margrace

It is interesting to follow the big city and area politics but what of the little ones, and I mean very little. In an area with under 1000 people, one municipality has a reeve and 4 councillors. In the coming election it appears that no one is challenging the reeve but there are, so far, 3 of the incumbant councillors running and at least 3 challengers. Of the already seated concillors, one is sueing his own council over the official plan just instituted, one loves politics but does not vote until she sees which way the wind blows, several are only interested in keeping local services as low as they can. There are a lot of people who formerly owned cottages in the area and are only interested in keeping the taxes on their lake front properties down. The new people from the cities see no reason to support local health care since they can afford to go to the big cities for their care. This area is one of the fastest growing areas for senior retirement, the the local average or mean wage is about $21,000 a year. There are a lot of central municipalites in Ontario that would fit this description. The worst part of this is the Ontario governments mandates to keep seniors in their own home, meanwhile cutting homecare and asking that voluteers pick up the work. Is this feasible?

A lot of what they are saying is spent on the G8 and G20 is improving infrastructure in a lot of small areas in the Parry Sound riding of Clement. Why did they shift it to saying it was for G8 and G20. Yes it benefited a certain amount of areas here but it would have generatel a lot less flack if they had called it what it is. I think Clement saw a good way to improve on his 28 vote majority in this region or thought he did. Now it appears to be backfiring on everyone. Yes a little village can use toilets but what did this have to do with the summits?

Two things against Ignatief, he is a professor much like his predicesor, and he knows that if he calls an election it would cost a lot and we probably would end up with the same type of gov't. Harper is banking on the inability of Canadians in realizing that he is getting his own agenda in by bits and pieces. As long as we sit back and let this happen we will get the gov't we deserve. When, as the Germans learned, it is too late we will have a dictatorship. Things will be changed little by little and the freedoms and social programs that Canadian think are their right will be gone. In talking to people around here the inability to realize what is going on is frightening.

Well the conservative party is loading these forums with disruptive and party line people. They are on all forums and some good party people such as the ones who own CARP have even shut down political forums.

What people such as this need to do is talk to Germans who thought Hitler was their saviour. Then they paid a horrendous price for believing him didn't they? Who cares about the loss of a few freedoms if I can better my situation, who cares about what happens to other people? A german friend can tell you about roaming the streets of Berlin in 1945 literally starving. Just ask the Dutch people, who had to eat their tulip bulbs, and where Canadian soldies found bodies in the streets of people who had starved to death. Perhaps you should take off you tin Hat and do a little research.

According to the actions of the Tories in the committee work, they really don't believe in free speech. Lets look back at some recent world history. HOw many countries in the world have had, over the last century, working democracys? Germany started out early in the century with one I believe. Italy was pretty close weren't they. And recently the US became pretty close to losing theirs. We are only a thread away from losing our free speech. Stephen Harper does not believe in the common man, like the Randites, he has little use for mankind. The market place should control everything is their belief. If anyone trusts big business then they are pretty simple. We could lose our hard won freedoms tomorrow. All we need is to keep turning a blind eye and valuing our mighty dollar over our freedoms.

According to the Globe and Mail this morning the young liberals are in favour of joining the Liberals and NDP in some combination.

One of the reasons wind power is so much more expensive is because of the lack of will to build the towers in Canada. Somebody in their wisdom, probably paid by big hydro turned down the opportunity. Now they are built in Denmark and have to be shipped here. The same with solar power, so much antaganism has been generated agains it that people are afraid to buy it. The more things are bought and used the cheaper they become. One of the things people need to do is go near a big hydro transformer serving several homes and listen to the noise it makes. That hum can be very agravating and must bother the brain, the whosh of a big blade is soothing beside that. There is always noise from the big hydro towers as well and they are subject to ice storms, for instance what happened to them in the huge ice storm in eastern Ontario some years ago. A lot of the arguments on here are straw arguments and probably are fueled by big business and a very regressive federal gov't paid for by big business concerns.

