This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Michael Harris rightly points out that a steady stream of scandals and incompetence from the Cons says plenty about Stephen Harper’s own judgment (or lack thereof): Sooner or later, the country is going to realize that there is something terribly wrong with
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
That and that for your Sunday reading. – Alex Himelfarb weighs in against gratuitous austerity by pointing out the dishonest cycle of excuses used to push destructive policy: (T)he consequences of cuts are increasingly visible, first for the most vulnerable: aboriginal communities struggling to meet basic needs, higher tuitions and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – In addition to providing my latest tagline, Alex Himelfarb takes aim at the austerians who seem happy to attack social well-being and economic development alike in the name of government-slashing: (A)usterity had never been driven by fiscal policy or economics or evidence. It
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Barbara Yaffe lets Hugh Segal make the case for a guaranteed annual income to end poverty in Canada: (Hugh Segal) says it could be arranged by way of a tax credit through the income tax system, to top up income of anyone
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: To Read, Perchance To Think
Shakespeare purists will perhaps forgive my titular, out-of-context paraphrasing of a famous line from Hamlet, but it occurred to me yesterday and today as I read two fine essays published in The Toronto Star. The first, by former Globe writer Michael Valpy (strange how that ‘newspaper of record’ has either
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – No, the aftershocks of an e. coli outbreak which has unfortunately given both Canadians and export markets reason for concern about the safety of some of our major food sources aren’t about to end simply because the Cons are again pretending everything’s fine.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: ‘Where Is The Outrage?’ Asks Alex Himelfarb
I have written two previous posts about Alex Himelfarb, Director of the Glendon School of Public and International Affairs at York University, former Clerk of the Privy Council, and fellow blogger. He is a man whose passion for democracy and societal fairness I deeply admire. I was therefore pleased to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Why Fair Taxation Is Crucial
Now here is something everyone who wants to be well-informed should watch. Part of TVO’s Big Ideas series, it is a talk entitled How Did Taxes Become a Bad Word? by Alex Himelfarb, Director of the Glendon School of Public and International Affairs at York University, former Clerk of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your day. – For those wondering what might become of Nathan Cullen’s leadership campaign plan to work with progressives of all party stripes, we now have part of the answer: in advance of the Calgary Centre by-election, Cullen will be reaching out to discuss how to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Journalist Writes About A Pattern
The other day I wrote a post about detecting patterns in political behaviour, opining that most media spend a disproportionate amount of their considerable resources covering trivia like celebrity gossip and acting as shallow and lazy supporters of government propaganda. The Toronto Star, I asserted, is one of the few
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Alex Himelfarb laments the Cons’ dismantling of a progressive state in Canada. But lest we lose all hope, Annie Lowrey reports on the Piketty/Saez economic work that’s paving the way for fairer taxes in the U.S. And Kelly McParland has to admit
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