Stephen Harper, we’re told, is writing a book on hockey. It will be interesting to see if he has anything to say about the legendary Sam Pollack. The Montreal Canadiens were a power house for two decades because Pollack — the team’s general manager — had an unfailing eye
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Northern Reflections: The Pinocchio Index
Carol Goar writes, in The Toronto Star, that the C.D. Howe Institute has developed a tool to measure government fiscal accountability. It’s called the Pinocchio Index. She writes: This year’s just-released index contains several surprises: The biggest overspender in the country? Saskatchewan by a long shot. You’d never know it
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Perils Of Prediction
The National Post reports that, in a new book, John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker predict that Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party will be “perpetually dominant” in the 21st century: “Politics in Canada is dividing along ideological lines, and those divisions will only grow sharper over time.” “We believe that fortune favors
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Buying Votes
This week, Stephen Harper launched his Office for the Promotion of Religious Freedom. Tasha Kheiriddin is puzzled: Of all the Conservatives’ initiatives to date, the most bewildering is its newly created Office for the Promotion of Religious Freedom. The Tories are deploying five million dollars of taxpayers’ money — ostensibly
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Greed And Secrecy
The Neo Conservative revolution has spawned an alliance between government and corporations. What that means in practice is that we now have an alliance between Greed and Secrecy: Michael Harris writes: The sad fact is that secrecy and information control are the twin plagues of our age. Elites get to
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: A Personality Cult?
Andrew Coyne –with some justification — is frustrated. The Liberal Party, he writes, is preparing itself for Justin Trudeau. And, to that end, it will “transform itself into a personality cult. Anything but define itself.” I confess that I have reservations about the younger Trudeau. His support for the oil
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Headwaiter To The Provinces
Back in 2008, Lawrence Martin wrote that Stephen Harper had truly become headwaiter to the provinces. The phrase, originally coined by Pierre Trudeau to mock Joe Clark and the Conservative vision of the country, was Stephen Harper’s prime directive. Martin wrote: The firewall guy has curbed the federal spending power,
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Epitome of Folly
The Edmonton Journal reports that Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver knows about the damage being done by mining the tar sands: Tailings ponds from oilsands production are leaking and contaminating Alberta’s groundwater, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was told in an internal memo obtained by Postmedia News. The memo, released
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Does Anyone Listen To Dick Cheny Anymore?
Speaking at a Republican dinner in Wyoming recently, Dick Cheney opined that President Obama’s national security personnel choices were “dismal.” He was particularly offended by Obama’s choice of Chuck Hegal to run the defense department. That’s Chuck Hegal, who was being wounded in Vietnam when Cheney was getting serial deferments
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: A Morose, Vindictive Man
Speaking at the Salt Spring Forum in December, Tom Flanagan — Stephen Harper’s former eminence gris — said of his former pupil: He is an unusual package of characteristics. He can be charismatic in small groups, morose, secretive, suspicious and vindictive. These may not be traits you want in your
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: They Know They Can Get Away With Them
For the Harperites, denial is Standard Operating Procedure — until they’re caught in a lie. Then they back off their denial. But they do it without blushing. Take the case of Pamela Wallin’s senate expenses. Lawrence Martin writes that, even though Wallin was on a list of audited senators, Senator
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Stupidity Of Child Poverty
The Conference Board recently took the nation’s pulse and discovered that child poverty is on the rise in Canada. Diane Swinemar, the executive director of Feed Nova Scotia, writes: Most know the House of Commons passed a unanimous vote in 1989 to end child poverty by the year 2000. Not
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Lousy Economists
As a response to the Great Depression, western governments put in place several “economic shock absorbers” — unemployment insurance, welfare and baby bonus cheques — to cushion the negative effects of an economic downturn. But neo-conservatives, convinced that the shock absorbers encouraged people to become fat and lazy, systematically destroyed
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Women Have Arrived
When Kathleen Wynne introduced her cabinet yesterday, she became the fifth woman premier in the federation. Lawrence Martin writes: Now, women run much of the federation. They are at the controls in five provinces – including every big one in the country – and one territory. There’s Kathleen Wynne, who
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Marching To Oblivion
Republicans must be furious with David Frum. The man who wrote George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” speech is increasingly at odds with his party. On Saturday he wrote that the economy of the United States is far from full recovery: A new survey by Rutgers University finds that 23%
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Scared As Hell
Paranoia drives the Harper government. If you don’t believe that, consider what is happening at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Michael Harris writes: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, where a reign of terror aimed at choking off internal leaks has been in full swing since the disastrous decision to close
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Appalling and Disappointing
The travails of Patrick Brazeau and Mike Duffy have once again led for calls to reform or abolish the Senate. The argument is that the Senate has always been a House of Patronage, not a House of Sober Second Thought. The two aforementioned senators appear to prove the first proposition.
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Robothugs
Yesterday, Lawrence Martin asked a question, the answer to which has been obvious since Stephen Harper became prime minister: Does the fish rot from the head down? The story behind those recent robocalls in Saskatchewan gives the lie to the Conservative claims that robocalls in the last election were the
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Mad Men
Frances Russell writes that the Mad Men who currently reside in Ottawa’s executive suites are destroying the Canada that their wiser forebears built after World War II: In keeping with the world-wide market mania of the last two decades, Canada’s dominant political and economic ideology demonizes government and the state
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