mcqueen625

Now that sound like something right out of a social engineering 101 textbook. If you tell it to people long enough they may just get to believe it and accept it as normal, something like living in prison eventually will make people institutionalized and they can no longer function outside of a prison or like institution.I have worked as a YOuth Worker with a number of children who grew up in that type of atmosphere, and without a doubt virtually all were ostracized and made fun of by classmates. I don't buy it for one minute.

The government and the courts can make all the proclaimations they want in favour of SSM but the truth is that regardless of whatever legislation, this concept will never be accepted as being normal to many Canadians including myself. I believe that God made man and woman for procreating the human race and this is not possible with two people of the same gender having sex. If homosexuality is as normal as proponents would have us believe, then tell me where the hum race would be in just a few years if all humans on earth today became homosexual? Call that hate or homophobia or whatever you like but that is simply a fact of life. I was not brought up to hate homosexual's as people, but I was brought up to not accept this lifestyle choice, and the act of homosexual sex as being normal. As for homosexual couple adopting children, I believe that these children will never be accepted as coming from a normal family regardless of what our legislators and judiciary proclaim from their towers. The children themselves will quickly realize that there is definitely something wrong with having two mommies or two daddies living as married couples, especially when they become old enough to realize that thier mommy's or daddy's can give them a brother or sister like most other parents can. No this is definitely not a normal or healthy way to bring up a child.

I remember back to a time when our federal government decided that we needed to be in the oil business so they spent taxpayer's money on the formation of PetroCanada. Subsequent federal governments have since sold off this profitable company to private investors, but during the time that we did own it, I don't remember ever receiving a royalty cheque for my share of the profits from this taxpayer owned entity? I do not blame Alberta for refusing to share their windfall with the rest of Canada. Why should they give money to a Province like Quebec that does not want to be part of Canada? Some say they really don't want to separate, but my question would then be, if they don't want to separate why then would they continue to send representation to Ottawa who's sole purpose is the break-up of Canada? The Bloc has one purpose only, to dismantle Canada from the inside out. They are attempting to do what the FLQ attempted to do by force, the difference is this way they do not even have to fire a weapon or commit more murders. The Bloc is just an offshoot from the FLQ and should be labelled as such.

When you have the two largest economies in the world rejecting Kyota how can it possibly succeed? In fact China was exempted from Kyota, and would not have signed on anyway. They are one of the largest polluters in the world and that is not about to change regardless of what Canada does or doesn't do. If Martin was so concerned about Kyota, why did he just sign trade deals, and lobby China for investment into Canada when they are one of the major problems in the world as far as human rights violations, and pollutting the environment goes. I guess the promise of trade trumps any concerns about infractions on many fronts.

The fastest growing segment of Canadian society is our governments. Every time we turn around federal, provincial and municipal governments are adding bureaucracy, but few of those added employees actually do anything except administrative functions, such as produce reports that never see the light of day, and think up ways to reduce the numbers of people who actually do work within government. We need to start slashing the size of governments, including federal, provincial, and municipal. Federally we need to start with the PM's Office and work our way downward, not start at the bottom and never reach the top. We need to cut duplication of services between the federal and provincial level. In order to maintain Canada-wide standards the cuts to duplication need to come from the provinces, otherwise we will wind up with different programs in each province as is presently the case. One set of bureaucracy instead of two or three is sufficient. Automatically this will eliminate the mini-empire building that has been going on in our provinces for years. For instance the federal government funds an Office of the Official Languages Commissioner, yet in a have-not province like New Brunswick, Bernard Lord set up a duplication of this service provincially in Fredericton, NB, even though the feds already operate this service for Canada's citizens with an office in Moncton, NB. Many other examples of duplication could be documented right across this country, and it is time to put a stop to it, no wonder are standard of living is declining, we are drowning in a sea of bureaucracy! If duplication was eliminated imagine the savings to taxpayers, and imagine politicians being able to explain to taxpayers why tax cuts are not possible after such cuts were made. We have massive surpluses now, just imagine how big those surpluses would be if all of this duplication was eliminated.

