Canada is a pretty heavily taxed nation. In Ontario, where I live, there’s 15% Federal and 16% Provincial Income Tax, 5% toward our Pension, 1.8% for Employment Insurance, and a 13% Sales Tax on almost everything sold, and when you add to that a minimum of 20% Corporate taxes for businesses, which could in some cases skyrocket north of 55%… well, you get the point.

So, a portion of all this goes toward our healthcare system, which I’ll grant you isn’t #1 in the world, but here’s what it does do for us, and why it’s pretty easy to see that these taxes are well spent in some cases:

Firstly, I must add here that a great deal of our casino money and that made from scratch-off or daily draw lottery tickets go straight toward our healthcare costs, so this part of it is a “voluntary tax” as I see it.

For our costs and taxes, we get:

• our choice of doctors – any doctor who is currently accepting patients we can interview to see if we’re right for each other
• more than one doctor, if necessary
• free visits to said doctor(s) whenever the need arises, or for any check-ups
• 24/7 access to emergency services, at any hospital
• almost all surgeries are covered by our medical plan
• if a hospital stay is required, a bed is furnished without charge in a ward, with rooms of up to four beds
• any food and almost all medications while staying in the hospital

What this does not cover:

• use of take-home mobility equipment such as crutches or wheelchairs
• dental work
• eyecare
• orthotics
• chiropractic or physiotherapy
• psychological health (unless performed by an M.D.)
• doctors notes or return-to-work clearance

For this list, you may, at your own discression and pending approval, buy increased medical coverage from companies like Blue Cross, Green Shield, Manulife, etc., which would also include things like private stay rooms in a hospital, yadda yadda – in other words, improved coverage beyond the minimum.

Because doctors are also free to select their clientele of patients, they can elect to provide elite coverage to those with private healthcare only. Otherwise, physicians charge a fee to the Government for any and all patients seen.

The only visible downside to this system is that often physicians will only address one problem per visit, resulting in more visits (and therefore more charges the doc can make to the government). This could cause slight discomfort and inconvenience for people with multiple ailments if they do have to book time off work, etc, but usually people only do go see a doctor for only one ailment so it’s not a major issue and if it was, the option is still there to see more elite doctors who will work with the patient on a more grandiose scale.

In short – no one gets left without coverage. Freedom to choose remains completely intact, and it allows for thriving because everyone gets the same basic health coverage so there’s no need to worry about whether you’re getting ripped off by your physician. Physicians also know they’re ensured payment so they don’t have to deny any procedures.

Win. Win. Win.

Now this is over-simplifying the matter entirely, as I’m not inclined to write a thesis on the subject, but it does paint the vivid picture that socialised medicine does not take away freedom of choice. In fact, it adds to it.

Dear Blog Editor,

Please consider the following submission for an upcoming entry or report for your readers:

THE DEATH OF RETAIL?

Last week Best Buy Canada announced that it was going to be closing some of its stores across Canada, included those of its sister brand, Future Shop. I live in Hamilton, Ontario, and this affects me, as the Ancaster Future Shop is one of those on the chopping block.

The culprit, they say, for the downturn in their operations is the proliferation of online shopping for electronic consumables. Why, though, still remains a mystery.

I may be able to bring those asking these kinds of questions some insight into consumer attitudes and why we’re frankly up to here with the whole business of… well, business.

Specifically, I had a run in this past weekend at my local Canada Computers in Hamilton on Dundurn St. It’s turned me off of buying anything from them ever again, after years of faithful purchasing. I bought every component to build three of my own custom computers and made several more for friends, family, and client alike. Not to mention that it was my go-to place to scoop up any electronic accessories. I found their prices to be reasonable, and I preferred the “brick-and-mortar” feel over the electronic buy-it-and-hope-Canada-Post-gets-it-right way of doing things.

My purchase quickly turned into a nightmare. I bought a Solid State Drive from Intel, the 300 Series, for $179. I stressed to the salesperson that I was uneasy about buying SSD because of the reported fail rate they all seem to have. He assured me that the technology had come a long way. He also steered me away from the OCZ Agility III drive that I was eyeing, saying that the Intel drive was more reliable.

I brought it home and after a few days it froze on me. The it did it a couple of days after that. And on the third time I got the Blue Screen of Frowny (The good people at Microsoft decided to make the Windows 8 BSOD cutesy). After much investigating the Master File Table (both of them) of the drive was corrupt, and it needed to be blown away.

This, to me, was unacceptable. But as a consumer, I try to make it work, and assure myself that this is the price I pay for SSD ownership. I’d heard the stories. And they came true for me.

So, inside of a 30-day window, I packed it up and headed back to the store for an exchange. Not a refund, mind you, because most computer stores won’t do that without the obligatory 15% hefty penalty. No, I just wanted a drive that worked.

The man behind the counter cheerfully told me that the drive would have to be sent away because their policy is only 15 days exchange, and that I didn’t “buy” the extended warranty. Now, I wasn’t sure of this purchase to begin with. I wasn’t sold on the technology, and I had my doubts that it was right for me. So, had I have been offered any extended warranty, you would bet that I would have taken it.

So I asked him, in the most polite voice that I could muster, when I could expect to have my drive back, because my computer was now out of commission.

“6 to 8 weeks” was his reply. We all know that in tech speak, that means “8 weeks”. Two whole months now that I will have to try and muddle through with a temporary operating system, because their sales people failed to upsell me and they were unwilling to compromise on their policy.

The worst part is I doubt they even care, until the Bell Tolls for Thee, when they’ll be left wondering what they did wrong, and blaming cybersales for their woes; anyone else to blame but themselves. When I first had this problem with the SSD drive, the man in charge that day utilized the time-honoured technique of putting his head down and pretending that I wasn’t there while he tinkered behind the counter.

Stay classy, Canada Computers.

