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The NDP would also renegotiate NAFTA, Scape. I believe the Greens would too, but I'd have to check to be sure.

Trade, and especially the favoured nation status clause in NAFTA is a major problem. Presently we cannot control our own energy reserves and natural gas that we will need to heat our homes in the future is being used to heat swimming pools in the desert instead. We cannot even contemplate selling water to the US in bulk because once we do we cannot stop, just like with energy reserves. That aspect of NAFTA alone, without even considering the many other bad clauses it contains, should have been enough to make Mulroney walk away from the table.

Harper wants to get us even deeper into the mess though. He is very likely more anti-Canadian than Mulroney was. Martin is no better. His record, in business and politics, of supporting Canadian needs and ideas over American needs and ideas is extremely weak.

Feuermann, since you didn't put whwere in Canada you reside into your profile, and given your ridiculous and poorly considered comments that show a complete lack of understanding of Canadian politics, I'll have to assume you are from the US.

Fireman, huh?

   

All I know, is that in nearly *7 years* of constant dealing with the Canadian heath system to find out what was causing the severe health problems I was experiencing a few years ago, and having to spend thousands of dollars along the way, and recieving nothing more for all that money and effort except ridicule from various doctors and a botched operation I didn't need.

After all that. after watching most of my 20s being wasted away and my life fall into distaster I finally went down to the U.S. for treatment and my illness {heavy metal pisoning} was diagnosed within 10 days {actually about an hour but tests not available in Canada later confirmed it} and treatment commenced soon after, when all was aid and done I spent maybe $1500 out of pocket, less than I had spent on useless proscriptions in Canada. Ask me which sytem I think is better.

   

How much of that has to do with spending cutbacks under Mulroney and Chretien's Finanace Minister, Paul Martin, Rosco?

We had a good system, one that was costing us less per capita than the American one, but it was taken away from us by cries for privatisation. I lived through that all the while knowing that, because I have hemophilia, and decent insurance under a private system was highly unlikely. Now the cries for privatisation are rising again from another bunch of neo-conservatives.

Their plans have cost us all massively before, and not just financially.

   

Rev_Blair where I live in Canada is none of yours or anyone else's businesss. I live in Ontario, home of the Liberal stronghold. Beyond that, stuff it. Feuermann happens to be my last name. I think in German it means Fireman, sure. So what?

Martin's going to win this thing and I don't even think it's going to take a minority coalition to make it happen. Further, just because I think Layton is a sham and the entire NDP is also, that doesn't make my comments poorly considered or stupid. I don't agree with you. Canada is a free country Rev_Blair and I can disagree with you if I am so inclined. We don't need more unemployment, nor do we need more businesses moving out of the country. Your getting your way would do little more than accomplish both. Why must you be so insulting to anyone who disagrees with you? Is this site something which belongs to you, so that you feel you have the right to try to castrate all who dare to disagree? If so, I'll check out. If not, put it in neutral and knock it off.

I don't know what you two are going on about but it's entertaining. Leave me out of it. I've no interest in warring with you on here. I just noticed that you spend a lot of time getting into petty arguments with a pretty good variety of other members. But please, go bait somebody else. I've not the least bit of time for you or interest in you.

   

I don't think the Liberals are going to win a majority anywhere after watching the debate tonight. The US health care system costs almost twice as much per capita as the Canadian system and leaves 45 million americans without services of any kind.

   

Since you are discussing politics and politics have become quite polarised and regionalised in this country, where you are from is relevant. We don't need to know exactly where you come from, but a province is helpful.



You can disagree with me all you want Feuermann. Making ridiculous accusations about the NDP without ever offering up a fact to back you up is goin to meet with some opposition from me and others though. The fact is that Canada currently taxes business at 21% while the US taxes the at 35%. If we boost our rate to 31% and businesses leave, they will still be paying more in the US. That's without taking higher US costs, like private healthcare benefits, into account. The only reason they would have for leaving would be a political, not a financial, motive.

   

I could care less what the US taxes people. I am a Canadian. I've listened to Layton talk. Everything is the fault of corporate Canada. I've heard that from politicians before. It doesn't bode well for us if he wins, which there's almost no chance of anyway. And, if you will look really carefully at my last post, you will plainly see a province mentioned there. I don't have to prove my opinions to anyone Rev_Blair. They are my own.

   

I saw you mentioned a province, which is why I chose that as an example instead of a city or even riding, Feuermann.

Have you really listened to Layton talk? Did you here him say, to the autoworkers, that he would partner with business to bring in clean automobiles? Hmmm...sounds to me like he's willing to help them develop new technologies benefitting the corporations, the workers, and the Canadian people. What he is not willing to do is allow corporations to continue taking massive profits and not putting anything back in. He is also not willing to give them a free ride.

