More Stray Thoughts
Alberta Politics

Ed Stelmach has not been as aggressive as many of his opponents, and indeed some supporters too, would have liked, it should be noted that it was his low profile calm, cool and collected image that won him a whopping majority in the last election. Defection of a few MLAS disgruntled at having been passed over for the ministerial posts does not even make a dent in his majority. Come election time the goodies will flow, promises will be made, extreme right will be seen as too extreme to govern and the centre-left will be divided as it always has been. Stelmach's conservatives will win a big majority of seats with 40% of the vote and Alberta will carry on basking in oil and gas royalties as it has for two generations.

Balancing the Budget

It is easy to forget that much of Mr. Martin's budget cutting was done by downloading expenses to the provinces who in turn did the same to the municipalities. While it balanced the budgets it also caused the cancellation of needed investment in education and healthcare projects. All these cuts came home to roost a decade later and Canadians have still not recovered. Let us hope that the measures of Mr. Osborne will not be as short sighted and the British citizens and his party will not suffer the consequences the Canadians and the Liberal Party have.

Price and Quality

If an item is cheap there are reasons for it; it is poorly designed as with most cheap toys, it is made of cheap and sometimes illegal materials as the jewellery with high content of lead or it is made in sweat shops with poor quality control as with the cheap clothing. The buyers ought to know this and the risks involved in their purchase. If the media did a better job of bringing this to their readers' attention it would help. However, it would be foolish to expect that because it would also hurt the advertising revenue.

Pandora’s Box

By being swayed by petty considerations of minority votes and unnecessarily offering current survivors cash for actions in a different era, the government has opened a Pandora’s Box with no end in sight. Before doling out large sums of money the government should have taken into account that these actions were following the law of the times and were in accordance with the general beliefs and practices of those times. I would have thought that the current government is responsible to remedy the current iniquities and that is being done as well as it can be done. To consider asking or paying the compensation for what was done generations ago boggles my mind. May be it is time I put a claim to the British government for colonizing India and the consequent suffering of my ancestors under their tyranny

From bullets to rocks in Kashmir

Among many reasons for reduction in violence, the most important one is that the terrorist groups in Pakistan are now focusing on rival local groups and have no time for Kashmir. If these groups would leave Kashmiris alone, remaining protests would calm down as Sikh protests did. The fact of life is that most residents are only interested in somehow making a living and it is only a few who have time to indulge in violent and non-violent protests. It is true in Kashmir as it was in SriLanka and Toronto and would be in the next hot spot.

Canada 47 years from now

Margaret Wente (Immigration, old age and technology to rule Wente's Canada 47 years from now, July 1) is right in that Canada is and will be the best country to live in for a long time. However, to imagine Canada in 47 years without the impact of global warming on the geography and the politics is a tiny part of the whole picture. With the Great North becoming one huge farmland when current farmlands have become deserts, Arctic open for seafaring with massive ports, scarce oil and gas of the ocean exploitable and Americans and Russians gazing lustily at the new sources of wealth, to imagine Canada of 2057 with the world politics of today is dreaming in technicolour. And all this assumes that the planet will still be habited by humans in large numbers, not all that likely all things considered.

Need for a new Economic Model

First the citizens borrow to buy things they do not really need. When a large number of them are not able to pay and banks threaten to collapse, governments borrow even more to save the system. Now the governments stutter under the debt load and the economy slows, as would be expected and the whole system is in danger. I would have thought that the failure of the model of the economy would be obvious by now and search for a new model would be on. Someone please explain why we would rather flog a dead horse than find a new one that can move the cart forward.

Relax Toronto

Torontonians can relax. Not many were watching the empty dead zones and riots in Toronto. All eyes in the world were fixed on the sites where hard work was (and is) being done and lasting results being achieved – soccer fields in South Africa.

G20 Meetings

Considering the minimal achievements of hyped up G20, I suggest any future meetings to be held in Canada are scheduled in the winter when all that hot air might do some good.

Making of the next Hitler

If the Prime Minister were to be solely responsible for the security apparatus, and with a system that has no effective checks and balances to his power, what is to prevent an insecure power hungry leader with a parliamentary majority going the way of Hitler and Stalin? I would rather have an ineffective security system than be marched to a slave camp on the orders of a mad leader with all government controls under his thumb.

Most followers are not Fundamentalists

While fundamentalist Islamist who go to silly extremes get all the press and the books condemning them become best sellers, noble face of Islam keeps plugging away behind an invisible curtain. May be not so invisible, only last week Aga Khan was honoured with a Canadian citizenship for the good work Ismailis under his leadership are doing for the communities they live in. Their women are integrated, have professional jobs and executive positions and men and women volunteer in all sorts of community activities. Let us remember that 99 percent of Muslim women, particularly those outside Saudi Arabia do not wear niqab, most work on farms or any where there is work and most Muslim men treat their women with respect. It is mainly the uneducated Arabic immigrants with chips on their shoulders who are the culprit. Blaming Islam or their backwardness is not going to help them or us. What will help is literacy and reduction in poverty. Ismailies are largely educated and prosperous; the community helps the poor among them materially and spiritually. Their women dress like other countrywomen and are as equal to men as other women. They are followers of Islam and read Quran as the holy book.
Incidentally, you do not see niqab in India, Indonesia and Malaysia. Muslim girls go to schools and work with men everywhere, including in the parliament and legislative assemblies. The only woman tennis player in India to rank internationally was a Muslim girl. Some of the journalists working in the media have Muslim names. Believe it or not, Pakistan has a women’s cricket team that does well internationally. All is not doom and gloom with Islam.