What is your most important issue

[mikedavid00]

What is your single most important issue? I could have added more, but I feel this are the big ones that we're dealing with right now. I was going to put 'infrastructure' but that couldn't be more important than something like healthcare so I left it out.

Economy and Taxes is so tempting, but I cast my vote at #4 because I feel it effects all of the above and something needs to be done right now about our immigration policy. A major overhaul needs to take place to better the lives of all Canadians.

[margrace]

I voted for the environment, my second would be health care but we have to clean up the first before we can do anything about the second.

[Figleaf]

I would have liked to vote for 'economy', but unfortunately the poll lumped it together with 'taxes'.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

I chose economy and taxes, because both have direct impact on the disposable family income. In my view the best thing that can be done to improve the human condition is to formulate a means to provide opportunities for employment and reduce the amount of taxation on the individual. While all of the other options were tempting, I view them as pie in the sky. I just don't see politicians placing busines against the environment, not do I see them spending more money on improving healthcare. While I am sure there would be billions spent I highly doubt that it would do any good or accomplish much at all on those ventures.

[Figleaf]

In my view the best thing that can be done to improve the human condition is to formulate a means to provide opportunities for employment and reduce the amount of taxation on the individual.

May I pose a hypothetical question to you? Drawing from the above quote: If you could provide more opportunities for employment by increasing the amount of taxation, which way would you go?

And let me if you will, ask another question. If you could have garbage pickup provided privately for $1000/yr, or publicly for $500 in taxes, which would you prefer?

[mikedavid00]

I voted for the environment, my second would be health care but we have to clean up the first before we can do anything about the second.

Lol..

We have Canadians dying on waiting lists and you are for supporting some idealistic, abstract environmental issues that you probably don't even understand.

Either that or your just following what Dion wants you to (like a Canadian no less! =)

[mikedavid00]

And let me if you will, ask another question. If you could have garbage pickup provided privately for $1000/yr, or publicly for $500 in taxes, which would you prefer?

I think you meant to put that the other way around: $1000 publicly, $500 privately.

[M.Dancer]

None of those issues are in my top 4.

Immigration is in my top 100

Environment and Healthcare are in my top 10

taxes and the economy in my top 25, till either one start impacting me negatively.

My top 4 are

Education

Infrastructure

Security

and HD televison.............

[Canadian Blue]

I was hoping democratic reform would be an option, but I settled for the environment.

[The MacQuern]

All the choices are important but I voted for Environment because I see it as the one issue that is getting near the 'can't wait any longer' threshold.

[mikedavid00]

I was hoping democratic reform would be an option, but I settled for the environment.

Democratic reaform is pie in the sky but I agree that would be at the top of my list if it was feasable.

[mikedavid00]

All the choices are important but I voted for Environment because I see it as the one issue that is getting near the 'can't wait any longer' threshold.

Lol...

I gotta put that on a plaque. A true classic.

[fellowtraveller]

Where are my choices as #1 and #2 issue, Liberal corruption and the endless failure of the Leafs?

[Figleaf]

And let me if you will, ask another question. If you could have garbage pickup provided privately for $1000/yr, or publicly for $500 in taxes, which would you prefer?

I think you meant to put that the other way around: $1000 publicly, $500 privately.

No, I meant what I said. Collective purchasing of services can provide substantial cost reductions. I am asking him if he'd rather pay more privately if there was an option to pay less publicly.

[MightyAC]

I was hoping democratic reform would be an option, but I settled for the environment.

Democratic reaform is pie in the sky but I agree that would be at the top of my list if it was feasable.

Why is it a pie in the sky? The ball is rolling in a handful of provinces. We are all aware that better systems exist the debate is just over which one. The only people keeping us tethered to such crap are our big parties. To borrow a phrase "the hand you hold is the hand that holds you down". Don't reach for the copout so quickly. At one time we told governments what we wanted…now they tell us what we should want and like idiots we eat it up.

[madmax]

This is a weighted poll with two issues getting double the poll.

The economy and taxes are separate issues.

As taxes effect each and every issue mentioned, it show read,

Economy and taxes

Environment and taxes

Health Care and taxes

Immigration and taxes

We have Environmental taxes, We have Health Care Taxes, We have had Poll taxes on immigrants.

So, this is not a good poll, as well taxes can be read quite liberally for tax increases, tax incentives, tax decreases, and many many more items such as income tax reductions, to GST increases/decreases.

Or you could just ask

Economy

Health Care

Environment

Immigration

Taxes

[normanchateau]

And let me if you will, ask another question. If you could have garbage pickup provided privately for $1000/yr, or publicly for $500 in taxes, which would you prefer?

I think you meant to put that the other way around: $1000 publicly, $500 privately.