The title of the artical reads "Armageddon thinking: coming soon to Canada?" Johanne Hills in her column reports that the Canadian Company has cut funding to Kairos. Speculation about the withdrawal of support centered on Kairos' work on human rights violation in Isreal and Palastene. These actives were described as "anti-Isreal. Kairos has also been openly critical of the envirmental impact of the Alberta Tar sands. Memebers of Kairos have a common belief that we as Christians are stewards of God's earth. They also believe that Jesus call on our lives implies a speaking out on behalf of the refugee, the poor and the disinfrachized of this world. Kairos member are The Canadian Coucil of Catholic Bishops, the mennonite Central committee, the Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and United churces , as well as the Societey of Friends (Quakers) The article goes on to report of the increasing influence of the religous right in Canada under the Current Conservative Gov't. This supports the Armageddon theories in fundamentalist churches in the US that the end of the world is coming soon. Isreal figures predominately in this thinking by these believers.

Is that all you could find?

The right honourable Mr Clement only got his seat by 23 votes, I wonder if the people of Huntsville will give him a hugh majority for this honour. Especially if there is problems with protesters.

And of course that is why the use of food banks has increased substantially. Ours went up nearly 30%, no jobs.

So you believe a part time minimum wage job will support a family and pay the mortgage?

And you think this is okay. CARP had a great forum for seniors, lots of talk but all of a sudden it got pulled and if you look closely at whats left of that site it seems to be very conservative

Oh no we haven't, everytime they announce an increase in jobs, especially the last go roung, half of them are part time. You also fail to mention that the jobs lost were high paying jobs a lot of the new ones are minimum wage. We need some honesty about these figures. Just come to our small towns and see the homes for sale and the people looking for work.

But we do have very dangerous nuclear hydro reactors, we need to get rid of them all.

Mr. Harpers reply to any questoning has generally been to remind parliment of how evil the liberal spenders were. This sure proves that he and his party are no better. It frightens me that these people believe that the very laws they were using to get the liberals are being broken by themselves. There is another forum on here on why people supposedly Hate Mr. Harper, I contend that we don't hate him but we are very afraid of the Hitler like actions of this government.

Isn't this just a little off topic. Why don't you start a new one such as why Harper hates Homosectualls

] I signed this and am sending it to all my friends and family because they all believe we need to get rid of this dangerous blight.

I have an idea, everyone who objects to windmill should have their power cut off at the end of their driveway. Cost may not be as important as have enough clean power is.

Hate is a pretty strong word isn't it. Dislike, distrust, fear would be better ones in my estimation. Right now the common belief in Canada is that our federal leaders of all parties aren't worth following. So that creates Harpers control because what is any better. Yes I agree with the post that said he would make a good owner of a car dealership in Red Deere. Until Canadians step up to the post and forget their silly partiniship we will have these unhealthy people in power. McGinty is a good example of a two faced politician and that is what we seem to have in all our gov'ts, local, provincial and federal. Much as Canadians disliked former gov'ts, their bank rules saved us from a lot of problems. Remember that Harper promoted a bill to dismantle them some years ago. That should give you some idea of this mans beliefs.

I Find it interesting that this gov't would not let a spokesperson for CodePink into this country, a group of women advocating the end to the wars in the middle east, but evidently found nothing wrong with Coulter who openly promotes hate and war.

At the bottom of all this is the view that people are entitled to certain styles of life isn't it. It never seemed important to me what kind of a car or truck one drove as long as it got one from point A to point B. Spending the winter in the south, spending your money there and using our health care system does not seem practical either. I have no problem with going to the south for a trip but once you have seen it why do you need to go again? Is golf that important? We seem to have people who expect to be treated like royalty. all one has to do is watch the shows on our TV's. Million dollar homes, million dollar holidays, vehicles such as the Hummers to show how great we are? Why? Perhaps someone on here can explain to me why I should have a fancier car than you or why I should have a fancier home and a cottage? Why do I need a Hummer? The need to be above others, to be seen as better than the common hoy paloy is a rather strange way to see the world.

The food bank can only provide potatoes, carrots and onion, everything else is too expensive, we buy canned vegetables.