Queenmandy85

I agree we should have a viable military, one that can defend the nation. Political reality means Canadians do not want to pay for it nor serve in it in sufficient numbers. I strongly disagree with the OP regarding population. I would like to see the population reduced to 15 million. Obviously,that is about as realistic as having a strong military. The essence of Canada is our unspoiled wilderness. 32 million people are too many to sustain that.

To Civis Romanus Sum: I would think you feel the same about Roman Catholics. Their theology is anti-female and their terrorist activity has resulted in hundreds of deaths, including a cousin or two. That being said, the Protestant terroists have killed a couple of other cousins. However, I know a lot of Protestants, Catholics and Muslims. Nice people on the whole. They don't ascribe to woman hating or terrorism. I blame jerks. Why don't we send in our token armed forces to kill jerks every where. Good luck with that, CRS. You don't like people who hate. Look in the mirror.

Canada has no military to speak of. If you cannot defend your country, your defence budget is a waste of money. Canadians do not want to spend the money required to have an effective military.

The ideal politician should be a person of eminent stature who seeks public office to serve the nation. To get there, he must spend $50,000 to $100,000 to get nominated, then quit work for one or two years to campaign to get a job that pays a quarter of his previous salary. While campaigning and then, if successful, serving, every moment of your professional and personal life, and your family members' lives, are hung out for public viewing after having been twisted into half truths and out right lies. Everyone thinks they are your boss and you are viewed as a thief and a liar. You work 16 hours a day, seven days a week without thanks from the people you serve. You visit a campus or community function and who picks up the tab for coffee and donuts? You do. You are expected to buy a dozen raffle tickets while you listen to people call you names. You have an expense account that covers a tenth of your expenses if you are careful. In the end, you get sick of it, or your constituents get sick of you, you get a pension. It won't come close to making up what you have sacrificed in the service of your neighbours. I've known a dozen cabinet ministers and a couple of dozen backbenchers. I've danced with Flora MacDonald, sipped beer with George Hees and had Maureen McTeer cheer me up after Joe Clark lost to Brian M. Most of our politicians are eminent people of stature who serve us, not for reward, but because it is the right thing to do. It is time to show some gratitude and cut them some slack. If we don't, we won't be able to recruit good honest and capable people.

One of the problems governments have had since the time of the pharaohs, where there is a lot of money, pirates will gather. Whether it was the suppliers for Commodore Anson's voyage, or the sponsorship program under the previous Liberal government. Where there is a lot of cash, pirates will move in to steal it. Government deal with a lot of cash, so that is where the thieves will gather. Like a famous bank robber once replied when asked why he robbed banks, "Because that's where the money is." It isn't the fault of any particular political party, it is simply a fact of life that we must constanly guard against.

As I said on another thread, Reefer, if you don't like Harper, just remember he is there because you didn't work hard enough to elect someone else. I hope you are out tonight, knocking on doors, and working the phones to get some one better elected.

Our politicians are a pretty good reflection of the voters. These people are our neighbours. If your Government is not up to snuff, it is your fault. You helped put them there. Either you voted for them or you did not work hard enough to elect some one better. How hard did you work to get a good candidate nominated. How many doors did you knock on to get a good candidate elected. How many people did you drive to the polls. How well did you get to know the person you were campaigning for. If you just go and vote and not take part in actually campaigning for an honest, decent intelligent candidate, then you damn well deserve the government you get.

It was Michael Volpe who observed that Prime Minister doesn't own the authority, he merely borrows it from the Crown. Authority is the right to make the decisions, power is the ability to carry them out. The PM has power but no authority. The Crown has all the authority but not the power. Only Parliament can vote money. As for becoming a dictator, the Prime Minister may give orders, but how does he enforce them? The wonderful thing about democracy, subordinates will carry out the boss's orders when they feel like it. If you look between the lines of the testimony at the Duffy trial, you can see it happening to Harper. Now that there is the smell of defeat, it will only get worse for him. There is a war going on between Novak and Tenike (please excuse the spelling, its late and the Riders just lost) in the PMO. Harper really doesn't have all that much power. Unless the polls shift dramatically, the PM (who ever that will be) will have even less.

We used to have a 'pairing' system. If you as a member of the governing party need to be away, I, as a member of an opposition party agree not to vote in your absence. It was a Liberal who forgot he was paired that brought down Arthur Meighen's Government. Is this pairing system no long used?

