fellowtraveller

I wonder how Gary Doer would look without that extra $2 billion in equalization payments poured into Manitoba every year?

Housing sales in Alberta have taken off bigtime again, and will lead the economy out of recession just as they led the economy into recession. Likely the heavy influence of the NDP is responsible for the change. God Bless Jack Layton.

You vastly overrate the interest of the world in Canada and their leaders. We, and Harper, pass almost completely unnoticed year after year. Twas always so.

Yep, the arrogance and sense of entitlement remains breathtaking. Some things never change. But this will....

You also claimed Harper was being hunted down within his own party. Still think that?

So what? They are still private sector and can opt out whenever they please. The only thing that is under contract is the fee paid for the service, otherwise the doctors can work where they please without notice. Our health care service is founded on private practicioners paid for by the public. There is a pernicious campaign to try and pretend that our system is somehow all 'public', which is patently untrue. Hello, 'Friends of Medicare'. 'Partnership'? In what way? It has been a conveneince for the physicians and a benefit for citizens, but to call it a partnership stretches the defnition of the word to absurd lengths. If a better deal presented itself, plenty of doctors would defect, they are business persons as well as practicioners.I agree that it has resulted in less cost to provinces overall.

Those were all benefits to the public, but none of them are really why the govt divested itself of the retail sales operations. The ALCB still controls all wholesale operations, and all those private stores still buy mainly from them. That means the public purse still gains huge profits, and with it comes the real reason that it was privatized: greatly reduced risk and liability for the govt and taxpayers. Hundreds of govt stores sold means way less capital cost and exposure. Thousands of employees dropped means way less in pensions and other liabilities. It also introduced some sanity into a retail operation, no more paying cashiers $22/hour plus full benefits. It was and is the correct business decsion.

This overlooks the largest-by far- private sector involvement in health care: physicians. Very very few doctors are employed by the state, the majority are and always have been self -employed. The balance is already heavily to private sector.

Election coming, time to start the CBC bullshit machine. It is a source of entertainment for me, and costs me whatever I choose to donate, if anything. I usually pledge $50 twice per year during their fundraisers.Contrast that with your support of CBC, which consists of smugly and arrogantly insisting that all taxpayers cough up for your love of reruns of Road to Avonlea. It is that hubris that will take the MotherCorp down, with their greedy suckups clinging to the stern as it slips beneath the waves. There are a couple of ways CBC could be strengthened and preserved, but the status quo is not one of them. Here is some reality: the network has ceased to be a tool of national unity long ago and increasingly will be a factor in the ongoing polarization of Canadians. Sooner rather than later the sheep will look up and wonder how that billion dollars every year could be spent on something that matters to more than a few of us.

The most astonishing fact in this thread is the tale of a 1997 Sunfire that is still running. Wow.

It will happen though, so start collecting your hankies. CKUA radio morphed from the CBC -style bleed-the-moronic-taxpayer model to listener supported, superb radio in just a few years. Inevitably, CBC will follow. CBC TV will be first, so few people are watching their amateur attempts to make anything of quality that it won't be long before the $1 billion annually pissed away on behalf of a few selfish Canadians will be scrutinized and halted.

Not an admission, just an observable fact. The US has three tiers, or more accurately two tiers and 50 million people with no insurance who contribute to the reality that ,many Americans suffer from no or really inadequate care. Preventative medicine, which would keep them alive, keep them more healthy and less of a strain on public medicine, just is not there for them. It is puzzling since individual Americans are compassionate people, but those that have insurance are quite content to pay bigtime and let the others suffer. The other top two tiers are : a) are rich or have topnotch insurance that covers all and are employed, insured, have no serious medcial issues and are desp[werate to hang onto all three of those things. If they lose any of the three, they become part of the 50 million. God Bless America.

Angry? I'm not angry, just pointing out the idiocy implict in the OP. People outside Ontario were obliged to buy overpriced manufactured rubbish made in Ontario because the federal govt made it impossibloe to do otherwise through their Buy Canadian policies. Since, gee just coincidence, Ontario was the prime manufacturer of same and were heavily [protected from competition from anywhere, your fellow Canadians paid the price for your industrial base and longterm prosperity. What you ask for is a repeat of that. Ain't gonna happen. Things have changed. Adapt or die.

Another amazing thing: everybody else in Canada had to buy everything from Ontario too! Expensive, low quality crap! Those were the good old days!

I don't understand the premise of the OP. Canada has always had two tier health care. If you have enough money, you can buy expesnive health care including organ transplants in many countries. Nothing has changed in that regard.

Will you love it enough to pay for it directly from your pocket insteasd of mine?

Just flew United in and out of Chicago, I'd have to say their O'Hare checkin procedure was the worst I've ever had. Useless software, confusing process, and extremely surly and unhelpful staff -when you managed to find anybody. And of course each checked bag costs $20 one way....... 3 1/2 hour flight, one drink offered and not even a cookie with it.... Never again.

I was just at a Milwaukee Brewers game, Prince Fielder is not as bulky as Dad. He did not have a good game at the plate , but made a great athletic play at first base that Dad could only dream of.....

How about 15% of your adult life?

Actually, they don't. Unless you now are pretending to be a Tory yourself.

" Utterly pathetic achievement, akin to " I'm still beating my wife but don't hit her as hard". High five!!!

I love the idea of self-employed people being eligible. First thing I do when that is enacted is lay myself off. repeatedly.

Would Manitoba even exist without the $2billion per year in extra gravy they get from the feds? I hope they get enough oil and gas revneue to answer that question.

I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about on this topic, and that inlcudes what happens in your home province and city. I'll stop sniping at your homeland when it starts acting responsibly and takes steps to stop the endless leeching off the rest of the country. Take a nap if you're tired, then get to work like the rest of us.

Civic and public unions count on their employers caving in, they almost always do just that. It is the Canadian way. It's just tax money and there is an endless supply of that.