overthere

Reform and Wildrose started in the same province. Is that the same as a replay? Reform essentially swallowed the federal PC party, moved strongly to the middle of the political spectrum, and the resultant creature has enjoyed running the country for a decade. Wildrose is born and died in a few short years. Some replay.

No doubt banks in particular would be hurt if their systems are down for any time at all. But... it is also true that every Canadian bank has redundant, separate and independent capacity. Computing power has gotten much cheaper, and it is easy for a bank to copy every keystroke at every teller and every ATM in real time in multiple databases. They also all have duplicate operations centers set up near but not too near critical locations. If they lose their downtown Toronto HQ, for example, they can be online again soon enough in a mirror facility in Mississauga. It isn't Bay Street, but in terms of functionality a well equipped warehouse full of desks and computers does the same thing.

With respect, I don't think you have any idea of how much it would cost this country to be neutral.

Um, their rules: slaughter infidels, rape the women, and behead survivors on camera. Our rules, for Khadr: capture alive, provide due process and rule of law to an endless degree, followed by several years of health care and three squares per day. If we'd played by their rules, on the battlefield our troops would have shot him as he lay wounded. No difference there, nope.

The strongloy socially conservative faction in WR(which is all that remains now) oppose GSAs in all forms. The more conservative group in PC want Bill 10, which gives Catholic school boards an out. But make no mistake, a large majority of Albertans including a majority of PCs want a liberal, inclusive GSA agreement. I think this was certainly a factor... though she could have also tried to purge the hardcore socially conservative people from Wildrose. Smith knew for a couple of years why she lost an election that looked to be won, and how hard it was going to be to move her party to the middle. Red Deer was a bellwether for her, she realized that WR was unelectable. It could not be steered any further to the middle. As I have noted, their momentum peaked in 2012 and it has been all downhill in real terms. Once the PCs drafted Prentice, Smith and Wildrose were both toast.

Derivative and easily predicted. The question that should and does matter to Quebec is: will the next federal government need Quebec seats to form a majority? The NDP will obviously be the biggest losers in Quebec, the only question is is how many and to which party?

The very first thing and by far the most important is to have an article or act of faith that you can sell. Once a disciple accepts that, all the rest follows. "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and earth...."

At the U of Alberta, the average cost per year to operate the university (excluding capital costs, which are large and constantly growing)for all full time students is about $22,000 per year. The average tuition is just under $6000, so about $16,000 per year per student is subsidized and nearly all of that is from taxpayers funds. The uni does have some other revenue from endowments and leases/rentals on their property. That seems more than fair to the students, considering too that provincial grants are available, as are low cost federal loans.

There are exits in every direction, take one. In the meantime, here are some facts for you. If you're a citizen, they apply to you . Canada is not and never has been a neutral or non aligned country. (and note that 'neutral' countries like Sweden and Switzerland are far better armed than is Canada. Both bristle with state of the art weaponry and are both weapons exporters) Canada has been on many peacekeeping missions, and participated willingly in many wars too. Canada has military alliances with many countries that commit us to fight and die under certain triggering circumstances, like Article 5 of the NATO agreement. Of course, our agreement to join NATO was signed by non other than the not-quite-Gandhi Lester Pearson. It is an absurd and inaccurate meme for the left to portray Canada as some sort of angelic peacekeepers who have lost international respect by being engaged, by choosing a side. The opposite is true: our allies loathe Canada when we fail to meet our agreed obligations in times of strife. Soemtimes that involves talking, sometimes shooting. Like it or not, that is how it is when you live on this planet. Independent countries have independent foreign affairs policies.

Katz has not yet been hurt in his wallet, but it is beginning. The building is sold out every night, but there are many empty seats. Merchandise sales are down, and concessions sales have to be much slower. Katz can afford all of it, and he cherishes his relationship with the old boys like Lowe and MacT and others, like Semenko, Buchberger etc. Katz is not stuorid, he did not build a multi billion dollar business empire by being dumb. Hockey is a hobby and passion, the money is secondary and the team remains profitable. He isn't using crap-to-great- teams like Chicago or Pittsburgh(both were awful, both has serious financial problems, both are now great franchises). He's using Toronto, where prolonged losing doesn't seem to matter to the fans. They still pay through the nose. I think it will take an event he cannot ignore to make him act. It will be something like one of the core: Hall, Nugent-Hopkins, Eberle asking for a trade- and that could happen anytime. Those guys can make big money anywhere, and eventually one or all will get sick of being worst. When that happens, Lowe will be lynched on Jasper Avenue.

All foreign policy is self serving, for every country. It is not necessary for our allies to do what they are told, and who are we to order about a sovereign state?. The heart of any alliance is that each party will abide by their treaties with their allies. Israel is our friend, officially and for decades. It is not clear why you would encourage or wish for massive war or a nuclear exchange in the region. It would be in the best interest of the USA to invade Canada and take control of the expanded borders and resources. The length of our border is a bizzarely irrelevant. It is interesting to see you condemn to slaughter the one and only functioning democracy in the Middle East. Anybody else you'd like to see exterminated?

The most recent cluster**** is about to play out. There is of course no way Dreisatl should have started the season with the Oilers, and even less to keep him past 10 games and thereby burn a year of his entry level contract. There was no reason not to let him play with the German national team at the World Juniors either, since he has clearly demonstrated that he is not quite ready for the NHL. Now they are going to return him to junior but not with his team Prince Albert but to challenge for the Memorial Cup with the powerhouse Kelowna Rockets. It is better than keeping him with the Oilers, but he has learned nothing with the Oilers except how to lose. They should have done this in September, yet another blunder and this one is all MacTavish.

