Tag: accountability
Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – While far too many in the media seem to have glossed over what the Cons’ attacks on votes in Parliament this fall actually meant, Mia Rabson nicely sums it up: (F)or the government to simply reject every single suggestion the opposition makes as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Bill Curry reports on Jim Flaherty’s arbitrary choice to declare that Canadians can’t have any more CPP retirement security than the most callous provincial government in the country is willing to grant them. And Martin Regg Cohn rightly responds that our reaction
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – David Suzuki makes the case for evaluating our well-being through Gross National Happiness rather than GDP alone: There’s more to happiness than just having a clean environment – and Bhutan has yet to get there. According to research for the UN Conference on
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Liberals: Minister of Defence Must Resign Over F-35 Fight Jet
by Liberal Party of Canada Liberal Leader Bob Rae made the following statement today on the Conservative government’s reported cancellation of the F-35 contract: “The termination of this multi-billion dollar contract has fully exposed the Harper Conservatives’ fiscal incompetence and complete mishandling of the F-35 procurement process. They have spent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Frances Russell discusses how the Harper Cons have capitalized on the general public’s lack of familiarity with how our parliamentary system is supposed to work – and the conventional checks and balances which have been overridden at every turn by a governing party
Continue readingCanadian Progressive: Conservative Senator Mike Duffy’s $33,000 allowance is daylight robbery
Senator Mike Duffy has reportedly claimed more than $33,000 in “living allowances intended to defray senators’ costs of maintaining a second home in the National Capital Region”. The trouble is: the Conservative senator and Harper appointee has been an Ottawa resident since the 1970s. He has a home in Kanata, a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Martin Kirk discusses the role governments play in allowing and facilitating the extraction of a substantial portion of the world’s wealth to tax havens (h/t to thwap): Tax theft is endemic all over the world. It is organised through an intricate system of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week.- Susan Delacourt comments on what’s often lacking from Canadian political coverage – and the challenge facing journalists looking to stop relying excessively on horse-race numbers which may miss what ultimately moti…
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Perception supersedes reality
A reader drew my attention to this article from 2.5 years ago. The principles are unchanged so I believe it is worth revisiting.
First published April 23, 20101
Sean Holman at PublicEye Online reported this April 20, 2010:
Former auditor general Ge…
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: Canada’s PBO Kevin Page Takes Harper Conservative Government To Court
Canada’s Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page has had enough of the Harper government’s lack of accountability and transparency, highlighted by it’s refusal to comply with his repeated requests for information on the $5.2 billion in fiscal…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading.- Andrew Jackson takes a look at the UK’s strong movement for a living wage, and notes that it’s long past time for a similar push in Canada.- The most remarkable part of this week’s revelations about the Cons’ cu…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On delayed releases
I’ll have plenty to catch up on over the next few days. But I’ll start by pointing out the background behind what’s become one of the most-discussed stories of the past week on the Saskatchewan political scene.It’s well and good that we’ve eventually l…
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Time to reform government advertising
We’re presently bombarded with slick political advertising from two senior levels of government. Add industry advertising promoting natural gas as so marvellous a fuel that we should export it to China instead of using it to fuel combustion engines on our own roads and waterways. Fifteen million taxpayer dollars promotes
Continue readingNorthern Insight: ICBC desperately needs real management
Ten months ago, I published Talking tough, empty words and empty head, a piece mocking Attorney General Shirley Bond in her role as lead ICBC overseer. Shortly after, Finance Minister Kevin Falcon took responsibility for the insurance company from Bond. In August, a Ministry of Finance review confirmed what Northern
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Rush to secure rewards
With only 27 weeks to oblivion, BC Liberals have limited time to pick forbidden fruit. We know about the failed bid to privatize BCLDB and the flood of high cost private power contracts foisted on BC Hydro while the Pacific Northwest is awash in cheap power and excess capacity. Now,
Continue readingNorthern Insight: RCMP prefers to conceal embarrassing information
Four months ago, the Northern Insights article What’s the next dump of grungy news? included this: “In a May internal memo, Commissioner Bob Paulson warned that several salacious incidents were about to surface. He said, ‘Sadly there is a lot to choose from if you want to criticize us.’ “As
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Timothy Noah writes that since Republicans haven’t been able to convince the American public that inequality is desirable or acceptable, they’re taking another angle: engaging in inequality denialism to try to pretend a growing problem doesn’t exist. – Tim Harper discusses the importance
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Harper Government Winging It With Canada’s Future
The Auditor General has slammed the Harper regime for spending tens of billions of dollars without cabinet, much less Parliament, knowing the long-term consequences. In his fall 2012 report released Tuesday, Auditor General Michael Ferguson concluded the Department of Finance Canada often does not take into account the impact of tens
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer to take Harper Gvt to court
Make no mistake about it: Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) is on a mission to save the soul of Canadian democracy. Kevin Page is proceeding with his earlier threat to sue the Harper Government for its refusal to comply with his repeated requests for financial information relating to the 2012
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