Evening Star

I'd need to study each issue more I definitely feel this way too but some things I'd lean towards include: - moving towards sensible copyright law that does not aggressively inhibit teaching (for one thing) - promoting greater autonomy for MPs - promoting greater investment in R&D and innovation. The Liberals' idea of promoting 'strategic sectors' actually sounded good to me, although I had little faith that they would implement it. - making the long-form census mandatory again - decriminalizing soft drugs and prostitution - very incremental tax reform, e.g. adding a 31% bracket for people who make over $250 000, scrapping some of the recent boutique tax breaks, very slight increases to wealth tax and inheritance tax, significant cuts to small business tax; really, though, I don't know enough about economics to say anything with great certainty here. - making net neutrality law, prohibiting UBB, ensuring that the Internet is accessible everywhere in the country - promoting fair trade internationally and taking steps to ensure that the trade really is fair - providing stable funding and support for Canadian arts and culture

Based on the Wikipedia entry on health care in Sweden, their system seems to work OK. One chief distinction seems to be that it's largely managed at a local level there? One issue I could possibly see is that level of decentralization might perhaps not work as well in a huge, sprawling country with a tremendously diverse population. I actually agree that higher education is in crisis. Our current system is completely unsustainable. The European model does seem more realistic. (Quebec already seems to be partway there.) However, education is completely under provincial jurisdiction, isn't it? An interesting idea. Might be quite workable.

As far as I know, every poll since May has still shown the NDP with a decent lead in QC despite having a relatively weak interim leader and having many of its key players engaged in a leadership race.

How so? There's nothing very leftist about a theocratic absolute monarchy. (There have been plenty of these in history, even prior to the major socialist writings, and I doubt most people would consider most of them to be leftist.) Socialism refers to collective control of the economy, not just government control regardless of how the government is formed or from where it derives its mandate. On social policy, Saudi Arabia is obviously about as far from liberalism as one could get.

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I mean, I agree that it's fair to wait until we hear the actual argument presented by the govt lawyer.

That's a reasonable point but I can still see why they might want their Canadian marriage annulled as well.

I don't think anyone has been complaining about the residency requirements for divorce. It's the question about foreign couples who have already been married in Canada that concerns people.

I suppose that's a fair point. I guess I have more of a beef with the level of party discipline in our system than I do with floor-crossing within the system.

Didn't think PET was especially pro-monarchy?

Yeah, especially if someone is flying on a commercial flight, that has to be one of the most energy-efficient ways to travel.

Either way, what's important is that Rae was not sitting as an elected official when he changed parties. He only sat as a Liberal after running in an election as a Liberal.

It's not just the divorce issue though. This is a key point: Until now, apparently, it has been policy to accept these marriages - 5000 of them, according to the article - as legitimate. So for the government to now say that they were never legitimate even in Canada does seem a bit nasty and at least like an "about-face" in the author's words.

Rae never crossed the floor while he was a sitting MP, at least. He was out of politics and rejoined with a different party after rethinking some of his views and how they related to the NDP's. Then he stood for election as a member of the new party.

I disagree that this is a contradiction, at least as I understand it. My criticism of the system is not directed at the individual MPs but at a system that requires them to toe the party line on most votes, rather than exercising greater independence or more directly representing their constituents. However, given that this is our system, voters do choose to vote for an NDP candidate with the expectation that this candidate will vote with the NDP line, not with the Liberal party line. An MP who crosses the floor is not representing his or her constituents or even becoming more of an independent thinker when he or she simply toes a different party's line. If we had a system where individual MPs had greater freedom in the first place, floor-crossing would be less objectionable.

Why would you not want to look at their platforms??

Maybe "ur" works, even though I hate it.

Well, "pwn" and "pr0n" and "teh" are definitely post-Internet and are all parodies of common typos that happen when you type fast. "Lol" and "omfg" are Internet slang that come from common abbreviations used in old-style chat/message board days. "Tonite" predates the Internet, surely? I never thought of it as a net-dork thing at all. There's even a doo-wop song "Tonite Tonite" by the Mello Kings from 1957. Your own link seems to back me up (as does the regular Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet)

I do think it's more noteworthy when a cabinet minister acts like a POS than when a 15-year-old acts like a jackass.

Well, yeah. I just wasn't sure that this clearly shows that the NDP will self-destruct and the Liberals will bounce back.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure this one floor-crossing is an obvious sign of anything though.

Uh, do you remember how long the MLW thread about the massage parlour was and how harsh some of the posts were? I don't think anyone here is saying that Clement should be fired over this or that this is proof of his incompetence or anything. It's just kind of funny.

I still don't think "tonite" is 1337 though. It's not even in the library you linked.

^^^^

Hm? Until the 1990s, every Liberal government in Canadian history held at least a plurality, and usually a clear majority, of Quebec's seats. Both of Mulroney's PC governments also had overwhelming support in Quebec.