And there, in a nutshell, is the crux of the issue. People frequented brick-and-mortar stores because there was some sort of relief should something unseemly happen. Most stores carried respectable warranties and at the very least, exchange policies, should you get your purchase home and it’s wonky.

Now? Now you get 2 weeks, apparently. You get two weeks, unless of course, you pony up and pay through the nose for their in-house insurance policy – which wasn’t even availed to me this time around.

Canada Computers’ failure to budge on the issue caused me to leave a power surge protector unit and a set of expensive headphones on the counter as I walked out the door. They lost my sale.

More than that, they’ve lost every sale afterward. I’ve spent thousands of dollars at that location over the course of its existence. I think I may have been there when it opened its doors years ago. But now, that relationship is irreparably damaged. The only reason why I chose to shop retail – customer service – has now gone the way of the Dodo. So the only thing I can do now, is what everyone else is doing, and buy online from someplace like TigerDirect, NCIX, or Newegg.

Maybe the owner/manager might read this article and make some sweeping changes to their service mantra, but I highly doubt it. And, for me at least, it will have been a case of too little, too late anyway.

Cameron Davidson is a freelance writer and keeps a blog “A Lease In Wonderland”, his take on the more annoying aspects of life.

Those people who oppose the casino might do well to walk down the streets of Downtown Hamilton and count the vacant storefronts before complaining that casinos kill businesses.

I posted an article from early October not too long ago, from the mayor of Brantford, and it was a Mea Culpa over their city’s casino. He was dead set against it. In the article, he’s documented exactly what good it’s done (including bringing a university branch to the town and paid for student housing complexes), and spoke of the feared pitfalls not materializing.

It was an interesting read, but not one that the smaller-town attitudes of Hamiltonians should read. This burg would still have hitching posts if the citizens had their way.

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/talk/story/2012/09/04/hamilton-casino-brantford.html
http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2012/11/22/hamilton-olg-casino-brantford-downtown.html

I put more stake in it when it comes from someone who WAS against it, and put his political career on the line over it. A politician who actually admitted he was wrong? That bastard. And here was a man whose religious and social inclinations spoke to him and told him that it was wrong, but he followed through with the desires of the people of the city, however slim that majority was.

“The religious right adopted me,” he says, but it wasn’t about that. He figured the casino would cause more troubles than it cured. Higher police costs, people losing their houses, the standard worries.’ (…) ‘He says the bad stuff hasn’t happened. He says they’ve looked hard, checked the stats with police and local social service agencies, and the casino has not set loose a plague on the streets of Brantford.’ (…) ‘The city used a few million casino-windfall dollars to renovate the Carnegie, then turned it over to Laurier. Brantford has since invested another $17 million – sometimes handing over buildings – to bolster the Laurier presence in the core. Now Laurier has 19 buildings in downtown Brantford, representing an investment from the university of some $78 million. In 2000, there were 39 students. Now it’s up to about 3,000. The end plan, some 15,000 students. And looking back, the mayor admits, “I have to say, no casino, no university.”

The last time I checked 10 years ago, Brantford was strictly a welfare town, and nothing but. Now, walking around the place as I have recently, one would never have guessed it.  That casino’s revenue has boosted: Downtown, Health, Policing, Visitor & Tourism Centres, Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre, Brant Community Foundation Grants, John Noble Home, Waterfront Master Plan Development, Youth Resource Centre, Brownfield Reserve Fund and Study, and Roads & Bridges.

Brantford isn’t a tourist spot. But people still travel up to 50 kms to go there. And the fact that there aren’t any attractions here in Hamilton are why people are bored, complacent, and prone to rally against anything that might make their heart beat. If you’re the kind of person who is going to spout off the rhetoric of how evil gambling is and how every Hamiltonian will be homeless from gambling addiction, at least have some substance to your concerns.

I dug up the findings of a recent (unbiased) study about exactly how many citizens are gambling addicts, and how many of those people use casinos as an outlet (as opposed to scratch/lottery or bingo) to debunk concerns about addictions counseling.

According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, gambling stats are as follows:

In the year 2000, of all households, 74% contributed to at least one gambling activity. Only 21% were attributed to Casinos, Slot machines, or VLT. In the year 2009, the figures dropped to percentages of 67 and 17 respectively.

Of all households of people making:

$20,000 or less: 1.3% of their income was spent on gambling
$20,000 – $39,999: .08% of their income was spent on gambling
$40,000 – $59,999: .07% of their income was spent on gambling
$60,000 – $79,999: .05% of their income was spent on gambling
$80,000 and over: .04% of their income was spent on gambling

…so I think that gambling addiction is a problem to Canadians in much the same way voter fraud is in the U.S. (non-existent). The average OVERALL net expenditure was $330 per year, on TOTAL gambling (remembering, of course, that casinos only account for 17% of THAT)

Incidentally, I am a gambler. I would say that over the course of my lifetime, I may be down a TOTAL of $850. A $1000 winning scratch ticket saved my ass in that department, but still, for a man my age to have lost an average of $35 a year is amazing.

I’ve had losses as large as $800 per session. I’ve also made it back in others. Law of averages and all that.

Yes, people lose their homes. Yes, people lose their spouses. Yes, people lose their jobs. They also lose those things to alcoholism, drugs, and other psychological and physical dependencies. Hell, I even know someone who blew their entire sizeable inheritance on prostitutes. But unlike drugs, I can get my money back the next day.

In 1995, Hamilton voted “NO” in a referendum, killing the idea for a casino here. It went to Niagara instead.

People blame the casino for virtually killing business there, but the harsh reality of it is that Clifton Hill and Lundy’s Lane was stagnant even before, and no money has been put into tourism because the owners decided to keep milking the cash cow without actually feeding it. So people ran out of reasons to walk into ramshackle converted houses circa 1974 to shop for souvenirs just as old and Niagara fell by the wayside. Tourism’s been steadily declining there for some time.

