Vic Toews is gone. Peter Kent thinks he’s gone. And, Alex Himelfarb writes, Gary Goodyear should be gone: Goodyear, the minister of state for science and technology, has presided over the most retrograde federal S&T policy in memory. During his tenure, the government shuttered the office of the National Science
Continue readingAuthor: Owen Gray
Northern Reflections: The End Of Kent?
Peter Kent signaled this week that he expects to be demoted or dismissed by Stephen Harper. Rick Smith, the Executive Director of the Broadbent Institute, suggests that Kent’s tenure as Minister of the Environment can’t come to an end soon enough: Since the advent of Canada’s first federal Environment Minister
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Back To The 19th Century
This week Stephen Harper indicated once again that he wants to return this country and its citizens to the19th century. Bob Hepburn writes in the Toronto Star: The latest slap at Canada’s independent image came this week when the Harper government announced our army will be tossing out the Canadian-style
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: On Board The Pequod
For me, there are two quintessential American novels. Huck Finn is about the American heart. Moby Dick is about the American soul. It is perhaps no accident, then, that Chris Hedges — whose subject is the tortured American soul — wrote this week that,”We are all aboard the Pequod.” For
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: New Faces, New Puppets
Vic Toews resigned from the Harper cabinet — and politics — yesterday. His is the latest departure from Team Harper, as the prime minister tries to put a new face on his government. But, writes Michael Harris: It won’t work. Everyone knows who pulls the strings, no matter who is
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Healthcare Is Next
In today’s Toronto Star, Natalie Mehra and Michael McBane warn that the Harper government is taking aim at Medicare. For the system to work, the prime minister needs to meet with his provincial counterparts. However, This summer’s gathering of the premiers marks the final Council of the Federation meeting before
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The "Primitives" Have Got It Right
In a recent article, Noam Chomsky asks the question we should all be asking: “Who will defend the earth?” The people who are desperately interested in the answer to that question are people we have traditionally thought of as “backward.” But, Chomsky writes, they understand what is at stake: That
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: It’s Happened Before
Documents released yesterday indicate that, contrary to what Stephen Harper says, there were more people than Nigel Wright involved in the pay off to Mike Duffy. Most interesting of all is the revelation that Senator Irving Gertsein, who controls Conservative Party funds, was prepared to pony up $30,000 to help
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Last Progresive Conservative
Stephen Harper is about to shuffle his cabinet. And those who are presently in it — but who will not run in the next election — are taking their leave. Among them is Ted Menzies. Jeffrey Simpson writes: Mr. Menzies was the last former Alberta Progressive Conservative left in the
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Austerity Kills
In their book, The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills, David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu demonstrate that, around the world, austerity has had devastating consequences on public health. Consider what economic shock therapy accomplished in the Soviet Union: The Soviet economy collapsed in the early 1990s, erasing countless jobs. Ironically, those
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Running Scared
The Harper Government, Michael Harris writes, is running scared. It’s now patently obvious that its claim to fame — competent management — is unadulterated flap doodle: The PM and his government are not good managers. The nauseating repetition of the claim that the Tories know what they’re doing with the
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Recent History Is Repeating Itself
StatsCan’s latest report on household income gives the lie to the Harper government’s claim that it knows how to manage the nation’s economy. The Huffington Post reports that: StatsCan’s latest analysis of income trends among families of two or more people found that 2011 “was the fourth consecutive year without
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Keep The Militarism Out Of It
It’s traditional to look back at our history on Canada Day. And on this Canada Day — our 146th — the Harper government has decided to review whether we teach our history the “right” way. Specifically, it feels that not enough emphasis is placed on our military prowess. Tom Walkom
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Fevered Dreams Of Blue-Eyed Sheiks
Not seeing the forest for the trees. It’s the classic characterization of tunnel vision. An updated version of the old saw might be not seeing the shale for the pipeline. That, writes Jeffrey Simpson, is the disease which afflicts our present political masters: Recently, the U.S. Energy Information Agency produced
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: He’s Losing His Grip
Lawrence Martin writes that the cracks are spreading at Fortress Harper. First it was those ornery backbenchers who refused to shut up. Then one of them, Brent Rathgeber, resigned. And, last week, sixteen Conservative senators joined with their Liberal colleagues to gut a Harper supported private member’s bill which would
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Do They Get It?
Andrew Nikiforuk loves his city and his province. Both, he writes, have had a “Manhattan moment:” We thought we were big and powerful and beyond humbling just like New York. But as every true cowboy knows, Mother Nature invariably has the last word. And so Calgarians are now living a
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Future Is — Retail
Statscan reports that, when it comes to employment in Canada, the future is in retailing.We no longer make things. We sell things that other people make. According to The Toronto Star: “Retail salesperson” was ranked as the most common occupation for both women (4.7 per cent) and men (3.3 per
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Economic Obsessions
Those of us who are appalled by the Harper government have taken some hope for the future as we have watched the PMO implode. But Edward Greenspon warns that, when the next election arrives, it will probably still be fought not on Harperian ethics but on the Harperian economy. Mr.
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Blatant Hypocrisy
Martin Regg Cohn calls Rob Ford’s bluster, after his meeting with Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa, exactly what it is — blatant hypocrisy. And Cohn provides a little historical context: Once upon a government, when the Mike Harris Tories downloaded social services upon Toronto (with Rob Ford’s father, Douglas, serving
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Penny Wise and Pound Foolish
Senator Colin Kenny has written an important op-ed in this morning’s Toronto Star. The central thrust of the piece is that the Harper government’s approach to foreign aid is sheer folly. Kenny writes: That Harper would pull CIDA out of some of the poorest countries in the world — like
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