fellowtraveller

Is that some kind of Frenchie highway or something?

Not in Alberta, or at least not in our school district. And solicitation for a school sanctioned outing is very far indeed from religious solicitation. Do the schools allow the Muslims, Druids, Satan worshippers, Apple Corp or NAMBLA to send home literature too? Why not?

well, maybe. There was an indication that she may have been assaulted elsewhere and left in the elevator.Maybe in the hall. Maybe in her room, where her husband was allegedly sleeping. Maybe in another room. She has now regained conciousness, maybe she can solve the mystery soon.

with respect, so what? None of that has any impact on the flow of money. There are no consequences for bad management, and few consequences for good management. Please, let us not pretend that there is any sort of business acumen applied to the process by either side. That is why I wonder if there is any amount of money that is enough to fix the woes of First Nations?

Only part of that is true. They were unioniozed. They were not on contracts, personal service contracts for individuals are very unusual for government employees. They are very common elsewhere, like Australia, where civil servants rareky enjoy the kind of lifetime tenure our staff have come to enjoy.There is no legal agrrement not to lay people off, the civil service contrqcts basically define wages, benefits and working conditions. they do not guarantee a job. The govt certainly had the oppostunity to lay off staff, it has happened in both federal and provincial workforces and the unions can only bitch, bluff and bluster, which gets lost in the endless drone of bitching. What prevents management in govt- both senior staff and elected ministers- from layoffs is that there is no personal benefit to them for doing it. No bonus, no more votes and a certain risk that they will lose votes. Not only is there no incentive for lating off staff, there is no punishment for keeping them when they are not required. Being a bad manager has no consequences in the public service and often few consequences for Ministers either. There are no threats from whistleblowers when blowing that whistle means the whistleblower loses their job. It is a lack of spine. That takes me back to my previous point and previous post: Bob Rae did not have the courage to act right when he was PM of Ontario, he still has no gumption to do what is right now.

That has nothing to do with cost of home visits by physicians, or your premise, which is apparently that home vists by dopctors will somehow save money for the health care system.Are you going to tell us why it will save money, or how? I understand that is is ore convenient for some people, but how does it ssave money? It won't be from some magically reduced fees for physicians. If a doctor sees 40 pateints per day in clinic and 20 in their homes, he will want twice as much for the home visit as he does for the clinic visit.

If the school board chooses to make a mailing list of their children and their homes available to one religious group, they have to make it available to all groups. For that matter, why can't anybody have access to kids and their families via the school? I'll answer my own question: because it is ignorant, parochial and violates their privacy. Saying that it has happened for 46 years somehow justifies the practice is a comment on the intelligence of the superintendent, not the sense of the practice.

I'm comparing it to the statement of the AFN that was one cm above my comment. The CDN govt makes a 'signifcant contribution' right now, and has for a very long time. I did not coment on the relative worth of six billion. It is a lot of money spent specifically on a small number of people with results that are dreadful, shameful. I am not sure that spending another six billion or 10 billion or 20 billion annually would make much difference. There are many more issues here than just money, and the faults with the status quo. And that is what is most disappointing, that the discussion has not moved beyond the status quo: give us more money so we can keep doing the things you used to do to us, with the same results.

You could have just retracted your assertion that Canada 'always has' chosen the US. Because they have not, and looks like they may not in the future. That is good for Canada, having options for a major commodity can be profitable for the supplier, not so good for the end user, like the US. It will be interesting to see the impact of Obamas choices on Keystone in 10 or 20 years. The US imports a lot of oil and has now jeopardized their most secure supply. That might prove to be very expensive when they again need the energy security they lack now. Previous presidents Clinton and Bush Jr were pretty clear they wanted Canada to be a big part of that security, Obama is indictaing it is less important. Hope that works out for our friends and neighbours. Coupled with a reduced ability to act militarily around the globe(which must be inevitable given the US economic situation), relying on Libya, Iran and Venzuela for petroleum seems kind of dumb. It is doubly odd when it appears that presidential re-election is Obamas to lose. The Republicans are in disarray with nobody as a charismatic candidate. His green constituency wasn't going anywhere, so why would he get involved in turning down a project that will happen anyway? What is there to gain, politically?

Oh-oh, it is The Really Secret Agenda.... Give it a rest. Socred has been dead nationally and in the West for decades. Stelmach and Redford put a stake through Wildrose in 2011, they are done like dinner. Once again, you are utterly ignorant of events that have happened right in front of you in Alberta- and recently. Why do you have a constant need for a bogeyman?

I find it very, very unlikely that divorcing gay couples are any more or less acrimonious that straight divorcing couples. Some would be amicable, some would be all out wars. In any case, all Canadians need to be treated the same. There are no degrees of equality. Do you have any stats on the % of gay couples who do not have children? Just anecdotal, but I know of a few couples that got married specifically because it was easier to adopt if they were married. Some also married/bred for the same reasons staright people do: commitment of marriage, homing instincts, age of partners.

