waynej625

So that somehow makes Paul Martin a better choice that Stephen Harper? If we are going to use the paintbrush approach, how is Martin any better than the person he replaced. It is coming out that Chretien was involved in the sponsorship program right up to his hinnie, and Martin was Finance Minister at the time. Now one of two things were going on, either Martin was incompetent and wasn't smart enough to catch all of this under the table dealings with the ad executives and people's money, or he simply chose to ignore what was going on. Either way is is culpable, and therefore does not deserve the respect or confidence of the people of Canada. I know that some of you will vote Liberal even after they blatently put their hand into your pocket's, take out your wallet, open it and remove all of the cash and credit cards, even then you will still go into the voting box and put an X beside the Liberal candidates name, and that my friend's does not speak well of you intelligence. Those arer the type of people who are lining up to buy ocean-front property in Arizona. Even my friend who s Treasurer of his local Liberal Riding Association is having nightmares about what the party is doing.

Eureka: People are simply saying that what we have is not democratic, and the system needs to change so that the people are empowered. Under our system we have a Governor General who is simply a rubber stamp for government, therefore she/he serves no purpose other than to be a financial drain on we the taxpayers. The same can be said for the Senate and the Judiciary since all three are appointed and therefore not accountable nor beholden to anyone other than the person who appointed them to office. We need a system whereby every person being paid by taxpayer's dollars is made accountable to the people who are paying those salaries. That cannot and will not happen with the system we now have in place. In fact the people we elect to office are not accountable, since once the election is over they can do as they please until another election is called. In between we have no mechanism to remove them from office if they are doing a lousy job. In the case of either the PM or a Premier, it is not the people who either select nor vote to put this person in charge. These people are selected by their respective party's and in order to attain office they simply have to satisfy the whim's of the electorate in their individual ridings. These people are not elected by the people for the whole country in the case of the PM nor is a Premier elcted by the people of their respective Province, because neither runs in an "at-large" system. Do you really think that if Chretien was to have run "at-large," he would ever have become PM? I don't think that is very likely. Of course you already know this, but choose to ignore the fact that none of these people are actually elected democratically by a majority of people. In fact some, like the Senators, and the Judiciary do not face the electorate at all. They are simply appointed to these positions by a person who was chosen by a Party, not the people. If Canada is to survive we need to revamp our system of government to make it accountable to the people, otherwise we are just going to contiue to have more sponsorship type frauds perpetrated on the people of this country.

Non-political? Who do you think appoints the Governor-General but the Prime Minister, the same person who appoints his friend's to the Senate, the Judiciary, and every other other appointment he can make up to reward his political compatriots. Who do you think you are kidding by saying the position is not political? Of course it's political.

I hope that you are trying to indicate that the government that we presently have and which is supposedly based on the British System is a very good example of good government, especially after the sponsorship, and the HRDC fiascos. If you are this country is really screwed, because it simply means that people will go right back to the polls and put a check mark beside another thief's name. I guess we get the government we deserve afterall.

Who ever said anything about Canada being a democracy is what I would like to know. We have a system whereby a leader is picked by a Party to become leader, yet does not have to face the electorate of the whole country in order to be named either as Prime Minister, or Premier. They only need to convince the people of their particular little riding to vote them in and that is supposed to convert to an endorsement from the people of the whole country or Province in the case of Premier. Once elected in their constituency they them get to instruct members of their Party how they are going to vote on specific issues, or face possible expulsion from caucus. How is that democracy? In my mind's eye, it is nothing but an elected dictatorship. We get to elect a new dictator every time we go to the polls.As for waiting for Gomery to finish, I don't think we are somehow going to learn at this point that this has all been some sort of mistake, and the Liberal's are lily white. Some said we shouldn't be painting all Liberal's with the same brush, but the truth is that in all likelihood, all Liberal MP's have benefitted in some way by these ill-gotten donations. As for Martin, he was Finance Minister during the time in question and for him to now say that he did not know any of the specifics of who did and didn't get money smacks of incompetence. He should have known where our money was going, and if he didn't he was not doing the job he was appointed to do. As for these polls quoting support for whom, I have absolutely no faith in polls, simply because it depends who was called and the specific questions they were asked. Myself, I have never talked to anyone who has ever received such a call to ask for their opinion, and the only calls I myself have received from survey companies has had to do with shopping trends. As for support for the Bloc being elected in Quebec, it shows how smart Quebecer's are to vote for a Party who have no influence either in the Parliament of Canada nor in the rest of Canada. If Quebecer's wer smart they would have figured out that they had far more influence in Parliament when they had MP's elected that represented one of the mainstream parties, instead of a one issue agenda, that cannot be good for Quebec, especially when Quebecer's figure out that if they separate, all federal institutions and the jobs that go with it will disappear, along with the paycheques that accompany those jobs.

