Melanie_

"We shall not accomodate!" You sound like you've watched one too many movies lately, MikeDavid.

From the OP article: The Conservatives still haven't decided how they should go about allocating money for creating spaces. Transferring it to the provinces seems just a bit too close to the original plan put forward by Ken Dryden, which they scrapped. They wanted to give it to private businesses, in the form of tax credits, to open centres for their employees, but there was no interest expressed by businesses. No spaces have yet been directly created as a result of the Conservative promises - regular transfer payments that the provinces then choose to apply to their existing child care programs doesn't count as the 125,000 spaces promised. Saying that the new spaces are due to "extra support" is not the same as creating spaces themselves. As a refresher, here's what they promised during the election: Still waiting.....

Canadian Women's Health Network

Reasonable accomodation doesn't mean allowing anything that is against the law in Canada. Honour killings are illegal - it is called murder. Sexual mutilation - "female genital circumcision" - is also illegal, and is considered child abuse. There was a case this week where the leader of a fundamentalist church was convicted of conspiracy to rape because he coerced a young girl to marry against her wishes. Canada doesn't "allow" these cultural practices. Blaming the left for these atrocities, as if the left supports them, undermines the fight to get rid of them. Edited: The conviction was in the US, of Warren Jeffs, the leader of a splinter Mormon group. CTV

I expect that a man would say castration, and a woman would say mastectomy, but I can't see that there is a comparison to be made here. The repercussions of both are so personal, how can they be measured against each other?

Well, you certainly are an angry person - perhaps one of those "esteem issues" you talked about. I don't know why you are coming here, if we all don't matter, but hey, whatever rocks your boat. But I'm done with you - I won't be increasing my "post count" by responding to you again. I hope you get some emotional help soon, and I do mean that sincerely.

I have never advocated that child care should be free. Parents can and should pay for their childcare if they are above a certain income, and if they are below they can get a subsidy based on a sliding scale. Your figure of $30,000 is the current cut off point in Manitoba for subsidy; any income above that and you pay the full daily fee of $18.80, or $376 every 4 weeks. Child care centres do still get an operating grant from the province of just over $2000 per year per child, which seems like a pittance when you think about the support it provides to families. That $2000 per year per child is the money that we are talking about to fund new spaces, plus capital costs to build new centres or renovate/expand existing ones to allow for more children to attend. (Capital costs are often offset by fundraising, grants, and individual investments, so its not like the government is totally funding them, but they are a contributor.) The other role of the government in child care is to license and inspect centres on a regular basis. This doesn't mean they set the program, it simply means they ensure that all standards are met.

How do you envision this responsibility? Sometimes, the most responsible thing is to go out to work, to support your family. That means finding some form of out of home care for your child, and a parent's biggest concern at that point is to find care that is going to provide their child with the best environment possible. Sometimes there is a grandparent or other family member available, and that's great. Sometimes parents are able to flex their hours so that one parent is always at home with the children, and that's great too. But most often, it means two parents, or a single parent, working and the child attending some form of care. A responsible parent makes sure their child is getting quality care.

But do you really want to tell others how to practice their religion? Isn't that what freedom of religion is all about? Sikhs around the world wear their kirpans all the time - every time you see a Sikh man wearing a turban, he is also probably wearing a kirpan. I'm not aware of any incidents ever happening in a school - are you? The Supreme Court decided that it was OK for them to be worn in schools, under certain conditions: Under these conditions, is there really an arguement against kirpans in schools?

Any Canadian soldier who has truly lived up to the name wouldn't tell a Canadian citizen they "don't matter". You may have served your time, but you seem to have missed the value.

AW, I'm not a big fan of George Bush, but I would say the same thing if he were invited to speak and then treated with disrespect in the introduction. Bollinger should have let him speak first, then, in the question and answer period, asked specific questions to draw out his true position. Please understand, I am not supporting Ahmadinejad's position on Isreal, or any specific actions of his government - I just think it was incredibly rude to invite him to speak and then, before letting him do so, ambush him in the introduction. Betsy... The US isn't at war with Iran, and the best way to avoid war is through dialogue. Apparently the Catholic Church agrees: I think Ahmadinejad's willingness to meet with US religious groups might be more political than anything else. Maybe he is looking for support on his views of homosexuality (I'm trying to tie this back to the purpose of the thread). Maybe he is hoping to connect with the more traditional views among Americans. Or maybe he is just trying to throw up a smokescreen.But whatever his purpose is, the Christian groups that met with him felt that they made progress. Edited to add another link: National Council of Churches

Of course no one knew before hand if someone was going to follow through or not - that was part of the purpose of this thread. I'm just trying to figure out what you meant by this: Are you saying we should kill people who make threats, whether they actually follow through or not? Apparently so. While I'm all for stopping terrorism, I don't think its a good idea to kill people for essentially running their mouths off. By that logic, there are several posters here who wouldn't stand a chance.

Actually, you're incorrect when you say a Sikh would still be a Sikh if he left his dagger outside the classroom. It is an essential part of Sikhism that they wear the turban, and the Kirpan. Restricting them is a violation of the freedom of religion that we as Canadians claim to value. Most Kirpans are ceremonial, and are bound into their scabbard. There is virtually no risk to having them in schools or workplaces. BBC - Religion and Ethics

It was an empty threat, Leafless, no one was killed. I'm not sure if you were suggesting the death penalty be applied to those who actually carry through on the threat, or those who simply make the threat.

