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They are typically men with little means being taken to the cleaners by absurdly unjust laws and a bureaucracy that couldn't care less if Frank Forklift Driver gets laid off and he can't make a few payments to his ex who is making more than he does from tips and under the table work while going out clubbing every other day. Even though I wouldn't necessarily be friends with Frank, I have no problem pointing out that he's being victimized. Why do you have a problem with that? Does it make you feel good about yourself to see someone being victimized by a bureaucratic police state? If Frank has a lapse in judgement after having his driver's license suspended by the bureaucracy for late payments and he attempts to flee his child support obligation is that a crime that must be punished to the utmost extent of the law? Should Frank be put away with the violent criminals? The only leniency a victim like Frank enjoys now is the fact that Canada's justice system is so overburdened that they will get off relatively lightly along with the real criminals.

No, let's not get "tough" on crime, as our criminal system is stuffed with men who can't make absurd child support payments, those in violation of some sort of paper regulation, and so on -- not madmen bent on assaulting innocent people. The reason why the madmen don't get put away for longer is because our prisons have to make room for deadbeat dads, tax evaders and pot heads. The solution is to STOP MAKING GOOD PEOPLE INTO CRIMINALS. But we can't talk about that; let's just talk about being tough on crime.

Wait. Stop. Some of you appear to be suggesting that teacher unions are not funded by taxpayers? Did I misunderstand something basic here?

Well, going by the polls it seems that BC is going to dump the HST -- however, it's plain sad that it will not be voted out by a super majority. Close to half of BC voters believe that the HST is better than PST/GST, I can't even wrap my mind around how deliriously scrambled with propaganda one would have to be to believe that.

Well, I followed climate change science only sparingly keeping abreast of major studies and developments over the past few years just so I could avoid embarrassing myself when discussing the issue. The actual research papers are very technical and outside of my comfort level for political bullet-point arguments with people over broad topics so I tend to just pay attention to the key points and results. For example, we know that human activity been responsible for the lion's share of CO2 due to isotope analysis from geological samples -- however, right-wing ideological debaters need to deny this fact because they have incorrectly determined that to deny the other side's access to their wealth they need to first deny the science. To the other side of the fight, the science is just seized upon opportunistically to sell their own agenda -- and, what I hope we all realize, will continue to be their goals with or without climate change.

Climate Change as a result of human activity is real. The data has been checked numerous times by parties that have nothing to do whatsoever with the UN, including a Republican congressional study that threw every serious attempt at debunking it they could scrape together in 2005-2006(?), and was only able to find mild criticisms. THAT is why there has been no serious legislative debate about it since then, and it has nothing to do with the UN. There has been plenty of debate on awful treaties like Kyoto and stealth tax schemes like carbon trading, but these are only attached to the science of global climate change by political association. Give it up already. Science is not a left-right issue, it's simply data points quantifying a certain aspect of reality. If it makes you feel any better, those melting ice shelves are finished and we are getting hit with the results no matter what we do or don't do -- and it's going to be a gradual change, plenty of time for human civilization to adapt. The end of the world will have to wait for something better to come along.

Ontario politicians understand economics very well, which is why they launched the green energy spending program. The problem is that "green energy" has nothing to do with the public's best interests, but rather their own interests. "Green energy", as known in Ontario, is essentially a tax fund for elite-connected contractors, developers and investors. Calling it "green" or "renewable" is just marketing to taxpayers -- nuclear power is green and renewable, but that's no good; the point isn't to deliver inexpensive power infrastructure, it's to make sure a gigantic political empire criss-crossed with contractors and policy elite stakeholders gets a piece of the trough. Well, guess what, the era of invented wealth is coming to an end and soon the Canadian economy will be so marginal that it will no longer be able to support these political employment and contractor empires.