Let's not forget something here, it was Jack Layton and his NDP Team that has kept this corrupt government in power this long, so why is Layton now so concerned about the corruption, and inefficiancies of the Liberla's under Paul Martin's Liberals? Dread the thought of the NDP ever forming the government in this country, if we think we have BIG GOVERNMENT now, look out, because if Layton has his way government will be all about doing everything for Canadians, including holding their hands going to the John. We need less government, not more, and that is why I will never again support the NDP, besides the fact that the NDP no longer represents the little guy, or working man in this country. Yes, that's right, I said never again because before Alexia took the NDP to the middle of the political spectrum I used to vote exclusively NDP, and Alexia changed all that. Now we have three parties that represent a pro-corporate agenda.

Mulroney was nothing but a legend in his own mind. Far from being the best Prime Minister this country has had since John A. he was one of the worst, that is next to Chretien and Martin. All three are and still are some of the most arrogant and egotistical individuals to ever enter Canadian politics. If Trudeau was responsible for scuttling Meech Lake, he deserves a pat on the back, because if passed this pact would have made Quebec feel more special than they already do. They have shown themselves to be a Province that cares little about Canada, and in fact has continually sent separtist's to Ottawa with an aim to destroy this country from the inside out. The sooner they vote to separate the sooner Canada can get on with an agenda meant to benefit us all. As long as Quebec stays it seems that the whole mandate of the Federal Government is to appease Quebec with special side-deals. At least if they leave we will forever be rid of the likes of Mulroney, Chretien, Martin and any other Quebecois that is lined up to take their place as federal leaders.

Why doesn't Canada help promote democracy? For the same reason that our Prime Minister just signed a trade deal with the Leader of China. I won't dignify the title of President because he was not voted into office by the people but installed there by the Communist Regime he is part of. Paul Martin made a big deal of the fact that he was going to brouch the subject of human rights with the Chinese Leader, but at the end of the day, after admitting that China's record of human rights is abysmal, money won out and human rights be damned. Paul Martin is more concerned about improving trade relations with China than he is with the working, and social conditions of the Chinese people. If Martin is substantially different than Chretien as he tries to imply, why was Chretien even invited to the reception for this communist leader? My take is that there is absolutely no difference between the two and that is why it is time for a change in government.

The sad fact is that many of those so-called Customs Officers were hired more for their ability to parle-vois, than for their ability as properly trained peace officers. To become a police officer in this country you cannot just walk in off the streets and take a few tests including language proficiency testing, you actually have to attend and pass a course at a recognized police training facility like the RCMP or Holland College in PEI, and I'm sure Ontario and other jurisdictions have their own police training facilities. My point is that Customs Officers are hired with virtually no formal training in police procedures, weapons, and self defence, therefore I would be very leary to hand out arms to these people. Maybe the answer is that we hire our Customs Officers after they have completed a recognized police training facility. Only then would I feel comfortable in arming this branch of the Federal Government. I say that because the son of a co-worker with my wife was hired to work as a Custom's Officer on a term placement, and his qualifications consisted of the fact that he could speak French, and he had a year or so of university under his belt, but absolutely no training or experience in the field of police work. Nice kid, but would I trust him enough to arm him? Not in this lifetime.

That is a great suggestion, but what if we wind up with the situation we have say in my province of New Brunswick where virtually every newspaper and periodical is owned by one family, the Irving's. How then can you get unbiased news reporting, especially if the controversy surrounds the dealings of that family, or the dealings of the politicians favoured by this family? My contention is that you cannot get accurate reporting unless the ownership of the media is limited by legislation. Besides that, is the topic of this forum, not about the U.N. being biased against Israel by funding Palistinian propaganda material?

Let's not forget something here, yes they were U.N. sanctions and it was member states like Germany, Russia, France. Blegium and probably a few more that allowed Saddam Hussain to get around those sanctions and use that money to buy weapons and other illegal contraband with oil sales that was supposed to be spent on medicine and food for the Iraqi people. This corruption reached all the way to the highest levels of this supposedly unbiased world organization. Koffi's own son was involved is this scandal, and so were a lot more including our own PM. Let's also not forget the fact that the U.N. although supposedly unbiased funded the manufacture and distribution of Bumper Stickers, Mugs and T-Shirts to Palestinians bearing the slogan 'Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalam." Their excuse accoring to The Canadian Free Press was that they did not know what the money was being spent on because it was funnelled into an outside agency. This is supposedly an organization that is not supposed to be taking sides, but in fact they and their leader Koffi have been taking d=sides in this conflict all along, and it time for the U.N. to turf Koffi and his team and make this organization truly unbiased or stop funding it altogether and allow it to die the slow death it deserves.

