227Tech said:
Glorified Ape,
I think you should take a long look at the last 11 pages of posts, you seem to have a completely uneducated point of view. The only people looking like a buffoon are those with the same attitude you seem to portrait.
I'd like ask what you exactly mean by "beggars can't be chooser's" cause I've walked through the streets in St. John's and other parts of Newfoundland many times and not seen a beggar yet, can't say the same thing for cities in Ont though.
When you grow up and have an real, educated opinion, come back...otherwise your just wasting our time with written diarrhea
Oh I read the 11 pages prior to my post and, strangely, found that half of your posts consist of saying "your argument is unintelligent and juvenile", first to Bruce and then to myself, posting a news story, and providing a link. In other words, you've posted 4 or 5 times (maybe I missed one) and managed to say absolutely nothing of any substance except to rag on others who actually offered an opinion. Congratulations - you're superfluous.
Of course you haven't seen beggars in St. John's - they'd starve. All your beggars come to Toronto or Montreal where they may actually stand a chance. If the entirety of your "intelligent opinion" consists of saying "Ontario sucks!" then I believe there's a place reserved for you on the same boat you've put me in. Whine a bit more about Ontario - that'll get you somewhere, just as it has with BC, Alberta, Quebec, and just about every other province in this country.
That's my point - the provinces need to stop bitching. Ontario gets screwed too, and we bitch too, and we need to shut up about it since that's the way the ball has bounced since time immemorial. If the provinces want to engage in realistic, productive policy formation then great - do it up. In the process, realise that this isn't contract negotiation between corporations here, this is politics - people lie, cheat, and steal. This isn't a fricking revelation here, for christ's sake. As for saying "the feds are screwing us, so f-ck this country and its confederation", I'm sick of hearing it - from the politicians and the populous. No wonder our divorce rates are as high as they are with such a group of non-commital, peurile children who want to run away from the play pen every time the other guy gets a little more sand than them or doesn't treat them as the end-all and be-all of the preschool.
The PM said one thing and did another... this still shocks people? That's the way it works - you say what will please everyone and then do what you can. This isn't a matter of allowing Nfld. 100% revenues, it's how fast the feds pull back the pokey. Be glad there's pokey there to begin with. I'm not taking the feds side, necessarily, but I am taking issue with the idiotic attention-whoring of the premier which has served to do little else than stymie things even more. It's reminiscent of something the PQ or Bloc would do. Nfld deserves its leg up, especially if it can do it on its own, but shi--ing on the flag only alienates the province and makes things even more adversarial than they already were.
mo-litia said:
Did it occur to you that this reaction may be a result of Ottawa's ethnocentric attitude towards the areas of Canada that do not form the majority of the government's electorate? Albertans are frustrated with a government that is ideologically opposed to the wishes of most of them, and now Danny Williams is refusing to bend over and take the screwing Ottawa is trying to give him! This country would be far better off if more of our politicians were cut from the same cloth as Mr Williams . . . or Mr Klein, for that matter.
Ugh... Ralph Klein, the alchy pseudo-Texan who'd like to see a glorious Bush-style Alberta? If more of our politicians were cut from that cloth, we'd be in dire circumstances. The provinces are just that - provinces, not countries. Simply because the premiers would like the ability to dictate policy on every realm and with as few constraints as possible is not any reason to give it to them. Alberta's anti-gay tendencies are a prime example of why the feds should keep the provincial powers firmly checked and, when necessary, dictate policy. Sometimes the provinces need a smack in the face. Ontarion REALLY needed a smack in the face with the healthcare funding fiasco the conservatives got us into, then blamed on the feds. IMO, we need weaker provinces, not stronger ones. This is fast becoming very loosely bonded country because the provinces can't look past their noses and see there's an entire country to consider, not just their precious province. Some jurisdictions should be purely provincial, yes, but it seems every time we have a premier's summit we end up with a bunch of wankers screaming for more and more autonomy and doing less and less to actually govern their provinces properly. The only time the provinces can manage a united front is when they all have some common thing they all want from the feds. In the meantime, provinces get screwed by feds who're trying to find some way to work out a policy with a province without having the rest come in screaming about preferential treatment - hence the concept of asymmetrical federalism as some attempt at pre-empting the "favouritism" argument.
I am a proud Canadian, but I am afraid that if this nation does not develop some cohesiveness on the issues which threathen our unity my grandchildren may well call themselves proud citizens of a country that does not exist yet. However, it is more likely that our future descendants would refer to themselves as Americans, because the US will not stand idly by while the country on the other side of the 49th parallel disintegrates and tumbles into political chaos.
We Canadians have a duty to resolve our differences and make this nation work; we likely won't get a second chance at nation building without outside interference.
I don't want to be an American - do you?
How can we form cohesive policies when every province wants to be their own dictator in every jurisdiction except national defence, and only then because it's too expensive? We need a federal government that will keep the provinces in line, not some pandering yes-men who will allow 4th-string politicians to become mini-PM's of mini-countries, all the while tearing the country apart to the point where Nunavut is considering becoming its own state.
That being said, I think this whole "Newfoundland could separate" talk is overstating things a bit. Quebec would have trouble surviving on its own, let alone Newfoundland which hasn't been self-sufficient for god knows how long. That's not a crack at Newfoundland (God knows federal mismanagement of the fisheries aided in their decline), I'm just pointing out that all this talk of NFLD separating is ridiculous and anyone who thinks they could pull it off is living in a pipe dream.
It all comes down to spending power - the feds want it and so do the provinces. That's why such problems will never go away, you can only negotiate them. In the meantime, screaming about separation and how it'd be better to quit the union really does nothing but focus attention away from where it should be.
...all "those" provinces can go,......just leave "our" land behind. 