No, I'm not. Business management does include a compnent of organizational management, but this is very superficial in regards to being a mayor, as the mayor has an office and a staff with experienced managers. Two decades of local journalism, however, means spending a whole generation tied to the politcal pulse of the city, or at least to it's power-players and opinion leaders. It's hearing both sides on politcal issues, and navigating city's political landscape. It's witnessing many of the real-world issues facing people in the city. It provides the training in charisma and public speaking to be taken seriously. It builds a large database of local history. Again, this is virtually self-evident, and I don't see how a rational person could conclude working as a manager consultant for a few years with large international government enterprises that spend more money than they know what to do with on people like Nenshi is a better credential for being a mayor over 20 years of local journalism. It absurd on it's face, and I can only conclude you are simply being contrary in a misplaced desire to "win" an argument.

I don't consider it a good qualifying credential. Merely, it's a better credential than Nenshi's, and the reason for that is self-evident.

Of course not. We are having a forum discussion, not a debate, and so a great deal of logical formalities can be done away with for the sake expediency; I will just say for the purpose of this thread that it is virtually self-evident that 20 years of local journalism is a better crendtial for a mayor than a few years working in a large multi-national management consulting firm and teaching a non profit management course. Furthermore, I will suggest that any denial of this is probably not rational, unless a rational argument can be made to the opposite. Telling me that declaring something doesn't make it so is simply a comment, not an argument.

Obviously not. But being a part of the public political landscape in Calgary for over 20 years by itself makes her a better candidate than Nenshi, all else being equal. It's really beyond any rational debate. Any further attempt to deny this fact is really just promoting a desire to be "right", and for me to be "wrong"....unless you or someone else can put forward a rational argument that can make a few years working as a management consultant working for non-Canadian corporations and teaching a course on non profit management trump over two decades of journalism in Calgary.

Nenshi spent 7-8 years in university in which he gravitated to non-profit organization management (ie, taxpayer funds, either directly or via grants from other instituions) and earned a degree in that very field from Harvard, was taken in immediately upon graduation by a company that hires new graduates from prestigious business schools, where he worked with governmental industries (banking, oi, etc) which are the traditional clients of management consulting firms, and then later went on to start his own firm (what white-collars do when they work as contractors) and teach non profit management. In other words, he has about as much credentials to run for Mayor as you or I. His "credentials" are extremely typical of a lifestyle university elite from Canada, and in no way differentiates him from that clique of people. They are, almost literally, a group of people who have formed a sub-culture of entitlment to the public purse, and to a certain lifestyle they are accustomed to. If he is exceptional in any way, it's the fact that he's ended u in the limelight, as his type of elite usually end up in the rear echelons of government management.

The immigrant vote in 2007, another Muslim by the way, was only 35k. So 105k additional voters for a dopey-looking visibile minority nobody Muslim with no credentials except being a university lifestyle elite and no message that isn't utterly generic going up against candidates with a long history, and much more powerful personalities. I understand the country we live in, and how we shouldn't expect anyone to perform a demographic breakdown of the voters, but let's be perfectly and brutally honest -- if it's not his personality, if it's not his politics, what could possibly energize an additional 105k voters to come out and vote for him? It's simply who he is -- a visible minority and Muslim. I don't discount the youth vote, as the "youth" in Canada's urban centers are just a bunch of ethno-centric cliques of visibile minorities. Would the "youth" in Calgary to the tune of 105k turn out to vote just because someone on Facebook tweeted them to? That's utterly absurd.

There seems to be a great deal of celebration over the fact that a large immigrant voting bloc mobilized to defeat the majority of Calgary voters who split their vote between two conservative candidates. Wouldn't that normally be seen in a negative light? Or are we to believe the laughable fiction that a virtual nobody, a typical example of a young university elite with a silver spoon stuck in his mouth without even a small ability to be taken seriously as a public figure, energized a huge and dormant voting block of Calgary liberals to suddenly find a mission and march to the polls to stick it to the conservatives and shatter the imgage of their city?

