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| Great White North |
| Chilly Reception For Herb Dhaliwal |
| 2003-03-29 |
| In the 'national' section. Edited. Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal got a chilly reception from business leaders [in Vancouver] Friday as he blamed the media that "construed incorrectly" comments he made about U.S. President George Bush. There's nothing there to be misconstrued, ol' buddy... He had said last week that Bush let Americans and the world down by not acting like a statesman. The board of trade presented a letter to [US ambassador] Cellucci on Thursday saying its directors were shocked and embarrassed the federal government decided not to support the U.S. in the war with Iraq. Dhaliwal told the board of trade ... [$19 million] will go toward Westport Innovations Inc.'s research and development of high-performance, low-emission engine fuel systems. But the announcement drew no applause and there was subdued clapping when Dhaliwal finished speaking. This is just the beginning, ol' friend. Dhaliwal said Canada's relationship with the United States is a model for the whole world. "They're our best friends, our best neighbours and we'll always be friends with them," he said. "That's why we say what we say!" "We're with them in the war against terrorism and will be with them on the humanitarian project in Iraq. We'll be with them on the reconstruction." That's what you think, old pal... I'd like to say something uncomplimentary about my government but these guys just speak for themselves. |
| Posted by:RW |
| #13 OP, Didn't know about the French Enclave,Never considered Greenland(guess it must be that big hunk of water that threw me). Thanks |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-03-30 07:52:04 |
| #12 Don't worry, if you read the Daly Kos, many Kossites are planning to move to eastern Canada as they tire of the French Wing of the Democratic Party and look forward to joining the Liberal Party. |
| Posted by: Timmy the Wonder Dog 2003-03-29 22:31:41 |
| #11 To add, I'm getting the impression that the majority of Canadians do like the Liberal government. Except that this majority is in Ontario & Quebec. Western Canada feels quite differently (though they still may be anti-war). This is Chretien's last term so to speak, and the new guy Paul Martin (Liberal) is quite popular. With the fractured right, and the west unable to come up with enough seats, the Liberals are very likely to form the government again. The glimmer of hope is that the business community is starting to get annoyed with the blatant anti-Americanism coming out of Ottawa. The Ontario & Alberta premiers have already distanced themselves from Chretien. (Oddly enough the Ontario provincial gov't is Conservative, yet the federal Liberals continually manage to sweep the province) |
| Posted by: RW 2003-03-29 19:59:47 |
| #10 Barbara "If the majority of Canadians don't like the way their government has been behaving (and they've been doing it for a while - this didn't just pop up in the last few months), why are they still in power?" The Liberal party (lead by Chretien) has no effective opposition party. Liberals are centre-left, akin to the Democrats in the US (but much more left). The right in Canada is split between two parties, - the Progressive Conservatives and the Alliance Party (they wanted to join up with the PCs, but haven't been able to). It's as if the Republican party in the US were split into two competing parties. The Liberals can win easily, continuously, by just getting 40% of the popular vote if the PCs and Alliance split the remainder among them. [There is also a far left party, the NDP, which gets 10-20% of the vote]. The real insidious part of Canadian politics is that the Liberals have positioned themselves as THE party for immigrants. No wonder then, that we have massive immigration into Canada, about double the rate per capita that the US has. As a result, the Liberals are a perpetual governing party, almost dictatorial in effect. z |
| Posted by: ziphius 2003-03-29 18:56:20 |
| #9 I say: 54-40 or fight! |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-03-29 18:35:39 |
| #8 Raptor - not quite, but so close it doesn't matter. The French have a very very small enclave (St. Pierre & Miquelon) off the coast of Newfoundland, and there's Greenland (formerly a province of Denmark, now autonomous) just to the east - a very BIIG island, but not very many people. A million dollars a year in trade from both of them combined would be an exaggeration, I believe. The Canadian people are wonderful. Too bad they have such a weak, spineless, fearful government. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-03-29 11:57:29 |
| #7 There's lots of support among ordinary Canadians for the U.S. liberation of Iraq. The crowd at the Vancouver/Phoenix hockey game I attended Thursday heartily cheered the American national anthem. A recent poll suggested 90% of Canadians want improved relations with the U.S. The appeasing, hypocritical, gutless Liberal federal government is, unfortunately, another story. |
