The Reform people have always wanted to have cake and eat it too when it came to the senate. On the one hand they are argued the current senate is undemocratic. And on the other hand they have argued that the senate is “ineffective” . The problem is a body that adds nothing to the genuine "effective" democratic process can not take away anything either.

Still, that begs the question: would Canada be better off with two “effective” houses? The answer is of course not. As Benjamin Franklin put it, having two equally matched houses makes as much sense as tying two equally matched horses to either end of a buggy and having them both pull. This should be obvious. It certainly was obvious to the original supporters of the senate. The name of Britain’s two houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, is very telling in that regard. The purpose of having a House of Lords was to check the will of common people. One of the main purposes of the Canadian senate, which was modeled after the British system, was to do the same.

The class based nature of the senate has long since been forgotten though and we are left with a corpse destined to provide regional representation. Some believe that the regions need more say and an “effective” and “elected” senate is the best way of achieving such a balance between population centers in Eastern Canada and the rest of us. The problem is two fold. First such an argument rests on a false contrast; seats in the House of Commons are supposed to be assigned on a rep by pop basis, but in actuality that is not the case. For example, PEI has a population of 135,851 and has 4 MPs and people in the riding of Oak Ridges Markham has a population of 169, 642 obviously ony has 1 MP. The second reason is that comparing province to province is a perverse misnomer. It is comparing apples to oranges. What one should be comparing is the political resources of people in any two ridings. When one does this it is abundantly clear that people in Canada’s urban centers in particular are getting the short end of the stick and that people living in the less populous regions of the country already have far more clout on a per person basis by virtue of the fact that the provincial and territorial jurisdictions in which they are a member or far less populous. Indeed, PEI and its population of 135,851 and 4 MPs, as a province, has revenue streams available to it that are simply not available to Oak Ridges Markham and its population of 169, 642 and 1 MP. Oak Ridges Markham does not get Federal transfer payments for one. Empowering 4 PEI senators to represent the interests of 135,851 people while only empowering 24 Ontario Senators to represent the interests of 12.1 million Ontarians simply adds insult to injury. It is also grossly undemocratic.

 Even the means by which Harper hopes to “Reform” the senate is perverse. Being unable to “reform” the Senate in one fell swoop, Harper has proposed electing effective Senators piece meal. It is hard to image a dumber idea. Under the Conservative plan, new senators would elected and would be limited to serving out a 8 year term. The problem is that people already in the senate would be free to serve until the age of 75. As a result the effect of such nonsense could be either to transform an unelected political body with no power into a largely unelected political body with real political power or commit Canadians to the farcical and expensive act of electing people to office who hold no real power.

"Marijuana won't kill you and we love marijuana. The five million Canadians who use marijuana cherish it like Christians cherish their religion, or a gourmand cherishes good food.”

83% of Quebecers and 75% of Canadians want the government to mandate more vacation days. Wow for a party that is tanking in Quebec that would seem like a winning issue. So what hell is taking the Liberals and NDP so long? Get on it. The EU minimum is 4 weeks. Canadians deserve no less.

“Three-in-four Canadians want a longer minimum vacation time”

“Four-in-five Quebeckers (83%) say they want labour laws to be changed to provide more minimum vacation time to Canadians,”

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And he had to consider that a mass of studies, albeit chiefly authored by those with vested interests, has claimed a great success for Insite, where addicts shoot up illegal drugs under supervision, using clean needles.

These studies claim to show that Insite has directed addicts to treatment, and prevented overdose deaths, without jeopardizing public safety and while halting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

A handful of doubters who dared to question these claims has drawn much
scorn from the advocates of "harm reduction" -- around whom a small industry has
evolved.

Many people apparently believe marijuana has already been decriminalized, although this imminent folly was mercifully abandoned when the Conservatives took power from the Liberals.

By golly I think you have plagiarized Tony Clement or perhaps you just taking diction and forget to mention him by name. Anyway, did you ever think to ask Clement what evidence he has for this belief? I will let you in on a little secret. Should the Liberal bill have passed and been enforced, it would have represented a crack down as far as Vancouver is concerned. As then Vancouver police spokesperson, Anne Drennan noted back in 2003 "in Vancouver, we very rarely arrest for simple possession of marijuana. There would have to be exigent circumstances."

You: “that no drugs are safe, no matter what we've been lulled into believing over the years.”

Tony Clement: Clement has said the new strategy would include an education program that warns young Canadians and their parents that "there are no 'safe' amounts," and no "safe drugs."