People do flock to the casino though because it’s the only area in Niagara that’s been kept up, and they’re not looking at the same things they’ve seen 1000 times before.

That should have been us. You go within 5 blocks of that casino and it is bustling with vibrant businesses, and there isn’t a vacant storefront for at least a kilometre in any direction.

Hamilton? Hamilton has been trying to find a way to get people to go downtown since Lloyd D. Jackson Square was put up. The excuse in the 70’s was that there wasn’t enough parking downtown, which was fixed when department stores like Robinson’s and Zeller’s gave up and left and the buildings got mowed down to create the urban sprawl of parking lots you see down there now.

In the 80’s we had the giddy-up “if you build it, they will come” attitude of Copps Coliseum and was borne out of the first time someone uttered the phrase “revitalize the core”. Copps is now home to whatever they can stuff into it 8 times a month and a minor league hockey team you can’t get 3000 people to show up for unless they’re playing Toronto.

Then in the 90’s the Timothy Eaton Company opened up the Hamilton wing of The Eaton Centre. It was supposed to reshape the way people shop in downtown Hamilton, revolutionizing and revitalizing all who enter her. That is, until Eaton’s went bankrupt and the place turned from trendy haute couture into a low-rent haven of discount stores and a makeshift City Hall.

The Hamilton casino, if voted upon favourably in 1995, was supposed to be housed within that dead mall, turning the brand new building into something that could not only be self-sustaining, but breathe new life into Jackson Square, bolster the (then) purported rejuvenation of the Lister Block building, and feed James and King William its booster shot.

You know the vacancy rate of the core already. It can’t possibly get any worse. We’ve been on the “revitalize the core” mantra for 40 years now. Isn’t it time for us to actually realize it’s not working by using the conventional methods of 1977?

The fact that James Street is now the artisanal eclectic hodge-podge you see in 2012 is almost completely by accident and attests to the spirit of pulse, but is no revitalization. No, that was shot in the foot a long, long time ago. And that casino almost 20 years ago could have been the shot in the arm we needed to feed into the mall, the stadium, and all points in between – and to finally tie it all together to make it somehow matter, and to finally give people a reason to go down here.
Now, people walk down James every few weeks in the warmer months for Artcrawl and talk about how quaint it is.

No, the consumer isn’t going to spend an obscene amount of money at the little thrift shop on the corner of Wilson and James, because the place looks like shit, and has had the same dress in the window since 1986. If you want to point to why businesses fail, you might want to start with window dressing and marketing fails.

I’ll tell you what cities need – and not just cities with casinos – is a business coach they can afford to hire. Anyone can open a business. Not many can make it fly. You take the idiot down at Boyz Toyz. If he’s not selling drugs or doing something illegal in that place, then I don’t know what, because he’s barely ever sold a thing out of it.

They keep saying that they can’t afford to improve their business, but that’s either wrong, or an outright lie told to conceal the fact that they didn’t know running a business was going to be hard work and they’d rather not put any effort into it.

I know that the 3 “It’s All Good” locations in Hamilton never added new stock, and simply replenished what was selling. But it took years for people to catch on that it was the same swag year after year. Why? Because one week the clothes would be hanging on one wall, and the next week it would be on a rack. They moved inventory around that store like a tornado hit it. But even it ultimately closed its doors because the owners stopped caring.

Store merchandizing moves product. If you don’t move the stock, you’re not going to MOVE the stock.

People whose businesses fail, fail to honour their business by working at it. And those people deserve to be out of work by sheer laziness. The need a business coach to come in and show them how they can turn the corner without breaking the bank. And if they still can’t be bothered, they deserve what comes next.

In short, mom-and-pop stores might say that a big, bad casino might drive them out of business, but the truth is that not that many of them had a successful business to start with. They’d just decide to pull the trigger on the old mare because of the intimidation factor.

People with the know-how will see this as a growth opportunity and get their ducks in a row, so that if someone from Burlington or Oakville was coming to dirty, smelly Hamilton for the first time in 10 years to check out the new casino, that store standing beside it will be just as shiny.

You either float by building a better boat, or you drown. But if you drown, your boat was already doomed to capsize. People flailing in their little stores along King Street might make the investment for retail space in a new structure and see their profits soar for once.

The casino may not necessarily bring people clamouring into the stores, and it may not benefit neighbouring businesses directly, but what it does do (and I’ve already covered this), is promote expenditures and investments of other resources into the city for the overall betterment. I wouldn’t expect money from the end user. I expect it to come from sources higher up the food chain that enhance the consumer’s experience. Laurier University would never have invested in the City of Brantford if not for that casino. Now, it’s a viable place to learn, and the square downtown is an absolute delight. The beer’s a little overpriced for my liking, however.

In the links I provided, a representative for a Business Improvement Association in Brantford said the benefit isn’t in the foot traffic. It’s in the way the $3.4 million gave it is invested. Harmony Square and an improved streetscape bring more people downtown. The casino also employs about 800 people, and many of them live downtown, he said. “Employers of over 500 people in any community is huge,” Prang said. “The casino is one of our largest employers.”

All the construction and road pavings in Hamilton these past couple of years have come directly from casino money. To someone who doesn’t drive, that means nothing. To those who do, it means HUNDREDS of dollars in savings to repair costs per year. Almost every car I’ve driven in Hamilton I’ve had to replace broken suspension components. Usually it’s something small like stabilizer linkage, but there have been times when it was major. Potholes and poor roads are the culprit. I’m already saving money by having a smaller casino here in Dundas. I can only expect more of the same if they moved into the core and employed more people.

I would also not have to keep giving my money to Niagara Falls and Brantford whenever I gamble.

