Be anything unless it's Canadian.

TorontoSun.com - Michael Coren - Brit leftists go mad

The political fashions that begin in Britain tend to find their way to Canada extremely quickly, especially when they come from the left side of the body politic.

A new report from the think-tank of the governing Labour Party states that, "Britain is no longer a Christian nation and Christmas should be downgraded in favour of festivals from other religions to improve race relations."

So what of Canada? We're in enormous danger. We adopted an official policy of multiculturalism long ago and decided that Canada simply was not worth preserving.

Immigrants to the country who wanted to assimilate, adapt and become truly Canadian were told that there was no need. Hold on to your own culture and traditions, speak your own languages, be anything unless it's Canadian.

Don't blame newcomers for doing what they were told to do by arrogant white liberals who always know best. Instead of the community and the family there was the state and the collective. Instead of patriotism there was self-loathing. Instead of sacrifice there was entitlement.

Instead of Christianity there was, well, there was anything. Even to the point of embracing alternative religions that by their nature rejected the very pluralism, equality and progress that the social engineers claimed to cherish.

Along came the prince of the new and novel and he was far from good. Trudeau. A man who so detested English Canada that he became obsessed with expunging Anglo-Celtic culture and rebuilding Canada in his own image.

New Canadians would not be required to speak or to learn English and instead of one law, one way and one country for all, we would divide and subdivide into ethnic and linguistic ghettos. The wealthy would, of course, be immune and indifferent because money buys its own form of golden separation.

For the rest, the pieces of the jigsaw no longer fit and the picture became broken. Festivals, faith and traditions became threatened. How ironic that the British, whose heritage our leaders rejected, now are lighting the path to self destruction.

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The evil monster that is the 407 ETR.

TorontoSun.com - Toronto And GTA - Sue Kojic needs a car for her care worker job. But a $10 407 ETR bill that ballooned to $1,200 may cost her both

For going to the homes of the elderly and the infirm -- to bathe them, feed them, and even change their soiled diapers if needed -- Sue Kojic doesn't make a pile of money as a personal support care worker.

After 18 years with the same company, on-and-off, she has a pay slip showing she makes $14.25 a hour.

Since client numbers vary week-to-week, her last bi-weekly pay cheque -- she called "one of the best ones lately" -- amounted to $755.91.

She gets the equivalent of 15-minutes' pay for each client she visits as a payment towards gas. There is no car allowance, even though a car is necessary and mandatory, and there is no rate per kilometre.

Just 15 minutes pay per visit. On her last cheque, it amounted to $11.26.

It doesn't buy a lot of gas.

"Let's face it," she says. "I'm barely getting by. But getting by is better than being on welfare. I was on welfare once, years ago, and I never want to go back to that."

Of all the columns written over the years, few receive more visceral reactions than those involving the 407 ETR toll road, particularly when it comes to harassment over non-payment, and the often heavy-handed tactics employed by the collection agency contracted by 407 ETR management.

No matter what story is written about the 407 ETR's modus operandi and/or its strong-armed bill collectors, someone swears to have a topper.

LICENCE RENEWAL

Because Sue Kojic will be 40 in December, a ministry of transportation envelope arrived in her mail the other day to reminder that the licence sticker for her car -- the fee being $74 for one year -- had to be renewed.

But it would be renewed only if she also paid the $1,234.01, which was allegedly outstanding to the 407 ETR.

Sue Kojic says she received only one bill from the 407 ETR, and that was for $10.78, way back in November 2000.

That's seven years ago.

"And I think I paid it," she says. "But it was also the year I was in a car accident in Niagara Falls. So maybe it didn't get paid?

"But it was only $10. How did it become more than $1,200?"

Back in 2005, after a five-year moratorium, an Ontario divisional court ruled in favour of the 407 ETR privately-owned consortium, making it mandatory again that the ministry of transportation not renew licence stickers to the approximate 10,500 vehicles that had reportedly rolled up $9 million in unpaid tolls.

The consortium, which bought the road for $3.1 billion in 1999, voluntarily stopped requesting plate denials in 2000 amid an avalanche of complaints involving billing errors.

Until the court's ruling, the government has refused to reinstate the practice of plate denial, all which led to the 407 ETR to renew its hunt for shirkers of historical accounts.

Like Sue Kojic's, for example -- now almost seven years historic. And with seven years of late fees, administration fees, and compound interest rates adding to the problem.

After posting a $3.4 million loss in 2005, the toll road operator announced in February that it had managed to score a net profit of $9 million in the fourth quarter of 2006, with revenue rising to $118 million from $105.7 million, a nice turnaround.

This is not unusual. If the 407 ETR has an Achille's heel, this is it. Its tracking system, judging from stories documented in the past, is sorely lacking precision.