I say No simply because it is a union controlled by only two countries, Germany and France. The United States on the other hand IS a country unto itself, run by one government instead of many. I would trust Germany and France about as far as I can throw them, because both attempted to conquor the world at different times in history. France once, and Germany twice. Germany almost succeeded the last go around, and it was only with the intervention of the US into the war that stopped it from happening.

I could be wrong, but I believe that there was another motivating factor for implementing a gun registry, and it is in all probability the same reasoning that was used in Australia, which was eventual confiscation without compensation. The last statistics I read showed that crimes such as robberies and breaks have skyrocketed since confiscation took place in Australia, and the belief is that there is much less fear by criminals of being shot by their victims. As for the police, it was also a rationale for politicians to lower the amount of police officers on the streets, and prison guards in prisons. After all with no guns and less crime, there is less need to pay police officers.

That is just like Robert Milton crying poor mouth to his employees during the bankruptcy, telling them they need to take major cuts in wages and benefits in order to make the company viable. It was he and his team that put the company in the financial mess it found itself in, because of poor financial planning, and yet the Board saw fit to keep him around, and even paid him and his inept team bonuses. Heere we are right after the employees have given away the farm and Robert suddenly finds major money, to hire Celine Dion to do some amateur ads. Her financial compensation must have been very substantial since Robert refused to reveal the amount. He would only say that whatever he paid it was worth it. Obviously his employees and their families were worth nothing to him. Nobody is worth the kind of money either our corporate executives, nor our athletes are being paid, especially when as someone else put it, employees being expected to work without so much as cost of living increases.

Cagerattler; you are quibbling over semantics, since in the first place the gun registry was supposed to cost no more than $2 million in start-up costs, and was supposed to be self-supporting by registration fees, andthe prime rationale stated by the Lieberal's for instituting the program in the first place was to prevent gun related deaths, and keep weapons out of the hands of criminals. Everytime I pick up the paper or read the news online, I am reading stories of robberies, murders, taking place by criminals using unregistered weapons. In fact in many drig raids, unregistered weapons are being seized. Not just rifles but handguns, in the possession of criminals. Now I wonder how that happened with all of the money being wasted on this failed gun registry? Maybe the criminals need another slap on the wrist from our efficient justice system, and have them be told that it is not nice to carry unregistered, restricted weapons. Give your head a shake, criminals are not about to register weapons they are not supposed to possess in the first place, and all the failed gun registries in the world is not ging to change that fact. This is a failed Liberal initiative that even they do not have brains enough to admit that it simple cannot work, unless all of the Charter rights being granted to our criminal element is suddenly going to cause them to have a change of heart, and they are going to follow the straight and narrow. I don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

caeser: Are you really naive enough to think that the whole truth will ever emerge? I have no such hope. I believe that politician's think of themselves as special and above the law, and it would surprise me if any politician ever winds up where they belong, which is behind bars for the long haul. Corporate CEO's and other executive types can steal investors money through fraudlant practices, and very few ever really suffer any penalty, let alone walking away penniless which is what they deserve. Since our politician's go out of their way to make it possible for these executive types to get away with this type of activity, and why not, many have come from that very place themselves (the business community), and want to make sure that when the time comes for themselves to be caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they too do not want to be held accountable.

Is there anyone really surprised that relavations are now surfacing that Chretien's own family is up to it's neck in these illegal payments for no work done. It's an awful thing to paint all Liberal's with that same brush, but what choice is there when instead of standing up for what is the right and honest thing to do, the Liberal's are circling their wagons, and wanting Canadian's to believe that this whole thing is a horrible mistake, and was perpetrated by some lowly clerk doing this without any political direction. The sad thing is that these morons are upset that Canadian's aren't thanking them for stealing their money. All those involved should be prosecuted and pit exactly where they belong, behind bars, but since our laughing-stock justice system doesn't want to lock-up even the most violent offender, I don't see these thieves even going to jail. When I talk about these thieves, I talk about politicians, starting from Chretien and working downward. Anyone who knew and either said nothing or helped them cover it up should be put behind bars, including our present PM, after all he was the Finance Minister when alot of this program was going on, and I won't believe that he knew nothing. If he did know nothing, he was not properly doing his job.

