeau built is a one way federation. The federal government can always get more money by lowering their healthcare and education transfer. In fact thats exaclty how paul martin make the federal rich. So why doesn't the province taxes us more ? lets take quebec that is already the most taxed in north america. Actually they did higher sereval hidden taxes. But why don't they higher the real taxes ? Maybe cause it could screw up the economy. Screw up the next election and punish the population for the way the federal is acting. In theory he could but in practice its a political suicid. There should be a law that make it impossible for the federal to stop transfer(not perequation) without giving the money back in % taxes.

With fiscal imbalance, evry province except alberta is becoming a "have not" well most of them were already a have not but its just becoming worst. Its not a new phenomenon, but under chretiens it became a political strategy and i wouldn't be surprised if it was taken for the same reason they built a sponsorship ads program. The federal is taking more and more place by struggling the province and then trying to have the good role when it come to redistributing its surplus.... a surplus caused by giving less and less money for healthcare, education, employment and evry other sector while the province have to take care of more and more stuff. Healtcare cost exploded, its putting more and more pressure on the province and they will have to work harder to keep up a balanced budget and one day they will have to raise taxes just because the federal is greedy and want to struggle the province to take over their juridiction. Evryone will lose in it, the war between those 2 governments will hurt the population on the long run because i think that the province will prefer to restart doing deficit than giving more power to the federal and the federal will prefer to sink its money on ineffective social program to justify their overwhelming surplus than actually become rational and accept its role.

I thing that either you love him or hate him. His good side can also be bad side. Personally i think: He wasn't a good economist thats clear, he was a left wing idealist. He wasn't a man of compromise, he was arrogant. He had his vision of canada and completly transformed the country to fit its view, well its very nice to the one who loved his overall view but all the regions have at least 1 or more complaint about his realisation though some regions may love him more than others. Some could say he put us on the map, well he definatly drove alot of attention but i wonder if Pearson wasn't more active on the international scene ? Well both had a different way to express themselves. Somehow, i see him has a disciple of machiavel, an excellent strategist and manipulator but far from a brilliant intellectual and idealist. In a book he wrote, he praised himself about the tactics he used to tore down the coalition of provinces and pass his constitution in the 80's. He said he catched Lévesque with his weak point, his love of democracy... I think it explain a bit how i see him, personally i prefer people with more judgement that can find compromise and have a rational view of the situation. Ppl less arrogant that care about what the others have to say.

I don't know what is being done in english canada but there is an organism trying to do something in quebec called "L'essence à juste prix" in english: "Gas at the right price". They are trying to convince the federal government to investigate the jump in prices at the pump. Click here for the article Like you say, its dangerous to hurt the economy with such high gaz prices.

Unanymously, the sovreignists leader either Duceppe or members of the PQ, all said they tought jean was a good choice and they didn't like what was happening to her right now. The whole story is comming from a small newspapers of die hard sovreignists. They clearly said what they wanted, to publish this to make the english media mad. I think its worth making that correction cause don't forget about it but in quebec, when you refer as sovreignist or separatist, you reffer as half of the population... When you refer as die hard sovreignist you reffer as maximum 5-10% of the population. So it may looks like or some people may want it to look like its a separatist vs liberal war from the outside, but in reality at least in quebec its often more like a Die hard sovreignist vs Die hard federalist vs soft sovreignist and soft federalist. So as i see it, the die hard soverignist use it as a political tool to try to hurt the federalist and the die hard federalist use it as a tool to discredit the sovreignist while the soft federalist and soft sovreignist are concerned about what is true and what isn't.

I think she made it clear today, she want the job and doesn't want to talk about her past. By not saying she was federalist, she admit what evryone think... I don't know how to react, i just can't answer, is being opportunistic a bad thing or a good thing ? It can be both. Even if i don't like her husband, i guess she just have to choose for herself. Anyway id rather have someone modern like her as a GG, someone not Liberal and monarchist than an old ?%$&@! like Clarkson.

This is right, not only its not federal business but by applying those tax on a free market will result in hurting our product competitiveness. I only see one way to get rid of those american lobby, its to build our own lobby team in partner with construction company that buy woods, if we really want a war, we have to make it with other american against the lobby that declared us war and not against the whole country wich would be dumb, hurt us and give no good result. Even if we spend a few millions to build this team, if we consider we are loosing billions... it worth the money and time.

I think it will happend one day and problably in our lifetime. For alberta, if ever important people and politician start to consider separation, and work for it, then we never know what can happend, one thing is sure is that the western situation could be at risk. But i don't think its the case for now. As for Quebec, its a strong possibility, there is no strong friendship or adapted federal and constitutionnal structure to favorize an united country. Let's face it, quebec is already independant on many thing. But 1 thing still unite us, the fear. Whenever quebec will have less debt and a stronger economy, if ever it happend in our lifetime. Whenever they feel they could do better as an independant country, then close to nothing could stop separation. Will it happend in the futur ? i don't know, a 3rd referendum is on the way for sure but as long as quebecker don't feel they can do better without canada, IMO the result will be simillar to 1995 with a few % up or down. However on the long term, its a strong possibility.