DON'T BE FOOLED! Ontario's "green" energy plan has nothing to do with reducing emissions. If the government was even a little bit interested in lowering emissions, they would have had scrubbers installed in coal-fired plants. Better yet, they could have increased nuclear generation and eliminate emissions altogether while giving Ontario an abundance of electricity to use and to sell on the market. The OPA's website basically states that the feed in teriff, what is under discussion here, is for the benefit of "entrepreneurs and businesses". What's an "entrepreneur"? That would be Schneider Power, as one example, who will shortly begin construction of a 10 MW solar farm. Wow! How much of a dent in coal-burning generation does this represent? Rounded down, coal-fired generation in Ontario is about 6,500 MW. Are you paying attention? That's 0.15%. That's a completely insignificant amount. A hundred such solar farms would be required to discplace just 15% of coal, and once you add oil/gas, it's even more absurd. Of course, the 10MW probably refers to peak capacity, which will rarely be fulfilled in our climate and geographical location. If referring to average capacity then the project will be much larger than similar projects in better locations. So if it's not about emissions, what could possibly induce the government to give public funds to "entrepreneurs and businesses" far in excess of the commercial price of power? Well, who benefits from it? It's certainly not the tax-payers. The polar caps are doomed regardless of what we do, but even for feel-good reasons, the actual amount of carbon emissions that stand to be impacted are completely marginal and will probably amount to zero as it's probably not feasible to reduce coal-fired generation by fractions of a percent per generating station. The elite business players on Schneider Power's management team certainly do, and looking at their profiles at http://www.schneiderpower.com/management gives us a clue as to what kind of people they rub shoulders with. When people talk about "activists", someone like Thomas Schneider doesn't come to mind. Or what about Sky Generation's Glen Estill, another brilliant light of eco "entrepreneurship" -- I fear I won't be able to make enough sarcasm drip from the word to do it justice -- and his couple of wind turbines? A board member and once president of government-connected "non for profit" group of renewable energy businesses, who ALSO found himself representing his own company on the government's Ontario Wind Power Task Force. Yes, you heard that right! The CEO of a wind energy company was put on a government task force to make recommendations to the government for spending tax dollars on wind energy! That's an absurd abuse, an insane conflict of interest. It goes on and on, but I've already spent enough time on this and I hope you all get the point: renewable energy, carbon emissions -- all just an excuse to for business as usual, putting tax dollars into the pig through and the pockets of government offices and the biosphere of the Canadian elite entitlement regime. We are living in a banana republic.

Well, thank God for small mercies I say. However, don't for a moment think they've given up on the revenue -- they'll get it elsewhere. But at least the political backlash from a stealth tax innitiative left a mark. Why does it take bad poll results to be even minimally aware of the cheating and lying McGuinty's band of goons have been all about? In a functioning democracy, government leadership knows that people don't like taxes, and absolutely will not accept one foisted on them via underhanded methods.

