fellowtraveller

1. There are very few corpoarte owners of the stores, many are owned by former LCB employees. Their corporate office is often in the basement of their house. 2. Why would you want to have much cheaper retail costs for alcohol, do you want an alcoloism problem like Russia? The retail profits go into the hands of small business owners, a group you likely fear and loath. But how do you think that the privatization has helped conmsumers? Two ways: many more liquor stores everywhere, but especialy in small communities that had no service before, you had to drive to the booze store in a bigger town before. Second is the wide diversification of speciality stores, lots of things like wine stores, Scotch stores, places with 300 kinds of beer- the private ownership has filled many niches. Now stop to consider how do these small business owners manage to do this, still making a profit, and still pay a stiff price for their qwholesale grog, all abought from the govt wholesale operation? Because they are more efficient at it than any govt could be, that is how. The rertail operations of the govt were easily the least profitable part of the business. 3 It is not anything at all like a 'one time payoff'. The sale of the stores had the following benefits: lots of cash from sale of real estate holdings, dumping all the fat wages, benefits and long term pension obliagtions of a group of staff that quite frankly added no value to the process of getting a commodity to market. and of course no need to invest further in an aging infrastructure of non performing liquor stores. The big money is in wholesaling: limted capital investment: still all there Taxes: oh yes, still there Taxcpayers: more net revenue with no risk and more stores with more products. See, like that.

You guys are all stuck in some sort of brainfuzz where the only option is to sell the entire LCBO to a single entity, which means you somehow want to exchange one monopoly for another. Why not just sell off the retail operations while keeping the wholesale part? That is what Alberta did, and they have offloaded a big liability, greatly expanded consumer choice by the private sector creation of many more outlets and choices, and reduced risk and liability for taxpayers. And... they still make a pile of money for the Treasury via wholesale operations and taxes. No more cashiers and stockboys making $23 hour for unskilled work, plus benefits. Unless of course, a liquor store owner chooses to pay that much. There are many. many more liquor and wine shops in Alberta now than there used to be.

that is not the intent of the oath at all. MPs swear an oath to the Queen and to the Crown. You may have noticed that 'the Crown' is intended in Canadian law at every level to mean the state- federal or provincial.

Sooner or later, those folks building millions of 58" LCD Tvs shipped elsewhere are going to want one themselves........and will want the means to buy one and the house to put it in. Change is inevitable there.

If I am equal to a citizen of another province, then why aren't my skills, education and experience transferrable there? Say I'm a teacher in Alberta, certidfied and with a Masters degree in same. Why can't I do my job elsewhere? If I wish to make cheese in Alberta, why can't I sell if freely and openly anywhere I please in Canada? No, there are many, many examples of this, degrees of equality based on place of residence. So no, we are not a country of individual citizens with equal rights anywhere in the country. We are of have become a loosely knit union of regions/provinces, each attempting to get the largest slice of the pie.

Hardly, since the resources themselves imply that there is or will be an economy. No, the real third world couintries have little or no resources, physical or human...... Countries like Somalia, Yemen, Chad and most of the Sahel in Africa, Afghanistan, and others are the truly poor because they have very little arable land, very little physical resources, and an untrained and illiterate workforce. You could send every citizen to Oxford for an advanced degree, and when they went home there would still be no jobs at all. There are no answers in the conventional sense for these places. Even their neighbours cannot be bothered to invade, nothing worth stealing really. I don't put Canada in that class or anywhere near it.

That is quite true. We have gotten increasingly confused by watching the actions of Quebec, the Maritimes, Ontario(hello from Copenagen!) and most curious of all: the federal government and their love of side deals with provinces. We are not a country of equal citizens, we are a weak federation of regions.

It is not at all specific to the Queen: any MP may refuse to take an oath of allegiance, but they are then not permitted to sit in the House, vote or get paid.

Heard a rumour today about other measures that may be taken via CMHC to slow the growing prices in real estate..... no more 5% down allowed, 10% will be the minimum. The other was a further restriction on permissible amortizations to 30 years. Either will put the boots to first time buywers and slow the market, 10% minimum down payment will be a very major blow both for resale and new housing, so I dopn't know if that is feasible or will actually happen.

