Anyone else feeling a tad bit jealous of our American neighbours???

[CatBoreal]

I mean, they get Gannon-gate. What do we Canadians get?

Golf balls and Westmount cheap.... *SIGH*

Why does Canadian politics have to be so stodgy?

[Maple]

1. Hey, I can live

with stodgy. ;)

[Sporadicus]

2. Remember: 'May You Live in Interesting Times'

is an old Chinese CURSE! I prefer stodgy & boring to the three-ring circus of US politics. Consider yourselves fortunate!

[Tigress DEM]

3. s'okay, you can get the mass exodus when resolution HR418 goes thru

They have a section in that resolution that gives the Secretary of Homeland Security carte blance authority.

It's supposed to be so they don't have to "ask" if they want to build barriers from illegal immigrants from southern borders.

Yet the wording isn't limiting the SEC in any way, in fact there is a clause that says, "NO judicial review possible." Now WHY would they want to do that you think?

Save a place on the couch, eh?

[Arugula Latte]

4. You know who has good political scandals? The Brits.

A while back, it seemed like every other day there would be something about some Tory MP who liked to dress up as a little schoolgirl and get a headmistress to spank him or something ...

[iverglas]

5. I want my bedtime Tory!

I've never found the provenance of this on the net, but I believe it was attributed to Gerda Munsinger.

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-73-69/politics_economy/munsinger/

-- a true juicy *Canadian* scandal.

When my mum and I took a walking tour / standup comedy show in Bath a few years ago, the performer was entertaining us with a trick involving killing a stuffed bunny and bringing it back to life. My mum and I had, of course (and sadly unlike our USAmerican colleagues in the small audience who missed out on the joke), been reading the local papers.

The performer was considering ways of killing the bunny, and suggested that he might put a plastic bag over its head. We two groaned loudly ... a Tory politician had been found dead of just that method that very week. I think the bunny decided to forego the kinky sexual practices.

[SixStrings]

6. Are you serious?

Is this a joke?

What about the HRDC boondoggle? The long gun registry?, Adscam? Svend Robinson going Klepto and getting a slap on the wrist? Just open your eyes and ears - there's lot's of political corruption in Canada, maybe even worse than the US.

I watched a documentary the other night about the 'INNU' people of Labrador. Vast majority of kids (young ones, mind you) are huffing gas all day, and EVERY adult was an alcoholic. Violence was rampant. Our liberal government initially spent over $200 million to move the ENTIRE town to a spot,I believe was in Northern Ont. to get them 'away' from these troubles. All brand new houses, new cars, atv's, boats - you name it, we provided it to this village of 700 people. All in the name of Politcal Correctness. What happened? 1 yr later and the same amount of violence and chemical abuse is occurring. This is an outrage. I do not want to help people who will just keep inanely breeding and abusing their kids.
How come no one else is outraged?

Here is a letter I penned a little while back and sent to some major newspapers. It sums up my feelings and a lot of other's I am sure.

"As a citizen of Ontario I read with great interest the letters that have been flooding into your paper regarding the federal Liberal governments latest boondoggle...I understand 100% your frustration with Ontario and Quebec - I would feel the same way...I also feel your hopelessness - there is simply nothing we can do. The people in these provinces will contuinue to vote Liberal because as one letter stated, 'they are the ones profiting from these scandals" Absolutely true. Ask yourself why Quebec has so many seats in Parliament? This is to ensure power - the population figures don't add up:

Alberta and B.C., with a combined population of 6,882,545, have 49 MPs and 12 senators.

Quebec, on the other hand, has a population of 7,237,479 and has 75 MPs and 24 senators. (Reference, 2001 census)

Frightening. I believe there is only one solution: The west must separate - and the sooner the better. I believe it can be summed up this way. If a Canadian's only option is a ruling party with a French speaking Prime Minister that has to pander to Quebec, that is constantly embroiled in scandal after scandal, that has stolen Billions of our hard-earned tax dollars, then we have to try our luck with the dissolution of our Country as we know it. The what-if's and nightmare scenarios of separation are surely better than what we have now. So to our Brothers and Sisters out west, please beat the drum of separation a little more emphatically, as you have more people in Ontario here who want and think the same way you do"

[Feathered Fish]

7. But those aren't as exciting.

:eyes:

[iverglas]

8. what????

