ceemes

Quebec seperation is really a non-issue. It makes for interesting press and next to hockey, it is Ottawa's and Quebec's favourite game. While the young and uneducated in Quebec may be pro-seperation, wiser head should prevail. Most pro-seperationist really haven't considered the actual cost to the Province and its people, nor have they thought it through clearly. They basically see an Indepenant Quebec through emotional eyes then cold hard logic. There are a number of issues they should look at, economic and territorial. The economic issues are vast. First there is Quebecs portion of Canada's national debt. Quebecers whether they like it or not, own a share of the national debt and have benefitted from it. If the province does go its own way, then they will have to take with it their fair share of that debt. Also, many Canadian companies have their head offices based in Quebec and a fair number of them threatened to pull out lock, stock and barrel during the last referrendum had it gone Yea. This would of lead to a massive loss of employment, tax revenues and business a new nation would need. In the Hull region, the economic impact would be immence, given that many of its people earn their living working for the Federal Government in Ottawa. I doubt that the Canadian Government would be all that thrilled to have new foreigners working in the halls of Parliment. Quebec has also enjoyed great largress from Federal spending, especially in Defence and Space Agencies. Are large amount of Canadian defence spending is funneled into Quebec, including the maintenance of the CF-18's, construction of the Halifax Class Frigettes, and if I am not mistaken, Quebec has the largest supply depot of goods and munitions for the CAF. Going independent would mean losing those contracts and jobs. Territorially, there are a number of issues, namely the Eastern Townships and the First Nations lands. During the last referrendum, the First Nations people of Quebec stated that they would seperate from Quebec in favour of Canada. And Canada would be honour and treaty bound to protect the interests and lands of the Quebec First Nations people. Also, I believe that the Eastern Townships and surrounding lands were granted to Quebec when it joined Confederation, if Quebec goes its own way, those lands should be returned to Canada. In short, an indepenant Quebec would only be entitled to the land it originally held prior to joining Confederation. In short, Seperation would be a costly mistake for Quebec and in the end it would most likely fail as a nation. Also, IMHO, Parizeau is as much yesterdays man in Quebec as either Mulrooney or Joe Clarke is in the rest of Canada.

Actually, you are incorrect about paper being a dying industry because of the PC boom. The fact is, the PC boom is the best thing that has happened to the paper industry since the Gutenberg press. When PC's hit the market place and invaded the workplace, pundits predicted the beginning of the paperless office, when in fact the PC's actually drove the demand for paper up ten fold. What is hitting the Canadian Pulp and Paper industry in the goolies is cheaper paper coming out of Russia and China. While I was at school, I did a market study of the pulp industry and one of the shocking findings I came across was that in a ten year period, China went from being one of the largest net importers of raw pulp and finished paper to a net exporter, and had grabbed a large part of BC's Asia Pacific markets. Russian producers have bough a large number of pulp and paper processing plants along with lumber processing mills and equipment from Canadian manufacters. Russia has now started haversting the vast Siberian forest regions and flooding the market with cheap pulp and finished lumber. Another hit our lumber industry took was from Europe and its Evironmental Standards in regards to finished lumber products. It now cost more for Canadian producers to produce lumber for the European markets. And given BC's Pine Beetle infestion, you really cannot blame the Euro's for wanting to protect their own strands of standing lumber. Also, the Scandivain nations have ramped up their own production of finished lumber and pulp and see Europe as their natual market. The US is Canada's natural market for both pulp and paper and finished lumber, and indeed US end users prefer the Canadian product to the US product for a number of reasons. However, US producers want to protect that market as their own and shut out Canadian producers at all costs. And the Bush/Cheney Administration is supporting their efforts, giving lie to the Administrations claims to be pro-free trade.

Good point. I don't think you hear about much of his (Kerry too) rants on the CBC....... I find it odd how most left wingers, who are anti Bush and pro Kerry/Edwards don't see the damage that these two could do to our country if elected. I also find it odd how some left wingers wish us to stop trading as much with the United States, but when a Canadian company decides to go overseas to a country that we have no real relationship with (Poland) they get up in arms over the potentail loss of 2000 Canadian jobs...........You think 2000 job losses are bad, let's see what would happen if Kerry/Edwards get elected and start to "renegotiate" our trade deals............. I see it as lesser of two evil. Kerry/Edwards are very protectionist when it comes to trade, and that does not bode well for Canada. However, I see Bush/Cheney as the bigger threat to trade overall. While they are pro-trade and advocate the expansion of NAFTA to include other Central and South American nations, their foreign and militarlism policies threatens world wide stability and peace and could easily choke world wide trade to death. I believe that Canada can weather a Kerry/Edwards administration, but I am not sure the world can survive another 4 years of Bush/Cheney. Also, for all they pro-trade/free trade words, the Bush/Cheney Administration has prove to be very protectist in their own right.

Canada is by Treaty mandated to supplying the US with all the oil it demand during times of emergency, even if it means that Canadians go without. Basically in the very unlike event that all other oil producers declare a total oil embargo on North America, Canada is required by law to suppliment the US even if it means Canadians are left shivering in the dark. Whoever agreed to and signed this deal with the US is little more then a traitor to Canada and should be dragged out into the street and strung up by his neck at the first available lamp post or tree.