Nonetheless, Sue Kojic decided to attempt compromise, and laid out her case as someone who could use a break, and as someone who drastically needs a car in order to visit her needy clients.

"If I cannot get to them, I have no work," she said.

"I was on social assistance in the 1990s and have worked very hard to upgrade my skills and stay off welfare," she continued in her letter. "The shocking amount of money that is shown to be owed to the 407 ETR is beyond my ability to pay. And I cannot understand the justification that would allow a $10.78 invoice to rise to an amount over $1,200."

And then she begged for a bit of mercy.

Since Sue Kojic's scenario is hardly a one-off, the 407 ETR decided to offer a payment plan to delinquent customers who would suffer "exceptional hardship" through the denial of their vehicle licence plate, and posts the applicable form online.

But they must qualify under the 407 ETR's rules. They must owe more than $1,000. They must have no alternative vehicle. And they must prove that the loss of that vehicle would be "immediate, significant and lasting."

But that is not all.

The customer must also "show" that the denial or the licence plate would "be a threat to the health and safety to a person ordinarily transported in the vehicle," and/or that the customer would suffer the aforementioned "exceptional hardship" if the plate was denied.

Only then will the 407 ETR render a decision.

But if, and only if, the customer agrees to the continuance of interest charges on the arrears, to not ring up additional 407 ETR bills, and to agree to a lien on the customer's assets, such as the pinks to the car.

There is one more caveat.

The 407 ETR charges a $30 administration fee to file for leniency.

If those who take that route win the tug-of-heartstrings war, their account will be credited with the $30. If they lose, however, it will not.

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Canadian Conservative gov't cuts GST, personal income taxes and corporate tax rates.

CTV.ca | Feds cut GST, slash personal income taxes

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has announced a reduction of the GST to five per cent, and major cuts to personal income taxes and corporate tax rates, in a fiscal fall update that resembled a full-fledged budget.

The total tax cuts represent about $60 billion in savings over the next five years, taking advantage of a federal surplus expected to reach $11.6 billion this fiscal year.

The Conservatives had promised to lower the consumption tax to five per cent in their 2006 election platform. The GST cut will be effective Jan. 1, 2008.

Other highlights include:

* An increase in the basic personal amount exemption to $9,600 from $8,929, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007;
* Two years later, on Jan. 1, 2009, the basic personal amount exemption will be increased to $10,100;
* Reducing small business income tax to 11 per cent by 2008;
* $10 billion in federal debt relief; and
* The lowest personal income tax rate moves to 15 per cent from 15.5 per cent, effective Jan. 1 2007, undoing a change made in the first Conservative budget.

The government will also cut corporate tax rates by one percentage point in 2008. Further cuts will occur each year at a rate of one percentage point per year, bringing corporate tax rates down to 15 per cent by 2012 from 22 per cent today.

Corporate taxes will fall by one third between 2007 and 2012. According to the government, this will make Canada's corporate taxes the lowest among major industrialized nations.

The plan will be put to a confidence vote on Wednesday, putting an election trigger in the hands of the opposition parties.

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Harper clears a hurdle.

CFP: Harper clears a hurdle by Arthur Weinreb , 10/23/07

Recent polls have indicated that the Harper Conservatives are edging into majority government territory. That in itself is not significant; polls can change and there is no guarantee that the Conservative Party of Canada will win the next election let alone form a majority government. What is important is that when a Conservative majority government appeared to be a real possibility, life, such as it is in ho-hum Canada, remained the same.

There was absolutely no panic at the thought of “Scary Stephen” heading a majority government and turning the country into a Republican Party wasteland. No one took to the streets to protest the danger of Canada being headed by a George Bush clone.

In fact it seems that the moniker “Scary Stephen” has been relegated to the dustbin of history, right alongside that of Canada’s “New Government”. The Harper-as-Bush argument for returning the Liberals to power really hasn’t worked since the 2004 election, although the hapless Liberals are still using it in an attempt to rise above the level that the party is at under the fumbling leadership of Stephane Dion.

The Liberal amendment to the Throne Speech that was voted on last night was a perfect example of the situation that the Liberal Party finds itself in. Their amendment called for the Conservatives to meet the now impossible Kyoto targets. But the Libs also threw in the statement that the Liberal Party had met Canada’s Kyoto targets when they were in power. This was inserted into the amendment to ensure that the NDP and the Bloc would vote against it (which they did) so that the government would not be defeated in non-confidence motion. For those who are interested in these matters, the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals couldn’t get any better.

Another example of how the government has the Liberals on the run is in one of the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code. That amendment provides that if a person is convicted of a third violent offence, he or she is automatically designated as a dangerous offender, liable to an indefinite period of incarceration unless they can convince a judge that they are not dangerous. The Liberals have consistently portrayed this as the same as the American three strikes law that could see someone locked up for life for stealing a slice of pizza. Of course it’s nothing like that and now the desperate Liberals are backtracking on their opposition to that amendment.

