Originally Posted by mike_302

"Decrease post-secondary education, and reduce any sort of post-secondary standards and regulations on education", then every single student in here would be outraged and say, "Why are you deciding this in the budget!?

Except that it's McGuinty's turn to muck around with education. Harris came and went...

On an off-topic note, you've gotta question the logic behind taking a large portion of funds from grades 1-12 and putting them into Kindergarten.

Originally Posted by Allan

I don't blame people for being ignorant and uninformed...

I do. It's so bothersome. It's one of the con's to democracy: Not everyone makes in informed vote. Not saying I don't want democracy. With Harper in, I've seen enough dictatorship, and ignorance of the Canadian population.

What I'm saying is, these political topics are largely ignored by many students and then you all wonder what point I have in trying to bring these topics up on a large student forum...

I was too busy during exams to post about:
- The findings of the auditor general with regards to the F-35 spending reports
- Stephen Harper's stupidly expensive trip to a baseball game in the States
- Bev Oda's severla thousand dollar hotel upgrade, and $1000 limo to take her 2km down the street... 5-star wasn't good enough for the woman who is in charge of international development (basically in charge of money that is spent in the 3rd world)
- Harper's finger pointing at the NDP, saying they didn't want to fight against Hitler
- The hypocracy of wasting a weekend conference to hate on the Communism of Cuba, while supporting China because, at least it has money
- The final closure of Canada's part in an international climate monitoring program
- The dozens of other situations that have recently come to light regarding shady spending

And how about when we sent >60 government officials to that conference, several months back, just so that Peter Kent could say "We aren't going to participate in Kyoto any more". Really? We needed to send that many people as far as South Africa, just to tell the world that we're not participating in the main focus of the conference?

I'm not hypocritical either. NDP or Liberals in power? I'd be keeping track of their gaffes and blunders. I'll give the Conservatives this: They seem competent. They are fully aware of their actions, and I don't believe they're on accident because every time it happens, they stand up and defend the spending, and they defend each other. The only "accident" about them is that they get released to the public. And that's why I think it's excessively dangerous that they stay in the office, and even more silly that no one really notes these issues. The media has ADD and hasn't maintained pressure on any of the ongoing items, and they will all just disappear, never coming back to the forefront. Robo-calls? That's gone. The investigation is supposedly going to be finished in approximately 2 more years. And there's no pressure by Canadian citizens to find out sooner whether our government in power, or another person, committed serious crimes in order to take office.

Again, it's all disheartening. But I'll take any chance I can get to make these issues known, and to hear back from the supporters of these actions (if any exist).

Originally Posted by Allan

The point I'm trying to make is that we as Canadians voted in our Government. (Regardless of whether you voted Conservative, NDP, Liberal, etc.). That means we as Canadians also need to accept responsibility/blame for the decisions that our government makes. When I say government, that includes all elected officials of all parties.

no, we dont need to take the blame for the government just because we voted for them lmao. not like they tell us everything they are gonna do. we dont know most of the things that they accomplish or mess up. we cant be held accountable for their duty.

It's not even just that. I posted about this a while ago, because someone was ill-informed (surprise surprise), thinking that the Conservatives had a majority of voter support...

The conservatives didn't get a majority with a majority of votes. It's a huge folly in our democratic system. These idiots are passing massive bills that are overhauling our environmental protections, just to get more oil out of the ground, faster, and they're doing it with less than 40% voter support!!! Hey, if they get kicked out in 4 years, but that pipeline is built, they can still make millions from their friends in the oil industry.

Originally Posted by Silver

no, we dont need to take the blame for the government just because we voted for them lmao. not like they tell us everything they are gonna do. we dont know most of the things that they accomplish or mess up. we cant be held accountable for their duty.

You're kidding me right? Of course we're the ones that are held accountable in the end...we're taxpayers, we're the ones who elect officials into power. If they make bad decisions, it is our money that they are wasting. That is what I'm trying to say when we have to share the blame/responsibility. If we mess up in choosing bad government officials, it is our responsibility to re-elect better ones...otherwise it is our money that will be wasted again.

The candidates don't necessarily tell us 'everything' they are going to do, however they do outline their platforms during election campaigns. These platforms are made available to the public, but obviously the majority of voters don't actually read them...they simply base their decisions on what is portrayed in the media. Hell...some people just base their votes on whether the candidate is the same race or speaks the same native language as them.

In the bigger picture, as long as Canadians feel that things are going well in the country...all these scandals about F35s, wasteful spending, etc. can be brushed aside. For individuals that think that these issues shouldn't be brushed aside...they can make their voices heard in the next election.

These scandals aren't being brushed aside because people think everything is going fine in the country. That's a joke too, right?

No one KNOWS about these scandals. At least not the majority of voters and not the majority of young people.

They get 10 minutes in the spotlight before the next scandal comes up, and the previous one is wiped from the headlines. Hundreds of thousands, and relatively frequently, millions of dollars go by in scandals, and disappear into the void of history too quickly for the slow-to-realize population catches on.