Interesting stuff you say in your post, Jim Lad. I would actually be in favor of an all-party coalition (in a sense), because I favor a system that passes legislation only if 2/3 or more of the parliament supports it. That would normally require some sort of coalition which represented a broader range of viewpoint than any one party can provide. I don't really believe in the present system of dividing a parliament up into competing entities called "the government" and "the opposition". What I want to see in government is a spirit of mutual cooperation based on a desire to find solutions together, not deliberate opposition.

But that's not the system we have. Our system is based on maintaining permanent division and conflict...as is the American system of a republic. Permanent division and conflict is not a good basis for a relationship or a family...neither is it a good basis for a society, in my opinion.

As for the recession....in my own case things are quite a bit better right now than they have been for some time, even though Ontario itself is suffering badly in terms of job losses. Things are better for me because I run an export business...and the Canadian dollar has gone back down after its recent historic high...so the American dollars I get paid in by my US customers are now providing me a good exchange rate in Cdn $ again like they used to a few years back. Furthermore, gas is cheaper now, and that also helps. How long this will continue is uncertain, of course, and the recession in the USA may cause my customers to decrease their purchases...but it hasn't done so yet.

If there are all those jobs in the West then as you say there will be much movement of people from the eastern parts of the country to out west, and that's the way it naturally goes. Ontario will gradually grow less influential as the population increases in the western provinces. I don't have a problem with that.