The CBC cannot be compared to any American news network for one reason: Political motives. In the US, there is a great deal of effort and money spent on managing the opinions of voters, while in Canada there is much less of that simply because the American system has more fear of the general populace than the Canadian system does. American news media tries to sell viewpoints and attitudes to people. In Canada, media elite simply promote their own sub-cultural and institutional agendas as opposed to receiving marching orders from a political apparatus; there may be individual examples of government figures influencing the message, but this would be an informal arrangement. While US news media tries to package a message, the CBC simply promotes topics of interest to the CBC. The CBC supports the Liberals as their main benefactors, and they spend a tremendous amount of resources on foreign topics -- the later is not connected with the former, it's simply a manifestation of the narrow interests of a "Canadian" staff that is increasingly from non-Canadian ethnic groups. It's rather telling that the young Canadians working their way into the CBC would rather produce foreign content than Canadian content. I remember a time many years ago in which the CBC was essentially a pro-Canada propaganda source, with a lot of shows and stories about Canada. Now, when we look at CBC documentaries this is what we see: DIET FOR A HUNGRY PLANET "Hosted by Anna Maria Tremonti, the series highlights some of The Current's coverage of food issues affecting Canadians and people around the world. From the safety of our food supply to the soaring costs of staples like wheat, corn and rice to what we grow" Nice of them to add Canadians to that list to give it some kind of legitimacy for a tax-funded Canadian media outlet. Does anyone care enough about what this woman has to say to give her a separate show on this topic? DISPATCHES "Dispatches host Rick MacInnes-Rae knows what it is like to be an eyewitness to history. Go beyond the headlines with correspondents on assignment all over the globe." So some guy sampling the hospitality industry all over the world reporting on foreign news? I spent a lot of time outside of the country over the last few years for work, can I get a show on the CBC talking about the stuff I saw? Would that be of interest to Canadians? DOC ZONE "CBC's flagship documentary series presents a sweeping panoramic view of what matters most to Canadians." Some Canadian content, let's take a look..."The Twins Who Share a Brian", complete with image. This garbage is "what matters most to Canadians" ? Okay, just bad luck, what else in the DOC ZONE could be "what matters most to Canadians"? Let's list all of the upcoming episode topics in order from top to bottom as they appear on the page as of the time of this post: 1. INDIA REBORN "An array of charismatic characters introduces you to the world's newest superpower. Experience the rich tapestry of India's ancient myths played out against the modern might of this sprawling, diverse democracy." So India is now a superpower, definitely an alert worthy of Canada's full undivided attention and a topic of natural interest to Canadians. To make sure the full import of "superpower" is put across, the image is that of an Indian industrial worker laboring at what appears to be some sort of highly modern steelworks with sparks spraying dramatically. The fact that the world's latest superpower is buying far fewer cars this year than Canada will be explained I'm sure. 2. AFRICA ON THE MOVE "A dazzling four-part documentary series that captures the vibrancy of Africa's diverse people and rich cultures. We'll meet men and women, many of them young, who embody the amazing changes occurring on a daily basis across 53 countries." Wow what a treat for Canadians! Having actually been to Africa myself just this year and finding at least the little piece I was exposed to an utter hole of poverty and corruption, I would definitely like to see the daily changes taking place, and I'm sure my fellow Canadians share my keen interest in this topic which "matters most" to us. 3. SURVIVING THE FUTURE "Today's visions of the future both utopian and apocalyptic. From scientists striving to create the world of tomorrow to corporations thriving on the status quo, and the citizens and consumers in between, we ask a simple and profound question: Can our high-tech civilization survive the 21st century?" A simpleton editorial is certainly a topic Canadians care about -- definitely some of us anyway! From the blurb it sounds like Canadians will finally get an unbiased, fair, level-headed and scientific view of this question. Is there any legitimate reason for the CBC to exist in its current form? Or at all?

How any rational adult with the power of free thought can believe the CBC is not a statist-leftist organization which clearly delivers spin from that perspective is completely beyond me. In terms of straight informational stories, the CBC is a little shallow but general unbiased in terms of a slant unless on a subject that directly concerns them or the image of the Liberals and Conservatives. The most glaringly obvious examples are from their documentaries and editorials. Such as this documentary right on the front page: INDIA REBORN "Chart the kaleidoscopic rise of one of the world's emerging superpowers." Why is a laudatory "documentary" concerning India of interest to Canadians? INFLUENZA "Battling The Last Great Virus" Mentions Canada getting bird flu, but not how few other countries managed that honor.

Immigration into Canada is the single most destructive factor facing our nation and whatever is left of the "Canadian people". Mass immigration has formed insular enthno-religious polities within our democracy which have attained political supremacy, virtually hijacking what little democracy we had and using those levers to get more immigration through the door.

I have nothing whatsoever to do with the climate change circus -- a spectacle of one side denying the science with all their might, and the other side calling them stupid without a real clue in their heads as to what it is they supposedly believe in. Since I don't deny the science AND understand the actual scientific analysis of the data I can't deny, I can only come to the conclusion that climate change is largely irrelevant to me, and entirely outside of my control. If you're conservative, you're efforts are much better directed towards working on ways to destroy the pig trough government structure, because that is the only way you will get to take back your wealth, freedoms and opportunities -- denying science will get you none of the things that matter. Making the science be wrong as some kind of test of conservatism is silly. Once we are all in control of our own wealth, we can review the climate change issue with detached, clinical care and decide as tax-payers what kind of actions, if any at all, we will take. If the tax-payers don't want to spend on climate change, then the other side can work on convincing them otherwise, and "you're stupid" will not be a very convincing argument. Right now, no matter how hard you scream in defiance of it, the government empire will simply continue to take, right or wrong, glaciers or no glaciers.