Good question, the economy and population must grow a bit like a pyramid beause if they don't, all the economic pressure (debt, pension plan, healthcare, etc..) will grow and the economy will krash because the new generation won't be able to support the older population. Population growth is necessary to keep the economy alive, if it grow too fast and the futur generation can't keep up, the next generation will face a recession. If it grow too slow, they will face a recession so IMO one of the best economic tool is to regularize immigration to correct the pyramid of growth. Personally i think that there is not a best regime between Left and Right government. Its 2 institutions that have their strenght and failure. But When you analyse the present, past and future, often one of those government fit better than the other, its better IMO to rotate and try to use both government to have the best overall result Left government are often complex and can give very good result on the short and medium term if they are well handled but they can also easily give poor result with ordinary politician wich is often the case. Its a good form of government to structurate, organise and take care of alot of complex things. Since they are complex government, on a long term they usually become obsolete just like almost all 70'S canadian social program like healthcare and etc... IMO, one of the best combo is a Left government with a Right prime minister. It would mean a Left government that would analyse what is working, rework it to make it better and scrap what isn't working. Lucien bouchard government was like that, even if he failed on many things specially healthcare, i think he did a great overall job. Right government are based on keeping things simple. Its alot easyer to maintain and it often give good result. I think its the best to keep an economy healthy. Its often about what i would call rational politics. By rational politics i mean the best logical answer to make an economy grow and by itself help evry other problem we can face.

Ce sont des membres du mouvement du "Front de libération du Québec", FLQ Its hard to translate, it mean something like members of "the coalition to free quebec". a 1960's terrorist group. So members of the FLQ are Felquist. The husband of Michaelle Jean seems to have many well known Felquist friend, He made a few movies about them and worked with at least one of them. Another one of them (who was part of the cell that kidnapped Pierre Laporte) renovate a part of his house... I think that if he had for friend someone like Gille duceppe or any evry day sovreignist, who care ? But the few he knows... They are the one that where active terrorist in the 1960's... They are Radicals ppl, worst id say the top 10 most radical we ever had... that where arested or sent to cuba... They where all implicated in the 2 kidnapping that brought us the mesure of war in october 70's...

Im wondering why she isnt doing any statement at a TV station to clarify her position on the issue.... The only thing i can think of for the moment is it would be true and she doesn't want to lie so she let the professional PM PM do the job for her.

It was from an article of "la presse": http://www.vigile.net/05-8/11.html#2 I don't really know what to think, She seems like a good person but i would like to learn more about her position on different issue wich im pretty sure we will never know except if it also leak in the newspaper. And i want to know what is up with Lafond.... When a well known felquiste build you a bookshelf... with a secret place to hide guns... you surely not have a normal life. here is another article Michaëlle Jean et les felquistes

So both her and her husband are dual citizens. Really, though: who gives a damn? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> She problably have Haitïan citizenship too.

Hey ! august read this: ...In other word the guy looks like a crasy extremist. However no media seems to care... What about the GG, is she agreeing with him on those issue ? is She crasy too ? she doesn't look like crasy but we never know.... All this thing remember me of the myriam bédard couple.....

Argus, of course states it best.PM PM is so unoriginal. He just purely imitated Chretien. (Chretien segued Trudeau - when Trudeau named Shreyer GG, he segued Diefenbaker's Vanier.) Something else. Ottawa CitizenThe GG position is all about tokenism, about symbols. That is exactly what her new position is. The only possible substance is the final protection of legality - and the possible designation of a first minister. But the GG position is primarily a token, a symbol, a way to identify Canadians. The new GG is a TV journalist. Good image. Face, hair, make-up, voice. She has a good accent in French. Make no mistake; she understands perfectly the notions of image, symbols, tokens. Something else? Her husband makes movies about FLQ terrorists. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, i heard many rumor about his husband being a die hard sovreignist... Anyway according to a recent poll more than 3 out of 4 quebeckers think its a waist of money. if they really wanted to unite the country they should have tought about getting rid of monarchy instead....

Personally, I think the Irish model is worth looking at. They have an elected president that does not really have many powers but is responsible for being the face of the country. The advantage of the Irish model is, I believe, we could move to an elected GG without a radical reform of the country's constitution. Bakunin, do you have any suggestion on what voting mechanisms we could use? I was thinking of an electoral college system similar to the US instead of going for a pure rep by pop. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well actually thats what i would like too, a prime minister dealing with internal affaire and a President to deal with the world. I never heard about the irish model but it must be similar to the french one. They should both be on the watch list. About the voting mechanism, well thats the problem, democracy is about a majority voting for someone but when the majority is all concentred in one place, and with 2 other concentred party like the bloc in quebec and the conservative in the west, i just think that the most interesting compromise would be to let more power to the province cause it would mean evryone would be happy. quebec would have a social democrat province, ontario would have a liberal province and the west, conservatives province's. Between Rep by pop and electoral college, id prefer electoral college any time cause its all about fair play, else it would mean the less populated regions would always be penalized and left out. But the problem is that Canada is such vast and regoup such different ppl that even with an electoral college, any elected government would be seen as disconnected from the reality in one or more provinces. So here is a solution, even with an electoral college, we would have result that wouldn't be fair for all or it would be an unwanted government somewhere. It lead me to think that the 2 party system like in usa could help us get rid of that. I would consider it the less worst system. But since it would mean 2 centrist national government. To make it less boring, we could vote a President that would be our visiblility in the other country. We could vote him with an elimination style election with more than one round to make sure its someone well representative of the country( a bit like when party members vote for their new leader). To make diversity still a possibility, we would give more felxibility to the province like the possibility to opt out of a federal social program, give them more flexibility for healthcare and anything that could be done to make it possible for a province to live in the confederation and have divergent opinion with the central government.