News today that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is looking for a new Governor General. A number of names have already been suggested for possible replacements. I won’t speculate but my guess is we won’t get another former CBC employee. But I’d like to suggest to the Prime Minister that he think creatively about this choice. […]
Author: Mark Crowley
Pop The Stack: How not to get people to pay for news
He’s going for it, Murdoch has announced that Times Online will begin to charge, get this, $1.50 a DAY for access to their online news! Oh ya, that’s gonna work out great. I am not against papers trying to implement incremental charges to fund their journalism costs. Nothing comes for free and advertising is not […]
Pop The Stack: The Simplest Argument for Electoral Reform
Take a look at this simple and clear article on Democractic Reform from Fair Vote Canada. This is what Canadians need, a clear argument why our democracy is broken. There are some great basic arguments here that anyone interested in fixing our democracy should be repeating over and over to everyone they talk to about […]
Pop The Stack: Liberals Need to Stand Out and Stand Up
Gordon Gibson has a nice piece today in the Globe and Mail today on how the Liberals can differentiate themselves in the next election and help the country with a big problem at the same time. It turns out, Gordon agrees with me, that Electoral Reform is the safest and most exciting issue for the […]
Pop The Stack: On Predicting the Future of Science and Technology
We must be wary not to overestimate the progress of science and equally wary we not underestimate the progress of technology. Just a thought that occurred to me today. People are always eager to predict that science will be ‘pretty much done’ in the next 30 years, answering all the hard questions and progressing at […]
Pop The Stack: Why does Canada have so few women in politics?
Report today that Canada ranks 50th in the World in the number of women in politics. Is it time to consider a quota on minimum number of female candidates for a party? Some people worry that this might lead to forcing unqualified people into office. But that’s just silly, we all know there are large […]
Pop The Stack: 2010 vs 1972
All agree that yesterday’s gold medal hockey game was on par with the greatest hockey games of all time. Viewer ratings of the big game bare this out. About 80% of Canadians watched at least some of the game and it was the most watched hockey game of any kind in the US since the […]
Pop The Stack: What’s the Best Route to a Coalition Government?
An interesting article today in the Vancouver Sun about the need for a coalition government. The main idea of the two BC professors is that three three centre-left parties, the Liberals, NDP and Greens, need to form a coalition and run candidates strategically if they are to hope to ever defeat the Conservatives. You’ll remember […]
Pop The Stack: Canada 2.0 – The Satirical Masses
You gotta love Canada. We are a humble people but we are also a deeply funny and self-effacing people. The latest political trend involves a deep fried ring of onion, a Prime Minister and the spicy dipping sauce of Facebook protest. The aforementioned onion ring, a very tasty looking one I must say, recently became […]
Pop The Stack: A Great Democracy Deserves a Great Protest
In response to this article about the latest degradation of American democracy. One senator is essentially holding up all nominations for government posts in order to get special funds, called earmakrs, for his state. I agree that if the Democrats capitulate and negotiate again like they did with Lieberman they have essentially ceded their majority […]
Pop The Stack: Harper plays games while democracy crumbles
My comment on the Globe and Mails recent story: Tories seek parliamentary extension This is a non story, by casting it as some kind of tricky dilemma for the Liberals and NDP the Globe is accepting the Conservative game. You can almost hear the writer salivating at the dramatic irony of the opposition voting against […]
Pop The Stack: Canada 2.0 – Way to go Canada!
Update on my recent interest in seeing Twitter go Canuck. Good going Canada! It looks like more people are setting their locations because I’ve been seeing more and more Cancon in the Trending list on Twitter. Last night 4 of the top five words were the names of hockey players as Canadians chimed in on […]
Pop The Stack: Democracy in Canada 2.0 – Twitter
I my first article in my series Canada 2.0 I introduced the idea that social media technologies, Internet 2.0 or social media, are beginning to reach a critical mass in Canada that can enable a transformation of our democracy and society as a whole. Those who want to take part and shape this future need […]
Pop The Stack: Canada 2.0
Today’s protests around Canada against the Conservative’s reckless abuse of power were a great success, look here, even the Globe and Mail is impressed. So, how did a little ‘internet protest’ turn into over 25,000 feet on the ground in over 60 locations across the country today? Two reasons. First, Canadians are awesome! Second, Facebook […]
Pop The Stack: Today, we stand for democracy.
Throughout our land today, we raise our voices for democracy. We march in peaceful protest to send a message to you who claim to lead us, be you blue, red or orange. The message: This shall not stand. We raise our voices today to remind you that you serve at our leisure, not your own, […]
Pop The Stack: In Defense of Reasonableness
What make’s us Canadian? Its an oft asked question. Its unavoidable that whatever it is will be cast in some way relative to our neighbours to the south. But there is a core quality that Canadians have, that permeates our history and explains why we chose to structure our society and our democracy differently than […]
Pop The Stack: Michael Ignatieff Talks at UBC – but will he Say anything?
UBC is being visited today by the Liberal party road tour, Michael Ignatieff will be talking about his and our dreams for Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017. I’m planning on going, hopeful there is room for questions from the audience. If so I’m going to ask him this: Will your party commit to working with […]
Pop The Stack: Liberals stand out like a raisin in a raisin muffin.
Its clear that the with the prorogation of parliament the Conservative party has wasted most of its ‘benefit of the doubt’ support that was keeping it ahead of the Liberals. A new poll shows the two parties are neck in neck in national support. Just as clearly, this statistical tie has not come about because […]
Pop The Stack: Canada Needs to Become a Real Democracy
Full repost of letters from Fair Vote Canada to Stephen Harper and Opposition leaders about the importance of democratic reform now, more than ever. FVC sends open letters to Harper and opposition leaders: it’s time to fix the problem Jan 12, 2010 Fair Vote Canada sent and issued open letters to the Prime Minister and […]
Pop The Stack: Really? That’s the Conservative Response?
The Liberals have released some video ads attacking the Conservative government over its prorogation of parliament. What is more interesting though is the Conservatives response to the ads. I just thought there were a few very odd points about these comments, so don’t mistake me for a liberal hack, I think they are sorely lacking […]