Explain to me all this Quebec thing.

[Asher]

Trolling is saying anything you really believe in because you know everyone else disagrees with munchkins.

[Ecthy]

Careful guys... we have "Ashur" and "Asher"...

One of them is Dutch, I think...

[Bereta_Eder]

It only took 1 question

hihihihihihihi

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Insult
blah,blah, blah
obscenities
more obscenities
childish insults
boring insults
raving obscenities
states obvious
more insults

Well this is getting quite boring. The troll has said nothing worthwhile in his previous post. Absolutely nothing. All he has done is thrown out insults that everyone will ignore. In fact the vast majority of your responses have been nothing but insults.

notyoueither: Ask youself this simple question: which argument is more informative and more likely to persuade: the one that is calmly stated or the one that consists almost entirely of insults?Which one will people ignore?

All you are doing is shooting yourself in the foot or you are simply trying to be a troll (and if that is that case you're doing a terrible job).

I'm not going to bother responding to someone who clearly has no interest in discussing this issue in an appropriate manner.

If you want, you can continue making repetitious obscenities and insults, although why you would bother is beyond me. I doubt anyone will care about your boring ravings.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Promethus

Please explain how Abe Lincon went from poverity to US President without the advantage of wealth.

Hey there --- ever heard of the exception from the norm??

[- Groucho -]

Ummm ... you got it backwards - Upper Canada was the english part, Lower Canada was the french part.

Other than that, I'm not touching this mess with a ten foot keyboard.

...

...

D'oh - I can't help it.

1. Canada could use a US style senate - Asher is right, the liberals don't need Albertan votes and without a geographic senate to offset the power of the commons, Albertans will be an ignored minority. It's just a matter of counting to 151. Of the 301 seats in parliament, Canada gives 7 seats to Newfoundland, 4 to Prince Edward Island, 11 to Nova Scotia, 10 to New Brunswick, 75 to Quebec, 103 to Ontario, 14 to Manitoba, 14 to Saskatchewan, 26 to Alberta, 34 to British Columbia and one to each of the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. If you sweep Ontario, you only need to pick up 48 more seats, easy enough to do without getting one of Alberta's 26. The Liberals got 176 (or 173?) last election and didn't even bother with a real campaign in Alberta. That isn't right.

2. Albertans can't just up and leave and expect not to have to compensate the rest of the country for all the natural resources they want to take with them. What, do you guys think you made the oil or something? Remember, you're just Canadians who happen to live in Alberta. If you want to leave, leave, but don't think you get to take the dirt with you.

3. The CWB sucks. But European and US farm subsidies suck so much harsher that the CWB is a fart in a windstorm.

4. It's almost meaningless to ask who has a better health care system. There are just too many factors. A better question than whose is better, is whose would you rather have. In the US, 10% of the population has no coverage, 20% or so have fantastic coverage and the rest of the people have the exact same complaints about their HMO coverage (long waits, lack of access to cutting edge treatment, poor service) that people in Canada have. In Canada, everybody is in that middle group. Pick the system that lines up better with what you think is right. Maybe the mean level of health care in the US is better, maybe not. But is it worth abandoning the bottom 10% to allow for a system where the top 20% can get fantastic care? I don't think so, but I'll admit that it is a moral issue, as opposed to a pure facts based one.

...

Now that I've typed all this, I know I'm going to get my ass chewed off by someone for every thing I've said. But I can't help it. Being unable to stop arguing about this stuff is what makes you Canadian, I guess.

[KrazyHorse]

No, being unwilling to shoot each other over this stuff is what makes us Canadian.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Hey there --- ever heard of the exception from the norm??

Yeah, exceptions, like Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Truman, Harrison, Jackson... etc .

Ok, maybe they weren't all born into poverty, but they were at least lower middle class.

[Asher]

Echinda's making a lot of sense.

What would happen if the Senate representatives were elected by provincial contribution to the GDP rather than 2 per province, or appointed by the PM?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Hey there --- ever heard of the exception from the norm??

Yeah, exceptions, like Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Truman, Harrison, Jackson... etc .

Ok, maybe they weren't all born into poverty, but they were at least lower middle class.

And your point??

For every 10 people who move into the upper middle class or upper class, there are 5,000 people who remain in the lower class, or move into the lower middle class.

[- Groucho -]

Hmm, by GDP? I think it fluctuates too much to be useful. Check out this link from Statcan: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/E...mic/econ15.htm

As you can see, Alberta is on the move, having passed BC in GDP in 2000, but they were recently behind BC (thank you NDP government). So recent numbers would be good for Alberta if senate seats were handed out this way. But Ontario would get 40% of the seats! Compared to the 33% they get in the commons, that would just make things worse for Alberta.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Echinda
Ummm ... you got it backwards - Upper Canada was the english part, Lower Canada was the french part.

2. Albertans can't just up and leave and expect not to have to compensate the rest of the country for all the natural resources they want to take with them. What, do you guys think you made the oil or something? Remember, you're just Canadians who happen to live in Alberta. If you want to leave, leave, but don't think you get to take the dirt with you.

3. The CWB sucks. But European and US farm subsidies suck so much harsher that the CWB is a fart in a windstorm.

My. That's embarassing. Shows you what an Honours Degree in History (almost) is worth.

As a point of fact resources are the property of the provinces. Or so I've been led to believe. Now if you want to talk military bases, National Parks, federal buildings, etc... you have a point. At any rate, it is my great hope that the country can accomodate the needs and desires of everybody, including Quebec and Alberta. I might point out that people who consider *Frogs bad, Quebec go* to be a bigoted and ignorant sentiment should equally be on guard against predjudices and bigoted ignorance of the West.

The CWB would be fine. If it was not mandatory that farmers sell their wheat to it. It does serve some purposes. It is good for selling to some foreign markets such as China and Russia. It sucks when it tries to manage local distribution. It is intolerable when your land is best suited to wheat and you are forced by law to have only one, inefficient venue to sell your product.

[notyoueither]

The only way to do senate distribution would be a set number per province or region. That is the only way to ensure against the tyranny of the majority. Using GDP would only substitute majority of people for majority of money.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Echinda
Hmm, by GDP? I think it fluctuates too much to be useful. Check out this link from Statcan: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/E...mic/econ15.htm

As you can see, Alberta is on the move, having passed BC in GDP in 2000, but they were recently behind BC (thank you NDP government). So recent numbers would be good for Alberta if senate seats were handed out this way. But Ontario would get 40% of the seats! Compared to the 33% they get in the commons, that would just make things worse for Alberta.

Alberta would get 14% of the seats if it went by GDP, rather than 5.7% we get now, though. That's a big difference.

But I could also live with a US-style senate.

[- Groucho -]

NYE: You're right about the provinces owning the land - but that wasn't what I was getting at. My point is that individual Albertans don't own the land, it belongs to all Canadians. Albertans just happen to live there, just like we all could if we chose (though that would be a bit cramped). If Albertans decided they want to leave, I'm sure we could work something out, but it would be just like a division of assets on a divorce. Albertans would have to get compensated for their share of Ontario's uranium, for example, and the rest of us would have to get compensated for our share of Alberta's oil.

Of course, same goes for Quebec - despite their best efforts to convince everyone otherwise.