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To: Condor who wrote (56252)	11/21/2004 8:53:47 PM
From: Taikun	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

C, I am right here in Vancouver. I have witnessed first hand the lack of healthcare and defense in Canada. <universal health care> -my brother just went to the US for an MRI -my mother just waited in lines for a week for a chest xray, maybe Monday they say -another friend is waiting to go to the US for a hip operation <no world military conflagrations> I think you meant no military? The US is probably too kind on Canada. Canadian politicians would have fiscal responsibility if they had a defense budget. What will the tax rate go to when they are asked to participate in Star Wars or will Canada continue to be a base for terrorist operatives heading for the US? <rising economic soundness> -no you must be drunk -high end houses at Whistler are dropping the offer prices ny millions because the high Loonie is keeping foreigners away -pulp mills in BC are shutting down due to the Loonie's rise affecting exports -I suppose you think this rise won't affect manufacturing and tourism in Canada? Are you delusional? Perhaps you are blind to the OECD warnings about Canada's overtaxation. It must be a national trait of Canadians to be quick to criticize the US, and at the same time be overly sensitive to criticisms of their own nation, as if it somehow perfect. Somehow by Canadians being told 'you don't want to be like America do you' they allow them to be overtaxed with paltry services. The Ottawa/provincial relationship is a shambles, Ottawa loots the provinces, leaving services unfunded. Don't worry, I'm used to these one-sided discussions with Canadians. There are two rules: 1. Open criticism of the US is encouraged 2. Any criticism of Canada is forbidden If you want to continue your one-sided view of Canada, there is nothing I can do. The closing of Canadians' minds continues to accelerate against the misconception the gov't has something to do with the commodity-driven Loonie appreciation. Yep, been here too long. Anyway, you want references? David

To: Condor who wrote (56252)	11/21/2004 8:55:05 PM
From: Taikun	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Angry parents threaten to leave country U.S. government pays cost of therapy for autistic children By MARGARET PHILP Saturday, November 20, 2004 - Page A11 E-mail this Article Print this Article Advertisement They are bitterly disappointed. They are tens of thousands of dollars in debt. And parents who were told by the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday that British Columbia has the right to deny therapy to their autistic children are even threatening to move to the United States, where the government funds autism treatment. It was a crushing ruling for parents in British Columbia, who will have to dig into their own pockets to cover the steep costs of the intensive one-on-one behavioural therapy that has worked wonders with some children but that the court played down as an "emergent" autism treatment. "Pierre Elliot Trudeau's vision of a just society died today," said Sabrina Freeman, one of the four sets of parents who launched their court battle against the B.C. government four years ago. "I'm not talking about autism here. I'm talking about for every single, solitary, powerless minority in Canada, it's open season now. "Personally, I'm wondering why I live in Canada. I'll have to think about that carefully. "I might be forced to look at greener pastures. I wanted to change the society here to make it good for people with disabilities, and I failed. So I'm looking at my options." Dr. Freeman has not abandoned all hope. Although she has written off the B.C. government, she and other parents are turning their sights to Ottawa where they want to lobby the federal government for "some decent disability laws" like those in the United States. "If I fail there," she said, "there's nothing left for me to do." She is far from the only one tempted by a U.S. system that while famously denying health care to millions of uninsured Americans, has strong federal legislation that provides publicly funded autism therapy through the schools. Michael Lewis is the father of an autistic 10-year-old boy whose separate lawsuit against the B.C. government over its failure to fund autism therapy was torpedoed with yesterday's Supreme Court decision. Mr. Lewis said he knows of "several" families who pulled up stakes in the province and moved south of the border, a move he, too, contemplates. "After the election in the U.S., all the disgruntled Democrats were going to move to Canada. Well, now all the autistic kids and their families are going to move to America," said Mr. Lewis, who acts as president of the Autism Society of British Columbia. "I've got to be quite honest. This is something I need to think about. Because I don't care how rich you are, when you're paying $40,000 a year over and above the government funding . . . to provide therapy for your child, that's not an easy task." British Columbia pays $20,000 a year to cover autism therapies for diagnosed children under 6, and $6,000 for older children. But the cost of providing therapy at least 30 hours a week -- the minimum time that research shows to make a difference -- often runs tens of thousands of dollars more. Just ask Justin Himmelright. To pay for the four therapists who work with his son, Griffen, six days a week, Mr. Himmelright of Maple Ridge, B.C., works at B.C. Hydro by day and as a consultant by night. And his wife has a full-time job. Even so, the couple has dipped into Mr. Himmelright's 80-year-old grandmother's retirement savings. Mr. Himmelright, who is also suing the provincial government, expects the province to roll back the "meagre" funding program now in place. Outside British Columbia, the Supreme Court ruling has thrown a wet blanket on the lawsuits and human-rights challenges being waged against provincial governments, such as Ontario. But lawyers say there are important distinctions between these cases and the B.C. case that will allow them to sidestep the Supreme Court ruling when they make their arguments. For one, Ontario provides an $80-million program that funds autism therapy for hundreds of children, a program plagued by long waiting lists and a history of mismanaged funds and lax government oversight. Many of the Ontario parents are suing over the province's policy that cuts off funding when children reach age 6. In contrast, the B.C. parents were challenging their government's failure to put a program in place (the current one did not exist when their case was launched). Still, the uphill battle for public funding to cover the cost of therapy remains steep. "People are making such inherently wrong decisions. How the Ontario government and the B.C. government can watch people suffer while they have the power to do something completely evades me," said Brenda Deskin, whose family is one of 29 awaiting a court ruling in Ontario regarding the over-age-six threshold. "It's just gut-wrenching. The impact it's going to have on these [B.C.] children and these families is too horrible to even conceive right now." E-mail this Article Print this Article Site Search Subscribe to The Globe and Mail Sign up for our daily e-mail News Update Back to Across Canada Breaking News Latest Weather Globe Poll Do you plan to watch Sunday's Grey Cup game between B.C. Lions and Toronto Argonauts? Yes No Results & Past Polls Morning Smile The orchestra conductor was enraged when he arrived at the early morning rehearsal and found his percussionist eating bacon and eggs on top of his drums. To which the musician replied, ''What, you've never seen Breakfast at Tympanis?'' -- Rob Maxwell, Toronto Disclaimer \| Privacy Policy \| Help & Contact Us \| Come register. It's Free. © Copyright 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