Jody has apparently overlooked the six billion dollars per year spent by DIAND on First Nations issues. An oversight, no doubt. I also wonder who might be the genius who thought that Harper or any PM was going to sit in front of 400 Chiefs, or 400 anybodys, for a week of being shat upon? Who was the genius who allows anybody at all to shoot off their mouths before an important negotaiting and PR session begins? It is a business deal and the First Nations need to upgrade their game dramatically. They could start by trimming down those 400 plane tickets and a week of food , drink and hotels. They could also get a spokeman, an articulate and disciplined spokesman to present their case forcefully and pointedly and consistently.

No, not entirely. We went to two world wars when you did not, a huge commitment of materiel and lives that the US didn't until much later. And right now we are at a crossroads where we are not choosing between US and Europe, we looking West not South or East.

The Libs would have done what they did with Kyoto from day one: flap their gums and absolutely positively nothing else. It could never be implemented without breaking the back of the economy, which they knew from day one. That is doubly true now. Oh, unless we rely on the green manufacturing initiatives of the Ontario manufacturing juggernaut. Yeah, that would do it.

Sorry, I meant to say 'word on the avenue'. That's where I heard that the ICC was going to charge Harper for his war crimes. What is the word from the intersection of the street and avenue?

You are worse than Hitler too.

OP. do yourself a big favour and do not ever link to infowars again. It makes everybody more stupid, seriously. To answer the question, I say 'no'. The EU has a giant ball and chain economically, which is their social contract. It is very hard to get away from, downsize or modfify in any meaningful way since the folks have naturally learned to have a serious case of entitlement. With revenues waning, they have few outs. On the other hand, the US burden is mostly in military spending, which they can whack more easily than the Europeans. The US also has more in the way or resources and commodities within their borders. Both places suffer greatly from ineffective leadership, but the US has a massiv edge in that politically they are far less scattered than the many layers of contradictory, competing interests in Yurp. Overall, I'll bet on the Yankee devils.

Harper is worse than Hitler. Word on the street is that he has to travel to Europe with a large security contingent to fend off being picked up and jailed by the International Crimninal Court for his many war crimes.

And as usual, the poll is self defeating/useless if it presents the options as being black/white and yes/no. The reality is that both economic development and the environment can be served with some reasonable planning. That option never gets asked, since the questions are generally dependent on the preset opinions of whomever pays the pollster.They should ask the same question a year from now. In the meantime, remove the many billions in taxes, income, royalties from the resource industry from the revenue stream that all Canadians currently enjoy. Lay off the hundreds of thousands of jobs. Close the schools and let Granny croak in the parking lot at the shuttered hospital. Then get f**king real.

You do not support the death penalty, but you do support a lifetime of torture. I guess that eliminates cruelty as part of your objection, you seem to enjoy the punishment phase quite a bit. If you object to the state taking a life in any circumstances, would you also support police weapons being replaced with foam bats? Shall we strip our military of all arms and give them basic training in the life and times of Ghandhi instead? It is not only the right of the state to take a life in some circumstances, it is a serious responsibility.

II don't understand how having a doctor come to a seniors home saves anything, since he would have to be paid an amount equivalent to whatever he earns in an office setting. And of course he could see many more patients in a day without all the travel, which means that the shortage of GPswould not get worse. And what is the relationship between $50K for a nursing home and $2K for a travelling doctor? Just because a doctor is sitting in your kitchen doesn't mean you will be cured of dementia or heart disease. Nor will he keep you one day out of a nursing home if you cannot dress, feed or toilet yourself. I do understand having doctors on hand for people that need care but are not too sick to be in hospital, but they already have that service in all the nursing homes I've been in. NUrses, doctors etc- nursing homes.

Like I said.....

Agreed then, lay off all staff and close the office. It will save several hundred thousand bucks per year, well worth the whining we will hear at MLW about loss of govt services. Speaking of EI rates, wy is it again that areas with high employment get longer qualifying times and shorter insurance terms than areas with low employment, yet pay the same premium rates for insurance? This is an insurance plan. Normally, policyholders in an insurance plan pay premiums that are directly related to risk. A wage worker in Alberta is less likely to be laid off than elsewhere in Canada. He/she is also more likely to get aother job more quickly, but of course is not guaranteed that. Yet he/she pays the same premiums, has a longer qualifying period and gets benefits for a shorter time. Isn't that completely backwards? If you work in a place that has a higher likelihood of layoff/long term unemployment, shouldn't your insurance premiums be significantly higher?

Let me guess... anthropology major?

he has my vote. for the nomination of course, not the seat.