I didn’t realize it was my responsibility to provide a detailed summary for everything I post when it comes to current events. Noted however, I’ll be sure to provide more substance, insight and thoughtfull consideration in the future so your perusals on the internet is a more enlightened cerebral andventure.
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
So those F-35s that we absolutely had to have and were gonna buy no matter what and anyone who was against it was crazy?
This whole thing is just one mess after the other and a great example of how theory and practice don’t always match! Also a warning to politicians who stick to the party line while spewing rhetoric early on when it comes to things that are still unsettled - you can be made to look the fool when you change your mind, even if you are changing your mind to a better option and doing so for all the right reasons! All those years of warnings that the program was getting too expensive, and all those denials… doesn’t the government look just a little silly right now?
I’m still unsure why the newer version of the F-18 (the E/F Super Hornet) isn’t a possibility; it’s been revamped, updated avionics, and pilot, maintenance and service systems are already in place for the type so training and transition costs are minimized. Two engines with better known far north/cold weather operation profiles, as well. Of course, I fully admit that I don’t have all the details and I’m not sure what the performance differences are (or are expected to be) compared to the F-35 - maybe it was considered and discarded for very valid reasons.
I just feel like this whole process isn’t being done logically, and I’d rather spend $9B on a logical choice than on an ideological one. But maybe that’s just me 
Well, see, your first mistake is trying to bring logic into a political debate. 
Your post was misleading. I wasn’t surprised. I corrected it. That’s all.
I’ll be keeping tabs on your progress.
See, this is why I’ll never be Prime Minister. 
Four points:
-
if someone is convicted of first degree and gets a life sentence, there is no guarantee they will be released after 25 years. It is simply parole eligibility, not “get out of jail” after 25 years.
-
even if granted parole after 25 years, the person is still within the control of Corrections Canada for the rest of their life, with restrictions on movement, reporting obligations, and the strong likelihood of being re-jugged on short notice if they breach their terms of parole or commit another crime.
-
a person with dangerous offender status is eligible to apply for release after 7 years from conviction, not 25 years in the case of 1st degree murder, and every 2 years thereafter.
4 a person convicted of first degree murder cannot be declared a dangerous offender for that offence, as life without parole eligibility for 25 years is the more serious sentence.
How cool is this? Hockey players grounded by a blizzard in Nunavut opt to use snowmobilesin white-out conditions to get to a tournament.
For the love of the game 
Well, no, they look less silly if they’re backing down in the face of new evidence.
There isn’t a lot the government can do if Lockheed drops the ball on the F-35. It’s quite reasonable to say ion 2010 that it was the right choice and, given intervening events, decide in 2012 that you might have to reconsider.
That makes him a murderer. He’s a direct accessory, according to her testimony.
Yeah, I guess. I just remember all the insults and condescension being flung around a year ago, and I think some people look silly for that behaviour now.
Does that make sense?
To be honest, my recollection is that most of the attacks were against the Conservative Party for going ahead with the F-35 project. I don’t recall a great deal of vitriol being hurled the other way. They were on the defensive for that one.
In Alberta political news - Danielle Smith, Girls Gone Wildrose! Apparently they are planning to change the placement of Danielle’s picture. 
If they painted swirls on the tire rims, she could be a fembot.
Chrome jubblies? Oh behave!
Good story.
They followed in the tradition of the Dawson City Nuggets of 1905. It took them almost a month to travel from the Yukon to Ottawa, the first 600 km by dogsled, bicycle (!) and on foot just to get trounced 32-4 in a two-game total point series for the Stanley Cup, the worst defeat in the Cup’s history.
So, you Albertans weren’t happy with the federal Progressive Conservatives, so you created the Reform Party. After splintering conservative voters throughout Canada, we all compromised by amalgamating the PCs and Reform to form the Conservative Party (after some name iterations).
And now, apparently the provincial Progressive Conservatives aren’t nearly far enough to the right for you, so the Wildrose party has sprung and is apparently on the cusp of pushing out the provincial PCs.
What’s in the water there that keeps you pushing the agenda to the right?
For what it’s worth, I have previously (from Ontario) voted in support of the Reform Party, and I don’t think it’s any surprise to anyone here that I’m a Conservative supporter; but what keeps you moving the goalposts to the right?
MoneySense magazine just published ‘Canada’s Best Places to Live 2012’, with more than a few surprises. (Brandon at #6? Winnipeg at #10?) It’s going to take me a while to go through all of it, but there’s some interesting opinions there.
The thing about the provincial PCs in Alberta is that they’re much more of a political machine than an ideologically consistent party. They’ve nominally been right of centre for most of their time in government, but as long as you promise to support the team, you can exist within it with just about any beliefs you want. Any party that had Ed Stelmach and Ted Morton in it at the same time isn’t really that coherent in terms of its stances. The newly chosen premier, Alison Redford, is actually quite progressive. Her first official act (like, within a day of taking office) was to restore education funding that had been cut just months before. My usual line is that you can be any kind of Alberta PC you want, up to and including an NDP PC. It was amusing but not completely inaccurate to see a few of the articles about the Danielle Smith bus calling them the “liberal Progressive Conservatives”.
So the Wild Rose Party is more of an attempt to form a right-wing party that actually adheres to a consistent set of right-wing beliefs (though these are pretty right-wing as far as Canada goes), protesting what they see as corruption and unresponsive politics. They’re not without a point as the PCs often get kind of lazy with their built in comfort level. Alberta only tends to change government when the existing one is seen as openly incompetent or batshit crazy (or both, in the case of the SoCreds), but it’ll be interesting to see how this challenge works out.
I’m born and raised in Alberta and I like to joke that we change government less often than countries under totalitarian regimes do. I mean, the conservatives have been continuously in power since 1971. Off the top of my head, before that the SoCreds governed for 35 years, before that the UFA for 15 years, and before that the Liberals for 15 years. And before that we weren’t a province yet. For some reason, Alberta doesn’t like to change governing parties.
So what’s a fairly liberal person (like me) to do? Federally I have voted NDP or Liberal. I usually vote NDP in provincial elections - and for a long time I lived in one of the few ridings that actually has an NDP member winning a seat (Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood has elected NDP for a long time now). But I know there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that a party besides the conservatives will win the provincial election anytime soon. Since I’ve never officially been a member of any party, I signed up and voted in the last conservative party leadership vote - I think Alison Redmond was the best choice available, and if we’re stuck with a conservative government for now I might as well try to get a leader that’s okay.
The Conservatives have some very right-wing people that honestly freak me out a little (especially re: social issues), but they’re not the whole party. In any other province, many members of the Conservative party would be members of other parties that are more to the left.
My husband is from Kingston and is a little…obsessive about how great it is there. So glad that our little city beat it out!