On May 2, 2014, Andrea Horwath, leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, announced that her party would vote against the Ontario budget tabled by the (Liberal) government. Before the budget was tabled—even before its contents were leaked—Tim Hudak, leader of the Ontario PC party (PC stands for Progressive Conservative,
Continue readingAuthor: Joel Klebanoff
Maple-Flavoured Politics: Ford Happens
Yesterday (April 30, 2014), I thought that the most exciting political news of the day was the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) laboriously working its way through about 300 amendments to Bill C-23, the so-called “Fair Elections Act.” Exactly as expected, the government-dominated
Continue readingMaple-Flavoured Politics: Canada’s Tuned-Out Electorate
Many Canadians don’t give a damn about what goes on in Ottawa. (I’m using “Ottawa” as a euphemism for Parliament and the government rather than the city. You probably figured that out.) This makes no sense whatsoever to me. First, a few numbers. The table below of voter turnout during
Continue readingMaple-Flavoured Politics: Adversaries Versus Enemies
In Fire and Ashes, the book he published after leaving politics, Michael Ignatieff writes of the difference between adversaries and enemies. He suggests that in politics you should have adversaries (what would be the point of politics if everyone agreed on everything?), but not enemies. He lamented that the opposite
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