No, I meant what I said. Collective purchasing of services can provide substantial cost reductions. I am asking him if he'd rather pay more privately if there was an option to pay less publicly.

Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer. I pay less for public car insurance in Vancouver via ICBC than

motorists in Edmonton or Calgary do for equivalent (same vehicle, same driving record) insurance. Alberta rates were cheaper a few years ago but now they've overtaken BC rates. Alberta insurance salesmen and their companies must be raking in nice profits.

[mikedavid00]

Why is it a pie in the sky? The ball is rolling in a handful of provinces. We are all aware that better systems exist the debate is just over which one. The only people keeping us tethered to such crap are our big parties. To borrow a phrase "the hand you hold is the hand that holds you down". Don't reach for the copout so quickly. At one time we told governments what we wanted…now they tell us what we should want and like idiots we eat it up.

When I say reform I mean a complete reform. Giving powers back to the provinces and the people. Fedaral issue are for the army and internation things.

I feel that we should move to the US system almost completley. We also need electoral colleges to stop one province from running the whole country. So if 9 provinces vote Liberal, and Quebec votes Bloc, they will not get 30% of all seats in the house. This would also filter out the NDP and basically push us into a 2 party system.

But it wouldn't matter because most of our issues would be at the provincial level. The public would vote on propositions so we can educate ourselves on issues and vote for the best one.

[geoffrey]

I voted for the environment, my second would be health care but we have to clean up the first before we can do anything about the second.

Lol..

We have Canadians dying on waiting lists and you are for supporting some idealistic, abstract environmental issues that you probably don't even understand.

Either that or your just following what Dion wants you to (like a Canadian no less! =)

margrace isn't being irrational here.

Cancer is a huge cost in health care and it's mostly environmentally related. Cutting carcinogens from the environment will lower our health care costs considerably. Everyone wins. This would be the first priority of my environmental plan if I were to ever wish to be in charge.

The second is our diet. It's full of crap, trans-fat, saturated fats, all that other BS that doesn't need to be in it. This causes heart disease, one of the leading killers if not the leading killer of Canadians. Do you have any idea the cost behind treating someone who's had a heart attack or the economic loss of them not working?

Environmental spending and inititives can take the strain off other sectors of government if done properly. There are environmental projects that do make economic sense, like the two I outlined above.

Canada needs to ban carcinogens from our food, water and soil (huge fines for those that break this law) and outright ban trans-fat from our food.

Being said, I voted for economy and taxes. The only area that is doing well in Canada is Alberta, we artifically inflate the rest of the numbers to indicate Canada is doing OK. Ontario is bleeding jobs, things need to be done ASAP to remedy our productivity gap with the rest of the world. Canada is doomed to become a second-world nation if we don't act quickly, that is if we haven't lost already.

The CPC has absolutely refused to address tax reform, Canada's system is largely unchanged from decades past...

A more simple taxation system (and lower taxes) including removal of corporate taxes is needed for us to remain a player. We don't even deserve our G8 spot, and we might lose it soon.

Time to step up.

[betsy]

I had chosen immigration reform. I would like a reform that would give positive impact on our economy. Letting those who'd had training in professional fields be allowed to practice in their professions. This in turn will also help the shortage of doctors and staffs in the nedical fields....thus help solve some of the problems of our healthcare.

I'd like to see a very reliable screening process to prevent undesirables in coming to our country.

And something more reliable to prevent those who have the authority of letting immigrants and refugees into the country from being corrupted and/or abusing their authority.

I'd like to see us pushing for and funding programs for aggressive assimilation (that will bring results, not just as a "window-dressing" of pseudo-assimilation)....and that the taxpayers need not pay for cultural diversities to be practiced.

If an ethnic group would want to teach their children their mother tongue, fine...they can do so...but that burden should not be shouldered by taxpayers. We're all better off seeing those fundings go to the coffers of fixing our healthcare system and the environment instead!

[uOttawaMan]

#1 . The Canadian Forces

#2. Hockey

#3. Beer

Yep that covers it.

[mikedavid00]

Cancer is a huge cost in health care and it's mostly environmentally related. Cutting carcinogens from the environment will lower our health care costs considerably. Everyone wins. This would be the first priority of my environmental plan if I were to ever wish to be in charge.

You have to weigh the costs in doing this. The cost of trying to get carcinogens out of the earth is unexplored territory and still debatable.

This is not a time to be expirmementing. Your views aren't well thought out enough. We spend 100B on healthcare and 160B on social services. Along with 80B on schooling. Then there's transport, security and other essential gov't dept. we spend on. That is about all of our budget.

Now you wnat to start another huge boondoggle to go after a debatable, unproven, innitiative to cut down emmisisions? You want to spend another 100B to save 10B annually for something that might not even cut down cancer rates.

We are taxed and spending at our limits right now.

