Assorted content to start your week. – Jim Hightower writes that the risk of technology displacing workers is ultimately just one instance of the wider problem of corporate greed. And the New York Times is examining how the principle of total corporate control is the basis for the Trump administration’s
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Politics and its Discontents: Has Mr. Harper’s Niqab’s Misdirection Worked?
You decide. H/t Michael Nabert Meanwhile, Bruce Anderson wonders about the implications for our democracy in Mr. Harper’s pontifications on what women should and should not wear. Stephen Harper says covering your face is concealing, not expressing, a “Canadian” identity. He didn’t argue that it was a security threat. He
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes that by finally recognizing the unfairness and ineffectiveness of Alberta’s regressive tax system, Jim Prentice may be starting a needed national debate: Alberta Premier Jim Prentice talks up taxes for individuals including a sales tax (Alberta is the only province
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Another Pundit Supports Trudeau’s Rejection Of Sun News
Reaction continues to be mixed on Justin Trudeau’s decision to boycott Sun News following resident madman Ezra Levant’s tirade against his entire family. Pollster Bruce Anderson is now the second pundit to support the decision, as he makes clear in his inaugural digital column for The Globe and Mail. His
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On political evolution
Both Chantal Hebert and the combination of Bruce Anderson and David Coletto have written recently about the state of federal politics in Quebec, with particular emphasis on what we can expect as the Bloc Quebecois appears to crumble. With that in mind, I’ll offer a quick reminder as to one
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Murray Dobbin points to the oil sector’s utter domination of Canada’s federal political scene. And Dr. Dawg sums up the problem: Briefly, the Harperium has now taken to grossly misusing the state apparatus to spy upon and intimidate citizens who dare to disagree
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: At Issue: Harper’s Obfuscation
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary offers the following definition of obfuscate: to make obscure; to confuse. As an intransitive verb, it means to be evasive, unclear, or confusing. I suspect that those engaged citizens following the details of the Senate scandal that continues to dog the Prime Minister and shows no
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: At Issue Panel Opines On Harper and the Scandal
I have a bit of a busy morning, so I only have time for a couple of short posts. For reasons I have indicated elsewhere, I rarely watch CBC’s The National anymore. However, given yesterday’s shameful and feeble refusal by the Prime Minister and his trained seals to address the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Karl Flecker discusses how the Cons’ push to encourage employers to use temporary foreign workers will affect wages for everybody: In fact, what Kenney said was untrue. He has conveniently forgotten that his government significantly changed the wage rules for employers hiring
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your day.- Frances Russell nicely sums up the effect of the Cons’ bevy of anti-democratic trade deals:Don’t be fooled. The innocuous language used to describe the avalanche of so-called “trade” agreements raining down on …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: CBC Truculence: Too Little, Too Late
About a year ago, I lamented the fact that the CBC, through Peter Mansbridge, seemed to be following a policy of appeasement toward the Harper government, probably in the forlorn hope of avoiding further decimation of its funding. Quite predictably, as we learned last week, that policy has proven to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Frances Russell comments on the Canada which the Harper Cons are determined to destroy. But the more important point looks to me to be less any theory of constitutionalism than the desire to have governments be as ineffective as possible at all levels:
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