Harris? Cutting welfare payments was pretty nice, but social assistance is just a tiny percentage of the welfare tax-payers have to support. Going after bums apparently is easier than going after monstrous over-employment in the government and public service corporations -- but a minuscule cut is better than no cut at all. Income tax cuts were good, but the Health Levy was bizarre. Laying off the nurses felt good, like a small glimmer of justice was being done. Closing the hospitals was bizarre. Once again, image over results; instead of addressing the real failure, taking a shot at an easily-targeted sector of the massive welfare bureaucracy. Amalgamation did nothing except be a money sink for the welfare bureaucracy. But what we really remember this guy for? The P word. Selling off public infrastructure -- taking that pig trough Ontario Hydro and transforming it into multiple ravenous lifestyle employment centers. Selling the 407. Ontario's main industry now is supporting the elite welfare empire, and the system will not accept any changes to that. Expect no help from Hudak, but at least feeling good about having a nominally conservative premier is better than suffering under a fat Liberal party gorged on public funding for another term.

The Ontario hydro generation companies are like any other of our public service corporations -- simply jobs programs for a minority elite, with the actual service to the public being an incidental byproduct of making sure a government-employed class enjoys a comfortable lifestyle. Over the last 10 years, the Ontario power "industry" has spent far and away more on employment in relation to its actual expansions in production and distribution. How many of you understand this crucial point -- the fact that we have a minority class of elites who literally leech a highly paid, comfortable lifestyle off of our most important infrastructure? How many of you, furthermore, understand that the smart meters and the other garbage programs that were a part of the province's power initiative was just simply a grab for cash to put into the pockets of government offices and related contractors? The requirement for the spending was brought to the table due to projected shortages of Ontario's grid, and the solution they decided on was to refurbish some nukes and bring some gas-fired generation on line. Somebody tried to scam their way into getting rid of our coal-fired plants perhaps to get more money for the corrupt contractors or gas market players, but thank God for small mercies. Bruce Power would end up squandering much of the funding on a jobs programs for elites, but Ontario would get the nukes. But we can't have spending in this province (or Canada in general for that matter) before making sure a sufficiently wide cross-section of the bureaucracy gets a piece of the action, leading to a tax-payer bonanza for government contractors and various government offices, hence the smart meters. The smart meters are completely absurd and serve no purpose to consumers of electricity, same as all the "education" programs. All the money that goes into the employment pig trough COULD have went into building more capacity allowing us to sell to the US and drive down our rates. The solution? Our government culture is completely incapable of operating in any other mode, so we need to take the power grid out of their hands. As Ontario tax-payers, let's issue a contract request for power production, distribution and services to the international market and then vote on the most competitive contracts. Let's fire heifers like Bruce and bring in companies that can give nuclear to the masses at bottom prices. Let's retire the energy debt by giving the well-to-do sacred cow jobs program class their retirement. No more subsidies for wind -- if your wind turbines can't compete with other forms of generation why on Earth would we pay a premium for them? No more free ride for corrupt gas market players. If we do manage to overcome the immigrant vote in the next election and force someone to keep a promise on lowering our energy costs, every .5 cents of rates that goes down, watch 100 times the screaming and crying for money from the power "industry" go up -- but please keep in mind that that "private" companies generally don't pay half or more of their employees over 100k a year as such a practice would lead to quick bankruptcy.

I know that what you are doing is trying to enforce a sense of optimism given your condition -- but if we had a medical care system that fostered a culture of CARE and spent money on cutting-edge equipment facilities and procedures instead of a massive Provincial jobs empire, there is a very good chance you would have been diagnosed earlier which in the case of cancer, could mean the difference between life and death. And frankly? If you were in such a critical state that you got an Ontario hospital to move as fast as 3 days on a triple bypass tells me you had suffered from an attack and every hour you spent without surgery was potentially life-threatening -- under those conditions, it's ABSURD it would take them 3 DAYS to operate on you.If you were my father I'd have you helicoptered to the States the the same moment they told me it'd take 3 DAYS to operate.