People from Toronto and Oakville would also have come here to play instead of Niagara, were we to have voted yes in 1995. And I will tell you firsthand, that when I drive the QEW home from Beamsville on a Saturday night, I see at least one party bus weekly driving home from Niagara. It’s a party destination. The nightclub there is astounding. People think nothing of going to the Avalon theatre to check out the latest in entertainment, and the Yuk Yuk’s there is cool. They also have a nice sports bar.

We may not be able to get those people back that we lost when Niagara opened up its doors after we passed on our casino, but we can win the locals who don’t come here. Do you know that people from Stoney Creek, Grimsby, Burlington, Oakville, and even Flamborough would rather poke their eye out than come here? But they will under certain circumstances. Copps, Hamilton  Place, etc, already provide special event reasons. The Ti-Cats provide sporting reasons. We could really use an image change around here, and get some money from those immediate neighbours who otherwise won’t give us the time of day. If we can get them to come here instead of taking the trip to Niagara, then we’ve already got a chunk of the pie – especially if Toronto’s casino ends up north instead of Etobicoke.

We’ve seen people living in Hamilton who work and spend money outside the city for long enough. Hamilton is a place to live for cheap housing, because there are no jobs here outside of the health field. People live here, and commute to work. There’s no work here for lower-to-middle class families. We need something to replace the manufacturing jobs lost in the early part of the century, because they aren’t coming back. Right now, HHSC is the ONLY major employer in Hamilton. A casino could put an end to that, and employ up to 1000 people, like Brantford’s did for its citizens.

The only thing that needs to change is the archaic mindset that is the sleepy town of Hamilton, Ontario.

The following may not necessarily be a crystal-clear essay toward my argument. It’s an amalgam of posts I made on facebook about the issue, but nonetheless a coherent one:

There are 100 times the number of people in the U.S. as there are in Canada. Yet there are 200 times the gun fatalities.

Gun restriction needs to happen. We’re not talking about a ban on it. We’re talking about restricting it for use in hunting, and restricting who gets to buy them, and regulating those people who would sell it online to those who have not been pre-screened.

You shouldn’t be able to sell a gun to just any idiot. People do kill people. With guns. If you put a knife in a murderer’s hand, at least he’d have to get in close enough for someone to be able to defend themselves.

I’m sorry, but even if it is career suicide, politicians need to address this, and the citizens needs to understand that they’ll get over it if someone tells your neighbour that their too unstable to own a gun.

Who knows, you might even thank them if they’re the ones to put a stop to your neighbour shooting up your town’s church.

I’ll conclude tonight’s sermon by saying, that you think the guns won’t leave the hands of the people who own them, doesn’t much hold water for me right now, either.

Tomorrow? No, they’ll still have guns. Except that I’m not a firm believer in passing laws for tomorrow. If we can squeeze the guns out of peoples’ hands over the course of 20 or 30 years, I’d be happy for it. People may not necessarily turn them in right away, but if the police have need to search a house for any reason, and they come across a handgun, *ZAP* – gone.

Anyone packing in the street? Gone. School lockers? Gone. Kids can bitch about the invasion of privacy all they want. They don’t own the lockers, and shouldn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in school anyway.

Perps will break into peoples homes to the get their guns… and then they’ll get caught one day using the gun to hold up a convenience store, and *ZAP* – gone.

30 years later, it’ll be as close to utopia as you’re going to get, and if they can get even half the guns out of the baddies’ hands and off the streets, that’s half the murders.

Stop all the violence? No. Curb the violence dramatically? Yes.

Statistics don’t lie. Other countries that have strict gun regulation have not just fewer gun deaths, but fewer violent deaths overall.

They didn’t get there overnight, either, but they did get there. Passing a law now will make the streets safer 20 or 30 years from now. We owe it to the next generations to at least try.

So, why look at tomorrow and say it won’t work while expecting instant gratifaction? Why not just for the future at large? What’s so wrong with that?

MY point, is that we can’t just say “they’ll find a way”. With that mentality, there’s no point in doing anything at all in the way of passing laws if we know there are going to be ways of circumventing them.

As long as we do our part to make it as difficult as possible for them to get their way, then we’re weeding out those people who’re just too lazy to get their hands on a gun. You’d have to really, really, really want one, instead of just going to go buy one at Walmart because everyone else owns one and you don’t wanna be left out.

As for changing a law that’s kept them able to have them for over a hundred years: Slavery was a lot older than that. At one time men used to be able to sell their daughters. Those were banned, and it became illegal, and people adjusted. And I’ll bet if you asked the slave owners, they really, really, really wanted to keep their black folk. Should we go back to selling alcohol to 14 year olds. They’ll only find a way to get it anyway, if they really want it. Or maybe we should stop checking ID for kids who want to buy cigarettes? Maybe we should go back to owning slaves? Or how about back to the time when men were allowed to sell their daughters?

You see, some things are just wrong. Some things you do to slow down the problem, even if you can’t stop it. Just because something is tradition, doesn’t make it right. Every law that’s ever been in the book at one time was legal simply by virtue of not being in the books prior. And everyone adjusted.

More and more people are realizing that the Constitution as it stands today is just wrong. It needs to be looked at again, because people have changed far beyond the scope of that piece of paper, and those who are holding onto the increasingly erroneous notion that the piece of paper will keep the people grounded are equally as wrong. More people are calling something utterly stupid “their right”. Anything. Don’t take away my constitutional right to text in a movie theatre!

It’s bullshit.

I’ll tell you what IS kind of unique from the U.S. is their “defense by means of offense” mantra.

Canada has always been like this, for as far back as any of us can remember. And we’re still a relatively young nation at under 200 years old, but we’ve always taken a passive stance in just about everything.