Our liberal government initially spent over $200 million to move the ENTIRE town to a spot,I believe was in Northern Ont. to get them 'away' from these troubles. All brand new houses, new cars, atv's, boats - you name it, we provided it to this village of 700 people. All in the name of Politcal Correctness. What happened? 1 yr later and the same amount of violence and chemical abuse is occurring. This is an outrage. I do not want to help people who will just keep inanely breeding and abusing their kids.

You need to learn a fair bit more about the history of Davis Inlet.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/aboriginals/natuashish.html

The town of Davis Inlet had been established in 1967 after government officials decided the nomadic Innu should have the opportunity to settle down. <That's 1984-speak for "should be forcibly relocated to a remote place far from their homes and from anywhere else, where they and their children would have nothing to do".> They were promised comfortable homes with indoor plumbing.

Those promises were never kept. Instead, the residents of Davis Inlet found themselves slipping out of touch with their traditional way of life - and they had difficulty adapting to a new way of life. Rates of alcoholism increased.

In 1993, details of the conditions in Davis Inlet made headlines across the country - and around the world - after a tribal police officer released a videotape showing six Innu children getting high by sniffing gasoline. They shouted that they wanted to die.

Within two years, the federal government agreed to move the residents of Davis Inlet so services and facilities could be improved.

You seem to have missed the part where WE created their problems.

This is not the first time you have made ill-informed comments of this nature:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=190&topic_id=2897#2973


I believe there is only one solution: The west must separate - and the sooner the better. I believe it can be summed up this way. If a Canadian's only option is a ruling party with a French speaking Prime Minister that has to pander to Quebec, that is constantly embroiled in scandal after scandal, that has stolen Billions of our hard-earned tax dollars, then we have to try our luck with the dissolution of our Country as we know it. The what-if's and nightmare scenarios of separation are surely better than what we have now. So to our Brothers and Sisters out west, please beat the drum of separation a little more emphatically, as you have more people in Ontario here who want and think the same way you do

Now perhaps you can tell us how we will be able to distinguish between you and, oh, Stephen Harper if we encounter you on a bus.

[achtung_circus]

9. Iverglas, I love your posts.

Reasoned and researched, they are a refreshing change from the vitriol expressed in the Western alienation post preceding.

I too have been observing the native scene for a long time. Some of the reserves are dismal. We made promises "for as long as the sun shines and the grass grows."

I will honour the promises made, but there is room for improvement. Financial accountability by band councils would be a good start. My experience on (mostly) western reserves is that there is generally a faction in power that does quite well and a faction out of power that doesn't.

I don't have time to find the link now but a Calgary Judge prepared a report about 6-7 years ago proposing humane and fair ways to reform the Aboriginal governance in Canada.

[iverglas]

10. but of course

... there is room for improvement. Financial accountability by band councils would be a good start.

It's pretty much to be expected that where there is a people with problems, there will be one of their own nearby to exploit the people. Financial accountability is a real problem -- which we would both say, I'm sure, we are concerned about at least as much from the standpoint of the people who are supposed to be benefiting from the finances in question as of the people who are providing them.

Trying to remedy such problems from the outside is a very difficult and delicate task. If we believe in democracy, we believe in people's right to elect their own assholes, right? ;)

We who have moved a little farther along the "democratic development" spectrum should first remember how imperfect our own arrangements are, and then strive for that delicate balance between aiding and colonizing. Canada is involved in all sorts of efforts to that effect all over the world -- Rwanda and other African states, the Balkans, etc. Strengthening institutions, promoting allegiance to the rule of law, involving civil society in the process. What they call in French accompagnement -- standing beside in the process rather than trying to drag or lift. Hell, maybe the First Nations should invite some disinterested third party in from somewhere in the world to do that with them.

[SixStrings]

16. What!!?

"You seem to have missed the part where WE created their problems."


First of all I am only 29 yrs old and I have done nothing to the native people of this land - nothing.

" This is not the first time you have made ill-informed comments of this nature:"

Ill-informed? I guess its all an illusion then? The natives I work with are apparitions? Have you ever been to the Six Nations reserve? I have, and I have described it accurately.

"Now perhaps you can tell us how we will be able to distinguish between you and, oh, Stephen Harper if we encounter you on a bus."

