JWayne625

Now that just goes to show us all how STUPID Canadian's really are. Anyone who still has doubts that the sponsorship program reached right into the highest levels of our governmment is either a moron or is in denial, especially with the relavations which are coming to light this week with the testamony of people like Ms. Roy. Chretien himself was involved in these illegal activities right from the start, along with Martin, Gagliano, and the list goes on, and on. Gullible people might be comfortable with crooks and liars running our country, but I certainly am not. Especially since the Liberal's have again misled the taxpayers about the amount of the projected surplus. Now we find out that this surplus is about 5 times what was projected, and my great fear is that there are still many Liberal friendly corporation's in Quebec and Ontario that perceive they didn't get their fair share of the last pot-of-gold. I fear what will happen to this $9.1 billion dollar windfall for the federal treasury. It is an assurance that we the people, who donated heavily to this windfall will never see any of this money coming back into our pockets, after all that's just not how thigs work in Canada. In Canada government initiatives are usually meant to benefit the top 5% of the population.

Who mentioned religion? I simply called it a Days of Rest Act, which is what is was called in New Brunswick. That day was meant to give families a common day to spend together doing whatever they choose. If that something happens to be going to church, so be it, but at least the family would be able to plan a common day to sit down together to share a meal and conversation. Too often today we have children virtually bringing themselves up, they start hanging with disreputable friends and suddenly junior is summoned to court and Mom and Dad can't figure out what went wrong, when the fact is they had no time to spend with their kids to know who they were hanging with or what they were up to. The problem is that in many cases it is not entirely voluntary. For instance in New Brunswick the government made it legal for employees to simply give their employer 2 weeks notice that they were exercising their option not work on Sundays, and supposedly not have to. I have a friend who's wife had been working for one of the major retailers at the time, and a staff meeting was called and the employees were told that under the legislation they were allowed to opt out of working on Sundays, however if any chose to exercise that option new employees would be hired to work those Sunday hours, and these new employees would also be offered additional hours throughout the week, and those hours would be those of current employees who opted not to work on Sundays. Is that voluntary? I don't think so. Another aspect of this is that many mall management companies are writing it into their leases that merchants are required to be open on Sundays. That too is hardly what I would call voluntary. Not if their competitor across the street is opening on Sundays in an attempt to gain additional market share. What retailer can afford to give up market share? None, that's who so they open whether it is profitable or not. A survey was conducted in our city with retailers and most said that it was not profitable to be open on Sundays. Many said that they already work 6 days per week and they are tired, and need that day to catch up on rest and paperwork, and many stated thae fact that if they didn't open they would lose market share, especially if their competitor chose to be open. Families only have so much disposable income, and just because stores started opening on Sundays, that amount does not magically grow. If Sunday shopping is such a great thing maybe it's time that we open the whole economy to Sunday shopping incuding government offices, banks, schools, lawyer's offices, and all other enterprises that presently enjoy Monday to Friday work-weeks. I can guarantee you that all of these people who work in Mon. to Fri. mode will be quickly lobbying to get back to working Mon. to Fri. I suspect that these are the very people who are presently can't seem to find time to shop evenings and Saturday. What Mom & Pop store do you know that can buy from the wholesaler at the same prices as their competitors, like Sobey's or Superstore. In the Maritimes for instance all of the grovcery wholesalers are owned by either Sobeys, or Superstore, consequently they extend to their own retailers preferential pricing schemes. Consequently large retailers are able to sell below what it costs a small retailer to buy wholesale. That is why small corner stores are going out of business, and now that they are gone the prices are starting to escalate at alarming rates at these large retailers. Why not they now have no competition.

Don't say that too loud, Quebec will hear. They'll start threatening to separate again, and since Martin's BIG GUNS are from Quebec, they may start worrying about their place at the Canadian troth, and start another sponsorship program. Or worse yet, transfer even more federal government offices into Quebec. God forbid!