We get laughed at because our military isn’t one that anyone would call a “superpower”. Despite having the world’s second-largest land mass and second-largest oil production, gold, ore, nickle, copper and even diamond mines, no one wants to take us. We’ve never been on the defensive in any home-based land war against any other country… that is, except for the United States of America.

When they came calling we literally beat them back with a stick, right here in Hamilton. The Battle of Stoney Creek is still re-enacted every year.

We don’t employ the “defense through offense” strategy because we’ve never pissed anyone off. That’s a pretty good life lesson. Don’t piss anyone off, stick to your own damned self, and people won’t want to kill you.

Defense through passivity works, and works well. While we’re no superpower, we’re also no slouch. The U.N. recognizes us as one of the major armed forces of the world. We just don’t feel the need to flex our muscles so damned much.

You don’t think that there’s a demand for guns everywhere in the world? You don’t think there’s a market right here in this very city for it? God knows we have a thriving gang population here. Bloods, Crips, Viet, and Korean, and hardly any of them have guns.

Do you know why? Because they’re controlled on a corner of Gage on the north end, and no one else is going to get any anywhere else, because they can’t find them.

We, this city right here, debunks your argument completely. Our gun crime would be through the roof (to Toronto’s meager-by-anyone-else’s standards), if the gangs here knew how to get their hands on them. But they don’t. Toronto has the population of someplace like Atlanta, and not even they have high gun crime in relation to any urban town in the U.S. Your argument just doesn’t hold water when put to scrutiny.

We are a shining example of what happens when you restrict guns. 52. Read that figure as many times as you like. It doesn’t change. Better yet, go to Al Simmons gun shop on Locke and try to get a gun. I’ll wait.

That place is a shining example of how gun laws could and should work down in the U.S.

You’d hardly know that for a very, very long time, Hamilton has been one of Canada’s first and largest mafia cities. Between the Sicilians, Calabrians (and other organized crime syndicates who wear varying colours), there are indeed p-l-e-n-t-y of guns to go around here, but the people who own them are smart enough to realize that if you go shooting up a place that doesn’t use guns, you get attention, and detention, very quickly.

So once you put the puzzle pieces together, you begin to understand that guns don’t have to be a part of life. They can be outlawed. And if that means that outlaws have guns, then so be it. Fine ’em or jail ’em a time or two and watch their attitudes change.

“I agree people get gun way to easy i know this personal my son was able to get a gun permit at 19 buy a gun and 6 months later he was involved in a shooting both people involved had guns he is the only one in prison at the time of the shooting he had 2 jobs his own apartment now he has 14 years to do. The gun laws are stupid at best in Indiana you can get a gun permit at 18 but you cannot buy a gun at the gun store but you can buy it from a person and carry it”
– Debra Williamson Alexander

“As some one else said you right to have a gun shouldn’t override my right to live and it share as hell shouldn’t override the right of those innocent babies to live. Last night 20 little one weren’t tucked in, parents will never hold their children again. A gun makes everything permanent.”
– Michelle Kasprzyk

Finally, I leave you this morning with the words of one of my musical idols:

“IM A GUN OWNER. HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS. I BELIEVE IN THE 2ND AMENDMENT. BUT I WOULD GIVE THEM ALL UP IF IT MEANT SAVING JUST ONE CHILD’S LIFE.
– DAVID”

If only everyone felt like Mr. Draiman.

Someone just recently said to me,

I don’t like that the people do not vote for Prime Minister. They are elected by the Parliament.

That’s kind of true. But not really.

Our political party leaders are chosen by party Convention, the same as it’s done in America. Where we differ is as follows:

Canadian Parliament is comprised of 413 members. 308 of them are elected by we, the people. The other 105 are Senators, who are appointed by the Governor General (representative of Queen Elizabeth II), on advice by the Prime Minister.

But we, the citizens are mainly concerned about the 308.

Like voting for your local City Council, both on a Provincial and Federal level, we vote for one of our own, who we believe will fight for our neighbourhood in their respective Offices. Federal Members of Parliament (MP) and Members of Provincial Parliament (MPP) are usually citizens of our own district (called “ridings”), and we turn to them for concerns in our own back yard the same way we would our own City Council.

Currently, we have three major parties on a federal level (Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP), and sometimes more per province – as each of the above three also have provincial branches, there are others such as the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec. Each of those parties have an appointed leader through Convention. When we cast our ballot for our individual Riding, the candidates in our neighbourhood who get the most votes, wins the Riding. The party who wins the most Ridings, wins the overall election, and their leader becomes the Premier/Prime Minister (depending on which level of government we’re talking about)

In Ontario, where I live, my local MPP happens to be leader of her Provincial party, the New Democratic Party of Ontario. Andrea Horwath was recently our City Councilwoman, but stepped down to pursue Provincial aspirations, became our MPP through general election, and was appointed leader of the NDP by her peers.

Many fully expect that when we go to the polls in the spring of next year, the NDP will win the most ridings in Ontario, and thusly she will become Premier by virtue of her being appointed leader of the party by Convention.

A multiple party system works for us, because even if Party A won with, say, 39% of the vote, they can’t run roughshod over their respective jurisdiction because Party B with 36% and Party C with 25% can band together and say, “Oh no you don’t” and their 61% becomes majority rule on that particular outcome.

Any combination of A, B, and C keeps everyone honest.

Of course, what we have now on a federal level in Canada is a pure majority, because the Conservative Government of Canada holds a 53% total majority, so everyone else’s votes combined wouldn’t be able to keeps the cons from doing what they want.

Which, in my opinion, is the very reason why a two-party system doesn’t work. There is no refereeing.

If I may make a point here: I’m sure if you allow yourself to take a look around you (and I’m sure you have), you’ll find that the Left Wing aren’t waving the Red Flag of Russia. They’re not against Free Enterprise. They never have been. They may be a little more toward the working class than some would like them to be (pro-union and the like), but they’ve always yearned to strike a balance between The Working Man and The Employer, and have always urged The Employer not to take advantage of their workers.

