Over the past few weeks, I’ve been spending my few free moments putting together a master list of the Conservative Party’s political appointees. This is separate from my Patronage List project, which tracks the number of Conservative insiders and donors given patronage appointments in supposedly apolitical government positions, on boards,
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The Sixth Estate: Sixth Estate Flack Awards Recognize Militarization of Santa, Government Subsidies to Naval Targets
The only reason the preposterous announcement that Santa’s sleigh will be receiving an armed escort by CF-18 fighters doesn’t win the Flack Award this week is because the same announcement has been made for several years now. Why does Santa need a military escort through Canadian airspace? Is the government
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Harper Regime Doles Out Jobs to Former Candidates, Minister: Sixth Estate Patronage List Expanded to 785 Names
I’ve completed some more updates to my ongoing Patronage List, which now stands at 788 names. The Patronage List is a list of apparent Conservative insiders and donors appointed to Government of Canada positions by the Harper regime since coming to power in 2011. Since the election, the numbers continue
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Peter MacKay Takes Personal Control of Canada’s Most Secret Spy Agency
You may or may not have heard of the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s most secretive and (for most of its history) non-legal spy agency. You also may or may not have missed the following rather Orwellian regulation: His Excellency… hereby transfers to the Communications Security Establishment, effective at 00:00:02 on
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Cutting Off Our Heads to Spite Our Faces
I offer this parody of a post, which is no way intended to be taken seriously (kids, arson is illegal) in the spirit of the inane juvenile babbling now being offered up by overpaid buffoons like Lorne Gunter, among many, many others, who are no doubt absolutely 100% correct that
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Is Jason Kenney still Roman Catholic, or does he actually accept women as equals now?
Right? I mean, that is the standard he’s claiming to set, isn’t it? The reason burkhas and niqabs have to be banned from Canada isn’t because they make women too hot in the summer sun, or because they turn women evil, but because they represent a misogynist religious faith that
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Fraser Institute’s New Report on Healthcare — More of the Same
The Fraser Institute has released its regular survey of healthcare wait lists in Canada, and it says the results aren’t good: wait lists are too long, an average of 19 weeks, which they say is “the longest total wait time recorded since the Fraser Institute began measuring wait times.” And
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Ten Reasons Why Richard Gwyn is an Idiot
This sort of nihilist screed is something I’ve heard from plenty of people before, but not usually from journalists: There’s no longer any need to pretend that our emperor isn’t naked. As for elections, forget them; democracy should be continuous rather than a quadrennial convulsion. And as one small advance,
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Government of Canada Wins Steel Case, Drops Fines Anyways
At least, that’s my reading of what’s going on here, and I’m open to being corrected. Several years ago, U.S. Steel acquired the Stelco plants in Ontario on the strength of an agreement with the government that it would keep them open and keep the workers employed as normal. Instead,
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Drinking the Durban Kool-Aid: 2015 and Beyond
Five days have now passed since the dishon. Peter MacKay threatened to sue his critics for libel, and Sixth Estate has not yet received a formal request to take down posts “attacking his credibility.” You can imagine, perhaps, my surprise at finding myself nodding along with the National Post‘s commentary
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: A Modest Reply to Margaret Wente
Four days have now passed since the dishon. Peter MacKay threatened to sue his critics for libel, and Sixth Estate has not received any requests to take down posts “attacking his credibility.” I offer this unusually positive article as a counterweight to my recent suggestion that Globe & Mail columnist
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: National Post Letter: Feminism Caused the Montreal Massacre
Someone has to be the first to call Rob Bredin an idiot, and I guess it’ll be me: Let’s get real… The feminization of young men… is why no male student was man enough to stop this murderous rampage… No male in the engineering class did, as in more modern
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Lobbyist Tracker Updated
Three days have now passed since the dishon. Peter MacKay threatened to sue his critics for libel, and Sixth Estate has not received any requests to take down posts “attacking his credibility.” I’m in the middle of revising and republishing another of my regular features, the Lobbyist Tracker, and offer
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Minister Diane Finley Launches First Harper Regime Charge of Wrecking
On November 18, intending it to be a sarcastic and over-the-top remark, I suggested that pretty soon the Conservatives would be accusing people of wrecking — a form of sedition used by the Soviet Union as a catch-all category for the vaguely defined crime of harming the economy, decreasing efficiency,
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: The Prime Minister’s Office Buys Maria a Fridge at the Second Sixth Estate Flack Awards
One day has now passed since the dishon. Peter MacKay threatened to sue his critics for libel, and Sixth Estate has not received any requests to take down posts “attacking his credibility.” The Sixth Estate Weekly Flack Awards are given to Cabinet ministers and their mouthpieces for going below and
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Open Letter to Sue-Happy Peter MacKay: I am Spartacus
This has got to be the most patently absurd thing I’ve read all week: Defence Minister Peter MacKay is considering legal action against MPs who suggested he lied about a ride he took aboard a search-and-rescue helicopter. I’m not sure you can sue someone for something they say in Parliament.
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: The Iron Law of Authoritarianism and the Future of Canadian Politics
This is Part 2 of a series of posts on the future of Canadian politics. Part 1 is available here. As with many of his kind, Paul Wells of Maclean‘s does not seem to realize how late in the political game we are. He wants us to think about how
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Where They Are Now: Harper Ex-Cabinet Ministers And Their New Jobs
A few days ago I pointed out that one of Harper’s former Cabinet ministers, despite losing his seat in May, was back on the public dole anyways, as ambassador to UNESCO. I thought it might be informative to take a look at what some of them are up to now.
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Globe and Mail Has No Right to be Disappointed on Abdelrazik File
Today, the Globe and Mail is upset that the Harper regime failed to help Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik get off the UN blacklist that prevents him from travelling, holding a job, or having a bank account. Well, I’m not happy either. You may recall that Abdelrazik is the man who
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Margaret Wente and the Importance of Being Deluded
I was going to give Globe & Mail‘s resident imbecile Margaret Wente a pass, in honour of the Sabbath, but I’ve decided that her column this weekend is so horrifically brain-dead stupid that I shouldn’t let it go without at least making some comment. At this point we really should
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