New Brunswick has basically gone to 7 day shopping and my wife works in retail as a Head Cashier. She tells me that the store in fact makes less profit now than it did when there was 6 day shopping, simply because now the costs have gone up, in staffing, and electrical costs. Those that used to shop through the week now shop on Sunday, but sales have dropped on the other days to compensate. When are these giant retailers going to figure out that there is only so much money for people to spend? What it has accomplished is it has put out of business the small Mom & Pop corner stores, and replaced them with franchized Convenience stores, that are corporate owned. When Sunday shopping ws instituted here I asked City Council about increasing transit service on Sunday's to compliment the stores being open, and I was told that the realiity was that they could not afford to put the buses on even though it was them that applied to the Province for permission to grant Sunday Shopping. As a consequence, the employees who traditionally work for minimum wages are now forced to spend half or more of their wages, on taxi fares to get to and from work. Some deal that is! The likelihood is that the people who are demanding Sunday shopping are the very people who work Mon. to Fri., and have every evening and Saturday to do their shopping, but are too lazy or too selfish to allow families to have a day off together. I was just thinking back to a time when stores were open Thursday, and Friday evenings only, and Saturday from 9:00am to 1:00pm, the rest of the week they closed at 5:30pm, and there was no such thing as Sunday shopping except for the Pharmacy, and some corner stores. Pharmacies did not sell even milk and bread. If you needed a loaf of bread you had to walk sometimes fair distances to find a corner store that was open. My God, what would these people have done, when they have to have stores open 7 days per week?

Give some outside organization, the U.N. or otherwise the powers to tax Canadian's? I don't think so Tim! Think about that prospect for just a moment. We have Federal, Provincial, and Municipal government's all looking for taxes from Canadian's, now you advocate that we add the UN to collect even more taxes. I believe that this year's tax-freedom day was sometime in July. If we add the U.N. as another in a long line of tax collectors that should push that date to sometime in December.The U.N. cannot continue to interfere in the internal workings of countries. You cannot impose Western style democracy, if that's what you want to call it, on Middle Eastern or Asian cultures, it simply will not work. The WTO at one time advocated that until China and other totalitarian countries improved their Human Rights deficits the western world would not trade with them. Here we are in 2004, human rights are just as bad in China, and many other Third World countries, yet the whole western world is chomping at the bit to trade with them. Concerns for Human Right's seem to have taken a back seat and a corporate agenda of cheap labor seems to have replaced that concern. What matters now is profit margins, not Human Right's. Funny how principles go out the window when corporate profit is the motivator. I believe that the United Nations sees themselves as some sort form of World governing body, which Canada keeps deferring to. When it is convenient our government representative's go on a U.S.A. bashing spree, and they cry about Canada's sovereignty. If we are in fact a sovereign country we cannot defer taxing of our citizens to any outside group, U.N. or otherwise. The NDP is really good at attempting to portray the U.S.A. as the big bogeyman south of our border. Let's not forget the fact that the Allies were losing the War, until the U.S.A. jumped in and saved our butts. Without the USA we might very well be singing the National Anthem of Germany right now, and now because our politician's have allowed our military to become a laughing stock, we are now reliant on the U.S.A. as our protector. Certainly France will not be that protector, they were too cowardly to even fight for themselves in World War II. History has shown that aside from the Resistance, the French Government just sat back and allowed Germany to just march right in and take over.

Sure it could be expensive to build subs and ships for ourselves, but would it not be better to employ Canadian's to build our ships and subs? At least it would put Canadian's to work, Canadian's I might add who would be making good wages which in turn would translate into taxes for all levels of government and feed our economy. Buying or having them built overseas does not provide one cost advantage to Canada's GDP since the our tax money is leaving the country and will not be back.We had one of the most modern ship yards in North America in Saint John, New Brunswick, and when the Frigate Program was going full steam this facility employed approximately 1400 men and women, not counting the peole that were employed in the ship yards in Quebec, and spin-off employment was enormous in many other parts of Canada. Now $55 million of your tax dollars is being paid to one of the richest family's in Canada, the Irving's, to mothball this yard, and most of the money will in all likelihood wind up in pockets of the Irving's, so they can diversify their holdings, while the family fortune has gone south to Burmuda. Some deal that is for Canadians. Someone suggested aligning ourselves with countries more like ourselves, instead of the USA, or the UK. Who might that be, France? The European Union does nothing for Canada, why would we align ourselves with them? It is the USA that is our largest trading partner, and if the truth were admitted by some of these self-righteous posters, the USA controls most of the industry in Canada. In many cases large industries operating in Canada are merely subsiduaries of US owned corporations. In essence they own us, lock stock and barrel. Sure we can pretend that we are this independent country, but are we really? Just think of how long Canada would exist if US dollars were not invested here. Be realistic, at least. We need the USA far more than they need us!

