Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Cut Party Subsidies? We cut you real bad maan. Canadian Politics within.
Posts
I'm not saying I agree with their gun policy, and instead believe that any bans should be limited solely to hand guns and fully automatic weaponry. However, were the Greens to somehow become the government with that policy, that would indicate a general agreement with their firearms positions. As such, it would be totally legitimate for them to take your firearms, as a majority of the populace believes that such ownership is a threat to public safety. I'm not saying that I agree with that, but that's kind of how a democracy works...
Canada is not a democracy, then. The will of the majority has never been the only deciding factor. There is such a thing as tyranny of the majority.
PS. Automatic weapons are already illegal. Hell, anything made my Kalashnikov, no matter what it is, is illegal. Handguns are a bitch to get as it is. It'd be a lot easier for me to buy an illegal pistol than a legal one.
Little late on this but don't get me started on the B.C NDP! I got to live through the Ontario Bob Rae NDP Heyday followed by moving to B.C during the NDP's heyday in that province! I too was fairly apprehensive to say the least to vote for them in a federal election.
As for this election, I'm voting Obama. Wait, what?
Sadly it is much easier... If i wanted to I would need to spend at most one day looking. Should the gun laws change to a total ban I would likely move to a country where there was no such ban. I'm not having my family heirlooms and tradition destroyed because of a poorly informed law.
I looked at one quickly, and actually stood there for a minute wondering why the NDP had sent out ads praising the Conservatives.
At any rate, in 2006, the last year for which I have statistics, more Canadians were killed with a knife than killed with a gun. The year prior, knives fell just short. To sum it up, we need to ban knives just as much as we need to ban guns. Don't let me get started on backyard swimming pools.
A politician's stance on firearms laws is generally a pretty good indicator if they are trying to actually help the country or just say whatever is required to get votes. For example, no argument for why closing firearms ranges on City of Toronto property will save a single life has been made, aside from vague comments about gun culture. This is just another gun control policy that only focuses on law abiding citizen while completely ignoring crime, criminals and illegal firearms. Look at the long gun registry, at a cost of $1 to $2 billion dollars it hasn't solved a single crime.
The Vancouver police report that over 97% of firearms seized were illegal. As a group, legal firearms owners are among the most law abiding people in Canada, which only makes sense once you weed out all those with prior criminal convictions and those without enough patience for all the paperwork and months of delays. It's cheaper, never mind easier and quicker, to buy an illegal pistol in Canada than a legal one.
For those of you who have spent a lifetime in a big city, Canada is a nation of gun owners. We're estimated to be in the top 10 countries in the world in per capita firearms ownership yet we rarely kill each other and when we do we're more likely to opt for something other than a gun. Legal firearm ownership in this country is not a problem. I find it ironic that the same people who talk about the culture of fear in the US are often in favour of a handgun or total firearm ban in Canada.
Sounds shockingly low for Obama. Where's the other 21%?
Polls indicated that Gore would have won by >90% in 2000 among Canadians.
Emerson, Hearn, Soldberg
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/09/04/poll-results.html
I'd guess name recognition. Gore spent 8 years as the VP during the tech boom when Nortel was a triple digit stock. If the undecided had to choose either Obama or McCain, I'd guess Obama would be in the 80s.
People don't seem to understand how large the divide between Canadian and American politics really is. Based on proposed policies, not rhetoric, the Democrats are to the right of the Conservatives on average.
That's only somewhat true; The Conservatives are more socially conservative than the vast majority of the Democratic party.
Also obligatory the Green Party can go fuck a donkey post, while I'm in here
But on the other hand, who would I vote for to replace them? For all the disparaging talk of the two-party system in the US, we have 4+ parties here and all of them are shit (comparatively).
Well, that's why I said on average and stuck to policy only. When it comes to the big issues, the policy isn't that far off. On abortion, for example, the Dems are for while the Cons are meh, which works out to the same thing. On gay marriage, the Dems are generally found in the pro or civil union side while the Cons went with the "we should have a free vote" angle which was pretty much guaranteed to keep gay marriage legal.
In a private conversation, I'm sure a die hard Democrat would give different answers than a die hard Conservative, but when it comes to actual policy the difference isn't as great as most people would believe.
I think that's a generous reading of the Conservative platform at best. Their "mehs" and "free votes" are a product of them being hamstrung by their minority status. I wouldn't trust these fucks to make pudding with a majority.
Those guys are the ex-Reform members. They're batshit insane. They used to speak occasionally in places where people could hear them, which made the party basically unelectable. Harper, who is himself tight with this whole Alberta social conservative block, instituted tight controls to keep them from letting the public know their views, but they're still very much a force in the party, especially places like here in Alberta where they can freely let people know their views.
Has Canadian politics finally descended to this bad a level? Or was it always there and I never noticed?