The reality is Stephen Harper is not really “scary”, he never was--he’s just another politician. If he manages to win a majority, he’ll do what he has to do in order to win a second one. And when and if that happens, the Liberal Party’s reign as the Natural Governing Party may very well be at an end.

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Liberal Win in Ontario

Just wanted all of you people who voted Liberal in Ontario today to know, you get what you deserve.

Especially if you voted Liberal for the following reasons:

1) They're all the same.

2) I've always voted Liberal, and my parents did, and my grandparents did.

3) The Conservatives ran a negative campaign.

4) Conservatives are scary.

5) I really like paying the health care "premium", and anyway, it's all going to health care, isn't it?

6) Cricket clubs deserve $1.5 million dollar grants.

7) Dalton McGuinty looks like someone who you can trust. Even if he told us he wouldn't raise taxes and he did.

8) I really believed the Liberals when they said they didn't know about the deficit.

9) I really don't deserve to get any of my taxes back from the surplus.

10) Parents of autistic kids don't need any help.

11) My children can learn from the fact that the Liberals get rewarded for lying.

12) John Tory wasn't conservative enough, so I wasted my vote by voting Green or Liberal to punish the Conservatives.

13) I may lose my entitlements.

14) The Liberals are really handling the Caledonia thing well. It hasn't been in the news lately, has it?

15) I love waiting for health care.

16) Scandals? What scandals? I don't keep up with those kinds of things.

Oh, and thank you for dragging me and my family down with you.

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Ontario votes tomorrow.

Complete political retards.

CANOE -- CNEWS - Canada Votes 2007 - News: Liberal record takes back seat to faith based schools

Ontario's Progressive Conservative, New Democrat and Green parties had hoped voters would file into Ontario's polling stations Wednesday with a single message burned into their minds: Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty is a notorious promise-breaker.

Instead, after 30 days of campaign promises, canvassing and partisan attacks, just one issue has dominated the agenda - the question of whether to extend funding to faith-based schools that opt into the public school system.

The Conservative leader said he can't believe it's become the defining issue of the campaign when the province is grappling with so many other problems. He blamed McGuinty for fostering misunderstanding and fear about funding faith-based schools.

"It was in his interest to keep anything going that obscured a discussion of his record," Tory said.

The Liberal premier's first budget after winning the 2003 election broke his cornerstone promise to hold the line on taxes. The health levy was followed by an oft-delayed commitment to close Ontario's coal plants - now scheduled for 2014, seven years later than promised.

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Canadian hipocracy

Her "spokesman" is a LIAR. She doesn't use the Canadian system "when needed", she didn't use it when she needed it. Doublespeak. Also, why bring her children into it?

Funny, this came out more than a month ago, and it caused not much more than a blurb. Guess the media really loves the much-vaunted socialized health care system, eh?

The rest of us can die in waiting rooms.

TheStar.com | Canada | Stronach travels to U.S. for cancer treatment

Belinda Stronach, the MP for Newmarket-Aurora and former cabinet minister, travelled outside Canada's health-care system to California for some of her breast cancer treatment earlier this year.

It is unusual for a federal politician to travel outside Canada for private medical treatment, especially given the hallowed status of the Canadian, publicly financed health-care system in the realm of political debate.

MacEachern stressed that Stronach's decision had nothing to do with her confidence – or lack of it – in Canada's cancer-treatment facilities or public health care.

"In fact, Belinda thinks very highly of the Canadian health-care system, and uses it when needed for herself and her children, as do all Canadians. As well, her family has clearly demonstrated that support," MacEachern said.

"This was about a specific health-care procedure, unrelated to any views about the quality of Canadian health care, a decision based on medical advice and a referral from her Toronto physicians, and just one part of several areas of treatment. Belinda has nothing but praise for the community of health-care professionals in Toronto who supported and treated her throughout the last six months."

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Another reason why I think most people are politically retarded.

TorontoSun.com - Christina Blizzard - A one-issue campaign

Should I give the "You must have golden horseshoes somewhere" award for brilliant strategy to the Liberal spinmeisters for turning this election campaign into a one-issue wonder, thereby cleverly deflecting discussion from their own record?

it's been a single-issue campaign to date that has blanked out any meaningful discussion of other policies -- and it's giving the Liberals a free ride to re-election.

McGuinty, for example, has repeatedly decried Tory's policy -- he did it again yesterday, raising the issue himself, unprompted by the media. He keeps insisting Tory's plan will destroy our social fabric, cause division and the "sequestration and segregation" of children by religion.