I ask you – is that such a bad thing?

And yes, I will openly declare, that it is they who are the harbingers of Fiscal Responsibility. They are the ones who will absolutely speak of raising taxes, because that’s what needs to be done to pay down the debt. There’s no other way to do it, realistically. And I know damned well that the aforementioned statement isn’t what people want to hear, but it’s the sad and indefatigable truth. When spending becomes out of control and you, the citizen, have fallen asleep at the wheel while your government runs rampant, then you, the citizen, are going to have to pay for it.

Hardcore olde-tyme Right Wing people say out loud “I just want what’s mine”. Well, this debt is yours. And like every debt that arrives at your doorstep, it needs to be paid.

Now, The Left aren’t even stressing that you’ll have to be the ones who pay. They’re suggesting that the people who got you into this mess are the ones who are going to have to pay to get you out of it – the rich.

Again, I ask: Is that such a bad thing?

The fact that these greedy modern-day robber barons who own these corporations say to the government “If you make us pay, we’ll just close shop and move”, is not your government’s fault. I think what your government (strike that – what all governments) should do is sit patiently and wait for someone to say exactly that and then jail them, because they’ve broken the law. It’s called blackmail. Or extortion. Take your pick. They’re either blackmailing the government with peoples’ jobs, or they’re extorting bailout money from the government and using those same jobs as collateral.

Either way, that’s the very heart of the Free Enterprise system. And The Left Wing have always sought to make sure that never happened. That’s why they always fought for The Little People.

But the biggest problem the world faces now is that someone somewhere created this imaginary line of wealth (or lack thereof) and lumped welfare recipients in with The Little People and started pointing fingers about how The Left Wing are “pro-lazy”, adding in that The Little People are also lazy, because they feel they’re entitled to these unrealistic expectations they doesn’t deserve (like a raise in pay every once in a while or a vacation).

Except, like the smokescreen that is this imagined voter fraud in the U.S., there’s also the case that states that welfare recipients are largely not all that lazy. An extremely small percentage of welfare recipient funds are fraudulent (around 3% in North America). Most of them are actual victims, and not those people that Mitt Romney pointed out who feel like the government owes them. Some of them are like the good people of Freeport, IL, who had their bread and butter stolen from them, and their unemployment benefits will run out long before they’ll be able to find more work. And they need that helping hand.

Again, I ask: Is that such a bad thing if people find it in their hearts to help them out?

People like me are “Bleeding-heart Liberals”; because we feel. We feel for those people. We feel for the working-class citizens of the world who don’t dare take a day off for fear of getting fired. We feel for people who don’t have enough time in to be able to take a few sick days to care for their elderly parents. We care about the people who have fought and struggled their whole life just to own a home, and once they get that piece of the pie, their jobs are outsourced. We understand that statistics are merely a snapshot of that particular time period and that those on welfare are actively looking to get off it as quickly as possible, because not only does it pay atrociously, it’s also not the best conductor of self esteem. Most people who are on welfare are quite ashamed that they even had to ask for help in the first place.

All of this is not the government’s fault. That’s the fault of Big Business. And The Right Wing wants less government, because they don’t want your elected officials to come in and say to those companies that they can’t do that to the average worker. Conservatives have the unabashed opinion that Free Enterprise means that you do what you can to make that buck, even if it means that you chop the legs out from underneath the people who got you that money. You didn’t earn that cash in backroom handshake deals in a strip club, Johnny Wall Street. You earned it because you made an attractive deal a reality by hiring people to execute your plan. And then you executed them.

Those in The Right Wing who are against government intervention are keeping those people you elected to take care of you, from doing their jobs; and that job is to make sure that every citizen can afford the basic necessities of life, and maybe – just maybe – a little more. It would be nice if they could do the little things, like start their own portfolios to augment their retirement plan. But that’s hard to do when the more lucrative of investments cost them an entire week’s salary just for one stock certificate.

John and Jane Q. Public need that government to step in and mandate to these companies that they can do their thing to make their money, but do it FAIRLY and don’t step on The Little People. Big Business needs to do their part to help The Little People, even if just as a “thank you” for bringing Uncle Moneybags his enormous wealth – and if they can’t find it within their black hearts to do that, then government needs to do it for them.

Now I ask you – is that such a bad thing?

You see, here’s the thing.

Trudeau is an extremely smart man. He’s been bobbing and weaving in and out of this situation for a few years now, and has always had the right thing to say.

Ahem. ALWAYS HAD THE RIGHT THING TO SAY. Isn’t that sort of what politics used to be about? To be able to connect, and represent your constituents? Because in Montreal, he’s doing that in spades.

When he was first elected as MP in 2008, he only slid in there by a meager 3% lead. By 2011, that lead expanded to over 10% in a riding that is largely working-class Quebecois who would love nothing more than to otherwise stick a BQ or NDP person in there.

So not only did he unseat a BQ incumbent, but he changed the way his riding feels about the Liberal Party. If you can do that in Montreal of all places, then you have a feather for your cap. Especially when the Trudeau name really goes against you in a province like Quebec, where memories of Pierre’s battles with René Lévesque and The October Crisis are still fresh in their minds, 40 years later. And Pierre’s not the only other member of the family with any success in politics, either. Justin’s maternal grandfather was James Sinclair, who held a seat in Parliament representing B.C. for the better part of 20 years.

Justin’s extremely popular among his constituents because he still finds time to go to community meetings and accept input. He doesn’t just attend ribbon cutting ceremonies and photo ops. He’s a ground-stomping trooper who harkens back to a time when your elected officials cared about you.

