Scotty

I would suggest it's more likely that, because of divisional playing, most Eastern Canadians rarely see the Canucks, and are no more familiar with them than they are with, say, LA or San Jose.

Americans all want strict crime laws with long sentences. Americans all want low taxes, and will always vote for whomever promises to lower then further. You don't really need much more information on why prison overcrowding is a national issue south of the border. As to California's budgetary problems. They seem to be the result of a ridiculously inept border control system allowing millions of illegals to flood across the border, and a ridiculously liberal mindset which insists on not only not arresting these illegals but on granting them full educational and hospitalization rights even though they don't pay any taxes.

I am bemused that you continue to return to this topic again and again to get your ass kicked. Do you really not understand that you lost this argument days ago and are so deep underwater you're just making word bubbles? It is patently clear that the provinces and federal government all derive their powers, responsibilities and territories from the Crown. The provinces are not creatures of the federal government (though the territories are) and their powers are not delegated and so can not be rescinded or altered by the federal government. All this is set in the virtual bedrock of the constitution. You're continuing to claim otherwise is just plain silly.

And to repeat, I have seen where they have done it, at least partially, and my estimate is not only is there no cost saving, it actually winds up costing more.

Except that we're bringing in tens of thousands of those Muslims every year, so it is somewhat our concern how many are 'moderate' as opposed to what, by our standards, is a religious attitude hostile to secular society.

Hey, those guys train for weeks! They deserve salaries in the high seventies! High nineties with overtime.

Emphasis on nationalism? Please describe how the Tories have done this and contrast it with how the Liberals played a big rah-rah-rah nationalistic propaganda game about Canada and Quebec. On Canada Day now (used to be a quiet Dominion Day) we have the same type of rah-rah attitude complete with face painting of maple leafs, wrapping yourself in the flag, and teary eyed singing of anthems which the Americans do. NOBODY used to do that sort of thing until the Liberals recreated nationalism in an effort to counter Quebec nationalism. As for appeals to religion or disregard for civil liberties: you have no case. Conservatives do appeal to justice, but I don't see that as related to fascism either. There have been a number of sympathetic portraits of Communists over the years, especially those attacked by McCarthy. I don't mean to suggest the media is at all in favour of Communism, but it does not look upon Communists in the same way as it would look upon Fascists. I would say a lot of the media look upon Communists as rather quaint and mistaken people who are otherwise well meaning. No one looks on Fascists like that. But Nazi and Fascist are not exactly the same thing. There have been a number of Fascist regimes, and only Hitler's ever set out to exterminate people.

Not truthfully. Communism is every bit as failed an ideology as fascism, and both are equally associated with the most severe and widespread human rights violations the world has seen since their inception.

There is some corruption, but nothing near what they have in the U.S.

You appear to be operating under the impression some substantial portion of the public sector is concerned with 'litter'. I can assure you that the majority are doing a considerably more complex job.

A minority of Muslims might espouse blowing up buildings, but those who can be said to agree with many of their aims are not in the minority. As an example, the majority of Muslims in most Muslim countries surveyed want Sharia law. I don't regard anyone who likes Sharia law as a moderate in any way, shape or form.

Stalin is not the only Communist who murdered his citizens. In fact, as far as I'm aware this is a trait relatively common among Communist governments.

To bargain on behalf of a group of workers, and to protect those workers against abuses from their managers and employers. Government is made up of individuals. Those individuals want to look good to higher ups. If they do that in same way which screwed over the lower level employees many would not shed a tear at that. Let me give you an example. A man catches a degenerative disease. His manager is annoyed that he isn't producing as well as he used to, and starts putting pressure on him to leave, to retire, to take long term sick leave. The manager starts calling him out in front of staff, starts accusing him of slacking off, trying to push him out the door. Who do you think is going to stand up for that employee if not the union? Real case, btw. Do you really think our society is going to be improved by the governments of the day setting an example to industry that the way they should go is to screw over workers as much as possible, to give them as few benefits and as low a wage as you can possibly get away with? Do you think this type of attitude won't trickle down to you and affect what you get and how you're treated?