The new arms race has already started, North Korea has restarted its nuclear arms programme, China is actively seeking a true blue water navy, including nuclear powered hunter-killer and SLBN subs, along with a true sea lift capability. Pakistan and India have not abated their arms programmes, and even Canada is increasing its combat arms capabilities. England is looking at building a number of fleet class aircraft carriers in tandem with France. Iran has developed and is building its own home grown MBT and combat aircraft, and may or may not be developing nuclear weapons. Already, Iran has a nuclear capabily ballistic missile that can reach Israel. Sadly, the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes has galvinized the worlds middle powers to seeks the ways and means to blunt US military might. Sadly, I believe that Canada has to follow the same road. We have to rearm and rebuild our forces so that they are a creditable threat to any and all powers that may have ill intentions towards us or might harbour ideas of making some grabs of our northern territories. (Right now both the US and IIRC Denmark are both making grabs at Canada's northern terrory) This would include devoloping our own arms industry to design and build the equipment all branches of the Forces require. I would also like to see the size of the forces increased by at least a factor of 10, ideally adopting a system much like Switzerland has where every person (males and females..anyone who think women cannot function in the combat arms is sadly mistaken) who is physically and mentally fit and is between the ages of 18 to 55 has to be an active member of either the regular or reserve force. Of course this is politically unacceptable to most Canadians. The RCN needs more ships, especially vessels capable of patrolling and defending our artic seas, which I guess means nuclear powered hunter-killer class of sub. The RCAF need to be brought up to at least the levels of aircraft and manpower we had during the 1950's. This will mean more fighters and bombers. The army has its own needs which are glaringly apparent. One thing I would love to see is the junking of the Canadian version of the M-16 and the adoption of a rifle with a little more punch and relability. Also, JTF2 should be built up to at least Battalion levels in order to address Terrorism threats. When the Soviet Union collapsed, we had a small window of opportunity to rebuild the world for the better. We failed, and now we have to build the weapon and defence systems required to stand on our own two feet and to meet any and all threats we may face.

The new arms race has already started, North Korea has restarted its nuclear arms programme, China is actively seeking a true blue water navy, including nuclear powered hunter-killer and SLBN subs, along with a true sea lift capability. Pakistan and India have not abated their arms programmes, and even Canada is increasing its combat arms capabilities. England is looking at building a number of fleet class aircraft carriers in tandem with France. Iran has developed and is building its own home grown MBT and combat aircraft, and may or may not be developing nuclear weapons. Already, Iran has a nuclear capabily ballistic missile that can reach Israel. Sadly, the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes has galvinized the worlds middle powers to seeks the ways and means to blunt US military might. Sadly, I believe that Canada has to follow the same road. We have to rearm and rebuild our forces so that they are a creditable threat to any and all powers that may have ill intentions towards us or might harbour ideas of making some grabs of our northern territories. (Right now both the US and IIRC Denmark are both making grabs at Canada's northern terrory) This would include devoloping our own arms industry to design and build the equipment all branches of the Forces require. I would also like to see the size of the forces increased by at least a factor of 10, ideally adopting a system much like Switzerland has where every person (males and females..anyone who think women cannot function in the combat arms is sadly mistaken) who is physically and mentally between the ages of 18 to 55 has to be an active member of either the regular or reserve force. Of course this is politically unacceptable to most Canadians. The RCN needs more ships, especially vessels capable of patrolling and defending our artic seas, which I guess means nuclear powered hunter-killer class of sub. The RCAF need to be brought up to at least the levels of aircraft and manpower we had during the 1950's. This will mean more fighters and bombers. The army has its own needs which are glaringly apparent. One thing I would love to see is the junking of the Canadian version of the M-16 and the adoption of a rifle with a little more punch and relability. Also, JTF2 should be built up to at least Battalion levels in order to address Terrorism threats. When the Soviet Union collapsed, we had a small window of opportunity to rebuild the world for the better. We failed, and now we have to build the weapon and defence systems required to stand on our own two feet and to meet any and all threats we may face.

The so-called Nation Missile Defence programme that Bush is pushing is little more then a relic of the Cold War. It is made some sense back in the days of the 60's to early 90's, but fails to adress the threats and issues we face today. As far as I can see, the only reason to pursue this programme is to transfer hard earned dollars out of the pockets of the tax payers and into the pockets of the Aerospace weapons industries. The threats we are facing today are not the same threats we faced back in the bad old days of the cold war. Back then we fought or rather defended against nations with differing ideologies who used basically the same weapons and political systems as we did. The nuclear threat has not gone away by any stretch of the imagination, however there has been a fundamental shift in the types of people who would use such weapons against us. They are no longer nation states relying on missiles, bombers and standing armies to fight their battles, but rather small groups of ideological partisans who use unconventional methods of attack and delivery. If a nuclear weapon was to be used against a North American city in the next 20 years, odds are it will not be delivered via an ICBM or conventional bomber, odds are it will be delivered via civilian channels, ie freighters, tankers, or a civil airliner. That is where the missile defence funding should be directed, at the real threat of terrorist dealing a nuke via UPS, COD. One thing that does bother me about Bush's plan is that he has yet to say who he would share the technology (if it ever works that is) with. Reagan to his credit did address the real fears the Soviet Union had about Star Wars, that it would allow the US to have a first strike capability, by promising to share the system with them. Basically promising that not only the west would be protected from a Soviet first strike, the the Soviets would be protected from a first strike from the west. Bush has yet to make such a promise to the remain nuclear powers such as China and Russia, which will could lead to a use them or lose them sceneio. As with most of Bush's policies, this one has not be well thought out.