More importantly to a large number of people, he’s young. Now, to most people in politics youth means inexperience, but the last election saw the NDP slide heavily into second place nationally based on its youth. They elected an 18 year old! And to this day, the NDP has been holding their own in the polls, with some a couple of months ago saying that they would even unseat Harper if the election were that day. So obviously that youth has been able to stand the test of time in Ottawa so far.

What we’re seeing in Canada is a paradigm shift that made the Conservative government (check that – “Harper Government of Canada”) extremely nervous, because they can’t control the young because they offer no incentives to them. Youth are more and more interested in the “together we can make a difference” line of thinking rather than the “you’re on your own” Right Wing rhetoric.

So while young adults are showing up to the polls in record numbers, they’re going to be looking for a younger candidate who speaks for them; not some out-of-touch rich guy looking for more rich guys to hang out with.

And that’s where Trudeau really shines. These younger people don’t give a rat’s ass who Pierre Elliott Trudeau was. They don’t know and don’t care. And even if they did, they certainly don’t want to be seen in the shadows of their own parents, so they won’t see Justin as his father’s son either. They’ll be just fine to judge him by his own merits, and not pre-judge him (one way or the other) based on his last name.

And those people who say that he’s just riding on his father’s coat-tails are forgetting a few key points:

1) Justin has been groomed for this his whole life, so there’s really not much to be said other than…

2) Despite point number one, he made it absolutely clear as far back as the early 2000s that he wasn’t certain he was even going to get into politics, and certainly not until he’d crossed a few things off his To Do list.

3) Even after crossing those things off his To Do list, he still found time enough to say “No” when the Liberal Party came calling. He said “No” to it when they eventually turned to Stéphane Dion, and he said it again when they went to Michael Ignatieff. And both of those men, while absolutely qualified for their jobs, were rejected as leaders because everyone with a political mind saw them as just placeholders for the eventuality that Justin would finally say “Yes”.

4) Justin Trudeau has always been smart enough to notify everyone that he is not his father’s son whenever he gets the chance. He is acutely aware that people are viewing him as the saviour of a nation, and he wants nothing to do with that. He was even quoted as saying that “because of the history packaged into my name, a lot of people are turning to me in a way that […] to be blunt, concerns me.”

So to call him a glory hound is hallucinatory at best.

However, the flipside to point 4 is that he does wish to carry on certain legacies of his father, in that they do share a common goal of what Canada should stand for. Justin’s view, although timeless, is simply rooted not in 1970 but in 2015. He’s in tune with modern society. He’s approachable. He keeps his own Twitter account, and uses social networking as a way to keep in touch with Canadian citizens, instead of the standard Ottawa fare of having their politicians under glass but not ever, ever to be seen, touched, reached out to or contacted for any reason.

Ottawa keeps saying that they don’t know what he stands for, because he’s only been there for 4 years. But if they knew how to turn on a computer, they’d know. He’s always talking about the issues of the day on facebook, Twitter, his blog, etc. He’s just not doing it in a forum they’re familiar with.

And that’s where the crux of it is. He’s seen as everyman, because he IS everyman. He thinks like a person. He reasons like a person. He plans his day like a husband and father of two. He made it clear to everyone that he wanted to make sure he would be able to fill his responsibilities as a father first and foremost before running for Prime Minister – and that’s something he knows everything about. He wanted to make sure that his children were better planned for than when he was a Prime Minister’s son. And that strikes a chord with me. Father first, politician second. He plans like it matters to everyone, not just to your average, run-of-the-mill, everyday billionaire.

And that’s where it really matters that he is his father’s son. Pierre Trudeau was famous for giving the finger to special interest groups. Justin’s message is usually the same – Canada, by Canadians.

And that’s why, barring some absolute catastrophe, I will be voting Liberal for the first time in my life in the next Federal Election. But I don’t think that catastrophe will be forthcoming, because Trudeau is an extremely smart man. And he’s been groomed for this since the day he was born.

I would say he’s experienced. At least, where it counts.

GEN 4:19 – Lamech had two wives, Adah and Zillah.

GEN 26:34 – When Esau was forty years old, he married two Hittites, Judith the daughter of Beeri, and Basemath the daughter of Elon.

GEN 28:8-9 – ⁸Esau then understood that his father Isaac did not approve of Canaanite women.⁹ So he went to Ishmael son of Abraham and married his daughter Mahalath, who was the sister of Nebaioth.

GEN 29:18-30 – ¹⁸ Jacob was in love with Rachel, so he said,  I will work seven years for you, if you will let me marry Rachel.

¹⁹ Laban answered, I would rather give her to you than to anyone else; stay here with me.²⁰ Jacob worked seven years so that he could have Rachel, and the time seemed like only a few days to him, because he loved her.

²¹ Then Jacob said to Laban, The time is up; let me marry your daughter.²² So Laban gave a wedding feast and invited everyone.²³ But that night, instead of Rachel, he took Leah to Jacob, and Jacob had intercourse with her. (²⁴ Laban gave his slave woman Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid.)²⁵ Not until the next morning did Jacob discover that it was Leah. He went to Laban and said,  Why did you do this to me? I worked to get Rachel. Why have you tricked me?

²⁶ Laban answered, It is not the custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older.²⁷ Wait until the week’s marriage celebrations are over, and I will give you Rachel, if you will work for me another seven years.

²⁸ Jacob agreed, and when the week of marriage celebrations was over, Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife. (²⁹ Laban gave his slave woman Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maid.)³⁰ Jacob had intercourse with Rachel also, and he loved her more than Leah. Then he worked for Laban another seven years.

GEN 32:22 – That same night Jacob got up, took his two wives, his two concubines, and his eleven children, and crossed the Jabbok  River.

GEN 21:10 – If a man takes a second wife, he must continue to give his first wife the same amount of food and clothing and the same rights that she had before.

JUDGES 8:29-30 – Gideon went back to his own home and lived there.³⁰ He had seventy sons, because he had many wives.

