fellowtraveller

Jumping the gun..... much as I think Chretien was one of the very worst PMs we've ever had, it is also quite possible that if his medical condition was critical, he could be operated on very quickly. The very thing(medical emergency) has happened to myself, my son and my father for assorted surgery that could not wait. The longest wait was for my father to get a large tumour, one kidney and his spleen out, and he waited six days after being diagnosed. My wait was 2 days and my son was immediate. NOne of us have any pull, and yes we all live in Canada.

No, it's a typical first past the post system, without party politics. It is not as romantic as you would hope. With about 43,000 population the NWT has four distinct levels of government and an absolutely absurd number of civil servants. Government is easily the #1 industry, with govts at the federal, territorial, civil levels and a burgeoning network of Forst Nations governments. It's a growth industry, and almost everything is funded ultimately by Canadian taxpayers.

Your thinking that your condemnation or your approval of another persons life choice is relevant to other people is typical of the profound arrogance of the "ProLife" side. Allowing a woman to choose not to carry a child to term does not interfere with your choice in any way. Denying all women the right to choose does interfere with their right to control their own uterus. It is not yours to control, but theirs. The only surprising thing about this thread is how long it took to hear about God and praying.

The 'two sides' are this in Canada: - you can choose not to have an abortion - you can choose to have an abortion , or not have an abortion. I'll take the latter.

And that comes to the crux of the issue, with all the emotion-heavy rhetoric - like the word 'kill' You consider any two or more cells to be a baby. I don't. I'm not killing 'someone' by flushing those cells out of my body. Every sperm is not sacred. I have no problem with a woman choosing to eliminate a fetus at any time up to the point where it will be a viable human. I have no problem with a woman choosing to end a pregnancy where a child carried to term wil have no quality of life, or where her life is endangered. And yes, women do have the 'right' to control their reproduction. And I'm glad that I live in this country, where the majority of the population agree with me.

And I also think that terms like 'Third Way' and 'a New Ambivalence' are more examples of the anti-abortion groups attempting to take further control of the language of the debate. Lets call it something other than 'Pro Life', that one is getting stale....... Most people will not be fooled by this, any more than creationist introducing the intellectually slimy 'intelligent design' red herring were. If you don't want an abortion, then don't get one. In the meantime, get out of my life.

In my view, there is extremism - but it is one sided. There is no plural to 'extremist' in this argument. One side insists on "The Right to Life", that every fetus is a human being from conception, that every cluster of sells has an absolute right to live. One of the greatest tools that this faction has commandeered is the language: to choose life implies the other side chooses death, which is false. The 'other side' does not insist that humans - women in particular- are limited to carrying any fetus to term. The 'pro-choice side' premise is that a woman has the right to control her reproductive choices, that she is permitted to choose to carry the fetus to term, or abort. I find this offer of choice to be entirely reasonable. Having the oportunity and/or inclination to abort does not translate to automatic abortion. I think you will find many millions of people that support a womans right to choose have children, children they chose to carry to term. But every sperm is not sacred.

Talk to Mike, Scott SA, or one of his many neighbours in the biz. He loves the pensioners: they show up, they don't grumble. they don't steal and they rarely smoke themselves into an inability to clean and package the product.

Big, big trouble on the left coast of Canuckistan! Most of the people who will suffer from this disaster will defintiely not be able to collect employment insurance. This isn't just potheads, it is a seriously large cash business. Anecdote: in the Vernon/Lumby region, pensioners are hired by grow-ops at harvest time to process weed. $15/hour cash, no tax.

Neighbourhoods just disintegrate when Global Warning moves in. Next thing you know, it takes over the schools and renames them madrassas. I blame Al Gore, first he invents the Internet, then he invents Global Warning. The man is a plague on humanity.

Baloney. Harpers base may be in the West, but he can still get away, more or less, with whatever it takes to get a majority govt. He is in absolutely no danger of losing his base- at this time. I encourage everybody to vote for the Greens, since every vote for them comes from either the NDP or Liberals. It doesn't cost the Tories anything.

