Canada: A Banana Republic?

[Cliffy]

SirJoe,

Look at the exchange above between Spade and petros.

For the rest of you, Canada has been a banana republic since the seventies when we got real serious about being just a resource supply nation. We ship it all out for a song and buy it back manufactured at a premium. We wouldn't be in this pickle if we had done the manufacturing ourselves.

It is no accident that our forest industry is in the toilet. Our idea of value added was to drill a hole in a 2X4 to run conduit through and charge an arm and a leg for it.

 

[darkbeaver]

SirJoe,

Look at the exchange above between Spade and petros.

For the rest of you, Canada has been a banana republic since the seventies when we got real serious about being just a resource supply nation. We ship it all out for a song and buy it back manufactured at a premium. We wouldn't be in this pickle if we had done the manufacturing ourselves.

It is no accident that our forest industry is in the toilet. Our idea of value added was to drill a hole in a 2X4 to run conduit through and charge an arm and a leg for it.

Of course we really had no choice about joining the neo-liberal globalized road show, that was decided off shore in the big houses. We couldn't have built the service based economic miracle and we would still be performing the old fashioned inefficient things like making shoes, furniture, real food, ships, clothing you know the stuff underperforming economys do. Our GDP would be a horrible flat distribution line and our wealthy capitalists would have suffered terribly.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Every one of the coup members has been elected democratically, I think it's dynamic democracy at it's best. In any case if it disposes of those Reform people it's good. What will we call the government, a Coalition of The Billing maybe.

db....NICE!!!!

 

[scratch]

Works for me.

 

[Vanni Fucci]

Nice of you to post a picture of Harper, Flaherty and Baird, but I fail to see how it is relevant to this particular thread...

 

[china]

Canada: A Banana Republic?

......full of nuts too .

 

[Cliffy]

......full of nuts too .

China,Yup! Just a buncha fruit cakes.

 

[JLM]

Canada: A Banana Republic?

Today... Yes. Tomorrow - probably not

It's a little cool here, I don't think bananas would do well....:smile:

 

[scratch]

Canada is right below Panama.

Thank you PO & Co.

 

[Cliffy]

scratch,

Do you ever sleep? Or are you main lining caffeine?

 

[scratch]

Well Cliffy,

It depends. If you are asking because my avatar is always there -- that's because in the two and one half years I have had my system it has never been turned off.

The other answer would be that I have a severe sleep disorder and therefore no set hours.

regards,
scratch

 

[TenPenny]

Democratic…fraid not.

Democratic...Fraid so.

We had an election, we elected 308 Members of Parliament. They are the members of the government. How they choose to arrange themselves is up to them within certain rules. They are quite able to change parties if desired. If the governing party loses the confidence of the house, they are certainly within their rights to form a coalition - after all, that's how the previous Conservative gov't stayed in power - while not a formal coalition, they relied on the support of other parties.

What's the difference?

That's why it's somewhat important to elect reasonable people when you vote for your MP.

 

[scratch]

Well said Ten Penny.

 

[JLM]

Democratic...Fraid so.

We had an election, we elected 308 Members of Parliament. They are the members of the government. How they choose to arrange themselves is up to them within certain rules. They are quite able to change parties if desired. If the governing party loses the confidence of the house, they are certainly within their rights to form a coalition - after all, that's how the previous Conservative gov't stayed in power - while not a formal coalition, they relied on the support of other parties.


That's why it's somewhat important to elect reasonable people when you vote for your MP.

What's the difference?
I think it's more of an ethical matter than a legal one. NOw I'm just surmising on this but I think that when we voted we were under the impressin that the party with the most seats (majority or minority) would form & reamin the government- BUT perhaps we were being presumptuous (and perhaps I'm being presumptuous in thinking others thought as I did) :-?

 

[TenPenny]

What's the difference?
I think it's more of an ethical matter than a legal one. NOw I'm just surmising on this but I think that when we voted we were under the impressin that the party with the most seats (majority or minority) would form & reamin the government- BUT perhaps we were being presumptuous (and perhaps I'm being presumptuous in thinking others thought as I did) :-?

You were being presumputuous, and must have missed a lot of history classes. The party with the most seats in the house is given the opportunity to form the government. But, once they lose the confidence of the house, in a vote (note: this has not happened yet), the GG has the right (some might suggest the obligation) to appoint another party, that looks like it has enough support in the house, to govern. Until such time as it loses the confidence of the house. [in this case, I predict it won't last 6 months].

In a minority situation, just because the government of the day loses a confidence motion, there is no automatic requirement for an election. Especially where there has just been an election, and other parties are able to assemble a workable coalition with enough support to survive a confidence motion, it only makes sense to offer them a chance to govern.

 

[Walter]

 

[eh1eh]

Anyone remember this 'Banana Republic' moment? Like, wow.

Just to clarify and help everyone decide if 'we' are a 'Banana Republic'.

Background

The term was originally invented as a very direct reference to a "servile dictatorship" which abetted (or directly supported in return for kickbacks) the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture (usually banana).[1] The term was coined by the American author O. Henry in his 1904 book of linked short stories, "Cabbages and Kings", set in the fictional "Anchuria", which was based on his 1896-97 stay in Honduras.

more at source.

So lets do some cursory research before we start calling the most civilized country in the waorld a 'Banana Republic'

Maybe you can actually seem to be as smart as Tenpenny and Darkbeaver.

 

[Cliffy]

Let's see, BC has Campbell (dictator) and a monoculture (forestry- tree farms) and is subsidized by kickbacks from multinational logging companies. Alberia has the Cons (dictatorship), oil (a mono culture) and kickbacks from the multinational oil cartel.

How am I doing so far?

Banana Republic. That most civilized BS has been disproved in the last few days by the hysteria whipped up by the media over nothing. Just shows how easily our civilization can be manipulated into an insane asylum.

 

[Vanni Fucci]

You were being presumputuous, and must have missed a lot of history classes. The party with the most seats in the house is given the opportunity to form the government. But, once they lose the confidence of the house, in a vote (note: this has not happened yet), the GG has the right (some might suggest the obligation) to appoint another party, that looks like it has enough support in the house, to govern. Until such time as it loses the confidence of the house. [in this case, I predict it won't last 6 months].

In a minority situation, just because the government of the day loses a confidence motion, there is no automatic requirement for an election. Especially where there has just been an election, and other parties are able to assemble a workable coalition with enough support to survive a confidence motion, it only makes sense to offer them a chance to govern.

Great explanation Ten Penny...

...and I agree, that the coalition probably wouldn't have lasted long, but they should have still been given the opportunity to govern...that would have been the most democratic thing to do...

 

[JLM]

Well Cliffy,

It depends. If you are asking because my avatar is always there -- that's because in the two and one half years I have had my system it has never been turned off.

The other answer would be that I have a severe sleep disorder and therefore no set hours.

regards,
scratch

Is that being "green", Scratch? :lol: