Hello everybody

[Ben Kenobi]

I didn't call myself that and I don't know how to change it. Therefore it is apolyton's sin.

Nonsense. Look at my title. I believe I am the only perpetual emperor.

[Ben Kenobi]

I've met him. Does that mean my opinion on him gets to win too?

I'm sure he'd have a laugh at whatever you have to post about him.

[Ben Kenobi]

The last fiscally conservative government we had was a Liberal one.

Conservatives haven't been bad (compared with the Obama administration), but I agree, they could have passed a much better budget than the last one that they passed. Really disappointed in Harper not taking the opportunity to kill some of the Trudeau cruft and restore fiscal balance.

[Ben Kenobi]

Not only did the Canucks rightfully lose in the first round embarrassingly early, but the social conservatives in Alberta (Ben's favourites) just got run out of town, largely on bigoted remarks from a homophobic pastor candidate.

I won a huge bet with a friend of mine. He bet me on 99:1 odds against a PC majority.

I told him that his numbers suggested about a 50/50 chance of a PC majority, he said I was a fool. Nice to win money off ignorant Torontonians.

I'm not a Wildrose fan. We've been over that before. There are significant problems with the Wild Rose party, and I warned people about them before that they are not what they seem.

They won't win government with Danielle Smith as leader.

Ben thought he would be leader.

We all come to a fork in the road, and Morton chose the other fork. He chose comfort and security and received neither.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Welcome back Ben. Sad to see you missing for so long, but if something was learned in the void, then all the better.

[Ben Kenobi]

Thanks Spaced. I won't say it was fun being away as I missed my friends and this year has been rather difficult.

[Wezil]

“Our members have now seen that some of our policies were rejected by Albertans, quite frankly,” she said in an interview. “We will be revisiting some of those. You can’t run a government if you don’t get sanction from the people.”

Asked which policies in particular were up for debate, Smith mentioned the “Alberta Agenda” items that call for the province to establish its own pension plan and to replace the RCMP with a provincial police force. Such ideas were touted by a group of conservative thinkers in a famous letter written a decade ago that called for Alberta to build a “firewall” — a term that was used by the PCs to attack Wildrose during the campaign.

Why is this controversial? Replacing the RCMP with a competent force is a fine idea.

[dannubis]

Thanks Spaced. I won't say it was fun being away as I missed my friends and this year has been rather difficult.

Imagine how gay people must feel when not allowed to marry, dickhead.

[Nikolai]

Since you don't know what he has had to deal with, perhaps you shouldn't act like a dickhead yourself?

[Asher]

Why is this controversial? Replacing the RCMP with a competent force is a fine idea.

It's just pointless. The OPP is no better than the RCMP.

In fact, my experience with them is far worse.

The RCMP only applies to rural areas, so why bother?

[Asher]

Since you don't know what he has had to deal with, perhaps you shouldn't act like a dickhead yourself?

We all have things to deal with.

The difference is Ben's goals are to create those things to deal with for other people. His aim is to bring people down and prevent them from being true to themselves.

He deserves what he gets here. Make no mistake about that. He's not a good person.

[Wezil]

It's just pointless. The OPP is no better than the RCMP.

Most everybody is better than the RCMP for regular policing. It's like having the FBI handing out speeding tickets.

In fact, my experience with them is far worse.

Lot's of people killed by the RCMP (the Vancouver guy as one example) had the opposite experience.

The RCMP only applies to rural areas, so why bother?

Alberta is a large province with lots of rural areas for one. Secondly, it would be a large step toward being the Big Boy province Alberta wants to be if they can manage their own policing.

[Hauldren Collider]

Wow, I had no idea the RCMP did local police work. That is kind of strange. I thought they were basically the Canadian FBI/Federal Marshals.

[Wezil]

They are in the provinces with their own police forces (your State Police) but in the smaller provinces they do local policing as well. The province pays the Feds for the service.

[Wezil]

I find it strange Asher would consider policing run by Ottawa to be better than a force run by his own province. At least when something goes wrong with the OPP (as it will in any police force) we don't have to look to Ottawa for redress.