To: Condor who wrote (56252)	11/21/2004 9:00:00 PM
From: Taikun	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

We're losing our edge National Post Saturday, November 20, 2004 1 \| 2 \| NEXT >> It is easy to understand why Canadians would view the recent rise in our dollar, our strong economic performance this year and the massive federal budget surplus announced Tuesday as proof our country is on a sound economic footing. And it is -- for now. But buried beneath this blizzard of good news is a dangerous trap: Our national productivity performance is woeful. Ottawa's budget surplus -- along with all the new social spending it is encouraging -- is dependent on economic growth, and that growth is in turn dependent on the competitiveness of our goods in the U.S. market. But that competitiveness has been owed largely to a dollar that the Liberals consciously devalued as a means to lower the prices on our exports south of the border. Now that our dollar is on the rise, we may be about to see just how short-sighted this low-dollar policy has been, and how unwise it is to plan big expenditure increases trusting that the competitive advantage it gives us will continue. Just how vulnerable our economy is to a surging dollar was made obvious in July, when Statistics Canada revealed that our economy grew in real terms by only 1.7% in 2003, compared to 3.7% in 2002. According to Statscan, "SARS, mad cow disease, the power blackout in Ontario and the forest fires [in British Columbia]" all played "a minor role" in that decline next to the rising dollar. The way to overcome a further slowdown would be to improve productivity -- increasing output more rapidly than the number of hours worked. But that would require massive retooling in most industries. In October, the Conference Board of Canada reported that of 29 private-sector industry groups, 19 lagged behind the United States in productivity -- some, such as real estate, insurance and financial services, by 40 percentage points or more. Since those 19 industries represent 73% of our GDP, that means nearly three quarters of our economy is less productive than that of the largest market in which we are trying to compete. Given that StatsCan reports that our "productivity has been virtually flat for five consecutive quarters, going on six," its finding that Americans enjoy "a significant advantage" over us in goods produced per hour worked is hardly surprising. In 2003, the U.S. productivity advantage grew by more than four percentage points. Since 1999, it has expanded by an average of 2.5 percentage points per year. And since the Liberals commenced their low-dollar policy, the advantage has cumulatively widened to more than 33%. Rather than plotting with the premiers to dump an additional $41-billion into the black hole of public health care, or $5-billion over the next five years into child care, Paul Martin should be looking for ways to return the $8.9-billion surplus announced this week to Canadians -- especially entrepreneurs -- so they can buy the tools, computers and machinery needed to close the productivity gap with the United States and keep our goods competitive. This need became even more urgent with this month's re-election of George W. Bush as U.S. President. Mr. Bush has already announced that one of his top two second-term domestic policy goals will be a reform of the tax code -- meaning simpler tax filing, as well as flatter and lower taxes. That will not only encourage American investment to further exacerbate the productivity gap between their country and ours; it could also further broaden the disposable income gap, now currently at about 30%. If the American economy produces even more opportunities than it does now and the chances to become successful south of the line become even greater, ignoring our national productivity will result in the Canadians we most need to lift our economy leaving for the greener, lower-taxed pastures of the United States We're losing our edge << PREVIOUS \| 1 \| 2 ...Continued It's fine for the Liberals to dream big on social programs. But if they neglect industries and workers who generate the growth that funds those programs, Canada will some day find itself without the economic strength to pay for its safety net.

