overthere

Bonam said 'nipple'. Reported!

In the case of lettermail, first class mail, Canada Post has no choice in maintaining the service no matter what. Is that the subsidy you mean? Along with the monopoly on first class, they are also required to deliver it anywhere in Canada for the same price. They used to bring up this red herring every so often to justify their stamp price increases, but it ain't so. The volume of mail that goes to the northern part of provinces or the territories is miniscule compared to the megabucks earned from delivering hundreds of thousands of utility bills in cities or towns. But that has all changed with the drop in volume. CPC can saw off on lettermail: raise prices dramatically, lose more volume, still make money or at least break even. They will continue to focus on their ace in the hole, their sophisticated distribution network, which luckily can handle both letters and a hoped for avalanche of parcels(and admail, another earner in the cities).

Oops, typo on that, it was only one million dead in the longest conventional war of the 20th century. A million dead is a periodic cull? Border skirmish? I did not know that. I did know that the war began with Iraq invading Iran.

and they cannot repeal anything either. Your example does not illustrate the SC making laws or repealing laws. Try again.

CPC has a double edged sword with lettermail. They have a monopoly, nobody in Canada can deliver householder mail except them. They also are obliged to deliver to every household, though door service is not reuqired at all under their mandate. They realized this first in the early 80s, soon after incorporation, and acted swiftly on it by denying door service to all new homes. They aslo began the massive programs of closing many rural post offices and privatizing others while begin to shut down home delivery entirely in 1985.. Don't hear much whining about either now, people get used to i perhaps 1% of the 1/3 of homes that currently get delivery to their door.

That would make sense, but the risk of having him speak off script is huge and likely not necessary. There are already many voters who will vote for him because he is not Harper. No need to sow confusion by having him ruin that by saying anything. Looks like Mr Trudeau himself agrees:http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/20/time-to-get-serious-justin-trudeau-admits-his-off-the-cuff-jokes-give-political-fodder-to-his-opponents/

The increase in first class postage and stopping household delivery are just the latest signals of their corporate direction, which they have not really deviated from in decades. They know that the profit from firs class mail is shrinking and unreliable. They don't really hurt themselves by jacking up first class stamp rates , that sector will be in continuing decline for the foreseeable future since it it unlikely that the Internet is just a fad. Those few people who still enjoy home delivery will soon get over being subsidized by those who don't. Their strategy has gone away form mail delivery for decades now, it has been focused on distribution. They already have a pretty efficient and pretty comprehensive distribution network with modern facilities for handling and distributing paper/parcels across Canada. And that is where they see their future and their survival, Their admail program will expand. What is really big for them is parcels, and specifically online shopping which is growing greatly. They are well positioned there, right now. Lettermail will be a necessary brdenm, and with the sharp increases in stamp prices should not be a loss leader.

The epople I know that don't have cars mostly live in urban situations. They get their mail in the lobby of their building, as they have forever. If you live in a household delivery neighbourhood, it is likely suburban and there are damn few households who don't have cars there, except perhaps the elderly and disabled. I don't know why anybody would use a car top pick up at community mailboxes anyway, around here in newer areas they are always within easy walking distance.

Yes there must be thousands of examples of businesses already existing in Canada to serve the 2/3 or the population who have not had household service since 1985. Unless perhaps those millions of homes have no elderly or disabled people living in them. Are all the old/disabled in pre -1985 ghettos in Canada?

From here Wally http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums/topic/23977-canadian-homeland-security/

Of course Harper has to run on his record in 2015. Your problem, the one you desperately want to avoid, is that The Hair has no record to run on..... But that will be both an asset and a liability for Trudeau. If you haven't done anything in your life, you have neither successes or failkures. Harper doesn't have that ambiguity. Some Canadians will note their is a teeensy weensy difference between running a constituency office(Trudeau) and running a nation(Harper). Others won't notice it, and that is your target audience Wally. You can pretend otherwise and I do understand why you must pretend otherwise- because it is a significant chink in the Trudeau brand , but there it is. You've got a year or so to close the chink, starting with the book and Trudeau bashfully and sheepishly admitting he sometimes talks too much.http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/20/time-to-get-serious-justin-trudeau-admits-his-off-the-cuff-jokes-give-political-fodder-to-his-opponents/ The comments by Chretien are part of the same program, like anybody cares what that corrupt old asshole has to say. The spin machine is revving up hard, hard , hard.

Does this mean that the CSIS chief who warned us recently of domestic radicalization connected with the Middle East is not a fascist swine spreading lies on behalf of Harper for sinister motives?