Martin on behalf of Canada signed some kind of trade deal with the President of China, Human Rights abuses did not seem to matter to Martin as long as China comes in and takes over what's left of our industries. They've started on the oil patch of Alberta, once they haev our oil, will it be our water next that Martin bargains away, or just al of our mineral resources.China can then process them and sell Canada back the finished product while Canadian's wind up working in call-centres.

I agree with FTA Lawyer on their assertion that Income Tax Law is legal. In fact it is agaist the law for an employer to pay you a salary and not withhold Income Taxes, E.I. & C.P.P./ Q.P.P. Premiums. along with the employer's share of these premiums. Employers face a penalty for not remitting these deductions to the Government of Canada by the 15th of the month following the deductions. Employers must also file a T-4 Summary outlining the Name. Social Insurance Number and the amount of each deduction withheld throughout the year, and these amounts must balance to the penny with the amounts remitted to government. throughout the previous year on their monthly summaries. If you are a paid employee you must pay Income Tax and other payroll taxes. The only way around this is to work on contract in which case it is your responsibility to decalre this income on your T-1 Income Tax Return under self-employed earnings, and pay your share of both E.I. and C.P.P. Premiums on Self-Employed earnings.

I beg to differ, but the Liberals did compromise big time on bill C-38 and the budget. They were able to use ideas from the ND party and got the Bloc vote. This was democracy in action, the way it should be in Ottawa. I'm glad we have a minority government, where parties have the opportunity to present their ideas. Harper did support the gov't budget but pulled back when unsupported allegations surfaced from Gomery. That was his choice to become involved, but he let bipartisan rhetoric and utterings from an unfinished commission blur his participation. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Where was there compromise on Bill C-38? From my recollection, this Bill was rammed through by the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc. Paul Martin demanded that Cabinet support the Bill as presented, and many other Liberal MP's were pressured into supporting the Bill. Neither the NDP nor the Bloc allowed a free vote, their MP's were instructed how to vote or risk disaplinary action from their leaders. Since the Senate is Liberal appointed and controlled they simply rubber-stamped the Bill on the way through, as normally happens in this useless Body of unaccountable, political hacks. Let's not also forget the Liberal appointed and unaccountable judiciary that started the ball rolling in the first place. This was far from democracy's finest hour, in fact we really have no democracy in Canada. What we have has been compared by some in the Canadian Free Press as a banana republic, with a dictator at the helm.

The only fair way to choose police personnel is to hire the most qualified, and race or language spoken should have nothing to do with it. We have situations now in Canadian institutions like our military, RCMP, Customs, and other organizations that discriminate against perfectly capable people by denying them admittance or promotability simply because they cannot speak French, even though they may never have occasion to use the French language while at work. In New Brunswick we have a situation where people whose mother-tongue was French being hired to fill supposedly bilingual positions, and now the Acadian Society is complaining that these people are forced to work in the English language because clients and co-workers are speaking only English in the offices where they are posted. Since many position in NB are posted as bilingual required, this is most of the province. They are now demanding that they be provided the opportunity to work exclusively in the French langauge. New Brunswick if everyone remembers is supposed to be the only "Officially Bilingual" province in Canada, but our provincial provincial politicians are no longer talking bilingualism, they are talking duality, and the two are hardly the same thing. Duality is duplication, and developing two is definitely more expensive to maintain. If police are hired on the basis of race, many otherwise highly qualified individuals may be overlooked in the hiring process. That is exactly what happened in places where this has been instituted. When you place quotas on certain minorities it's the same as putting out a sign, "DO NOT APPLY," unless you are one of the following, and by any other name that is called discrimination, based on certain criteria.