The thing about same-sex marriages is that proponents say that it will not interfere with the right of an organization or person to refuse to perform such a mariage because it goes against their religious beliefs. The opinion stated by the intervenor representing the Canadian Civil Liberties Association at the Supreme Court, was that the proposed legislation guarantees that nobdy would be forced to perform same-sex marriages if it goes against their religious beliefs. He seems to have forgotten the ultimatum given to Commissioner's in British Columbia, who were told they would either perform such marriages, or they would lose their livelihood, by having their licenses' as Commissioners taken away from them. That hardly guarantees freedom of religion, in fact it shows quite clearly that freedom of religion is not and will not be guaranteed by this legislation. We seem also to have forgotten the ruling by the Court in Ontario that ruled that a Catholic School, and it's Board was obliged to allow one of their student's to bring his gay boyfriend to the Prom. This was a clear indication that the "State" is not above infringing on religious freedoms, it those freedoms interferes with certain agendas. It's not as if this was a public school, it was a school run as a offshoot from the Church, and as such should have been exempt from interferance under the protections supposedly guaranteed for religious freedom. This very well might have been a school run by another religious group, such as Baptist or Muslim, it just happened to be Catholic in this instance. I'm sure the ruling of the court would have still interfered because these Judges are simply not made to be accountable for their decisions. Just remember, judges are simply lawyers who have the right political connections to get appointed. Being intelligent is not a necessity, being politically connected is. We elect our politicians to make decisions, and we hold them accountable for those decisions at election time. The problem today is that we have allowed our elected politician's to defer to the judiciary those decisions that are controversial, and that that they don't wish to take ownership for, so they allow unelected and unaccountable judges to make those decisions for them. They can then stand back and, to use an old analogy say' "The devil made me do it." Maybe the time has come to elect our judiciary and get rid of party politics. It would at least have the effect of making these judges accountable for their decisions, and I would bet more attuned to the wishes of the majority. After all, isn't that what democracy is supposed to be all about, power by the people, for the people, and not power for the judiciary, with no accountability.

Of course Alberta owns the oil within their Province, and they are good enough to share some of that wealth with the ROC. We could be greedy like Trudeau was when he brought in the National Energy Program and put Alberta in financial trouble for years. Talks of pulling another stupid stunt like the NEP only encourages more talk of Western alienation, and more talk of Alberta separation. Ottawa is just itching to get their hands on all that money so that they can shovel more money into Quebec, to keep them happy, and to hell with the ROC. My advice to Alberta is to immediately call a referrendum on separation if Ottawa attempts another cash grab. Both of my son's live there and I would have no problem visiting them, in another country. I may have to cross the banana republic of Quebec to get there, or I could just travel through the USA, which I normally do anyway on my way to Ontario. Why, because I resent having to put up with signage in a language I do not understand, nor want to understand.

I think it is time togive the Royal Family and her redundant representatives the old heave-ho, especially since these representatives are appointed by the PM, not by the Royal Family, consequently they are puppets of those who appointed them to Office. I have another bone to pick with our Federal Heritage Minister when she suggests that Quebec represent Canadians at International functions on several issues. Quebecer's do not speak for the vast majority of Canadian's on any issue, including culturally, that is why we elect Federal Politician's so that they can represent us in International Forums. Quebec would simply use this soap box to pass themselves off as a country, and further alianate us from our largest trading partner. The fact is that Quebec is only one of the have-not Provinces within Canada, and speak a language foreign even to most parts of Canada.

