I have found some youtube videos of the performances and they are all below. It is a remarkable list of songs.
The Top 10... CBC says .... A followup to Bob Mersereau's The Top 100 Canadian Albums, the list is sure to provoke debate among music lovers.
Guess Who song American Woman is No. 1 on the list, one of four Guess Who singles chosen by a group of music lovers who helped compile the list. There are also two by BTO, including Taking Care of Business at No. 8 and two by Trooper, the power trio produced by Bachman.
1. American Woman/No Sugar Tonight, The Guess Who
2. Heart of Gold, Neil Young
3. The Weight, The Band
4. Summer of ’69, Bryan Adams
5. Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen
6. Born to be Wild, Steppenwolf
7. If You Could Read My Mind, Gordon Lightfoot
8. Takin’ Care of Business, Bachman-Turner Overdrive
The Conservative government is going to do something which has not been done in 16 years, raise EI premiums. The EI premiums have been frozen largely due to the fact the EI Fund has a surplus, today that surplus is about 57 billion. It is a paper surplus however as government has spent the money elsewhere. Still it is money employees and employers have paid in.
The money in the system has grown in part due to big cuts to benefits. First the Mulroney government cut payments to workers and made it harder to qualify, then they Liberals under Paul Martin as finance minister increased the qualifying period and cut benefits again.
The Conservatives said they would create an agency to determine premiums. They did that but have failed to provide the funds required and or owed to the EI Fund.
With a $57 billion surplus, the EI bill that the Conservatives and Liberals defeated yesterday could have funded increased benefits and reduced qualifying times and had the funds to do so for a minimum of eight years.
The BLOC party has a bill before the House of Commons that would make improvements to Employment Insurance in Canada. The Bill would extend benefits, reduce the hours required to qualify for EI, and increase benefits from 55% of pay to 60%.
The bill has had the support of the opposition parties until now. Liberal leader Ignatieff has decided not to support the bill on the basis he feels it is not fiscally responsible. “This bill is not fiscally responsible,” he told CBC. The Liberals and the NDP had supported the bill at second reading and in committee, but Mr. Ignatieff said it will be a free vote for his MPs.
The Liberals are again voting with the Conservatives, who have refused to extend EI benefits that were approved last winter under pressure from the NDP and BLOC.
Earlier this year the Liberals voted with the Conservatives to sign a free trade agreement with Columbia. The NDP and BLOC voted against that bill due to Columbia's human rights record and attacks on trade unions.
It is appearing more like the old Mouseland story Tommy Douglas would tell. When you are a mouse, just why are you voting for a cat, whatever colour it happens to be, its still a cat.
Another boy takes his life due to bullying. Seth Walsh, the Tehachapi 13-year-old who hanged himself from a tree in his back yard after years of being bullied, died Tuesday afternoon after nine days on life support. See story here.
Here is a video posted shortly after Seth was taken to hospital, made by one of his friends...
Have a look at this face. You see a boy. I see a boy... He should be thinking about meeting up with friends, going camping, maybe dinner tonight with his parents
He was bullied to death. He is dead.
Asher Brown, a 13-year-old eighth grader at Hamilton Middle School outside Houston Texas.
He was bullied because he was small, because he was gay.
The following was deemed unconstitutional in Ontario Superior Court today
The Criminal Code sections declared unconstitutional:
S. 210(1) Every one who
(a) is an inmate of a common bawdy-house
(b) is found, without lawful excuse in a common bawdy-house, or as owner, landlord, lessor, tenant, occupier, agent or otherwise having charge or control of any place, knowingly permits the place or any part thereof to be let or used for the purposes of a common bawdy-house is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction
S. 212(1)(j) Everyone who lives wholly or in part on the avails of prostitution of another person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.
S. 213(1) Every person who is in a public place or in any place open to public view, stops or attempts to stop any person or in any manner communicates or attempts to communicate with any person for the purpose of engaging in prostitution or of obtaining the sexual services of a prostitute is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Old fashion conservative Ontario is now championing the rights of sex workers. Maybe not the political establishment but certainly the Ontario Superior court has. Today the Court threw out Canada's laws against prostitution. Oddly enough the act of prostitution was never illegal, you just could ask for a sex worker or advertise you were available to perform sex work.