You can't spend $1 to hopefully save 10 cents.

The second is our diet. It's full of crap, trans-fat, saturated fats, all that other BS that doesn't need to be in it. This causes heart disease, one of the leading killers if not the leading killer of Canadians. Do you have any idea the cost behind treating someone who's had a heart attack or the economic loss of them not working?

You do know that our liver creates 85% of our cholestoral and our diet is responsible for 15%. Medicine can drastrically reduce what the liver creates.

You are going by 'what you heard', hype, and personal opinion, but you aren't carefully researching the facts and truth of these matters. It's this wild ad-hoc way of governing that is going to get us in second world status.

How about we not let in people into the country who are elder, sick, and ailing.. and won't be paying into the system? That is very logical and factual. Not hype and rumors.

Environmental spending and inititives can take the strain off other sectors of government if done properly. There are environmental projects that do make economic sense, like the two I outlined above.

You can never prove numbers to back your ideas. They are just a 'hunch' of yours. It's your personal views of what makes logic to you. It's too anecdotal, too expensive, and not proveable.

Canada needs to ban carcinogens from our food, water and soil (huge fines for those that break this law) and outright ban trans-fat from our food.

When the US does this with the food, we should do it too. As far as the environment goes, we just don't have the money at this point. (it really is true.. the country does not have the money to spend any kind of money that will result in change of the environment..) or healthcare.

Being said, I voted for economy and taxes. The only area that is doing well in Canada is Alberta, we artifically inflate the rest of the numbers to indicate Canada is doing OK.

I agree. The average young Canadian is getting by with a string of customer service jobs that are low paying beause we have too many people looking for the same job. (factual).

Ontario is bleeding jobs, things need to be done ASAP to remedy our productivity gap with the rest of the world. Canada is doomed to become a second-world nation if we don't act quickly, that is if we haven't lost already.

Well we're going to have to stop giving the $9,000,000,000 it costs Canadians in services each to bring in the 36,000 refugees we take in.

We're goign to have to stop paying out $3,000,000 to corrupt CEO's of crown corperations who quit their jobs because they were caught spending $45,000 on their credit cards on lavish expeses.

We're going to have to stop spending billions of dollars on international Kyoto credits that have been useless in reducing our greenhouse emmisions, meanwhile, the US and China officially pulls out of Kyoto.

We're going to have to stop giving $37,000,000 settlements to people who are claiming false lawsuits when Canadians who have died from tainted blood or got sick from our own gov't . Now there are more law suits coming it seems from 3 other Syrians that are in teh works.

Right now I am watching CPAC vote on whether to let in 125 Vietnamese refugees that are living in the safe Phillipeans. Dion just voted for this. This would be a full state sponsored refugee where we would bring them over here. Yesterday they said while their stories are compelling, they do not meet true refugee criteria. Non the lest, it seems to be getting a unanamous vote from all parties in order to 'not offend' the vietnamese minorities so they can get votes.

This has got to stop. This is killing our country and will bankrupt us if this continues.

The CPC has absolutely refused to address tax reform, Canada's system is largely unchanged from decades past...

We are spending so much, that we can only afford to take away small nudges of tax over a long period of time. If immigration and refugee status continues in the out of control manner that it is, you will see us loose first world status in another 10 years.

What you are suggesting is not possible becuase we are spending so much. We don't have an income problem, we have a spending problem. This will hold us back.

A more simple taxation system (and lower taxes) including removal of corporate taxes is needed for us to remain a player. We don't even deserve our G8 spot, and we might lose it soon

Time to step up.

I fully agree. But you really have to understand the fact that we are spending 60% more on social services than we are on healthcare itself. The majority of our taxes go into other peoples pockets. Pensions for seniors won't even be there anymore.

The social climate in Canada is that you will get crucified if cut 10 million dollars from a useless womens program.

People think that money falls from the sky. I don't think the public including most here are very well educated on the reality of govt's income and how much it spends.

I would love to cut programs left, right, and center, and reduce corperate taxes, but I could very well get voted out of office becuase a parlimenatry system is not functional.

The average Canadian, like yourself, are interested more in abstract 'idealisms' rather than the reality of the situation. Becuase we are in a 'situation' right now.

[mikedavid00]

I had chosen immigration reform. I would like a reform that would give positive impact on our economy. Letting those who'd had training in professional fields be allowed to practice in their professions. This in turn will also help the shortage of doctors and staffs in the nedical fields....thus help solve some of the problems of our healthcare.

Bravo! You can't let in an abundance of people that where only 44% of them are finding work within the first 2 years of them being here. We can't be spending $250,000 on each refugee's health and legal services. This effects healthcare, economy, grid lock, and social services being clogged up for Canadians who have paid into the system and need the safety net.

I'd like to see a very reliable screening process to prevent undesirables in coming to our country.

