I finally got around to watching the Labour Day episode of the Daily Show, a repeat from August 18, 2011. Its first segment was about Warren Buffett’s New York Times editorial about why the rich should be paying more in taxes. But CTV chose to air two commercials directly before the Daily Show: pure spin […]
Continue readingTag: British Columbia
DeSmogBlog - Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science: New West Partnership Includes CAPP Lobbyists in Fracking Policy Development
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The British Columbia Ministry of Energy was designated a “lead agency” in a backroom collaboration with Alberta and Saskatchewan to address water concerns for the provin…
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Politics, Re-Spun on Coop Radio, September 5, 2011
Spending Labour Day with Imtiaz Popat on “The Rational” on Vancouver’s COOP Radio, talking about Christy Clark’s revocation of a pre-2013 election date [coup, not really a premier, perhaps a “notional premier”], the end of the HST, the BCTF negotiations and how the courts noted how the government yanked almost $3 billion from BC’s K-12 […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Christy Clark Dabbles in Tea Party Rhetoric
It’s one thing to lose a referendum on a regressive tax that came in on a lie, that was a tax shift from businesses to real human beings, and that removed PST exemptions on real necessities or awesome products like cloth diapers, kids shoes, food, smoke alarms, child car seats, bikes and fire extinguishers. But it’s […]
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Vancouver’s Gay Housing Discrimination Problem
Housing discrimination has always been a little difficult to measure. Yet, even in a city as diverse and vibrant as Vancouver, it’s reported to happen. While it’s illegal to deny a gay couple housing simply because of their sexual orientation anywhere in Canada, proving this kind of discrimination is not easy; landlords don’t normally admit […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Smarter Ways to Have School Boards Update Parents
Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional […]
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: About British Columbians’ Supposed Tax Revolt
There has been a lot of uninformed opinion by people in distant parts of Canada about the meaning and significance of the referendum in which a majority voted to repeal British Columbia’s harmonized sales tax. Usually these critics take the…
Continue readingHarper Valley: The Devil Wears Prada, Christy Wears Nada
What’s this? Christy Clark showing off her finery? If the Emporer has no clothes at least Christy might look better then him parading naked down Government Street, but all it would serve to do is let us know what we already do: Clark is all about money, making money, spending money, perhaps even […]
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Green Energy Proposals Part I: An Overview
With a variety of different green energy proposals floating around, it is worth recalling what the various schemes are and what their advantages and disadvantages are. In Part I, I look at an overview of the particular at the systems being implemented …
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Great Shopping Shift
I end each day quietly lamenting how I haven’t yet succeeded in completely reforming the global economy. Certainly, it’s a tall order. I search for economic and environmental sustainability. I explore no-growth, steady-state economics to see how we can transform our society’s deranged obsession with unlimited capitalist growth into a more eco-socialist model. I don’t […]
Continue readinggay persons of color: RIP Rick Rypien
Winnipeg Jets center Rick Rypien was found dead in his Coleman, Alberta, home Monday afternoon, and reports say that it was a suicide. He was 27-years-old and the second NHL player to die this off-season, as New York Rangers enforcer Derek Boogaard pas…
Continue readingDeSmogBlog - Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science: Free Water for Fracking: B.C. Government Gives 20-Year Withdrawal Permit to Talisman
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British Columbia is providing the gas industry with 78 million cubic meters of free water each year, according to a recent CBC article. That water,…
Politics, Re-Spun: SFPIRG: We stand in solidarity with CUPE 3338 and oppose the “reprehensible” recommendation to evict SFPIRG
The following is a quote from SFPIRG’s announcement to students, members, and supporters, posted on its website at www.sfpirg.ca. It is republished on PoliticsRespun.org in solidarity and to spread the word. SFPIRG stands in solidarity with and extends our full support to SFSS staff, members of CUPE 3338, who have been locked out of their […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: SFSS CUPE 3338 Lockout “either ignorance or malicious denigration of their vital work”: SFU student
The following open letter to the SFU community was written by SFU student Emma Noonan, originally titled “In Support of a Livable World” and originally published here. It is republished on PoliticsRespun with permission. On Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 2:13pm, the SFSS Board of Directors issued notice that they were locking out the staff […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: We are “refusing to cross picket lines”: Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Student Union and the SFSS CUPE Lockout
This open letter was originally written by Chelsea Mackay and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Student Student, published originally here and republished on PoliticsRespun.org with permission. Dear SFSS Board Members and President Jeff McCann, The Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Student Union (GSWSSU) has been blindsided by the recent lockout of CUPE 3338 workers […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose”; or, how to ideologically re-structure your student society: a beginner’s guide: the SFSS CUPE Lockout
By Joel Blok, originally published here. This summer five years ago, the Board of Directors of the SFSS suspended its office staff, barring them from entering their offices and sending them home. This past Thursday, a different board issued a lockout notice to its office staff, preventing them from work. In 2006, the rhetorical justification […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: A no longer radical, now reactionary campus: The SFSS CUPE Lockout
There’s an almost mythical status to the label that Simon Fraser University used to promote itself in 2005 during its 40th anniversary celebrations: the university was a “radical campus.” The term comes from student activism that used to flood the campus, once called Berkeley North, student activism that established one of the first Womens’ Studies […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: I, for one, would like an HST job – and it might sway my vote.
If you’re registered to vote in BC, and provided that Elections BC hasn’t completely screwed up your voter registration (I have, at times, received three voter information cards for variations on my name), you’ve probably by now received a ballot in the mail for the mail-in referendum on the HST in BC. (If you haven’t […]
Continue readingBritish Columbians love their carbon tax … so far
As British Columbia’s carbon tax celebrates its third birthday, the province’s residents seem to have grown rather fond of it. According to a Pembina Institute report, 69 percent of British Columbians are concerned about global warming and 70 per cent …
Continue readingFacing Autism in New Brunswick: TAKEN: BC Government Takes Autistic Girl From Caring Dad
Derek Hoare shows a picture of himself with his daughter Ayn in happier timesJohn Van Putten Photo
The British Columbia government, Ministry of Children and Family Development, has taken an autistic girl from her father’s care after she w…