How is NOT accountable in every way?

Would care to expand on these 'insane' ideologies, and inform us how unique they are to Alberta/Quebec? Because what it sounds like you're really saying is you wish all those people in Canada who don't think like you do would leave.

Right, you hate Alberta because they pay too much money into the federal treasury. I can see that, but why hate Quebec? All they do is consume money and bitch about it?

The pay rate and benefits at the provincial level are, so far as I know, just as good as at the federal level. The rates, in case you're wondering, are even better at the municipal level. So you think Dalton McGuinty's government could do things more efficiently than Harper's?

Politics works against that. Many departments have had their functions scattered across the country so that each region could "share" in the bounty of well-paid government jobs. There have been efforts to computerize and centralize administrative functions at the branch level, all, so far as I'm aware, total failures. What happens is that you wind up having higher paid staff doing the job that clerks used to do. And since this combined time spent isn't recorded anywhere this is considered a "cost savings" since you have so many fewer clerks to pay. Of course, the question one might reasonable ask is does it make sense to have people making $70-80-90k a year doing their own photocopies, making their own reservations, filling out their own travel forms, doing their own time entries, etc., instead of $40k per year clerks doing it? Not only do the clerks get paid more but, through repetition, they get far better at it, and so do it much faster.

A junior clerk with the federal government ears about $40,000, a mid-level clerk $50,000. A mid level manager, below executive rank, about $90,000. An executive, say one who reports to the guy who reports to the guy who reports to the assistant deputy minister, will make over $100,000 We must remember that for anyone in any kind of responsible, secure job, we're asking them to give up that job, for a job which might only last a few years. Then where are they?

I read nothing like that into his words. He stated the obvious with regard to his review, and also said attrition would be used for virtually all reductions. He simply refused to make an absolute, irrevocable commitment to not doing any layoffs whatsoever, which is understandable. That's not the same as suggesting there'll be mass firings, and I regard that as highly unlikely.

I've seen and heard the term used to describe Stephen Harper and his party, and to describe the Americans, not to mention the Israelis. It's used pretty indiscriminately. Thing is, it's usually reserved for people or organizations perceived as being right of centre. There really isn't an equivalent to be used against those who are Left of centre because accusing someone of being "Communist", which is the leftist totalitarian ideology, has last any affect it might have had due to the way the left leaning media have shown sympathy for the communist ideology over the years, and for those who either are communists or are accused of being communist (harkening back to the McCarthy era). The Communists murdered more people than the Fascists, but it's still considered acceptable to run for the Communist party in Canada, then simply switch and run for the NDP without any kind of uproar. Imagine, if you will, someone who ran for the Nazi party in Canada switching and running for the Conservatives, and what kind of a national uproar there would be over THAT. I think the reason is that the Nazis are perceived (rightly) as having had racist underpinnings while the Communists are not so perceived (wrongly). In fact, Communists, when they rule, have, in the past, been every bit as nasty to ethnic and religious minorities as the Nazis were.

I think the term has simply morphed into a general description of what one believes to be heavy-handed abuse of personal freedoms by any person or organization. Everyone understands what you mean when you use it in that fashion, and I don't think anyone really expects it to be closely related to a complete ideological program any more. Thus you can be a fascist regardless of your actual political ideology.

Being a naturalized citizen is no more of an advantage than being White. Neither has any actual valid reason behind them. It certainly discriminates against non-citizens, and I think the great majority of Canadians are okay with that. Yours discriminates against citizens, and you are clearly okay with that.

Well, after further inquiries I've decided against. The big thing was the double dipping. I couldn't think of a way to get the money from the corporation to ME without having to pay taxes on it a second time. If the company bought a car, for example, and let me drive it, it'd be a taxable benefit to me, just as a salary would be, just as the 'corporation' letting me live in its house would be. The only advantage would be to filter the money to me over a period of time so that I would be in a lower tax bracket, but even without the new additional income I'm already in a pretty high bracket from my salary, so when you add in the extra professional fees, the ongoing paperwork, and ongoing problems of accessing the money it doesn't really make sense.

John Baird is now foreign minister. Those poor Danes...