It's Heeeeere

[MMMike]

Quebec's tender daycare trap

The federal Liberal government has taken considerable heat over the years from certain quarters for dragging its heels on establishing a national childcare program.

With the hours ticking down to its possible demise in the now-notorious budget vote Prime Minister Paul Martin and Social Development Minister Ken Dryden rushed to sign deals with provinces wanting to establish child care programs -- presumably inspired by the Quebec model of daycare.

Meanwhile, in the province where the notion of universal daycare first took hold, the opposite could be said to be true.

The unseemly haste with which the Parti Quebecois under Lucien Bouchard got into the state-run babysitting business is now bedeviling the Charest government like a persistent soiled diaper smell.

More...

snip--Quebec's daycare program, even after Charest hiked the catchy five-dollar-a-day fee to $7, cost taxpayers $1.43 billion dollars last year. --snip

snip--Still, the program has fallen short of the PQ grand plan that envisioned 200,000 places for Quebec children. As of the end of 2004 the Liberals had managed to bring the total to 186,000 spaces, still far, far short of demand.--snip

 

[Reverend Blair]

You seem to be trying to present the Liberal's plan as being exactly like the Quebec plan, which it isn't, MMMikey. The Liberal plan is flawed for many reasons, but don't misrepresent it.

Can you please tell us how many places were created by the plan that the Harris government created in Ontario though? That plan is much like the Conservative plan for creating spaces. I can save you looking it up if you like....The Harris plan was responsible for creating absolutely no daycare spaces in Ontario. Harper's plan will create exactly that many in Canada.

 

[no1important]

Green organizer quits over seal hunt opposition

A teaser:

An organizer for the Green party in Newfoundland and Labrador has resigned because of the party's opposition to sealing.

Lori-Ann Martino, who was a candidate in Labrador riding in the 2004 federal election, says she cannot abide the party's opposition to a commercial seal hunt.

"This is a terrible strategy," said Martino, who feels the Green party is attempting to recruit voters who are morally opposed to the seal hunt but may not be informed about it. [/teaser]

Well duh! Why would she belong to a party in the first place that is against the Seal Hunt? :roll: After all the Greens are a party, that runs on an environmental platform.

I love all these funny little bits that come out during election time.

 

[MMMike]

Re: RE: It's Heeeeere

You seem to be trying to present the Liberal's plan as being exactly like the Quebec plan, which it isn't, MMMikey. The Liberal plan is flawed for many reasons, but don't misrepresent it.

Can you please tell us how many places were created by the plan that the Harris government created in Ontario though? That plan is much like the Conservative plan for creating spaces. I can save you looking it up if you like....The Harris plan was responsible for creating absolutely no daycare spaces in Ontario. Harper's plan will create exactly that many in Canada.

Let the private sector concern themselves with meeting demand.

 

[Reverend Blair]

The private sector has failed to meet demand, MMMikey. They've also failed to provide quality care and to regulate themselves. The private sector has, once again, failed.

 

[no1important]

Once the priviate sector gets involved in anything, money and profit is all that matters. Corners are cut to maximize profits.

 

[MMMike]

Re: RE: It's Heeeeere

The private sector has failed to meet demand, MMMikey. They've also failed to provide quality care and to regulate themselves. The private sector has, once again, failed.

The private sector never fails Rev, as long as the right business environment & regulations are in place. It is as simple as the greed reflex: if there is a need for a service and people willing to pay, business will come.

 

[MMMike]

Re: RE: It's Heeeeere

Once the priviate sector gets involved in anything, money and profit is all that matters. Corners are cut to maximize profits.

Of course you're right that money and profit is all that matters. But to have long term success monetarily you have to provide a good service or product that people will pay for. And 'corners' that are cut can jeopardize that quality of the product/service - its like shooting yourself in the foot. But private sector will always be more efficient than government - where you're spending someone else's money, bureaucrats are unionized and utterly unmotivated, and there is no political accountibility.

 

[Reverend Blair]

The private sector never fails Rev, as long as the right business environment & regulations are in place.

Only if you define success simply by the bottom line. The private sector destroys the envirnment and fights regulations. I don't think successful child care can be defined by some old man being able to buy himself a trophy wife and a yacht.

It is as simple as the greed reflex:

Ah, the "greed is good" argument. Sorry, but greed is bad.

if there is a need for a service and people willing to pay, business will come.

If there is a need for a service and you cannot afford to pay what business demands for that service, then cannot avail yourself of the service no matter how much of a detriment that is to you or society at large.

Is your next argument going to be that poor people shouldn't be allowed to have children?

 

[no1important]

Pot crusader allowed to campaign during election

A teaser:

VANCOUVER — A B.C. Supreme Court judge gave marijuana crusader Marc Emery the green light Thursday to campaign during the federal election but warned the man wanted in the United States for drug trafficking shouldn't advocate the sale of marijuana seeds in any speeches.

"His speech has to be very careful and I think his counsel would tell him that," said Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm.