I think that more than anything Martin and the Liberals cow-tow to Quebec because without Quebec many of these power brokers would not be sitting in Canada's House of Commons. Who goes whining for money more than Quebec, for their share and everyone else's? They are the spoiled brat who threatens to take his ball and go home if they don't get what they want. Pity help them when we wind up with non-Quebecoise power brokers, because they may well find themselves with little sympathy or control in Ottawa. Quebec should be treated exactly the same, and be forced to live by the same rules and regulations, and laws, as the rest of us Canadians. The only thing special about Quebec is that they have become used to doing as they please, and rules that apply to the ROC do not apply inside their borders. IE: Bill 101. This Bill makes travelling in Quebec unpleasant at best, especially for one that does not speak French, and has no desire nor inclination, to learn the language. The ability to speak French is not necessary anywhere else in Canada, including New Brunswick.

I think we need to cut taxes, especially federally and provincially. The only two growing industries in Canada are bread lines, and government bureaucracy. We need to cut in both of these sectors. Where bread lines are concerned, it is shameful that we even have them in a counrty as rich as Canada. The federal government under Mulroney 14 years ago made a committment to eliminate child poverty, and today under a Liberal Government things are worse than they were back 14 years ago, so obviously child poverty is not a Liberal priority. Government has simply found other places to waste tax dollars, IE: Sponsorship, that Chretien definitely had a direct hand in, as was recently revealed. Of course the Clerk of the Privy Council now says that Chretien is not legally responsible, even though he signed many of the documents. By the way, is anyone here nieve enough to believe that the politicians who were behind this fiasco will ever wind up in a courtroom? We need to start cutting the size of government from the top down if we are truly looking to save tax-dollars. By cutting from the top down you are starting with enormous salaries, so it will displace far fewer people in achieving large savings. Traditionally cut have been from the bottom up and consequently has displaced large numbers of middle class workers, and that is not desirable. Logically, it makes more sense to eliminate the least number of positions, but God forbid we give these highly paid leaches their walking papers. Since it is senior bureaucrat's who usually make the decision of who goes and who stays, I can't picture them making out their own pink slips. Tax cuts need to be made so that ordinary working people can keep more of the money they earn, instead of struggling from week to week with what is left of their paycheques after taxes. I can't see that happening under the Liberal's since all they have managed to do is grow government, which leaves less and less for the Canada's priorities, priorities as defined by ordinary Canadian's not government bureaucrat's, and politician's.

If any empire is dying it certainly isn't the US. In fact most of our manufactured goods come from US based corporations. Remember back before all these Free-Trade deals that our politicians told us were good for us, and once signed many of our manufacturing jobs disappeared, to be replaced by service industry jobs that pay only a fraction of what manufacturing sector jobs pay. These deals were good only for the corporate sector, because it made it easier for these corporation to move their operations to somewhere where they could pay employees a fraction of what it cost them here in Canada. If Canadian's were smart, which we aren't, we would start checking the labels on the manufactured goods that we purchase, and bypass any goods not made either in Canada or in the USA. If Canadian's don't soon smarten up nothing will be manufactured here, and when the call centre jobs dry up we will have nothing left to work at. We will wind up being the third world. We already have many adults and children in this country going to bed hungry, and that is shameful. Considering it was 14 years ago that our federal government made a committment to eliminate child poverty in this country, and by last statistics it shows that the problem just keeps getting worse. Use of food banks and soup kitchens in this country seems to be the only industry that is growing. Shame on us and our politicians, both federally and provincially.

Is it not the Canadian Parliament that sets the pay-scale for Supreme Court Justices? If it is and Chretien has tied raises for Members of Parliament, through legislation to those raises, is that not a conflict of interest? Parliamentarian's have set themselves up like corporate CEO's when it comes to wages they pay themselves, but wages they want to pay to their employees, it's do as I say, not as I do time. Parliament tells PSAC they have no money for raises for them, but try to shove through a huge pay raise for themselves. Yep, just like the corporate world. The poor get poorer, and the rich get.... Employee pay increases haven't even equaled the cost of living in a number of years, and they are now working for wage levels about 1990 when inflation is taken into account. Somehow it's fair that exucutives are entitled to raises many times the cost of living, and we're not supposed to say anything, because they were good enough to let us burn ourselves out so that they can benefit from the money they have saved on paying wages, so that they can get an even bigger raises next year. If we were to tie parliamentary wage increases to their productivity, as we should, they would owe us rebates on their salaries. Now that sounds fair!

I hope that is the case as well, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. Many women today have abortions strictly as a birth control measure, or because the method of birth control they were using failed, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with her health being threatened.Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I believe the a child is the gift of God or whatever Higher Power a person aspires to, and it is not right to simply snuff out that life just because it isn't convenient at that present time. My nephew and his wife just gave birth, 3 month's ago to a beautiful baby girl who has some serious health issues. They're not sure at this point just what they are, or what this little girl will have to deal with in the future, but they told me that even if they had known earlier in the pregnancy, termination would never have been an option. Hos wife told me that she believes that there is a plan for everyone, and it is not up to her to decide what that plan will be for her daughter. They will simply take one day at a time and allow nature to take it's course.

Bernard Lord and his Justice Minister have just released the names of the newly appointed members of the New Brunswick Insurance Board who's job it will be to regulate automobile insurance rates in NB. Justice Minister Brad Green could not guarantee that insurance rates will come down, even though he handed the store to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, when he put the insurance industry in their place. They are now laughing all the way to the bank with their record profits. The great news for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, is that the people who have been named to this new board are all well connected Tories, and the best part of all is that the majority of these newly appointed Board Member's have no clue when it comes to insurance. The exception is Mr. LeBreton who currently sits on the Public Utilities Board, and has already heard the hard luck stories from the I. B. C., and how they were on their way bankruptcy court if the Province didn't help out their struggling industry. Poor things were worrying if they would qualify for their next bonus cheques. Strange, how after our Justice Minister visited them at their office's in Upper Canada, at taxpayer's expense, he came back and caved to every one of their demands. I thought that government was there to protect the people from being taken advantage of by industry, but I guess I was wrong. This government seems more interested in making sure the insurance industry has a clear unrestricted path right into our wallets, than they are of protecting NBer's from excessive insurance rates.If the Premier was really interested in protecting people he would have at the very least appointed people with experience in the realm of insurance, not just political hacks to this Board. :angry:

Pie thrower get 30 days in jail, but we send sex offenders home on house arrest. Yep that makes sense, especially in warped Canada. We promote a game that encourages the assaulting of other's on the ice, but off the ice it's called what it is, assault, and is subject to Criminal Charges. Bertuzzi was an exception since he could have killed his unsuspecting opponent, but assaults occur every day while playing this supposed game, and if anything it is encouraged by the other's on their team, and by the fans. Many today don't consider that they have watched a good game of hockey unless someone get's pulverized. We try to teach our children in the school yard that hitting other's or bullying them in not acceptable, yet when we put skates and a uniform on them and call it hockey is is somehow okay to deliberately hurt another individual. Make sense, or does it? It surely doesn't to me.

I too do not have a problem paying a woman doing the same job as a man, the exact same wage, in fact they should be paid to same. Where I have a problem and where other's have a problem is the "Work of equal value." It is very subjective, depending on who is doing the comparisons, and exactly what criteria is being used to judge this work. I don't for instance think that a clerk, male or female, sitting in a cozy office during inclement weather should be paid different rates of pay with the same seniority, but at the same time how do you compare those jobs to someone working outside either on the deck of vessel during a storm or moving material on the wharf? There is simply no comparison between these occupations, especially since some are sitting in a cozy office, while others are out risking life and limb. Yet many clerks at the Coast Guard got $thousand in retro pay because someone doing the comparison between various jobs on a Coast Guard Base thought there was merit in comparing the different occupations. I know one lady who after she had retired from an office job at Transport Canada (Coast Guard), due to ill health received a cheque for around $55,000.00 retroactively in compensation for working all those years in a job now deemed as being somehow equilavent to entirely different occupations on the same base, far more dangerous than what she had been doing. My argument to her was to ask her if she was satisfied with the wages she was paid for the work she did while working, and the wage rate negotiated through her union, and she answered; "Yes, but if the government wants to give me a cheque for thousands of dollars, who am I to say no."