To: Condor who wrote (56252)	11/22/2004 12:24:17 AM
From: Taikun	Respond to of 74559

The feds facilitate organized port crime By Leo Knight I think that seven years ago the federal government made one of the most reckless decisions possible when they eliminated the Ports Canada Police. Then finance minister Paul Martin forced the issue to save something in the area of $25 million to $45 million, depending on who you ask and how the counting is done. While he was busy squirrelling away that money and turning the ports over to organized crime, he was tossing a billion or so at former justice minister Anne McLellan to force Uncle Irvin to register his shotgun. All the while the government was chanting the mantra that the gun registry would make us safer. Then came Sept. 11. In the intervening time, Sen. Colin Kenney chaired a senate committee on national security and the military. The final report produced was scathing in its criticisms of the way our ports were secured. They focused on the penetration made by organized crime and the connections to the unions that controlled much of what occurred all the way from North Vancouver terminals across the inlet to the major container ports in Vancouver to the West End gang controlled Port of Montreal and the Hells Angels domination in the Port of Halifax. It has been more than two years since Sept. 11 and 1 1/2 years since Kenney's report. Unfortunately, little has changed. And that's not surprising I suppose, given the Liberal's record on fighting the menace of organized crime in other arenas. In November, the Quebec newspaper La Presse reported that the RCMP would be setting up detachments on the ports of Halifax, Montreal and Vancouver. According to La Presse, the Mounties will be focusing on terrorism, smuggling and organized crime. Their intention is to be an augmentation to the efforts of Canada Customs and the private security agencies contracted to patrol the ports after the Ports Police were sent packing. As of Jan. 1, the ports are controlling access and everyone working on the docks will have to have photo ID, indicating they have been vetted. Now that's a hoot. Is a criminal record going to be a barrier to working on the docks? If so, then I'm going to bet there is going to be a major recruiting push on. Longshoremen have a rep for being heavy-drinking, two-fisted hard asses. Not to mention the 40 or so Hells Angels and associates who are members of the ILWU or otherwise have regular access anywhere they want in the Port of Vancouver. But despite this new push, which really is little more than window dressing so they can say they are doing something to secure the gaping hole the ports present in this country's security, Kenney came out swinging on the weekend saying that nothing much has changed in the intervening time since he released the scathing report. News reports on the weekend carried Kenney stating that right now, the St. Lawrence River seaway, is without any policing at all. Kenney was in Slovenia when he made the statement. Why he was using Slovenia as a backdrop for these remarks is a little puzzling. But Kenney might have been also talking about the Port of Halifax or indeed the Port of Vancouver. Kenney explained that you could have a dirty bomb that would sit in the back of a sport utility vehicle easily. And that you could put that in the back of a vehicle, put the vehicle inside a container and move it through the port without anyone batting an eye. Kenney's comments unleashed a flurry of denials and empty explanations from an assortment of port bureaucrats from coast to coast. But the most ridiculous of the comments came from a spokesman for the Vancouver Port Authority, who was quoted as saying that there was a mandate for the movement of cargo and that there was no mandate provided to them to look into criminal activities of people on the waterfront. Well isn't that great? This is willful blindness. And interestingly enough, is almost verbatim to what was said in 1996 to then attorney general Ujjal Dosanjh by Capt. Norman Stark on behalf of the Vancouver Port Corp. Organized crime uses our ports to smuggle everything from heroin to guns to illegal immigrants. There is the prospect of terrorist groups at war with Canada, exploiting the gaping weaknesses in our national security all the while those responsible for the ports are ducking their responsibility. And if that's not bad enough all the money the Liberals saved by eradicating the Ports Police has gone for naught. Once the bill for private security patrols and the new RCMP detachments or squads are paid for, the stupidity of the government's original policy becomes obvious. On Sunday, the North Shore News ran a story about the local luminaries who are lining up to try and ride the coattails of Paul Martin to a seat in the House of Commons. Interesting they would want to ally themselves with someone who has left this country so vulnerable to organized crime and terrorist attacks. Unless all they really want is a chance to belly up to the public trough. Perhaps it's time to ask Don Bell, Phil Boname and all the other wannabees what they think of all this. primetimecrime.com