Just because you don't understand it, it doesn't mean the the rest of us share your confusion. The best way to overcome this inexperience is to chose a candidate, get them nominated and then work like heck to get them elected. Participate in the national party, get to know people and work hard to get the government you want. The 'rubber stamp' comment refers to most presidents in the democratic world who have the same powers and authority as our Queen. Germany is a prime example. The only difference for us is that a President would be far more expensive than the Queen of Canada, without the gravitas. Our Queen is costs less than the British Embassy in Paris. A President of Canada would likely cost upwards of half a million dollars in salary alone and perform the same ceremonial functions as the Queen.

The convention is, as I understand it, in a minority, the Governor General first asks the sitting Prime Minister if she can form a government that will have the confidence of the House. If she says no, the G then goes to the leader with the most seats. In the interview with Mansbridge, Harper said if he did not have the most seats, he "would not be Prime Minister." Today, on the cbc poll tracker, there are only six seats separating the NDP in the lead, and the Liberals in third place. The CPC is in the middle. I Love Politics.

The obvious solution is to nominate and campaign for independent candidates. If you work hard enough and convince enough voters your candidate is the best, she will win. Do this across the country and there will be no political parties. That is the best solution because it will be the will of the voters. Good luck with that.

In 1972, I was living in the student residences at U-Vic. We were watching the election results in the TV lounge and Trudeau was leading Stanfield by two seats. I said, if Stanfield wins, I'll buy pizza for everybody. Stanfield suddenly pulled ahead by two seats. I stalled as long as I could but the results stayed the same. I ordered two extra large pizzas and Trudeau pulled ahead. He won by two seats. It turned out that if fewer than one hundred people in key ridings across the country had voted PC instead of Liberal, Stanfield would have become Prime Minister. I said it is the Crown that appoints the Prime Minister, but it is the dedicated campaign workers in each riding getting out the vote that give the leader the seats to provide the seats to win the confidence of Parliament. Politics is Canada's national sport. If you don't campaign, don't complain.

Parliament does not pick the Government. The Government is appointed by the Crown. However, a government must have the confidence of Parliament in order to govern. A petty technicality, but I like petty technicalities.

The best way to reduce the population is to sterilize nine out of ten babies at birth, at random, and without telling anyone who is fertile and who isn't. Within three generations, the population would be below on billion and therefore viable. It will never happen.

I think the Tories will surge towards the end of the campaign. The shake up in the campaign staff will galvanize the team and focus on negative ads. Harper may even win more seats than Elizabeth May

When I saw the topic, I was going to respond with the Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwell.

Bush_Cheney 2004 wrote "It can't be that good...the Americans do not talk about "embracing" Canada's political system." That is because Americans are not as good at politics as Canadians. What Japanese and Germans are to engineering, and Americans are to marketing, Canadians are to politics. We have traditionally produced the best politicians in the world. If the Americans ever took us over, within eight years, the president would be a Canadian. (Not Cruz, however).

On the morning of the test at Alamogordo, NM, nobody,not even Oppenheimer, knew if it would work. Add to that, the fact that virtually no one in the army or government even knew of the Manhattan Project, so their planning was based on the strategy of invading the home islands of Japan. Not even Truman knew of the project until after he was sworn in as President.

I would think there are enough ISIS sympathizers in Europe already, the effort to smuggle a few thousand more wouldn't be worth it.

That's all fine and good, except the U.S.A. did not know if the nuclear weapons would actually work until July, 1945 with the first test. Until that moment, the Allies were expecting to invade the Japanese home islands resulting in the deaths of over a million Japanese and tens of thousands of Allied soldiers. Even then, the success of the invasion was not a sure thing. The forces of the communist Chinese were vital in the war against Japan.

On the contrary, I fully believe in the principle of MAD as a deterrent.

Excellent opening article by WIP. With the subsequent debate about who is the bad guy and the movement of tanks, ships and aircraft, an important point is overlooked. In a war between the west and Russia, the nuclear exchange would be over in less time than it takes to watch an episode of the Big Bang Theory, or roughly 20 - 25 minutes. Granted, it would take a day or two of conventional fighting to reach that point, but after that exchange, 95% of the earth's population would be dead. The remaining 5% would survive for another month at best. As President Kennedy put it during the Cuban Missile Crisis, "The fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth."

I could agree, provided the accused is willing to underwrite the cost of collecting and processing the evidence. Her lawyer would collect evidence on her behalf as it stands now. Fingerprints from the items you listed would be useless. Money would have blends of hundreds of prints, lifting prints off items such as condom wrappers is virtually impossible. DNA testing is very expensive and takes a long time. Ideally, cost should not enter into it, but in the real world, the taxpayers would balk at the massive increase in police budgets that you are calling for.

I favour a strong military in Canada. However, I am alone in this. Canadians do not want to spend the money to have a viable military. Therefore, if we are not going to have anything but a token force at a cost of over $20 billion, why bother having anything at all.