I too feel that MBA Programs produce people that both private and government hire as supposed experts, when in fact their only business experiences come from textbooks written my PHD's in that field. In most cases these people have little or no experience in a real business environment, but yet they bring these textbook theories into the business world and attempt to make them work. When they don't work they simply hire more like themselves to push through their ideals, not to be contrued with ideas since these people never had an original idea in their lives, they simply follow the teachings of their guru's. By example, the healthcare system is full of these people, and the scary part is that when these MBA's initiate one of their plan's in healthcare, the very people (doctors and other healthcare professionals), who are supposed to deliver that plan are not even consulted. These MBA's don't want to be corrupted by minor inconveniences like patient's and patient care, because it interferes with their idea of a perfect world, and often shows the flaws of attempting to make healthcare fit into this nice little financial box. Politicians like them because they tout the ability to make programs fit into that nice neat box. Too often they succeed, but the outcome is anything but desirable, since patient care is not the goal, fiscal management is. The Government of New Brunswick has even gone so far as to make it illegal for healthcare professionals to sit as Board Member's on our Regional Healthcare Corporations. Instead they load these board's with political hacks, and business types, resulting in healthcare without a thought as to how patient's health is impacted by plans drawn up by MBA's. In fact I heard a Professor of Criminology speak of the problems created in the hiring of MBA's to run programs, services and institutions. He spoke about the fact that these people are being hired to run these entities and they have no clue as to what the institution or program is supposed to be doing, nor do they care. Their function is to simply make the entity fit within certain financial contraints. If that means they run prisons without guards, or hospitals without adequate nures and other healthcare professinlas, than that is acceptable as long as the program stays within that little financial box. Someday soon the whole thing is going to blow up in their faces, and when it does, I don't want to be part of the collateral damage caused by allowing these MBA's to blindly slash and burn our social safety net.

Here's an example of what I mean by this not being about "Official Bilingualism" in New Brunswick. Today on CBC.ca features a story on the NB site which quotes the President of the Acadian Society of New Brunswick. The President of the Acadian Society of New Brunswick, Jean Guy Rioux wants several things segregated, the first is creating a separate French Day Care system across NB. Not bad considering English language parent's now pay for their own Day-Care. He wants our New Brunswick Community College System which presently operates bilingually, to be split into French and English, so as to allow French students to attend a French only campus. He wants extra funding extended to the Universite de Moncton, over and above what English language Universities are allotted, simply because they are a French language institution. And lastly, for now, he wants the New Brunswick Government to allow Francophone's to work exclusively in French, even though their got their jobs in the first place, because they are supposedly bilingual. Are all New Brunswicker's now supposed to learn French in order to interact with our government or are we expected to hire more bilingual civil servants so that the majority can be served in their chosen language? So much for Bilingualism. As I said before, this organization could care less where the money is coming from to fund this insanity, or what other programs have to be cut to achieve their agenda. Their intent seems to be set on segregating New Brunswick based on language, and that is becoming more of a reality every time politician's cave to the demands of special lobby groups, like this Acadian Society.

Big Blue Machine: I agree with you, but I live in New Brunswick where the language of the majority is English, but our politicians with the help of the other provinces have entrenched it in the Constitution that New Brunswick will forever and a day be a bilingual province whether we can afford it or not, there it is. While every other service including health and education get's slashed at budget time, money for French incentives is never subject to budget restraints. In fact last year the Official Language Commissioner's Office in Ottawa, with a satellite office in Moncton, NB, was apparently not good enough for Bernard Lord, because he decided that we needed to follow Quebec's lead and have our own language policeman, along with a whole new bureaucracy to surround his office. Bilingualism started out to be a choice to learn a second language, now in many cases it is a requirement in order to become employed. In New Brunswick for instance French has become a required subject in order to graduate from High School. Our government is so short-sighted that they are sitting back and watching English language graduates pack up and leave New Brunswick in droves, simply because there is very little work for unilingual English language people. Before anyone rebutts that assertion I don't consider a Call Centre to be a real job.

