According to a major Telegram story on Monday morning, the provincial government won’t be able to release some information about Muskrat Falls because of the provincial access to information laws. There’s only one problem: the Telegram got the whole thing wrong. (Read more…)
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Montreal Simon: Stephen Harper and the Dirty Secrets of the PMO
Well they're not pretty, but they are fanatics, they'll do anything for their deranged leader.Dark and dirty things that have turned our country into a horror show.But don't bother asking how much Stephen Harper pays his grubby PMO gang, his little monsters. Because that's a state secret. Read more »
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Following up on yesterday’s column, David Atkins discusses his own preference for front-end fixes to poverty and inequality: The standard way you’ll hear most progressives address inequality issues is to allow the labor market to run as usual, but levy heavy taxes on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – David Atkins emphasizes the need for progressive parties and activists to discuss big ideas rather than settling for the path of least short-term resistance: Both the poor and the middle class feel threatened and increasingly pessimistic. Opinions of elite institutions across the board
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Five Years of Frustration
Five years ago this week I started Democracy Under Fire due to concern of the way in which the new Conservative Government was ignoring democratic and parliamentary conventions. This was just after their reelection as a result of the lowest voter turnout in Canadian electoral history, with only 22% of
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Doing it right #nlpoli
Premier Tom Marshall confirmed on Thursday that the provincial government will be doing the review of the provincial information and privacy law a year earlier than scheduled. They will also be appointing three people to serve as the commission conducting the review. The provincial government is also accepting nominations for
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: The War on Information Continues.
It has been revealed that in addition to the‘consolidation’ of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries, where reports say that despite assurances that much of the material would be digitized a large number of books and papers have been destroyed without such backup, the Libraries of Heath Canada are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On official business
It’s no surprise that the Cons’ idea of accountability for themselves is to provide nothing but blank pages when faced with a request for information about their dealings with Senate reimbursements. But one of the reasons for the secrecy looks like a noteworthy story in itself. Here’s the exemption being
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Ministry of Propaganda and Disinformation
On Thursday the Prime Minister’s Office posted Thursday episode 1 of what it calls “24 Seven” — a weekly roundup of Harper’s events and announcements, and those of his government. And which I will NOT post a link to! This appears to be another effort by the Conservative government to
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Silence of the Labs
Silence of the Labs is the title given to the Fifth Estate presentation coming up on CBC this Friday which anyone concerned with the future of Canadian scientific research, indeed the very future of Canada, should make a point of watching. Whilst I do not know what their investigative reporting
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Santa is Canadian & Harper is an idiot?
We know that our Government scientists and bureaucrats are not able to make any public statements without being ‘approved’ by the Harper regimes spin machine in the PMO so we will probably never know if the study and collection of data for the Arctic claim was indeed complete two years
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Dunderdale’s Bill 29 “a dramatic step backwards” for transparency in NL #nlpoli
On Monday, Premier Kathy Dunderdale blew off any questions in the House of Assembly about Bill 29 with the comment that the centre for Law and Democracy said the province was third in the country for transparency. Well, as regular readers well know, the Premier is not usually right about
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Information is Power
The senate expense investigation and who knew what along with the PMs efforts to rid himself of these now disgraced conservative senators that he appointed has all but eliminated other news from the headlines. There was however some mention a couple of weeks ago of Canada’s information watchdog Suzanne Legault’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how P3 structures create a divergence of interest between short-sighted governments and the general public – and a few policy fixes to ensure we don’t lose value or accountability as a result of politically-motivated choices to use them. For further reading…– The Saskatchewan NDP introduced its P3 accountability
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Benjamin Radcliff discusses the proven connection between progressive policies and a higher quality of life across all levels of income: Happier people live in countries with a generous social safety net, or, more generally, countries whose governments “tax and spend” at higher rates,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The CP reports on Suzanne Legault’s much-needed warning about the Cons’ secrecy in government: In a closed-door session with dozens of bureaucrats Thursday, Suzanne Legault cited a series of novel measures she says are damaging an already tottering system. “I am seeing signs
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Harper: Bringing New Levels Of Accountable Government To You
It comes as no surprise that The Harper Government has spent a great deal of time and energy doing its level best to be as unaccountable as possible to voters. So it comes as little surprise that Suzanne Legault, The Information Commissioner of Canada is less than impressed with the games
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Access denied: CFLCo and Hydro-Quebec version #nlpoli
Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation tried but failed in 2012 in an effort to see hundreds of thousands of pages of confidential Hydro-Quebec documents on the 1969 Power Contract between CFLCo and Hydro-Quebec. A decision by the Quebec access to information commissioner in November 2012 denied CF(L)Co access to the documents
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Bill Curry reports on the Cons’ continued refusal to provide accurate information to the PBO – with the end result being that an office intended to provide a fully-informed, unbiased perspective in evaluating government action is now being forced to make Access to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Making a list, checking it twice
Not surprisingly, the revelation that the Cons have assembled official enemies lists has given rise to some call for those lists to be made public. But I’ll take a quick look at why that process is bound to take at least some time – as well as the considerations involved
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