You're absolutely right, and I hopoe you will work very very hard to rid the country of the abomination that is Alberta. Who would want scum like this in their warm embrace of federalism?

so did Mulroney. What do you think are the prerequisites for becoming GG. Perhaps being conversant with the Constitution,as Manning most definitely is, would be an advantage. People west of Manitoba would crap their drawers if an articulate activist Westerner was appointed. But.. Madame Jean is not going anywhere. If she were, the qualifications for the last two GGs Clarkson and Jean, and I assume for the next one are: petite but vital newsperson working for CBC, female, visible minority. That gives two immediate candidates: Wendy Mesley and Ann Medina. Yeah I know Mesley is white, but maybe she could find some heavy ethnic influence in her background, or go in blackface or something. Medina is both American-born and old, but fits otherwise. The smart money is on Mesley. An outside chance goes to Portia Clark, Alberta CBC news anchor, young atractive and visible minority but unfortunately for her of average size and from the West.

when they are sworn in, required of every MP.

another analogy: do you think a single Bloc MP speaks sincerely when they pledge allegiance to Canada, as they are required to do?

Do you think Adrienne Clarkson or Madame Jean had firm opinions on the Constitution when they were appointed as GG? Do you think either had even read the Constitution?

Some folks are very unhappy that the oilsands are seen to pollute. Some folks are unhappy with the $8 or $9 billion that Alberta contributes in equalization payments alone, plus untold billions more in jobs and economic spinoffs to the country. Here is a solution: Alberta will keep every penny of the money from such an undesirable industry, and commit to spending at least $8 billion per year in environmental remediation. This has the added bounty that Ontarians and Qubecois won't have to feel that their souls are tainted by the Alberta dirty money. It will make for some really tough times in Central Canada, but I heard from Copenhagen that both provinces have huge green technology initiatives underway and don't want Alberta involved anyway. It's a win-win.

In keeping with our tradition(Clarkson and Jean) of appointing only small but vital newspersons, female, visible minorities that have worked for CBC: there are two outstanding candidates: Ann Medina and Wendy Mesley. I know Medina was raised in Amerikkka and Mesley is Caucasian but the pool is fairly small we'll have to make some compromises. An outside choice goes to CBCs Portia Clark, who fits all the metrics required to be GG except she is of average size.

" And somebody, anybody, will be appointed from corporate Calgary so the world may return to normal. But be careful what you wish for, if you lay out the fascist evangelist Morton as your boy like last time, you'll lose it all.

Easily. By denying any competitors access to a market, the consumer has no rein on it at all in terms of providing service or reasonabl;e cost for goods because nobody else is allowed in to provide an alternative service. Overpay executive staff? Fine Hire everybodys brother inlaw to bloated salaries? Fine Fail to reinvest in technology? Fine. Get sick of it all as a mandatory coop memeber and want to buy the service elsewhere? Nope, ypou must belong and you must pay whateever is asked. I have no specific dislike of consumers coops, but they should have the same regulatory oversight as any other monopoly candidate.

There is some merit to having monopolies but perhaps the circumstances need to be regualtede carefully.... for example, it does not make much sense to run multiple sets of power lines or gas lines to individual homes, it just greatly increases the cost to consumers as those multiple investments will be passed directly to consumers on their monthly bills.

Murphy did not present any views on climate change, his comments were on the topic of science vs politics. Perhaps you could be more rigorous when viewing. You could not be less rigorous

I read that there are around 1200 limousines ferrying delegates around Copenhagen ,and at least 140 private jets plus countless commercial flights required to get everybody there. Will that put any curve into the famous hockey stick graph?

I don't understand your OP. What do we sell them? Resources, of course.

Not just languages but programs: learning a language as an option (numerous languages), Immersion programs: French, Mandarin, Arabic. or there are FRancophone (strictly French) schools and school boards. Any child can go to any school too, assuming there is space.

Aren't conductors respecting the picket lines? Plenty of people out of work, maybe CN could train some of them to keep the system running. Chrysler or GM autoworkers perhaps?

No, they are not. Not even close.