1 SAM 25:43-44 –  David had married Ahinoam from Jezreel, and now Abigail also became his wife.⁴⁴ Meanwhile, Saul had given his daughter Michal, who had been David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was from the town of Gallim.

1 SAM 30:18 David rescued everyone and everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives

2 SAM 2:2 (David Is Made King of Judah) After this, David asked the Lord,

“Shall I go and take control of one of the towns of Judah?”
“Yes”, the Lord answered.
“Which one?” David asked.
“Hebron”, the Lord said.

So David went to Hebron, taking with him his two wives: Ahinoam, who was from Jezreel, and Abigail, Nabal’s widow, who was from Carmel.

1 CHRON 3:1-3 – The following, in order of age, are David’s sons who were born while he was in Hebron:

Amnon, whose mother was Ahinoam from Jezreel
Daniel, whose mother was Abigail from Carmel
Absalom, whose mother was Maacah, daughter of King Talmai of Geshur
Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith
Shephatiah, whose mother was Abital
Ithream, whose mother was Eglah

1 CHRON 14:3 – There in Jerusalem, David married more wives and had more sons and daughters.

2 CHRON 11:21 – In all, Rehoboam had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

2 CHRON 13:21 – Abijah, however, grew more powerful. He had fourteen wives and fathered twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

2 CHRON 24:3 – Jehoiada chose two wives for King Joash, and they bore him sons and daughters.

1 KINGS 11:3 – Solomon married seven hundred princesses and also had three hundred concubines.

DEUT 22:13-21 – ¹³ Suppose a man marries a young woman and later he decides he doesn’t want her.¹⁴ So he makes up false charges against her, accusing her of not being a virgin when they got married.

¹⁵ If this happens, the young woman’s parents are to take the blood-stained wedding sheet that proves she was a virgin, and they are to show it in court to the town leaders.¹⁶ Her father will say to them, “I gave my daughter to this man in marriage, and now he doesn’t want her.¹⁷ He has made false charges against her, saying that she was not a virgin when he married her. But here is the proof that my daughter was a virgin; look at the bloodstains on the wedding sheet!”

¹⁸ Then the town leaders are to take the husband and beat him.¹⁹ They are also to fine him a hundred pieces of silver and give the money to the young woman’s father, because the man has brought disgrace on an Israelite woman. Moreover, she will continue to be his wife, and he can never divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰ But if the charge is true and there is no proof that she was a virgin,²¹ then they are to take her out to the entrance of her father’s house, where the men of her city are to stone her to death. She has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was still living in her father’s house. In this way you will get rid of this evil.

GEN 38:6-10 – ⁶ For his first son Er, Judah got a wife whose name was Tamar.⁷ Er’s conduct was evil, and it displeased the Lord, so the Lord killed him.⁸ Then Judah said to Er’s brother Onan,

“Go and sleep with your brother’s widow. Fulfill your obligation to her as her husband’s brother, so that your brother may have descendants.” ⁹But Onan knew that the children would not belong to him, so when he had intercourse with his brother’s widow, he let the semen spill on the ground, so that there would be no children for his brother.¹⁰ What he did displeased the Lord, and the Lord killed him also.

DEUT 25:5-10 – ⁵ If two brothers live on the same property and one of them dies, leaving no son, then his widow is not to be married to someone outside the family; it is the duty of the dead man’s brother to marry her.⁶ The first son that they have will be considered the son of the dead man, so that his family line will continue in Israel.

EX 22:16 If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, he must pay the bride price for her and marry her.¹⁷ But if her father refuses to let him marry her, he must pay the father a sum of money equal to the bride price for a virgin.

Deut 22:5 ⁵Women are not to wear men’s clothing, and men are not to wear women’s clothing; the Lord your God hates people who do such things.

Duet 23:2 ²No one born out of wedlock or any descendant of such a person, even in the tenth generation, may be included among the Lord’s people.

EX 21:4 ²If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve you for six years. In the seventh year he is to be set free without having to pay anything. ⁴If (a slave’s) master gave him a wife and she bore him sons or daughters, the woman and her children belong to the master, and the man is to leave by himself.

Daniel Tosh is in hot water about a rape joke at a comedy show, and dealing with a heckler who didn’t find it funny.

I have a few things to say about it:

1. I don’t always find Tosh to be funny, but overall I think he’s one of the better insult/shock comedians out there.
2. Most of his rape/gay/incest material is self-denigrating, and he puts himself through quite a lot of humiliation on camera for laughs. He doesn’t just “pick on people”.
3. As someone who has been sexually assaulted myself, I don’t find it to be particularly offensive that someone jokes about it. I agree with the concept that making light of certain things makes it easier to deal with.
4. Have you SEEN “The Aristocrats”?!?
5. Comedians themselves have long had an inside counter-culture, and the reason why it’s kept inside is because it’s accepted that the general public couldn’t handle it. Tosh has brought you inside a little and they’re right – you can’t handle it.
6. HECKLERS DESERVE EVERYTHING THEY GET.

…and for those people who say in regard to section 3 above, that joking about it fosters and encourages rape-like behaviour, I say this: GO FUCK YOURSELF. How dare you sit and tell me how I should think, feel, or react to something? Especially something that I myself went through? It’s not saying that rape is okay. It’s not even saying it’s funny. It’s ironically putting a spotlight on it and bringing awareness to a subject that the comedians know is touchy, and reminding everyone how uncomfortable it SHOULD make you feel.

But the fact that you can’t go through life without being outraged by something shows me, and others that think like me, that this facade you put on being recreationally offended is entirely on the opposite end of the spectrum, and that your brand of hatred sits squarely on the same tier as PETA and Greenpeace. Don’t tell me how I should react like I’m a fucking child who can’t make up my own mind. Your condescension is not appreciated.