Japan and Mexico are bigger too. Maybe Venezuela

Cubans will need two things they lack to afford ticket prices to MLB games: disposable income in hard currency. They have neither now. Players won't be paid in pesos. Player salaries are not the total of club expenses, of course. FRanchise fees, farm systems, scouting, coaches, travel and many other items come out of owners pockets.

Yup.... unemployment levels in Canada are simply horrific. Every person everywhere should have the job they want at the pay they want in the place they want, and it is Harpers job to deliver that. He refuses to do it because he hates people and he hates freedom.

I'd guess 20+ years before Cubans have enough disposable income to charge the ticket prices required to support a major league payroll.

What bill is that? Westerners certainly remember the many decades when Ontario factories pumped out crap equipment that Western farmers had no choice about buying at extortionate prices. The federal govt Ontario controlled, and still controls, applied tariffs to ensure there was zero competition. In ontario this era was know as the 'good old days'. I can see how you'd yearn for that! Say, maybe a few billion in public money and you could spark up that old Massey-Ferguson plant. Glory days will return soon though- the combined economic genius of Wynne and Trudeau will lead us to the good old days again. In the meantime, most of what comes out of Ontario is from a different orifice.

^^^^^^^ Why would Prentice care about the size of the official Opposition. Anyway you slice or dice it, he has a commanding majority with or without Wildrose, NDP or Liberal support. And I suggest you refrain from commenting on AB politics, you are embarrassing yourself. What does it matter that a Quebec Premier has not been a PM? Do you have a point? Fixed it for you

Yes, I know but the impact on daily life in the country was minimal. There was little or no fighting until 78/79, several years later. Everyday life was unchanged. The country was corrupt and bankrupt with the monarchy, and equally so with a Soviet puppet regime.

Harper rarely talks on religion. He has not done anyhting at all in 9 years on the most inflammatory special issues like same sex marriage and abortion. Nothing . Nada. Israel. Canada is an ally of Canada. Dep[site what you think, Canada IS NOT and HAS NEVER BEEN a neutral nation. Hats off to Harper for speaking the truth about Russia and the Ukraine. Khadr. What is your point? Supreme Court. What is your point? And this is Harper Secret Agenda? Try again. And try harder, much harder this time. I don't either has a Christian Issues Agenda. Harper and Prentice are very similar in this way: both are excellent managers, and neither is big on leadership- which translates to both glib frothings and smooth communication in todays world of charisma and camera friendly chats being considered qualities of leadership. Harper had been criticizing the blatant, violent aggression long before he met with Putin and told him the same thing to his face. What would you have Harper do, whine quietly in private while Ukraine gets publicly raped?

It was Laurie Blakemans private members bill, and Bill 10 did not gut it. What is did it give the Catholic boards a way out, and oblige a GSA that had a beef with a Catholic school board to take that board to court. That out is the only significant change from Blakemans bill, It set the Bill up for a classic Charter challenge, and my guess is that the Supreme or any Court would ultimately strike down Bill 10. It is freedom of religion vs freedom from discrimantaion by sexual orientation. Another aspect to this is that the guaranteed right to a Catholic education in Alberta is part of the founding charter of the province, the Alberta Act. The question is: why did Prentice withdraw the Bill just before it became law? As a lawyer, he may have recognized that is is vulnerable to a Charter challenge and may wish to amend it to protect the Bill further. He may also be wondering if in fact the creation of GSAs actually has anything to do with the provision of a Catholic education. As a poltician, he may be stepping back and reassessing the support for either course: passing Bill 10, or passing Blakemans bill. I reckon he will correctly assess the impact and pass Blakemans bill. The leadership of Catholics in Alberta is socially conservative, but mainstream Catholics are not.

It is a free market, but one side has voluntarily ceded effective control of the market to the other.

No need to worry. Canadian economics are like incest- all relative - and loyal Albertans will continue to pound $10 billion per year into Ontario and other have-not provinces for the foreseeable future. Or forever, whichever comes first. And that is just equalization, lets not talk about the rest.

One of the metrics used in classifying jobs and determining appropriate pay levels is " consequences of actions". How do you feel teachers fit into this? Does a bad day for a teacher in the classroom result in anything irreversible? For example: when a Red Seal sous chef has a bad day, the customers get salmonella or e coli infections. When an auto mechanic has a bad day, your brakes don't work. When an aircraft second officer has a bad day,......... yOu get the idea. All of these people, in mid career and with hours of training equivalent to a certifioed teacher, earn less than a teacher in mid career. Are they underpaid, or are teachers overpaid?

In fact, the marketplace for education should be controlled by the employer. The employer simply refuses to exercise that overall control to their own benefit. Public sector management(civil service) and ownership of the corporation(politicians) have no incentive to control costs. There are no penalties at all for overpaying anybody in the public sector, including teachers. They do have a personal incentive to keep down strife, and that incentive is votes by annoyed parents. The govts have ceded their control to their own employees, to sometimes ludicrous results. Examples of this in my province are that the union is effectively in charge of teacher discipline and teacher licensing. Teacher compensation should be subject to supply and demand just as it is in any other field of employment. But out 'leaders' have taken the easy way out for decades, and the usual formulas do not apply. I don't blame teachers unions for stitching up their job security and compensation so neatly- that is the role of any union. It would take some courageous politicians to change this vicious little paradigm, and those are in very short supply.