It was not a happy new year for Canadian job seekers. Statistics Canada reported today that unemployment rose for a fourth consecutive month in January. Overall employment remained flat as Canada’s population and labour force grew at a normal pace, leaving more workers without jobs. The good news in today’s
Continue readingPample the Moose: Remembering My Dad, Bryan Hayday
Today would have been my Dad’s 60th birthday. We had been planning to hold a huge celebration, because making it to sixty years old was going to be a really big deal. His father (Ron), my Grandpa, had died at age 54, and his younger brother, my Uncle Wayne, had
Continue reading350 or bust: On The Line: Conversations Along The Pipeline Route
Talk about timely! On The Line is a eco-documentary that follows the two filmmakers, Frank Wolf and Todd McGowan, on a 2,400 kilometre self-propelled journey by foot, bike, raft, and kayak as they walk the route through Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, that the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline would follow,
Continue readingMorton's Musings: When it is appropriate to assign counsel for an individual who is party to an appeal in a criminal matter
R. v. Hoskins, 2012 BCCA 51 considers when it is appropriate to assign counsel for an individual who is party to an appeal in a criminal matter. The test is two-fold: the part must be both indigent and the position of the individual of some merit and unlikely to be
Continue readingExcited Delirium: Excited Delirium Chapter 68: Get Garamond
Chapter 68 of Excited Delirium, where our heroes hatch a plan for getting Garamond.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Is The OAS/GIS Program Unaffordable?
No. Of course not. Even if the government waves around scary large increases in nominal dollar terms. As has been widely reported, the most recent OAS actuarial report shows that total program expenditures will rise from $38.8 billion in 2011 to $107.9 billion in 2030. However, the dollar figure reflects,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Job Market Continues to Weaken
Canada’s job market continued to weaken in January as employment rose by a meagre 2,300 jobs, much less than the growth in the number of workers in the labour force. As a result, the national unemployment rate rose from 7.5% to 7.6%. The unemployment rate has been steadily climbing from
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Yes, the fraudulent collaboration between the Harper Cons and Sun TV should offer nothing but reason for suspicion about both portions of the right-wing noise machine – and Dr. Dawg, Heather Mallick, Simon Houpt and the Star have all had plenty to say.
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Gruending On CIDA: Canada’s New Foreign Policy = Helping Canuck Mining Companies
Another fine piece from the author of Pulpit and Politics: CIDA will soon abandon a number of its long-standing development partners among Canadian NGOs, including a number of church-based organizations. Reliable sources say that a number of those groups will see their funding ended or curtailed this year. CIDA is
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Get politics out of fishery: report #nlpoli
A strange as it may seem after years of evidence that political interference in fisheries management has caused nothing but grief, there are still people – all politicians – who think the answer is yet more political interference. Expect all of them to be out in force responding to this
Continue readingFake Ministerial Accountability
SunTV has been caught staging a fake citizenship oath-retaking ceremony using mostly bureaucrats from Citizenship and Immigration as their oath-takers. Seriously. Because they’re totally not the official media arm of The Party. For his part, Kenney said it was “poorly handled,” and then sent a departmental comms staffer to SunTV to apologise.
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Talking tough with empty words and an empty head
Is there anything more laughable than a politician trained in nothing providing direction to executives of the province’s $14-billion dollar monopoly insurer. Speaking to ICBC, British Columbia’s chief law officer “delivered a firm reminder that there has been a public backlash to recent revelations about compensation for Crown executives.” In
Continue readingeaves.ca: Requests for Endorsements: My Application to Attend The Open Government Partnership
Dear friends, Below (first in english then in a rough french translation – my spoken is much better than my written so I’ve relied on Google translate) is my application letter to attend the April 16-18 Annual Open Government Partnership meeting in Brasilia as a Civil Society Representative. The first
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Jason Kenney and the Fox News North Gang
Sometimes you have to focus on the big picture. Sometimes you have to see the forest for the trees. Or just smell the manure. But here are the facts as I see them: (1) Jason Kenney, a grotesque member of the sinister Harper gang commands civil servants to organize an
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Truth, Tories and the Sun Network: ‘Let’s do it. We can fake the Oath!’
New Canadians rounded up by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s office get ready to reaffirm their citizenship oath. Actual new Canadians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Mr. Kenney; Paraguayan-born Public “Safety” Minister Victor Toews, himself a relatively new Canadian. More than one story emanating from Ottawa yesterday revealed the
Continue readingPop The Stack: Demanding Leadership on Democratic Reform
I’ve been offline and travelling for a while if you’ve been wondering about the radio silence (I know, unlikely). But I’m back now, living for the next two years in the self-declared “Greatest Democracy on Earth™”. We’ll see if they have any better luck than we are having up in
Continue readingPop The Stack: Demanding Leadership on Democratic Reform
I’ve been offline and travelling for a while if you’ve been wondering about the radio silence (I know, unlikely). But I’m back now, living for the next two years in the self-declared “Greatest Democracy on Earth™”. We’ll see if they have any better luck than we are having up in
Continue readingRailGate Insiders: Why Didn’t They Say Anything To The ‘Fairness Advisors’?
Sub-JudiceThis! GoFOIYourselfVille To my mind, the central issue of the entire RailGate affair has never been resolved unequivocally. And that unresolved issue is whether or not the fix was in for CN Rail from the very beginning. Now, to be very clear here, one of the other bidders for BC
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