Whatever lets you deal with your cognitive dissonance. The Ontario hospitals I've been in have been decrepit cespools; and except a few late-night visits to a hospital in Ottawa many years ago, are stuffed to bursting with patients waiting for service. To crontrast this, the private hospital I've been to, http://www.aretaeio.com/ was very clean, tidy, and only lightly populated with patients. How they work is that you walk in, follow the signs to the wing that has the department you're looking for with a large information desk just past the front doors to direct visitors to where they need to go for a service. In every wing there is a check-in desk that services 4-6 rooms (facilities, doctors, etc). You go to the desk, and they'll give you a menu on lamenated cards on different types of procedures with the prices listed. Now I was in the diagnostics wing, and I don't know how many kinds of services they handle this way, but there was a menu for different levels of CT scans I mentioned earlier (I also saw CT scans advertised online, one clinic was offering a "full" job for around 1,000 Euros (about $1,200-$1,300). After choosing the procedure, you pay them or present your insurance card, and they give you a recipt. Then, if you don't have to wait, you simply walk into the room, and a doctor immediately services you -- they don't deal with payments at all, they are focused only on care; the fact that you are in their room is enough for them. The total experience is completely unlike anything I came to expect dealing with hospitals in Ottawa and the GTA; the stress level is 0, it takes something that I dreaded (going to the hospital) and turns it into an experience akin to going in to a garage to have an oil change. I've paid a significant chuck of my income my whole life into OHIP and federal taxes which has done nothing for me except produce trashy walk-in "clinics", one of which is disgusting and smells of urine. Thankfully I haven't required a serious medical procedure YET, but seeing how badly our medical care has degraded in terms of actual care and service level makes me nervous for the future. And some hospitals, namely that hellhole Credit Valley Hospital, is maybe good enough for sick old grandmothers from 3rd-world countries being brough tin on family sponsorship programs simply because people from 3rd-world crapholes don't have much expectation in the way of public healthcare to begin with, but do you want yourselves, or your parents to go be processed in a mill like that? I used to be generally against private healthcare in Canada -- a long time ago, but as I'm getting older, I'd gladly pay the double premium to at least have easy access to quality health care. If that won't happen, maybe I can look into some sort of insurance program that offers ambulance service to the States. I'm over the fact that my taxes have basically been going into job programs from a government employment empire, I just throw OHIP in with the other taxes now, and prepare myself mentally for the requirement to drop 10-20k in case I need to. I'm sorry that leaves Canadians with less means than I in the cespool, but if you guys want a change I'll back you up.

I've had the misfortune of experiencing 4 hospitals in Ontario, and they were without exception poor to abysmal Meanwhile in a small EU country I visted for work, I went to a PRIVATE hospital twice -- once for pain and once for a blood workup. The hospital had people in it, but not many, and both times I visited the wait time to get service was 0 mins for the blood and about 2 mins for a gp over the pain issue who was finishing up with another patient (referred to me by name by the hotel, my wait would have been 0 mins if I would have taken any doctor.) The doctor made me prescription and gave me his cell phone number in case I had trouble filling it, and told me that if I still couldn't get to sleep to call him and he'd send an ambulance and they'd put me to sleep in the hospital! For pain! Could you even conceive of a similar level of care in Canada -- let alone Ontario? For my blood workup was finished within 20 mins of stepping into the hospital and that includes the time taken to go over the workup options and pay for it. My results were ready for me the same day. Beside the blood lab was a ct scan facility - which was EMPTY with its door open waiting for someone to simply walk in! People walking into a toronto hospital complaining of CHEST PAINS might have to wait a day before they get diagnostics, nevermind a ct scan, but in this tiny EU nation with signifacntly less wealth than Canada have hospitals and diagnostic clincs that put you through a ct scan on demand! Do anyone of you pay attention how much ypu spend on OHIP payments? For WHAT?! It's utterly absurd Canada thinks this system is acceptable.