Canada Post has been a semi-independent Crown agency since 1981(PM Pierre Trudeau), they were created with the mandate of improving reliability of service and operating without govt subsidy. The conversion to Crown Agency came after decades of nasty strikes and poor service. They were given some tools to do this, the best of which was the first class mail monopoly. They were also given an extensive network of processing plants. CPC protects its turf from govt interference zealously, and they know the only way to maintain the ability to act as a business comes if they stay at or near in the black. Their corporate strategy for years has not been on delivering mail, it has been on distributing mail. They have invested many millions in modern, suburban processing plants- effectively mail factories. They have been selling their old school downtown facilities. But...they face a huge threat for their biggest profit maker: first class mail. Its a threat they probably cannot defeat- technology, first faxes, now the Internet are hurting them badly. Nobody sends letters to Aunt Mabel anymore, not just personal letters but bills. Many mail intensive companies- like utilities and credit card companies- tried everything to avoid sticking an expensive stamp on their mass monthly mailings and bypass the monopoly. All failed in court challenges. . CPC had the weight of the legislated monopoly on their side, and it has saved their bacon for a long time. Until the Internet. Now companies not only insist on sending customers bills electronically, they charge a fee for mailing it. The federal govt itself got in on that. They closed several cheque printing plants across Canada, the ones that printed CPP, OAS, baby bonus and tax refund cheques by the millions. Almost all via Internet now. The monopoly still exists, but it won't get CPC out of this fiscal dilemma. Times have changed irrevocably.

All true. There is not a speck of compassion in the insurance industry unless it is related directly to profit. Complete horseshit. Insurance companies pay quickly if you agree to their offer of settlement, which is favourable to you in a very small number of cases. if a lot of money is involved, you'll be squeezed hard and squeezed hardest if they know you need the cash. The reason they cut a cheque immediately is because he hired an independent advocate who knew the system. And then they immdiately screwed him for years to come. Vindictive, mean, cheap assholes. His widow still has trouble getting insurance.

If we're wagging war dicks here, how about those 8 million dead Iranians and Iraqis slaughtered in the 80s by the benevolent leaders Saddam and Khomeini in their wee border dispute? Man those were the good old days!

Wally Wally Wally you are living in the past. Harper has been working full time and then some for about 10 years now as an economist. Pretty much all that time that Justin was nailing his dramatic chops, Stephen was at g8 and G20 meetings dealing with global recessions and such. Have you forgotten already?

I'm not playing semantics. No court and that very definitely means the Supreme Court should never be in the lawmaking business as you said they were. You just did it again, claiming they can strike laws from the books. They cannot do that either. They can rule against a case before them in the context of stating that it does not comply with the will of Parliament when they created the law or the Charter or the Constitution, but they cannot repeal anything any more than they can create any laws.

Its far more sinister than that. Harper was clearly behind this 'accident', created the question/answer dog and pony show, and has the PMO cranking up the giant fog machine right now.

What Harper did in his teens would matter if that Harper was running against Trudeau. But he isn't. The runoff is between Harper 2015 and Trudeau 2015. So, which guy in 2015 has the greater financial, foreign affairs and political acumen to run the 12th largest economy in the world?

the story given by cheerleaders like Michael Den Tandt is that Trudeau dictated it to a series of 'editors' who wrote it, then Trudeau did the final draft.

It is not and never will be. The govt is free to draft whatever it pleases.

+1. Oliver is very funny. He has no filters and offends all with equal energy. A few episodes ago he devised fake attack ads for both Senatorial candidates in - I think- Kentucky. I could not find them on YouTube, not surprising because they are pretty raunchy but hilarious.

The SC addresses points of law that arise from cases referred from lower courts, and occasionally provide interpretations if requested by the federal government. All courts operate within the framework of the Constituion and Charter. They do not make laws and their decisions do not have the effect of creating a new law. Your statement on governments not getting to do what they want is not relevant.

Bev Desjarlais

The prime purpose of the Vatican is not to serve the faithful, enlighten humanity, spread compassion and hope or any of the stuff cranked out dutifully by the PR department forever. The purpose of Church Admin HQ including the Pope and cardinals is to ensure the survival of the Church. They will not act on anything unless it is a threat to the money, power and prestige enjoyed by senior management for over two thousand years. There is not enough pressure on them from gays and the divorced to matter. Look at the disgusting, far reaching, top to bottom horror of pedophilia and child rape in the Church in recent years. It shook the team, but they are still all generating revenue on every continent. What chance do a few homos or divorcees have in swaying these Masters of the Universe??