Evening Star

Yeah, I wasn't sure how to answer that question but a job is pretty clearly not the same thing as a royalty as I understand things.

Yeah, I was agreeing with you that my first post was wrong. I think I meant to type "major" but neglected to do so (?). I suppose you're right that I was getting a little fast and loose with "print media" vs "major media". Anyway, it's clear enough that the editorial board of the majority of nearly every major print media outlet did endorse the Conservatives, which seems enough to support my original point so I should probably leave it there. I'm not sure that looking at explicit endorsements from nationwide broadcasting entities would change that. (I'm not including random blogs, podcasts, campus radio programmes, Facebook statuses, etc as major media outlets.)

Did Harper himself create all those jobs?

Ha, OK, I see that now. I did say "nearly every media outlet" when I should have said "nearly every major media outlet". I think my fundamental point still stands though.

Are you serious? Government money is the public's money and is meant to be used for the public good. When someone is elected, it is like we are hiring them to administer the money on our behalf. If they use it for their own political ends, that is a misuse, almost like stealing. It's like if you were hired to manage a company's finances and spend company money (not your own salary) on yourself.

My original point was that there is little to justify the persecution complex that Conservatives seem to have. The endorsements of the majority of major print media outlets seems like a significant point of support there. Whether or not there are plenty of minor media outlets that endorse other parties does not seem to be a relevant point.

I was working with this definition (from Oxford British Dictionary of English): and please remember that I said "major media outlet".

Well, sure, but they were elected on a promise that they would be able to maintain uni funding without having to raise tuition. That's what got student/academic support behind them. It does seem that they were being dishonest. As bcsapper says, it does seem now that the hikes were necessary to maintain the existing system (which includes some top universities). (My own position was always that tuition should be kept low but universities should be restructured + fewer people should be admitted to university, especially less practical [edited] programmes, than to colleges and technical schools.)

Really? http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2011

I'm surprised that this hasn't come up here yet: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Shock+anger+after+report+surprise+university+funding/7657087/story.html I am no fan of the PQ by any stretch but if nothing else, I really did believe that they valued education. This is a stunning betrayal.

I definitely have not seen anything resembling the frothing hate that Obama inspires in the US. What I do find unique is the victim/persecution complex among Conservative supporters, at a time when almost every media outlet has openly endorsed the Conservatives in election after election.

I do not agree with the premise of this thread. I have not seen evidence that the hatred for Harper greatly exceeds that for his predecessors. I was young but I remember the last days of Mulroney (still the most hated PM) when there were e.g. multiple joke books devoted to making fun of him - not just his policies but him personally: his physical appearance (e.g. his chin), his wife, his relationship with Reagan. Frank magazine even targeted his daughter ("Deflower Caroline Mulroney"). The level of disrespect was beyond what I have seen directed at Harper. Some people on Babble STILL refer to PET as a fascist btw. Bring his name up with conservative Westerners or with sovereigntist/nationalist (edited) Quebecers if you want to see hate and paranoia.

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This was more or less my first thought. It seems like it would be very difficult to ascertain people's motives for having abortions and selectively prohibit them based on these motives. However, this motion isn't even trying to do that: it's just 'condemning' sex-selective abortions, which is basically a pointless symbolic action. In India, where sex-selective abortion is a real issue, they simply ban doctors from testing for and informing the parents of the foetus's sex (although enforcement of this policy is hit-and-miss). If we are truly concerned about the issue, this seems like the only logical step to take. Is anyone willing to advocate this?

Oh, maybe I misunderstood you, nm. I thought you were advocating that certain racist types of speech should be banned because they're obviously wrong to most people. You were just saying that they're not worth the energy of debating? We're on the same page then. I tend to oppose hate speech laws.

I really disagree. It seems very unfair to just decide politically that some ideas deserve to be discussed and others are so dumb that people do not even have the right to express them. Individuals can certainly decide that some ideas are not worth their time but it is another matter to prohibit them altogether.

We could spend all day digging up old stories: Airbus and Adscam are obviously two much bigger stories, for example. It was clear that jacee started the thread to discuss current issues.

Wikipedia was one of three sources I provided, including the newspaper that originally published the critical article. Still, even if Fletch were ¸right, a 22-year-old story about a dead politician is only marginally relevant to this thread at best.

The article was published in June. They paid the extra money starting in March. But they were never paying less than market rent. They were cleared by a city solicitor. Even the Blogging Tories have gotten over this.

From Wikipedia: From CBC (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/08/22/f-jack-layton-timeline.html): From the Star (who published the article you cited in 1990) (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1043514--jack-layton-dead-at-61): They came under fire in 1990 when the Star reported they were living in subsidized co-op housing despite earning a combined annual salary of $120,000. It was a mixed-rent building, they were paying market rent, and the city solicitor cleared Layton of wrongdoing, but the story followed him around, another element of the image of Layton as a latte-sipping urban socialist who did not really practise what he preached.

No, you see, corruption is a team sport where a left-of-centre federal party can be implicated because they are 'on the same side' as unions and provincial and municipal politicians (who are affiliated with an entirely different party).

Mulcair and the federal NDP have not been implicated in the slightest by the Charbonneau Commission.

There is no NDP in QC provincial politics.

Agree. Canada has never taken a neutral stance.

Why, cybercoma?