Except who's being divisive? The Liberals, of course. Five other provinces have funded faith-based schools without civilization ending. At some point, Ontario will have to address the discriminatory way it funds the schools of only one faith. Ironically, McGuinty is the product of Catholic schools, his kids went to Catholic schools and his wife teaches in one. So apparently, publicly-funded Catholic schools don't hurt the social fabric but Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Anglican ones would.

Why, when McGuinty went to St. Augustine's Catholic school in Markham to discuss faith-based schools (like THAT isn't hypocritical), did he happen to mention how his government had nixed a plan for sharia law?

How's that related to this issue? It's hard to avoid the view that the subtle fear the Liberals want to implant with voters is that Muslim schools, in particular, are teaching things we don't want taught.

You have to hand it to the Liberals. No one's talking about Slushgate and a million-dollar grant to a cricket club that only asked for $150,000. No one's talking about the health tax and broken promises.

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Bloc uses taxpayers money to threaten Conservatives

Bloc leaflet attacks gov't war stance

The leaflet, which was mailed out to thousands of Quebecers last week as a part of the $6-million printing budget funded by taxpayers for members of Parliament, warns that Harper's government may fall within weeks if the prime minister doesn't announce a withdrawal of Canada's troops from the combat zones of Afghanistan by February 2009.

"If Stephen Harper persists with his war mentality, he will not be able to count on the support of the Bloc Quebecois for the Throne Speech," reads the harshly worded leaflet. "We won't hesitate to vote against the government even if this means that such a choice would force the dissolution of the Commons, and a new general election."

But the Conservative government doesn't appear to be scared by the Bloc's new campaign after it snatched a former sovereigntist stronghold and came within a few percentage points of taking another riding in recent federal byelections in Quebec.

Although it propped up the minority government in its first two budgets, Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe said last week that he would no longer do so unless it committed to Canada's Kyoto commitments, eliminated federal spending in provincial jurisdictions, maintained supply management in the agriculture sector and financial aid for the forest industry, along with confirming the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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The liar is called on the carpet, finally.

PCs, NDP gang up on Premier Dalton McGuinty for breaking campaign promises

TORONTO - Dalton McGuinty came under sustained attack during Thursday's televised debate as his political opponents ganged up on the Liberal premier for failing to deliver on a raft of promises he made in the last campaign.

McGuinty was asked by a voter in a pre-recorded question whether he would support recall legislation in light of the promises he broke following his election in 2003 - in particular his decision to impose the $2.6-billion health premium after vowing not to raise taxes.

McGuinty looked into the camera as he described his childhood as one of 10 children and how his father instilled in him the importance of keeping his word.

"I made a tough choice, not because wanted to," said McGuinty, noting he didn't impose the premium to boost his popularity. "There was a $5.6 million deficit."

Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory has gone around the province "calling me a liar in everything but name," McGuinty said. But he's ignoring the fact that his party "stuck" Ontario residents with a massive deficit, he added.

Tory, however, noted the health premium was just one of many broken promises. What about closing coal plants or reinstating full support for autistic students, Tory asked.

"Your word isn't just important," he said. "It's everything."

NDP Leader Howard Hampton dismissed McGuinty's professed ignorance of the Conservative deficit prior to his taking office in 2003 - the premier's preferred explanation for why the premium was imposed in the first place.

"You must have been the only person in Ontario who didn't know the former Conservative government had a $5.6 billion deficit," he said. "As soon as you had a chance, you hit people with the largest tax increase."

I really can't stand McGuinty, and I don't know how he made it to be Premier of Ontario. He is a liar, plain and simple. If the NDP is after you for being a liar, it says something.

Your father tried to instill in you the importance of keeping your word, man. He failed.

Can you please do us all a favor and stop being so fake? It's a huge turn off.

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"Refugees" from Mexico

clipped from www.canada.com Over the past three weeks, 45 families and 31 individuals -- approximately 200 people -- entered Canada at the Detroit River crossings and applied in Windsor for shelter and social assistance after filing refugee claims with the Canada Border Services Agency. Municipal agencies dealing with the sudden influx of mainly Mexican refugee applicants are renting out hotel rooms and bracing for predicted thousands more to come. "We don't have the means, ability or capacity to deal with this additional cost. We are not able to deal with this potential crisis locally," Francis wrote Harper. "The fact someone wants to come here for better economic opportunity or a better quality of life ... that's no basis for a successful refugee claim," said Immigration Refugee Board (IRB) spokesman Charles Hawkins. But the average processing time for a refugee claim in Canada is currently 14.2 months, said Hawkins, a period during which the applicant is eligible for financial and other support.

This is the use of my tax dollars. Why are we putting these people up? Refugees are people who are fleeing a serious threat. These people are not, they are trying to take advantage of the system, and they're succeeding. They are cutting in line and making a mockery of the Canadian refugee system.

Send them back where they came from, let them file the proper paperwork and wait in line.

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