“As I mentioned when I talked about that, I said there were a number of backbench MPs I believed existed in the Conservative Party who would not take the leader’s advice and would pursue these issues anyways. Brad Trost was my number one choice to r…
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Canadian Political Viewpoints: Crime and Punishment
Source: Globe and Mail: The Cost of Conservative Crime Bill for One Year: $458 MillionSource: Vancouver Sun: Judge Deems Harper’s Crime Bill ‘strain’ on SystemSource: CBC News: Tory Crime Bills Cracks Down on Drugs, Sex OffencesI’ve put off discussing …
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: New Book Explores the Legacy of Colonization and Decolonization for Native American Rights
New Book Explores the Legacy of Colonization and Decolonization for Native American Rightsby Scott Neigh (originally published at Left Eye On Books)There is enough book here – an arm-wearying 934 pages – that it is no great trick to find plenty to …
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Come Fly With Me…
Source: CBC News: Challenger Jets’ True Cost RevealedSource: CBC News: MacKay took Military jet to Lobster FestSource: CBC News: Challenger Logs Show Low-Security Officials Taking FlightsSo, about a week ago we were all aghast when it was revealed that…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Style over Substance
Once again, there’s a lot of things worth talking about. We have the House coming back into session in Ottawa; the first session without Jack Layton heading the NDP in the House of Commons; and a question period that saw the opposition hound the govern…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Why Write About Gender and Sexuality?
Here’s the situation: A year and a half ago I finished my first go at writing a book. How it might get published was unclear at that point, but I deliberately set the manuscript aside as I continued to pursue publication and I also turned to other form…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Thanks for the Help, Now Get Lost.
Source: CBC News: Canada Rejects Majority of Afghan Interpreters’ Refugee ClaimsAfter getting a good night’s sleep, but waking up fairly early, I found myself browsing the news websites and was greeted by this headline. Now, you have to do some digging…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: General Posting
Source: Globe and Mail: Prairie Farmers Vote to Keep Wheat Board So, we have a few things to talk about today. I realize that I’ve spent a bit too much time on the blog looking only at ‘Federal’ politics, while neglecting my home province of Saskatchew…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: To Supporters of "Progressive" Parties: You Need Movements
Part of the unprecedented outpouring of emotion after the recent death of federal NDP leader Jack Layton was about the loss of a good man who had done lots of good things and was poised to do more — I differ from him politically in many ways, but I fu…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: The Biggest Threat to Canada?
Source: CBC News: Harper Says ‘Islamicism’ Biggest Threat to CanadaAlright, enough of a break and time to get this blog back up to 100%…Hopefully.Now, I contemplated a lot of topics to discuss for this post.I considered the fact that Saskatchewan’s G…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Transitions
I’m at a bit of a transition point, and a fairly significant one. Earlier this week, I sent off two book manuscripts to the publisher with whom I signed a contract back in the spring, more than ten years after doing the first of the oral history interv…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: On Jack
I must admit, I’ve been putting off this post.
It’s been a few days since the passing of Federal NDP Leader, and Leader of the Opposition, Jack Layton. Like many people, I can recall where I was when I found out about it. I was visiting my parents and…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Movement History on the West Coast
There is an exciting new initiative from No One Is Illegal – Vancouver Coast Salish Territories called “Inheriting Resistance: A Community History Project”. They just released their first video from that project, a short snippet with long-time activis…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Random Thoughts and Musings
A lot has happened since I took a bit of a sabbatical with the dawn of summer; and many of those events are worth talking about. Jack Layton’s temporary leave of absence to battle cancer (and our best thoughts are with Jack as he goes through this); th…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Austerity and Welfare State Practices
I’m going to dip my toe back into the blogging pool via a quick “Lookee here!” post. In the last little while, lots of energy on the left has been focused on decrying and trying to figure out how to fight austerity measures. After all, in Canada we hav…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Summer Time Notice
Well, with summer being what it is, from time to time I find myself torn away from the computer and not giving the blog the time it deserves. From camping trips to regular trips back home, I often find myself away from the computer for a length of time…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Lack of Posts
Hey kids! Sorry it has been over a month since my last post — I’ve been hard at work on another project. I’ll do my best to get something up here as soon as I can.S.
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: What Wrath We Have Brought
There’s no sources for today, if only because everyone should be aware of the situation without the need for a news report summarizing and talking about the issue.What I would like to talk about today is the status of unions in Canadian society. I’m go…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Shall They or Shant They?
Source: CTV News: Senate Reform Ruffles Some Conservative FeathersWell, there’s a lot to talk about. We could sit here and discuss the Conservatives’ quick action on legislating Canada Post back to work. We could talk about Libya and Canada’s expanding…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: The Federal Budget
Source: CTV News: Highlights of the Federal BudgetSource: CBC News: Flaherty Sticks to Deficit Pledge, But Adds No DetailsAgain, I’m still on the mend, so getting here to post isn’t always a priority at the moment. However, I’ve found some time and a c…
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