Thats it - attack, attack, attack. Throw in a snide little comment like that and think you're special? Try debating - read what I posted and than tell me how I'm wrong - that's how it works. Don't get upset and childish if you just disagree.

So you think those #'s I posted are fair? Please explain.

[iverglas]

17. perhaps

Ill-informed? I guess its all an illusion then? The natives I work with are apparitions? Have you ever been to the Six Nations reserve? I have, and I have described it accurately.

You didn't recognize "ill-informed" as the euphemism it was.


First of all I am only 29 yrs old and I have done nothing to the native people of this land - nothing.

No no no no no. Of course not! You have not in any way benefited from any of the abusive/exploitive practices that were used in dealings with the First Nations over the course of our history. Why, the land you're sitting on was bought from them at an eminently fair price, and they just somehow neglected to invest all that moolah properly.

You, you're pure ... or is that white? or are they the same thing ... as the driven snow, my man.

Not that this provides any excuse for your words, of course.

[hermetic]

11. How about this breaking story then

Canada Backs Terminator Seeds
The Guardian U.K.
An international moratorium on the use of one of the world's most controversial GM food technologies may be broken today if the Canadian government gets seed sterilisation backed at a UN meeting.

Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Canada wants all governments to accept the testing and commercialisation of "terminator" crop varieties. These are genetically engineered to produce only infertile seeds which farmers cannot replant. Jointly patented by the GM company Monsanto and the US government, the technology was condemned in the late 1990s by many African and Asian governments who called for a permanent ban.

Monsanto and other GM companies which were developing similar technologies voluntarily pulled out of research after concerns were also raised about the "terminator" genes spreading to non-GM crops, and international outrage that poor farmers would not be able to use seeds from their crops, as they have always done. But leaked instructions to Canadian government negotiators at the Bangkok meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, a group which advises the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, show that Canada will request today that all countries open their doors to the technology.

The papers, leaked to the environment group ETC, also show that the Canadian government will attack an official UN report critical of the potential impact of "terminator" seeds on small farmers and indigenous peoples. The report recommends that governments prohibit the technology.

[Swede]

12. The Gomer report is a farce.

$250 million was spent in Quebec to save Canada. Small price to pay.

[iverglas]

13. are we perhaps just missing the point ever so slightly?

Not all of the money was "spent". A fair bit of it seems to have been given away -- no value for money, and all that -- under private rather than public criteria. That is, not to suppliers of services to any public, but to suppliers of support to the Liberal Party.

I'm not following the proceedings because it all just seems toooo obvious to me (and I'd much rather know what's been going on in BC when it comes to Liberals and money and corruption and Paul Martin), but I gather at least some of the actual money made its way pretty directly to the Liberal Party, without passing through any saving-Canada filter at all.

The real reason it's a farce is that Martin claimed he wanted to get to the bottom of it, and then -- as Jack Layton put it on the CBC the other day, with David MacKay's agreement -- the Liberals have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do just that.

The Liberals dunnit. Why not just let the Liberals tell us what they done without us having to pay a bunch of people to ask them?

[Swede]

18. I am not missing the point.

It's small potatoes,that is what I was getting at.

[Spazito]

15. I think the inquiry is needed but...

Gomery is biased, of that I have NO doubt, given his various comments in interviews and the appointment of Bernard Roy as chief counsel for the inquiry when he had been Mulroney's one-time chief of staff and is (just a coincidence, I am sure) a member of the same legal firm that Mulroney and the daughter of Judge Gomery is a partner in, Ogilvy Renault.

The inquiry has been tainted by an obvious bias and that is unfortunate, imo. We still don't know the amount that was actually missing versus the amount considered misspent and the amount considered appropriately dispensed.

I think the faux Conservatives are going to be disappointed because there is no "smoking gun" to be found and they need one, a big one, to attempt to win the next election.

[applegrove]

14. Let them have their Monsters. They'll be paying through the nose

Let them have their Monsters. They'll be paying through the nose for having made Bush & pals rich!!

[Boswells_Johnson]

19. It wouldn't matter if they found a smoking gun

because those who vote Liberal would vote Liberal anyway, and those who vote Lil' Republican would vote Conservative. Even though there is a third choice here, people's voting habits are so cemented that we'll always have the same stale political situation. That being said, it could be worse (i.e. a 2-party system...)