Instead of Chretien getting a speedy hearing in federal court in his attempts to have Gomery removed, he should be geeting a speedy trip right into the prisoner's box with the rest of the thieves who helped steal Canadian taxpayer's money through the sponsorship program. Chretien is as dirty as any one of those ad ageny flunkies and should not be treated special just because he was PM, he was crooked just like them, and should pay for it with some time behind bars.

RB; Have you ever worked within the justice system in Canada? It seems from your comments that you are sprouting the psycho-babble some of these social engineers and bleeding heart's refer to as "Restorative Justice." I have worked within the system with both adults and Youth's for over 10 years, and I can tell you that rehabilitation comes from within, and since most of our criminal's today started on this path when they were quite young, the lack of deterence gives them little incentive to change their ways. It starts by first having at least one parent enable their behaviour by taking on anyone who attempts to make them accountable for that behaviour, from teacher's to police, to probation officers, and yes even the judges themselves. Many of these parent's will take anyone to task who even attempts to make these young people accountable. Many of these young adults have been at this type of behaviour since they have been young offenders. By the time many have reach the age of 18 they simply graduate into the adult system as a natural progression. Why not, nobody so far including the system itself has made them accountable. Now we have in place a system called community sentencing whereby these individual's can roam at will, until they either get stopped by the police inadvertantly or they get caught breaking another law. Yes in some jurisditions they use electronic monitoring to keep tabs on these people, but in my Province the politicians decided that electronic monitoring was too costly so they opted instead to have organizations like the John Howard Society make random calls to those on house arrest to make sure they are not violating the terms by being out when they are not supposed to be. I was one of those people making those calls, and I can tell you that the people I was charged with contacting, I had never met before in my life, and when the telephone was answered, I had no idea that the person who came on the line was actually the person I was supposed to be monitoring. In fact, quite often it was a father, mother, brother, sister, or friend who conveniently agreed to take any calls. How do I know this, because many have been caught doing that very thing. In too many of these cases the court's, instead of revoking the community sentence, simply extend the community sentence, because the Province has closed so many jails, that there is simply no beds to place them in. If there is little or no deterence, as is the case for most offences in Canada, why would they ever decide to change the way they do business? Rehabilitation for the most part is a myth

And I wouldn't go there if the trips were being offered free of charge. Any money spent in Cuba goes to Fidel not to the people who earn it. Why would anybody support a country like Cuba, that enslaves it's own people? Caeser; You rant on about the USA, but at least the people in the USA are free to say what they please, even if it is about the government. In Cuba, these same people would be imprisoned or worse. Nobody dares speak out against Fidel, they know better. Every year Cubans are attempting to get to the US by the boat-load, so I guess it can't be as bad as you make out. Someone in another rant talked about Kent State referring to how the US Government dealt with uprising's, when Canada is not one bit better, or have we all forgotten Chretien's stormtrooper's (RCMP), and their tear-gasing and beating peaceful protestors at the G-8 Summit in BC a while back. No Canada has nothing to brag about when it comes to being tolerent of protestors right's to gather and express their displeasure with government.

You are right, except for New Brunswick where our Provincial Government was so horny to attract the French vote regardless, they declared NB to be 'Officially Bilingual." Nothing could be further from the truth, because it it is being transformed into a mini-Quebec thank's to court rulings after this declaration. When budget cuts are made, those cuts come from every program imaginable including Health and Education, but the one program that never suffers from cuts is funding for French initiatives. Somehow it has become a sacred cow, not to be fouched under any circumstances. Most Provincial jobs are now advertised as bilingual, and since most bilingual people in New Brunswick have French as their mother-tongue, they are the one's being given whether they otherwise qualify or not.A large number of unilingual English speaking New Brunswicker's have packed up and left the Province to head west or south. At a recent Job Fair, the exhibitors consisted of traing courses willing to help people fill out Student Loan applications, the rest of the exhibitor's consisted of various Call-Centre organizations. Someone told me that the one thing missing was meaningful, well paying job exhibitors. The only thing our being "Officailly Bilingual," has gotten us has been a form of segregation based on language, similar to Apartied in South Africa. They don't beat us or shoot us they just make sure that our choices of employment are limited unless we speak French.