| Posted by: Kirk 2003-03-29 11:32:47 |
| #6 The world is changing and we might as well get used to it. Poland and the Ukraine have committed ground troops to Iraq (yeah I know a small number), but it is a whole lot more than Canada, France or Germany in so many ways! |
| Posted by: Doug De Bono 2003-03-29 09:44:10 |
| #5 If I remember my geograpy,we are Canada's only neihbor. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-03-29 09:40:36 |
| #4 Ptah - Your sources are not giving you the straight information. They are right that Canadian government is not really democratic - all power is effectively vested in the Prime Minister because members of Parliament in his party do whatever he demands to keep him from calling an election in which they might lose office. But your sources are wrong about financial things. The Canadian system, regrettably, is built around a redistributionist model (as a matter of policy, not constitutionally). The three richest provinces (Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia) pay much more in taxes to the federal government than they get back in services. The other seven provinces get more services than they pay for. And Quebec is a whole different story - whatever is going, they get the lion's share. Why do Canadians put up with this? I don't know. But I would like to see Canada adopt the US system, and have real democracy. |
| Posted by: Patrick 2003-03-29 18:14:47 |
| #3 Barbara, the problem is that, when they formed their government when they went independent, they chose to model their government after Britain's, not The United State's. They have a parlimentary system where their parliament is similar to our House of Representatives. They have no House of Lords, which is an honorary, rubber stamp body in Britain. Comparing our Senate to the House of Lords is a BIIIG mistake: The Senate was expressly designed to counteract the power of states with large populations (large states) against those with small populations (small states). This has proved to be inspired: imagine the United states dancing to the tune called by the likes of California and New York State! The House ensures legislation is backed by the majority of the citizens, while the Senate ensures legislation is backed by the majority of the CITIZENS HOLDING RESOURCES. I.e. a piece of legislation must both have wide support, BOTH geographically AND demographically before becoming law. I've made friends of Canadians, and they continually complain about the laws that plunder their low population, resource rich western states and funnel the wealth to the high population, high malingering Eastern states. The Cash flow stops at Ontario and Quebec, and never "trickles through" to Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. Rough estimates have about a fourth of the population of British Columbia and Alberta ready to secede from Canada and Join the Union. (It'll never happen until we institute national health care.) The parlimentary system is designed to ensure that their equivalent of the President is always of the same party as the one holding their equivalent of the House. There is no direct election of the Prime Minister: he's the leader of the majority of the Parliament. Ontario and Quebec collude together and dominate the Government, passing laws that benefit themselves while bleeding the rest of the country. All the people who complain about the Senate are from California or New York. If you figure out the "design problem" that the Senate was supposed to solve, you'll see why they hate it with a passion. The Politics leading up to the Civil War was all concerned about maintaining a balance between Slave and Free States in the Senate: The Slave states wanted a majority so they could open up the west, and worked hard to avoid being a minority and risk having the free states outlaw slavery. One could say that the Senate was the firewall that kept slavery from spreading like wildfire westwards. People think our Senate is a queer institution. It isn't. Once I figured out where Canada went wrong, I'm convinced it's the masterpiece of the Constitutional Convention. Our forefathers were GENIUSES. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-03-29 15:45:47 |
| #2 Since I don't know much about the inner workings of the Canadian electoral system, let me ask a stupid question: If the majority of Canadians don't like the way their government has been behaving (and they've been doing it for a while - this didn't just pop up in the last few months), why are they still in power? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2003-03-29 15:01:05 |
| #1 If I were a Canadian I think I would feel pretty crappy about not being part of the coalition. I know Canada has it's reputation to protect, but to see England and Australia out there pulling their weight and doing what's right regardless of world opinion would kill me. We even have the Polish and some dolphins helping, but no Canadians. It just seems odd when you actually remember it. |
| Posted by: g wiz 2003-03-29 08:08:02 |