Scotty

I do my best to "kill" the ants in my front yard. I pay a guy to spray stuff to "kill" the bugs and weeds. I "kill" any bug I find indoors.

Like taxation!

I take it you don't follow federal politics? I've certainly seen enough sneering at Albertans on this site.

I couldn't care less whether your head of state is a Muslim or not. I just wish there was a rule that he be competent. But then you'd have been without a head of state for the last forty or fifty years. All that really matters is that our system works. Too bad you can't say the same.

Up here, we have more important things to worry about than the minutia of the religion of the head of state. I understand how this confuses you as American politics is obsessed with minutia to the exclusion of all else.

The difference between the monarch and an elected head of state is that while both might have personal preferences on given issues the monarch has been schooled since childhood to look towards the best interest of the nation and in the long term, whereas politicians are trained to think of the short term, and the need to please the passing fancies of the electorate. The Queen has made an excellent head of state, and I can't imagine a Canadian politician who would have done as well.

I don't need to prove anything to you. You're not a Canadian and have no say in this anyway. All Canadians understand how national polls are skewed by Quebec.

The rules for the royalty originate in the monarch's being not merely the head of state but the titular head of the Church of England. You clearly can't have a Catholic running the Church of England. And I say that as a Catholic. What ought to be done, I think, is to remove the Monarch from his/her role as head of the Church of England. That would enable the rule against Catholicism to be removed, as well.

And how the hell would you know whether that institution still serves a purpose in Canada? Have you ever even been to Canada? If you want to redesign how a country operates shouldn't you start with yours? I mean, ours seems to be functioning pretty well. Yours, on the other hand, is an out of control eighteen wheeler headed for a cliff while a bunch of people fight and curse and struggle for control of the wheel.

While an American president can give a facial to a Jewish girl in the Oval Office and still hang on to his job as Head of State!

Who says the US isn't a total basket case too? You have three, sometimes four completely distinct power bases in competition with each other, with different agendas and beliefs, often comprised mainly of venal, small minded political hacks in the pockets of various multinationals and special interest group paymasters.

All of which are almost completely screwed up. Although the American system has the benefit of being the only one I'm aware of which was specifically designed to be screwed up.

Because our elected officials are so intelligent and broad-minded and charismatic. Some of them really look to the future, too - provided your definition of future is 'next year'.

Are you willing to go out and demonstrate, donate a lot of money, scream at MPs over the phone, not do business with any organization which feels differently? Because those who support the monarchy are.

Which works out to about 100% of Quebecers, but a much lower percentage everywhere else.

Most likely she's been told to keep her mouth shut. The federal Tories wanted no part of this fight. They're extremely vulnerable to the left-wing narrative of being anti-minority. Any firm actions taken against the natives would play into the hands of the federal liberals and NDP, who would again raise that narrative - with the aid of allies in the media - to portray the Tories as a racist party. In a minority situation, they just weren't willing to take the risk.

Except the Catholics seem to run their school systems more efficiently and more effectively, with more discipline, and at a lower cost.

I have a feeling you're going to be disappointed. I doubt any of your topics will even be mentioned by any of the major parties.

The HST will not be a feature of the election. The election will be about Mcguinty's massive budget deficits, and the disastrous way he's allowed his 'green' ideology to screw up Ontario's energy system and raise prices.

It's her own fault for being a pretty blonde!

But the NDP believes in proportional representation, and in that system, all MPs are appointed, so this is entirely consistent for them.

In all honesty, I'm hoping that now that they feel somewhat more secure the Tories will begin to open up more.

It doesn't cost us anything, and it works. So why mess with it? As to political will. You might get millions of people agreeing with you to change it, but their enthusiasm is so thin as to be barely measurable. Very, very, very few Canadians are going to be willing to put up a fight to get rid of the monarchy, and there's no political reward, ie votes, waiting for the politician who does so. On the other side of the ledger, you'll have millions willing to go to the wall to defend the monarchy, and that includes lifelong enmity directed at the politician and party which accomplishes this. So you make millions of people furious at you for the rest of their lives, and voting against you and your party forever, and your reward is what exactly? As an example, John Manley is a great guy, and would probably make a great PM, but I'll never vote for him because he's dedicated to getting rid of the monarchy. And I'm not even a REAL monarchist. I have a kind of sentimental attachment, and that's it. The REAL monarchists would go ballistic at any attempt.

Well, thank you, after all the insults, for flat out agreeing with what I said. Because, though you seem to be confused about it, that IS what I said. I never claimed crime rates were up. I only said that while police-reported crime was down, vctim reports of crime were not down, only their reporting of it was. So now you agree with me after all. Well, this is going off topic, but you can blame the lawyers in this case as easily as the clods in blue who didn't find the tapes. Their deal with Homolka was rendered unnecessary after they found those tapes. And there were several points afterwards where it turned out Homolka had lied to them or neglected to mention things. This could have allowed them to tear up the agreement. For example, she neglected to mention the repeated drugging and rape of a teenage girl they knew. When police found it on the tape, they allowed her to amend her statement so that she got covered for that too. As I recall from my reading (vaguely) the crown at the time was an NDP appointee, and very much into the woman-as-victim-of-the-evil-man, so ready to exempt Homolka from most of the blame. Precedence has nothing to do with justice. And sometimes, there really isn't any mitigation. Canadians generally have a pretty good sense of justice, of what is right and what is wrong. And they clearly see to many injustices from the courts, otherwise they wouldn't be supportive of Harper's crime agenda.

In your own delusional mind, perhaps. And I doubt you even read the link to the victims survey.