THe economy is good for whom? Most of the jobs being advertised today are TERM positions, and TERM employment does not make for preparing a stable future for our young, well educated individuals. Post secondary education is again becoming an elitist dream where only the affluent will be able to afford an education in the near future. Many of those graduating today are forced to leave the country to be able to afford to pay back student debt loads, and things don't look any brighter on the horizon. Corporations are downsizing and prices are escalating at a pace that many people can no longer afford to purchase even the necessities of life never mind the extras. Food bank and soup kitchen usage is up right across Canada and is climbing daily. Where is the economy good for ordinary Canadians, when many ordinary Canadian's are not even secure in their present employment situations. In many respects we have been turned into a service economy, and even there many of these jobs are being outsourced to places like India where corporations can pay next to nothing for labour costs. Even a once Canadian owned institution has fallen pray to that, Air Canada has outsourced many of their reservation call-centre jobs to New Delhi, India. Dell Computer now does much of their technical supporet from India as well, as well as many other such companies we do not yet know about is taking this cheap route. Meanwhile Canadians are not prepared if and when the axe falls and they are told their job is being eliminated here in Canada. Many people in this country in the 40 - 55 year age bracket are being downsized out of a job, and they have few prospects of being offered anything for which they are trained or educated for. employers today look at people as simply a resource to use, abuse, and discard. The rich get rich and the poor get poorer, as the saying goes. The only thing really growing is government bureaucracy.

What are youn talking about the corporation are now paying less than 10% of the socail costs of running Canada when it used to a 50/50 split between corporations and people. The multinational corporation have become so strong through deals like FTA & NAFTA that even though they have had their responsibilty for paying a fair share lowered to basically nothing they have still packed up and moved their manufacturing operations to third world countries for one reason, to lower the standard of living of both Canadians and Americans to third world levels so they can also pay low wages for any distribution costs they have left in North America. I just read an article last night on the net about how Canada's standard of living has fallen drastically in the last few years and is expected to continue to fall for the forseeable future. That is not progress, that is a sign that the house-of-cards called capitalism is crumbling, and another depression is around the corner. I didn't live through the last one in the dirty thirties, but I remember my father telling me that if you had a job at all you were lucky, because many didn't. At least back them people could go back and work the land in such things as forestry, fishing, and farming. Today that is not an option since most forestry is being conducted with mechanical harvesters, which require amybe 1% of the manpower once used. working farms are pretty much controlled by multinational agri-firm's like McCains, Green Giant and gowing back to the family farm is no longer an option since in many cases that farm no longer exists. As for fishing, Canada has allowed the foreign fleet to overfish the stocks that in many cases there is no commercial fishery left for even those who still do that for a living. God help us when another depression hits, because this country is certainly not prepared to deal with it, and peole right now go to bed hungery and are forced to rely on food banks and soup kitchens only because we still have some people who are able to subsidize that help. If a depression hit, people will be literally starving to death with nowhere to turn to for help.

Not likely, because in all likelihood BIG OIL would simply boost their prices to create more profits for themselves. Even so, this regressive tax should be removed from all essentials, because is a tax taxing taxes. Both the feds and the provincial governments impose surtaxes on petroleum products such as gasoline and heating oil on top of the price of the products, and the GST is applied on the total so in effect we are paying tax on a tax, and that is WRONG! Both the feds and the provinces applied these surtaxes for such things as deficit reduction in the case of the feds, we are no longer running a deficit yet this the surtax still remains, along with the additional GST.

Are you forgetting that is was corrupt Jean who likes to gives all of Canada's money to Quebec, who campaigned specifically on repealing the GST and once he fooled the stupid people from Ontario into putting him into power the first time, he made a complete about-face and admitted that he lied and had no intentions of removing the GST. In fact it was he who lobbied the Maritimes into harmonizing thier Provincial sales taxes with the GST to form the HST. Now we have Martin, another Liberal and he too refuses to repeal the GST. He refuses to remove it from the essentials like heating oil, gasoline and hydro bills, even though this regressive tax threatens the ability of most Canadians to survive this coming winter, including those on fixed income like seniors and people living solely on disability pensions like CPP, or QPP.

Yes we can blame the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney for the GST, but let's not forget something here lyin Jean campaigned on dumping the GST, and here it is year's later, we still have a Liberal government in Ottawa, and we still have the GST. The house-of-cards built on capitalism is starting to fall apart because wages have not kept pace with price increases, and there are far more Canadians living in poverty than there has been since the Depression in the Dirty Thirties. When people have to choose between food on their tables, and heating their homes, I would say that Canada's fiscal policy is an utter failure. The percentage of people living in poverty is the worst it's been since the Great Depression. Are we headed for another depression? I tend to think that we are, because a great many Canadian's are forced to rely on food banks and soup kitchens for sustenance. Something went terribly wrong in this country called Canada, and no political party in Canada is willing to do what needs to be done to fix the problem. My opinion is that we need to snatch control of our ecomony back from the multinational corporations, and start telling these corporations how things are going to be from now on, instead of them telling our government how things will be. This was brought home graphically yesterday when BIG OIL basically ordered the regulator in PEI to eithr raise the price of gasoline at the pumps or they would refuse to ship fuel to that Province. The regulatory body caved in and raised the price to $1.35 per litre, when they had just raised the price the day before, but that raise did not satify BIG OIL's demand for excessive profiteering.

I used to vote exclusively NDP, but that was when they actually represented the working man/woman in this country, and that has not been in quite some time. Alexia was the leader who stopped all that and brought the NDP to the middle of the political spectrum, as if we need a thrid Party in the middle, now they really represent big business just like the rest. The only Party that actually represents the people is the Bloc, and they are only a one province party, what a shame. Myself, I wouldn't vote NDP now if they were the only Party running, not after they climbed into bed with the likes of Martin.

Not to fear, I'm sure all of those advertising agencies, and many other's we probably haven't found out about yet will simply give back to the Liberal Party money they were not entitled to in the first place. Maybe some of the money misplaced from HRDC will reappear in Liberal Party coffers.

As far as I know Prince Edward Island is the only Province that has had the balls to regualte gasoline prices and now Wilson's Fuels of Halifax is refusing to ship gas to the island province because they say they are losing money. In my Province, of New Brunswick, the provincail government is in the pocket of Irving, and refuses to take any action to insure that people are not being gouged at the pumps. Irving Oil Ltd. owns and operates one of the largest, most modern oil refinery's in North America, and weild's enormous clout with our politicians. This family is rated amoung the top richest families in the world. Maybe it is time for other provinces to step up to the plate and regulate the prices at the pumps for not only gasoline, but for heating oil. Maybe it is time to institute a regulation similar to what they have state-side and that is an oil refiner cannot own retail outlets in the same market as they own refining capacity, because it is simply too easy to manipulate prices through wholesale. In Irving's case they own the refinery, they wholesale the gasoline not only to their own retail stations but to most other's as well, and they retail a product that the price has been set by themselves all the way through, with no government oversight, and that is simply wrong, wrong, wrong!

We're going to get shafted by both the oil industry and governments even though our oil does not come from that area, by increased costs.

In New Brunswick the person touted as a replacement for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, Bernard Lord climbs into bed with Kenneth Irving, and passes legislation which virtually gives Irving Oil a 25 year Property Tax holiday on the newly announced LNG Terminal Project in the Bay of Fundy. Out of the other side of his mouth he publically condemns a similar project for the State of Maine, only a few Kilometer away. I wonder why that is? Sorry, it is because it would be in direct competition with Mr. Irving and his plans for Irving Oil, and everyone in New Brunswick at least knows how much the Irving's dislike competition. God help us all in New Brunswick if Bernard Lord gets elected to another term in office, because he has managed to literally destroy what healthcare we did have, and place our educational system at, or close to the bottom in performance ratings, while increasing every fee that he could lay his hands on, and some that he invented, all without calling them taxes. This rant is coming from someone who supported the P.C. candidate in the last two elections. Be assured that provincially I will be supporting his Liberal counterpart in the next election even though I have never voted Liberal in my life. PLEASE people of Canada, do not promote this disaster as a leader of anything, because he doesn't have the qualifications, unless arrogance and pomposity is your gage of good leadership material, because that is all he has going for him, brains and common sense seems to have abandoned him.