Evening Star

See, these seem like two different issues to me. I'm all for massive immigration where immigrants actually become Canadian citizens who will work according to Canadian labour laws and pay Canadian taxes. It seems like a better way to build our population base than just having more kids. Temporary worker programmes mostly just seem like a way to depress wages and break unions though, exploiting foreign workers in the process.

Ha, all of Martin's tweets can be viewed here: http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/12/20/pat-martin-versus-vic-toews-that-escalated-quickly/ (The NDP did issue a statement btw: )

Martin's reaction was inappropriate and unprofessional but what is the basis for the above statement? What makes you sure of this?

A speech worth remembering: http://uranowski.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/pierre-elliott-trudeaus-speech-in-support-of-the-abolition-of-capital-punishment-house-of-commons-june-15th-1976/

Could you expand? What sort of funding model would you advocate?

Well, what would be wrong with converting reserves to private property under the ownership of bands or band members, property that could be sold or exploited for profit? Edit: I don't this would exactly be 'taking' their land and resources.

My posts to this thread have not necessarily been in opposition to some of the current protests btw, to be clear.

??? That's the same link I gave. I don't see your definition on that linked page. Mine is under Article 2: it's very clear that "genocide" refers to physical destruction of a group. (edited for wording)

Source? My link was the same convention and gives quite a different (and very clear) definition. Was the convention modified?

The UN definition makes it clear that "genocide" refers to the actual physical destruction of a group.

Huh? I was quoting the UN definition to point out that the White Paper's recommendations do NOT constitute genocide. We're on the same side on this question.

Why would you not use Northern European economies as a model? They're very successful, not at all like Greece or Portugal.

I strongly disagree that the 1969 White Paper would have constituted genocide by the UN definition (below), to the point where I find this suggestion offensive: From: http://web.archive.o.../b/p_genoci.htm

It says "special tax preferences", not "special interest tax credits" but that's very vague, as the Globe and Fletch both pointed out. It's very unlikely that he wants to remove every one of these. I'm starting to read the speech though.

Fletch just did. Edit: It's likely that he's going to give more info in his speech. However, based on the linked article in the OP, it's hard to come to any conclusion about his tax 'plan'.

I don't see a plan here.

Is the margin of error more or less than 2% for that poll?

Inheritance of private property is not the same as the sorts of collective land rights you're talking about though, and does not afford the same rights that treaties with the FNs do. We're all aware that there are constitutionally protected treaties but it seems pretty false to equate this to the inheritance of private property.

I freely admit to not being extremely knowledgeable about FN issues, and I know it's un-PC, but I have a hard time disagreeing with this. Maybe if the FNs actually seemed to be profiting greatly from their 'inherited collective land rights through their families', I could see more merit to the status quo. Edit: The argument against the 1969 White Paper was that getting rid of the Indian Act and reserve system would simply lead to urban poverty for FNs iirc? But in what way is urban poverty worse than the situation in reserves like Attawapiskat?

I'd be interested to also know how much of the work is being done by "federal public service employees" who are making this much. Afaict, more and more government work is being farmed out to contractors, including temps with no benefits. Btw, employers often pay agencies close to double what the temps are paid, which suggests to me that the benefits (that the employer is saving) are in fact worth quite a bit.

Who portrayed Harper as evil incarnate while overlooking the faults of other PMs?

No one here has portrayed Harper that way. And why assume that the people who criticize Harper for these things did not also criticize the Liberals?

I'm just very unconvinced that this goes beyond the ways people felt about Mulroney, Chretien, or Trudeau, or say, Dalton McGuinty or even Rob Ford. (Heck, talk to some separatist Quebecers about Jean Charest.) Actually, I'm not sure it's any worse than the bile that was directed at Jack Layton by some on the right. (I can think of multiple times I heard people describe him as an anti-Semite or a Communist.)

The sheer number of casualties is not the only consideration for most people. More people died in WW2 than in these two wars put together but you won't find much regret that we fought in that war. What is important is whether the war was fought for a cause that justifies the loss of life. I'm ambivalent about Afghanistan but I see little justification for the Iraq war and so do most Canadians. That's probably true and I was no fan of Chretien's party. (Actually, I did rather dislike Chretien as a personality while I actually like Harper well enough as a personality.) Still, they did not deregulate the banking system, which is the relevant issue here.

What sort of answer are you really hoping for? Very little support was provided in the original Murphy piece for the contention that a large segment of the population harbours some violent irrational fear or hatred of Stephen Harper as a person. When people say "I don't hate the person but I strongly disagree with policies x, y, and z", you'll respond "Yes, those are policy disagreements but not a reason to hate someone" or just dismiss an exhaustive list of policy disagreements as "petty grievances". When people question the premise of the thread itself, they are ignored. If someone were to come out and express or try to explain an irrational hatred of Stephen Harper as a person (which I can't remember anyone ever doing on MLW, not even the most left-wing posters), they would be ridiculed. Are you just hoping that someone will say "He's a Nazi who was born in South Africa" so you can make of them?