Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barrie McKenna looks to Norway as an example of how an oil-rich country can both ensure long-term benefits from its non-renewable resources, and be far more environmentally responsible than Canada has been to date. – Michal Rozworski discusses how the devaluing of work
Continue readingTag: access to information
Democracy Under Fire: Cabinet hides even more secrets.
A stealthy Treasury Board directive in the summer of 2013 required bureaucrats to ask departmental lawyers to decide what constitutes a secret, a decision that used to be made by the Privy Council Office, which oversees cabinet matters resulting in many more documents being exempted from Freedom of Information requests.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – Frances Russell notes that the corporate sector is laughing all the way to the bank (and often an offshore one at that) after fifteen years of constant tax slashing, while Canadian citizens haven’t benefited at all from the trickle-down theory. And Jordan Weissmann
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Rock Snot a State Secret?
Back in May of this year a reporter from The Canadian Press made a request to speak to Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist Max Bothwell the recognized expert on Rock Snot (a single-celled algae that attaches to rocks on river bottoms) what followed can only be called bizarre. It most
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ethan Corey and Jessica Corbett offer five lessons for progressives from Naomi Klein’s forthcoming This Changes Everything. – Following up on this post, Andrew Jackson fact-checks the Fraser Institute on its hostility toward the CPP. And the Winnipeg Free Press goes further
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Opposite Of Truth and Freedom
http://wellington.pm.org/ The Harper government came to Ottawa promising transparency and accountability. But, Tim Harper writes, when journalists request information from the Throne, they get obfuscation: When we ask for specifics on a program known as the International Experience Canada, a supposedly reciprocal program that is disproportionately being used by
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The ATIPPA Review Round-Up #nlpoli
Tuesday’s video is available at parcnl.ca. Your humble e-scribbler is Number 2 on June 25. At the front end of the Number 1 video is Vaughn Hammond of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. he made some really solid comments about a problem some of his members have been running
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: parcnl.ca #nlpoli
If you want your SRBP fix this Wednesday morning check out the Privacy and Access Review Committee hearings at 11:00 AM. They are streaming it live at parcnl.ca. -srbp-
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Happy [REDACTED] Day!
Building on Nickie’s idea, I figured we’ll all feel a bit more festive this Canada Day using a Canadian flag as approved and redacted by the Cons and their Public Safety department. Enjoy!
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Mansbridge Revisited
The other day I posted a report on Peter Mansbridge speaking out against cuts to the CBC and the unprecedented secrecy that pervades public institutions under the current federal government. I gave some praise to the broadcaster for finally speaking out about important issues that potentially affect all of us.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Peter Mansbridge Speaks Out
Readers of this blog will know that I am a frequent critic of both the CBC and Peter Mansbridge. Both ‘institutions,’ in my view, often fail to live up to the standards ethical and brave journalism demands. They have been far too passive, even complicit in, the Harper regime’s scorn
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – David Graeber writes that unfettered capitalism will never tame itself, but will instead need to be countered by a sufficiently strong counter-movement to seriously question its underpinnings. And Thomas Frank follows up with Graeber about the warped incentives facing workers as matters stand
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Garbage in, Garbage out?
Having publicly available information on the well-being of our local communities and national numbers on employment, business viability, population etc etc is essential not only to keep the government ‘honest’ but to make local and governmental decisions affecting these things. At first glance then it would seem that the ongoing
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is It Irony, Or Is It Hypocrisy?
It may be both. The Harper regime’s penchant for withholding information from the public that should be accessible is well-known and well-documented. As pointed out in this Star article, we are persistently denied access to the information about the dangerous side effects of drugs, how much Canada Post spent on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Joe Conason discusses the increasingly widespread recognition that inequality represents a barrier to growth. And Heidi Moore takes a look at Thomas Piketty’s place in making that point: This is a deep point. Many American households, if they are lucky, will grow their
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Ignorance is Bliss?
Its old news that the Harper Regime eliminated the long form Census thus also eliminating reliable information on the economic and social status of various areas and communities across the country. Nor should it be news that like many other departments (with the notable exception of the PMO) their budget
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Frances Russell writes about the corrosive effects of inequality. And Robert Reich points out one creative option California is considering to address inequality at the firm level: tying corporate tax levels to wage parity, under the theory that shareholders will then have an
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Bruce Livesey discusses Tony Blair’s role in corporatizing social democracy. And Stephen Elliott-Buckley writes that there’s little reason to listen to the policy prescriptions of a financial elite class which is conspicuously ensuring that its future bears no resemblance to that of
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Hmmm. That sounds familiar… #nlpoli
Premier Tom Marshall, in the House of Assembly, discussing what the provincial government can and cannot release: There is nothing in the ATIPP legislation that prevents government, with the exception of some privacy information, from voluntarily releasing information that comes – we release reports all the time. The midwifery report,
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Doing it exactly right #nlpoli
No one could have picked a better panel of three people to review the provincial government’s access to information law than the three announced by Premier Tom Marshall on Tuesday. The panel will be chaired by former premier and retired chief justice Clyde Wells. The other two panellists will be
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