We agree, amazing. I don't believe in coddling Canadians either. However, I don't have great faith in the intelligence of the average Canadian. I believe that they are being lead along by our present government in the form of small Tax cuts for families , increasing employment by way of Tax cuts to Big business ,preventing crime by building more prisons, and building up our armed forces.
In the long run these will all drive up the deficit, at the same time all these tax cuts will deprive us of funds to improve the countries infrastructure, address the crisis that appears to be looming in healthcare and will only further erode what impression the world had of Canada of being a peaceful world citizen like many northern European countries. (for example like the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands).
I don't trust the Conservatives because like the Republicans to the south, they talk about reducing the budget but when they get in power they always increase it to the detriment of the country. Harper has done that already (some of it obviously needed in the form of stimulus), but that was with a minority, I don't like the idea of this man running the country with a majority while preventing questions by the Media or Canada's citizens and all the while denying he has done anything wrong! Autocrat comes to mind.

By looking after their citizens I mean that they should not be ripped off or poisoned by others, whether companies or other individuals. Laws are to protect us, though they are more easily circumvented by the rich.
Ditto with our well being, meaning that through taxes the government provides us with basic healthcare and should stop those who pollute and in any way harm us. I think government should have more control over businesses who see only the bottom line without any regard for the way their products affect our health. Right wing parties believe that business should be self regulating. That means they will try to get away with what ever they can, and deny, deny, deny.

Government intrusion and control by a Dictator is one thing, while having it in a Democracy is another. The way it should work is that in a democracy the government should be looking after its citizens and their well-being. A lot of people aren't too bright despite thinking they are intellectuals and need to be protected for their own safety because they assume that what they can't see or feel can't harm them.

As I said, in N. America there have been massive strides in Health practices which are keeping the obese and unhealthy types alive and costing our Medicare a fortune. Read before you spell! While I did exaggerate, according to the National Center for Health Statistics over a third of Americans are Obese, not just overweight with Canadians catching up fast. This number of obese has more than doubled since 1980.
Much of the environmental forward strides are only in, again, North America and Europe, while all the environmental degradation has been exported to the places that now make the consumer goods for us . Just because you can't see the smog doesn't mean it can't harm you, even an intellectual should realize that! Just because the air here is better (and that is debatable, it just has different cancer producing chemicals floating around), doesn't mean that by polluting the atmosphere elsewhere is OK. While I was in my mother's basement what planet were you on?

While Canada, due in large part to our close proximity to the the USA is like Trudeau said "like sleeping next to an elephant and watching out for every twitch and grunt", and thus keeping on their good side. Harper however has gone to extremes, wanting to buy Billions of dollars worth of jets without public tender from a nation that makes money from death and destruction and following their lead into wars in Asia and North Africa. Even Chretien stood against the war in Iraq and would not join the so-called coalition. Now after Harper has wasted hundreds of Canadian lives in a useless war in Afghanistan he is finally starting to come around to what Canadians want. That is ,not killing people in the name of spreading so called American style democracy. Peace keeping is over rated? You'd rather give them all weapons and pat the last man standing on the back? This world certainly needs more peace keepers and fewer war mongering intellectuals!!!

There are so many issues that the "Harper" government have gone the wrong direction on, it is difficult to pick the most important. I'm going to pick the one that bugs me the most. Foreign policy, We used to be respected worldwide as a Peace keeping country, hopefully a champion of citizen rights. We've brokered peace accords, been a progressive country with regards to looking after its own citizens here and abroad. We're definitely not perfect as the list of neglected issues shows. We make mistakes, lots of them, the biggest right now. Giving the "Harper" government the chance of a majority, so that they will continue to reverse the Respect that Canada once earned but is now loosing. We've become a Lackey for the USA, and with that the hatred from most of the world! The Pirates to the south have always run their foreign policy in lock step with financial- read big business- interests. Whether in Guatemala, the Middle East, East Asia, wherever, it's always been for Oil, Weapons, other conglomerates. In the Middle East the USA sells billions and billions of dollars of weapons, often to both sides at the same time. I wouldn't want to be too closely associated with their type. Harper always waits until the USA has decided what do before he even comments, unless he knows that he's already towing the US line. He's like an Alberta oil exec. waiting to please his bosses to the south. Oh, just wait , he was!

Go back to Mars, That's what the earths going to look like if Harper stays in power and gets a majority. Him and his rich oil barons will be living in glass houses watching and relishing us "outsiders" living in a toxic waste dump called Earth, drinking their martinis saying, look you pay no taxes so what do you expect, look after yourselves boys that's what we did!!!!!!

Where did your grandparents grow up? Gaza? In the real world, the rivers are the most polluted they have ever been. North America and some of Europe have cleaned much up but they have just transplanted their big business to other places to pollute where they have little in the way of environmental law. Also, without modern Medicine most would be like your impoverished grandparents today. Everything you say is wrong!! The majority of people are overweight, and unhealthy. Thank Dog for Medicare.
Are you Stephen Harper?