To get somewhat back on topic, we started out talking about getting the police to lay off pot-heads, well my post also has to do with drug use, and yes marijuana is a drug. Anything substance that alters motor skills or other bodily functions is a drug. God coffee is a drug, as well as cigarettes, and booze, the difference being they are all legal and the drugs we are talking about here are not.. Vancouver already provides safe injection sites for heroine addicts to shoot up, now that nutty Mayor, Larry Campbell wants permission from Ottawa to allow Crack Cocaine addicts' to also use this site to inhahale crack. How far are we willing to go in the encouragement of drug use? I thought that goal of society was to somehow break these addictions, but instead we have the Mayor of one of Canada's largest city's promoting drug use. What will he want next, for Canadian tax-payer's to collectively pay these useless individual's income assistance and pay for their drugs as well so they won't have to rob that corner store to support their habit? How far do we go in coddling drug addicts? After all it is they themselves who decided to start getting high in the first place, not society. Maybe we should adopt a cure some countries have for drug trafficking and use. Simple beheading is a sure and permanent cure. I'm not advocating anything that drastic, but certaining we can't go the route of actually encouraging drug use by providing them a place to ingest their drug of choice, and this includes marijuana. Once you open that door to one drug, it stands to reason that some people like the Mayor of Vancouver are going to want to open it all the way. After all if the police aren't enforcing one law, why inforce any laws? And if his police force isn't enforcing law, then the logical conclusion is to just lay them all off, and save the taxpayer's the money spent on their salaries. The affluent could then just make sure they and their children stay away from those throw-away areas of the city where drug use is allowed, and they could pretend those types don't exist, just like they do now with the poor and homeless who must rely on food banks and soup kitchens to survive. Politician's made a committment 14 years ago to eliminate child poverty, and it hais growing steadily, ever since.

We already pay quite enough of our tax money on Space Cadets in Canada. They're called politicians' and Supreme Court Justices. Let's not advocate finding some other kind of space to waste our money on!

Bakunin: I disagree with you, because the Canada Health Act is not Provincial legislation, it is a federal act that was supposed to ensure the same level of healthcare right across Canada. The situation we now have is no accountability, and a different program in each Province and Territory. Medicare was supposed to ensure portability regardless of where one find's themself in Canada. You cannot have a different program in each jurisdiction otherwise we will have what we now have, people falling through the cracks. I think the first mistake was allowing each Province to do their own thing. Don't tell me that each Premier knows what is best for his particular Province of Territory, because politicians are not medical professionals consequently we wind up with decision's being made based on what some lawyer or accountant feels is expedient, not what is necessarily best for patients. In my privince for instance our previous Premier passed legislation which bans doctors' or other medical professionals from sitting on the Board's of our Regional Health Authority, and this Premier thought it such a good idea not to have to listen to healthcare professionals when it came to making decisions that he just kept that process in place.

The only thing unique about Quebec is that they are a bunch of whiners. I'm just wondering if we should also supply the cheese to go with it. God help them when Canada wakes up and stops choosing leaders from that Province. Maybe we a should have a PM from Alberta for a change.

Here we go again, a special deal for Quebec! Why does our Federal Government need to sign a special deal with the Province of Quebec for healthcare or any other federal initiative? No wonder Quebec keeps talking about separation, when our own federal government encourages the "We're special attitude," with special deals' just for them, while the rest of us just get lumped together, as if only this one area of the country counts. I read the other day in the news where Quebec has said that any money received from Ottawa for healthcare may in fact be spent on things other than healthcare, thing's such as highway construction. The question begs to be asked, how can Ottawa demand accountability from the rest of the Provinces and Territories when Quebec is allowed to just do their own thing on many fronts with federal dollars, including Bill 101? Are they part of Canada or are they not? If they are in fact part of Canada then there should have been only one deal for ALL of Canada, no exceptions. Ottawa wonder's why areas of this country feel alienated by Ottawa. They still seem to have not gotten the fact that Canada does not have it's boundaries defined by the Quebec/New Brunswick, and Ontario/Manitoba borders! I have to think that it will take Alberta pulling the financial plug and voting to separate before Ottawa wakes up to that fact.