And something more reliable to prevent those who have the authority of letting immigrants and refugees into the country from being corrupted and/or abusing their authority.

Screening more carefully costs more money on our part. We spending 2.5 billion a year to employe gov't workers to screen these people. The faster they get in the country, the cheaper it is. If you cut the time in half that they are allowed to come, you pretty much have to double the money we spend on this program. And sure they might come here faster, but it doesn't helf when after 5 years of them being here 52% are still living in poverty due to lack of jobs. And then there's the social services that we have to provide them.

The thing is, if the CPC tries to screen people more carefully, they will jepordize the immigrant vote they are trying to get so they can get a majority. This is why our current parlimentary system is beginning to fail. The country has been split up far too much into groups of minorities who vote along party lines. The Liberals are the ones who did this to us and now we're in too deep.

I'd like to see us pushing for and funding programs for aggressive assimilation (that will bring results, not just as a "window-dressing" of pseudo-assimilation)....and that the taxpayers need not pay for cultural diversities to be practiced.

If you pull that funding, then you'll lose votes. The gov't funds the ethnic newspapers. The Liberals started this funding. Thus, there is a pro-liberal spin in each ethnic news paper.

We already spends tones of money in programs to help new immigrants find jobs and get settled. However, the dirty secret is that we don't HAVE jobs for these people. We have low paying factory work and part time jobs, but that's all we have.

If an ethnic group would want to teach their children their mother tongue, fine...they can do so...but that burden should not be shouldered by taxpayers. We're all better off seeing those fundings go to the coffers of fixing our healthcare system and the environment instead!

I totally agree. The Liberals have split ethnic minorities into their own groups and pander for there votes. That's why almost every seat the Libearls got elected in the last election was a high immigrant area.

Now if harper wants a majority gov't, is it in his best interest to work with these people, or against them?

This is the situation we're in. And this is why you aren't seeing any action being taken in this area.

[geoffrey]

You have to weigh the costs in doing this. The cost of trying to get carcinogens out of the earth is unexplored territory and still debatable.

No it's not. The EU has banned many more cancer causing substances then we have. You wash your clothes in a proven cancer causing agent. What do you think of that?

Now you wnat to start another huge boondoggle to go after a debatable, unproven, innitiative to cut down emmisisions? You want to spend another 100B to save 10B annually for something that might not even cut down cancer rates.

We are taxed and spending at our limits right now.

You can't spend $1 to hopefully save 10 cents.

I don't want to cut emissions, I could care less. We have bigger priorities. The economic cost of cancer far excedes the treatment costs... which in themselves are very high. Less cancer means less health care spending and shorter waiting lists.

You do know that our liver creates 85% of our cholestoral and our diet is responsible for 15%. Medicine can drastrically reduce what the liver creates.

You are going by 'what you heard', hype, and personal opinion, but you aren't carefully researching the facts and truth of these matters. It's this wild ad-hoc way of governing that is going to get us in second world status.

How about we not let in people into the country who are elder, sick, and ailing.. and won't be paying into the system? That is very logical and factual. Not hype and rumors.

Sure, let's do that too. One clear fact remains, more coronary artery disease exists here than elsewhere in the world (West vs. the Rest). Diet plays a large factor, as does our lack off excercise.

You can never prove numbers to back your ideas. They are just a 'hunch' of yours. It's your personal views of what makes logic to you. It's too anecdotal, too expensive, and not proveable.

So we'll let people die instead. Ok. Unfortunately I believe there is a freedom issue when you are unknowingly exposed to toxins that the manufacturers and regulatory bodies know are killing us.

When the US does this with the food, we should do it too. As far as the environment goes, we just don't have the money at this point. (it really is true.. the country does not have the money to spend any kind of money that will result in change of the environment..) or healthcare.

So we only do what the Americans do? Why? I really don't get it.

We're goign to have to stop paying out $3,000,000 to corrupt CEO's of crown corperations who quit their jobs because they were caught spending $45,000 on their credit cards on lavish expeses.

You know nothing on the story, and are completely off base.

We are spending so much, that we can only afford to take away small nudges of tax over a long period of time. If immigration and refugee status continues in the out of control manner that it is, you will see us loose first world status in another 10 years.

What you are suggesting is not possible becuase we are spending so much. We don't have an income problem, we have a spending problem. This will hold us back.

We can collect the same amount of tax in a more modern way. Norway collects and spends far more than we do, yet is far more productive and has a higher GDP per capita.

The average Canadian, like yourself, are interested more in abstract 'idealisms' rather than the reality of the situation. Becuase we are in a 'situation' right now.

What are you talking about? Because I don't happen to believe that immigration is the root of every single last problem in Canada?

[Remiel]

This poll is clearly defective. There is no option for Canadian World Domination.