If you are going to express your opinions in a public forum, expect those who do not agree with those opinions to ask you for justification. If you do not want to offer justification then don't expect that not to be pointed out.

   

Welcome to hell, Feuermann. Welcome to hell.

   

You're free to leave, Third Eye. Your being here gnattering from the sidelines is not a prerequisite to your being wrong, after all.

   

Blair NAFTA cannot be renegotiated. In the last five years, Canada has been at the losing end of a number of challenges under the NAFTA's investment provisions (Chapter 11). Due to Chapter 11 challenges, Canada has had to repeal domestic legislation to prohibit a neuro-toxic gasoline additive (in this instance due to a decision to "settle" the matter mid-dispute), and has had to make large cash payments (in the tens of millions) to U.S. based companies. The agreement is unamendable.The only choice that has to be made is to abrogate NAFTA. There will not be any re-negotiation. The U.S. and Mexico will refuse. Canada has been trying to renegotiate NAFTA without any success.

Common NDP barb. Can't say I disagree a hell of a lot they are looking to increase health care by 3-5 times to meet or exceed the Romano report. All that simply pales in comparison to the 13,000 companies we have lost under NAFTA. However, if bickering over crumbs is your thing while the U.S. makes off with our country vote for Harper. Blair made a point that we do not have control over our resources. Under NAFTA he is right. We will have to supply Americans with 2/3 of our natural gas production from across Canada irregardless if we have a shortage. In the 1980s, full-time jobs accounted for almost 60% of all new jobs created in Canada. In the 1990s, they made up a pathetic 18% of new job creation. In the 13 years before the FTA, we created over 3 million full-time payroll jobs, well over twice as many as in the free trade years, and that was when our population was much smaller, and so were our exports much, much smaller! Big business in Canada has been pouring money out of the country since the FTA came into effect, instead of investing money in the needed technology, machinery, equipment, R & D and innovation necessary to keep Canadian workers competitively productive. Now for years, we've constantly heard how we Canadians must have foreign capital to finance badly needed new business development in our country. But, remarkably, of all the $503.1 billion of foreign direct investment monitored by the Investment Review Division since it opened for business in 1985, a startling 96.7% has been for takeovers of companies in Canada, and a pathetic, a paltry 3.3% has been for new business investment.

Manufacturing in Canada is over 50% foreign controlled. Canada's economic performance in 2002 was a good year, 2001 was the worst year since the recession of the early 1990s. And, at the end of last year, there were 208,000 more unemployed than there were before the FTA.

Forget the idea of a 51st State. It's not going to happen. What will happen instead is a new northern Puerto Rico, a trust territory, a colony called Canada. The future of Canada as an independent nation is at stake. Both Harper and Martin have us moving toward deep integration with the states. That will be the death of Canada and I for one will have none of it. I have fought far to long and too hard to have it just slip away and be sold against the will of the people to the forces of "globalization" in all its parameters of stripping sovereignty and citizen rights and entitlements.

David Orchard:Why I won't vote Conservative

   

If we give our six months notice, I'm pretty sure the US will be more than willing to come to the table and talk, Scape. They need us as much as we need them, after all. Without our raw materials and energy they are in extremely dire straits. As global warming takes hold they could also be suffering food shortages.

Even if they won't negotiate a new deal, they will still have to deal with us on some level and we are a part of the WTO. Even with the massive problems within the WTO it is infinitely more fair than NAFTA is or the FTAA will be because it is more diverse. It can also be changed from within.

You're dead on about the Puerto Rico thing. The last thing the US wants is a bunch of guys like me voting in their elections. The foreign and trade policies of the US are inherently and historically undemocratic.

   

HAHAHHAHA that's funny Canadians have a vote in the US system. They do not share power. We would have a vote on what viceroy we get to pick just like the SOBs in Iraqi will and nothing more, no say in the monetary policy, no say in resource allocation, no say in how corporations will be run or headquartered. We will be a puppet. We can't wait on FTA it will take 12 years minimum because of all the clauses to abrogate the deal and it will be painful but necessary step. Just like the what they say about a woman who is coyote ugly. That you would rather bite your arm off than wake her up. FTA will be to Canadians the fat woman you slept with. It will be worth gnawing off the arm to save our country however, we must act now before deep integration takes root and will be too embedded within our society to change. This may be the last election Canadians have before we become like the Tibetans, 2nd class citizens in their own country.

   

That's pretty hard to swallow Scape. I wouldn't trade places with anyone in Iraq or Tibet and I'm willing to bet not many others would either.

   

We are not being militarily invaded we are being economically invaded. Our political system will be swept to the side under investment deals that are iron clad and guarantee we will never have a say in how our country is run. Now we don't have to worry about tomahawks flying overhead (Unless they are a part of missile defence) but the effects will be the same. We will be a defacto government with no say.

   

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