Emery's lawyer, Ian Donaldson, said his client would advocate the decriminalization of pot during the election - something he's done for years as president of the B.C. Marijuana Party. [/end teaser]

Good. I really wish the Marijuana Party would win a few seats....

 

[MMMike]

Is your next argument going to be that poor people shouldn't be allowed to have children?

Well, sort of. People in general should not have children unless they can afford to provide for them. Obviously. It is not society's responsibility to raise them for you. That's different from not being 'allowed' to have children.

 

[Reverend Blair]

Well, sort of. People in general should not have children unless they can afford to provide for them.

Well, MMMikey, people in general will continue to pop out babies whther they can afford it or not. It's time to deal with the reality of that instead of trying to hide behind June Cleaver's skirt.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge gave marijuana crusader Marc Emery the green light Thursday to campaign during the federal election but warned the man wanted in the United States for drug trafficking shouldn't advocate the sale of marijuana seeds in any speeches.

Excellent. Emery can still speak on Canadians being charged with crimes and threatened with extradition by the storm troopers to our south.

 

[Colpy]

The child care issue drives me nuts.

Not as nuts as the gun control thing, but close.

I know, I know, it's a very short trip.

Anyway, I digress.

Look at it this way. The original Liberal plan was going to spend about 5 billion over 5 years, and was going to give that to the provinces.

How are the provinces going to spend it?

Well, Ontario will create 25,000 new spaces. Maybe.

Manitoba would create NO new spaces, it would use the money to improve wages and training in Early Education programs. Oh good. The 13% of people that use day care exclusively will be thrilled.

Also, governments waste money at a rate............how much of this cash will just disappear, like socks in a government washing machine? A lot.

Harper wants to give the same amount of cash directly to all parents.....not enough, and not directed to the lower income families enough, but still......no overhead, no disappearing cash, it benefits so many more people than the Liberal plan, and we get to spend our own money.

Seems an easy choice to me.

 

[Reverend Blair]

Fock Harper Colpy. If he's giving away $1200 a kid with no restrictions, then I want $1200 for each dog and cat in my house. Why not? The money Harper is trying to buy votes with is just being handed out on arbitrary criteria anyway.

And where the hell did you get that 13% number from? I don't know anybody with kids who stays at home to look after them. Either they are single parents or both parents work.

 

[MMMike]

It's not an arbitrary criteria: you got a kid, you get $1200. No government leaches sucking up you money, nobody else deciding for you how to spend that money. This should be the model for all government programs.

 

[Reverend Blair]

So why don't I deserve money back for the dogs? I'd be as likely to spend it on them as somebody would be to spend it on a kid. Hell, at least you can feed a dog for $4.00 a day, so the amount would make some kind of sense.

Harper is calling this $1200 vote buying scheme a childcare program, yet there is no requirement that the money be spent on childcare. It's just a vote buying scheme. Nothing more, nothing less. I demand equal value for my vote.

 

[MMMike]

So why don't I deserve money back for the dogs? I'd be as likely to spend it on them as somebody would be to spend it on a kid. Hell, at least you can feed a dog for $4.00 a day, so the amount would make some kind of sense.

Harper is calling this $1200 vote buying scheme a childcare program, yet there is no requirement that the money be spent on childcare. It's just a vote buying scheme. Nothing more, nothing less. I demand equal value for my vote.

Of course its not a childcare program. It's much better. As far as your suggestion for a dogfood tax credit, maybe its something you can bring up at the next NDP meeting, after you've drunk all their beer! :wink:

On second thought, they would probably get carried away and propose a vast new social program, where no dog gets left behind. Mandatory education classes for dog owner, more stringent liscence requirements.... who knows where it ends? :lol:

 

[no1important]

I don't see why pet food is taxed anyways. It should not be.

BTW- Rev, Vanni or any other Winnipeger, do you think Steven Fletcher will hold his Charleswood/St. James seat? Wasn't it liberal for a few terms before and even NDP once or twice before? Is it a 3 way race riding?

 

[Colpy]

Re: RE: It's Heeeeere

I don't see why pet food is taxed anyways. It should not be.

BTW- Rev, Vanni or any other Winnipeger, do you think Steven Fletcher will hold his Charleswood/St. James seat? Wasn't it liberal for a few terms before and even NDP once or twice before? Is it a 3 way race riding?

We had this discussion awhile ago, and the Rev thinks he is nasty and stupid, and thinks he will lose his seat.

I don't know, but I thought I would mention that Christie Blatchford wrote a glowing profile of him in the Globe and Mail. (I love Blatch)

 

[Reverend Blair]

BTW- Rev, Vanni or any other Winnipeger, do you think Steven Fletcher will hold his Charleswood/St. James seat? Wasn't it liberal for a few terms before and even NDP once or twice before? Is it a 3 way race riding?

It's a 2 way race between the Liberals and Conservatives. The Liberal is a former provincial Conservative MLA named, John Loewen and he is likely better known in the riding than Fletcher is. I think Fletcher is in trouble there.