The $100/month per child isn't the issue here. There were two prongs to the Conservative plan - the UCCB (Universal Child Care Benefit), and the creation of 125,000 new spaces over 5 years. Its the promise of spaces that is being called into question, not the money to parents. I understand that you don't want to pay for daycare, but the reality is that it doesn't work well as a private industry. The focus of any private industry is to make a profit, which means that parents pay far more for the service than it actually costs, and Early Childhood Educators are paid a pittance. Sure, they can leave and get higher paying jobs elsewhere, but that means young children are coping with new caregivers constantly, at an age where they really need consistency and continuity. A public system where parents pay a reasonable amount (in Manitoba it is $376/month), with a sliding scale of subsidies for those who need assistance, makes the most sense. And of course, any system needs to be monitored for health and safety standards, ratios of # of children per adult, training of staff, etc. One of the fallacies I see often on this board is that there is some sort of brainwashing going on in child care facilities. Are there specific techniques you are aware of? Specific practices/thoughts/ideologies being taught? I go to centres regularly as part of my job, and I have yet to see a manual from the government telling centres what to brainwash children with. There is wide variety in programming and philosophy - the only thing the government monitors is that centres are upfront with parents. In fact, public daycares are generally run by a Board of Directors made up of parents, who determine the goals of the centre. Parents have much more input into public daycare than they do into private daycares run by an individual owner, or (as we see in Australia) the large private daycare franchises where some fat cat sits in an office in Melbourne and decides everything for 500 centres. BTW, that fat cat is Canadian, and would love to see a series of Walmart sized centres open up in Canada, all directed from that same office in Melbourne. That is the way private care is headed.

My, my, how kind of you to grace us with your presence. I'm sure we will all benefit from your pointing out of our shortcomings.

I agree with Higgly about the president of Columbia University. I thought it was really rude and disrespectful to invite someone to speak, and then ambush them in the introduction. I know some of you will claim the man doesn't deserve respect, but Bollinger's actions reflect more on himself than they do on Ahmadinejad.

I agree, Guyser, risk management is something we all do everyday. I think U of W was probably a safer place to be today than it will be next week, or next month, or whenever someone decides to do something without announcing it first. I guess my question really is, how much attention do we need to pay to someone who seems to be intent on stirring the pot, and isn't actually going to follow through on a threat? Do students simply stay home on a regular basis, or do they become blase about security threats, and brush them off as if there is nothing to worry about? And how do you distinguish real risks from the empty threats of someone who just didn't study for their exam? I don't want to be the one making that call, but at the same time I don't want to have constant disruptions to students' education. I like the idea of the text messaging system. I'd like to see something like that at my work.

The Conservatives didn't have a hot clue what "creating daycare spaces" was all about when they made this promise. At first they said they were going to give companies tax incentives to create spaces for their employees, but of course that made no sense - as I've stated before on this forum, you can't expect every Canadian Tire across the country to open its own worksite daycare for just it's employees. Solberg's statement above, trying to pass off the problem to the provinces, is laughable, particularly this statement: How does that differ from what Ken Dryden did in 2005? Remember the bipartisan agreements, signed with every province, that the Conservatives promptly discarded when they took office? Here's some news, Monte - the provinces have already been consulted, they have already established their priorities, and they would have been two years closer to meeting the needs of Canadian families if the bipartisan agreements had been honoured.

Last week, someone noticed graffiti in a bathroom stall at the University of Winnipeg, saying they were going to shoot up the campus September 26 (today). The University went public with this information, and added extra security measures yesterday and today. Some measures will continue into next week. Students were all given the option of not coming to classes today, and I heard that only about 30% of students were on campus – my daughter chose to stay at home. I asked her if she thought she was any safer on any other day, but she didn’t have much of an answer for that. U of W There has been some controversy about whether or not the U of W should have put out the information, and what kinds of preventative measures they should take. Is it just feeding in to someone’s need for excitement, or attention? If there are ongoing threats, should the same measures be taken every time? I teach on another large campus here in Winnipeg, and I’ve been thinking about security a lot. If there were a nutcase somewhere, there really is no efficient way to get the message out to classrooms. I’ve started to toy with the idea of keeping my classroom door locked during classtime, but that just feels a bit paranoid (although it might prompt students to get to class on time more often). How should the threat of campus violence be handled by colleges and universities?

I wanted to post a reply to an article on the Maple Leaf Web home page, but my log-in name and password that I use here on the forums didn't work. Do I have to register seperately to post on the rest of the website?

Was the 14 year old boy employed as site security? If so, what training was provided to him to ensure he understood his role as security? Why were the Six Nations providing security on this building site? If it was disputed as to who really had the rights to the property, security shouldn't be provided by either party in the dispute - that implies that the group providing security has a stronger claim to the property.

It's not really about Peter Phillips, and where he sits in the line of succession. It is about what Canada sees as the criteria for our head of state. Do we really want to insist that our head of state can't exercise religious freedom? Because that is the issue here - If Peter Phillips (not a serious contender for the throne) has to step aside because he marries a Catholic, Canada can't really hold the value of freedom of religion that dearly.

I can't believe we have 6 pages on whether or not MD00 is "multicultural". I know there is no doubt in my mind on the answer! It's time to stop feeding the troll.

Johnny Cash, Cream, and now.... Trooper weighs in. I think the original question, should life be unfair, is unrealistic. It is unfair, and that isn't likely to change, for all the reasons others have said so far on this thread. A more answerable question is, when faced with inequities, what qualities allow some people to overcome them, and others to be held back? Why are some able to "Raise a Little Hell"? I like Kimmy's view on competent parenting, but I'm not sure that accounts for all the resiliency we see in people. Temperament plays a part, and so does the balance of life experience a person has - if they haven't had a lot of success in making change, they are less likely to keep trying.