The ads say NOTHING. It's a bunch of people saying "I like Stephen Harper because he has nice hair" or something equally as stupid.
Ugh. Shut the fuck up TV and put House back on.
Sounds suspiciously like the NPD to me...
But your right. The Conservatives are not the PC party, their the Reform party by another name.
"Canada. We're better off with Harper"
better off!
Yeah, those are national ads, and this is only going to get worse until after the election.
I remembered something that really pisses me off about the Cons. The safe injection site in Vancouver? The science (in peer reviewed journals no less) thats been done on its impact on the community has shown that its positive on reducing crime, overdose deaths, etc.
The conservatives seem bent on shutting it down. Recently we even had the health minister questioning the ethics of doctors who would work there. The Conservatives don't believe in science, or facts, just their own retarded social ideology. These people would happily drag us into a US style War on Drugs, which has been such a rousing success .
But I guess we can't expect much from a party that puts a man who believes we coexisted with dinosaurs into a cabinet position where he's in charge of our national intelligence agency.
Actually the Honourable Minister questioned the ethics of any and all doctors who even support the site.
This is one of the reasons I am leaning liberal.
I think the cons who are against insite should come and spend a month working in the downtown eastside and actually getting to know some of the street people.
This is also my line of thinking. Green party get something like 5% of national votes, but not enough in a single region to take a seat. Green party is the only serious party among the puny ones listed at the end, but voting for them is still akin to voting for a 3rd party in the USA. Your vote
>flushed down toilet. I just vote liberal because I don't want Harper/conservatives in power. The liberals need a new leader so badly. No ones votes liberal because of the leader.
And yeah, Canadian conservatives are so watered down they aren't really conservatives. Canada and the EU are way more socialist then the USA, we don't have hard core conservative political parties anymore and we don't understand how the USA takes republican's seriously. You have a powerful political party that wants to turn women into forced baby incubators by abolishing abortion? Is that a bad joke?
They're pro environment, but want an immediate ban on Uranium mining and exports.
Canada accounts for a large percentage of the world's uranium supply.
So they're pro environment, but want to immediately choke the world's uranium supply and force many countries already on nuclear power, and any considering transitioning to it, to stick with coal and oil rather than replacing those with nuclear power as part of a transition to cleaner power sources.
The Green Party is basically a pack of retarded hippies with no regard for the consequences of their pie-in-the-sky proposals that would be, like, cool man.
Why do they want an immediate ban on the mining and export?
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/257854
29% of the world's mined uranium supply from mines comes from Canada. This would be a disaster.
Actually, voting for the Green party or any other of the small parties in Canada actually has a beneficial effect for them, since government funding is proportional to the amount/ percentage (I can't remember which one) of votes that party gets. By voting for that party you help get them money.
Okay, her last point is kind of silly - nuclear power is one of the greatest obstacles to disarmament?
But I have to wonder how much truth there is in the criticism of uranium mining and its risks to the surrounding environment. If it is dangerous, it's a case of weighing which one is the lesser evil.
Coal is one of the dirtiest power sources we have and it is also the most common. We need less dependence on coal, not more. Nuclear Power is a good temporary solution until something more renewable becomes feasible.
I would imagine that the solution would be not banning uranium mining, but improving it so that it's not hazardous to the surrounding area.
The beauty is that May cannot get the PM job. Well, technically she can, but its not going to happen. They'll be happy if they can win a single seat. That means that all their stupid ideas (and there are several) wont actually get implemented. I will likely vote for the greens however, because I feel that in a minority position like the NDP, they will have a positive influence on things, namely by really pressing the environmental angle. If the Greens do win a seat or more, then I will re-evaluate my voting policy, and may end up going back to the NDP. I certainly dont want the Greens running shit, they'd fail miserably. I just want their shrill voices to carry some weight in parliament.
But that doesn't mean everything is going to be implemented that is in the platform. Hell, even with the more mainstream parties, none of it ever is. Remember Chretien's vow to repeal the GST? Yeah, or renegotiate FTA?
Yeah. Don't get too hung up on one little policy point that you don't agree with.
Their stated policy positions as well as the reasons they give behind it give a good indication into their thinking/ideology/goals in the event they do get elected. And if they're including a number of things which show short-sightedness or fit a pattern of a strict ideal, then that's not terribly a positive for them in my eyes.
I don't like the idea of voting for a party that can't get a seat in your riding, especially one that's batshit insane to begin with.
Best outcome from this election, the way I see it, is that we end up with another minority government. SO I'll vote whoever of the NDP and Liberals is more likely to unseat Jaffer.
So I should vote for them so more money will go to a party whose policies are shaped by lunatic hippies with impractical ideas that don't worry we know are practical?
Umm, no.
Wait, are we talking Green or NPD here?