Indeed. Dion is about half an inch away from getting backstabbed into retirement. Duceppe is desperate to lead the Bloc into half the seats they have now, then he can quit. Layton is strong, but the NDp will remain more or less irrelevant, mired in their traditional 4th place. Big surplus, success in the Quebec byelections, facing another round of byelections where the Libs will win 3 out of 4......why wouldn't Harper engineer a non-confidence vote? All he has to do is something that will enrage the Libs into voting against him, and he has a few: Afghanistan, immediate Senate reform, big tax cuts..... Tories have money, opportunity and weak opposition. Election this fall.

Is that the same as throwing up?

I can understand a billion or two, but I've been overtaxed $13 billion. That is ridiculous, I'm not in the banking business and don't have the inclination to continaully extend personal loans to my government. Give me back my share, now. Then reduce taxes to realistic levels.

I think I could take a dozen or so immediately, maybe 20 more in a few months. Ship them COD to Alberta.

That is a question that cannot be answered by the Liberals until they do some polling. They'll pick whatever is popular at the moment, a particularly nasty habit that has finally been noticed by at least some of the electorate.

I don't want to read too much into byelections, but.... Harper must be thinking of forcing a general election this fall. The Bloc is in disarray and now have lost a strong seat to Harper. The Liberals are even worse, with infighting after losing Outremont, a sLberal stronghold, and finishing a distant and weak third in the other two ridings. The NDP don't matter, as usual. What holds him back? If he waits, the inevitable scandal and hateful media will eventually catch up and damage him. The liberal Senate will continue to confound him. At worst, he could easily win another minority, and if he continues to play Duceppe and Dion as puppetmaster - perhaps a majority.

Oh, isn't that actually the spin Mcguinty has been giving? Everyone knows it? What a load of crap. Edmonton Public has allowed faith based schools within the public system and funded with public moneyfor a long time and the system has thrived. Not survived, not endured, but thrived. There have been no ghettoes created. Any kid can go to any public school in Alberta(space permitting). Alberta students always finish at the top in Canadian achivement testing and near the top in global testing. Your fearmongering and disinformation won't change the realities. I think we have many apologists and defenders of the Ontario Catholic boards here. Talk about 'spin'.......... Hats off to the Vatican for this campaign of ignorance.

What would you expect Harper to do about the US economy? The 'manufacturing section' are the ones responsible for doing something about the 'manufacturing section'. They could start by making products that people want to buy.

I don't understand this comment. I thought Tory wanted to include all faiths and ethnicities in the existing public system. That is the antithesis of segregation.

Keep believing that. Please.

I didn't say they did, I told you that they were the main reason behind the big bump in sales and prices. News flash: people can move without buying a house.... And who do you think is moving back to SK and Manitoba? Skilled workers who command a big buck in trades in AB and BC, or people who just can't make enough to thrive because they have no skills? And would those folks be more likely to rent or buy in SK. Or, just ask any realtor in saskatoon where all the gravy is coming from. He or she will tell you what I just did.

Nope. The single biggest factor in the leap in Saskatoon prices has been Alberta investors buying houses that can still show a positive or even neutral cash flow. Those days are pretty much gone in Alberta, but still possible in some parts of SK. Don't believe me, ask any realtor there. Much the same in the Okanagan for recreation properties and much of Vancouver Island.

It's the assless chaps that really gets those lariats twirling. Or so I'm told.

Interesting. At the local uni (U of A) there about 35,000 fulltime students. Divide the operating budget by 35k and it works out to around $16k per person. Average tuition is around $6k, so roughly $10k per student per year is paid for by taxpayers. The uni does have some small ouside revenues, so make that around $9k per student. gc asks a pertinent question: does the $5k cover the cost of instruction? What portion of the uni budget goes to research, and should students be funding any portion of that, if in fact they are?