Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Andrew Jackson discusses why attacks on Old Age Security – including the Fraser Institute’s calls for increased clawbacks – serve no useful purpose: The principled argument for not clawing back OAS benefits is that all seniors should be entitled to a bare-bones public
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Richard Seymour rightly calls out right-wing lobby groups in the UK for distorting the facts in order to attack social programs: The report calls for benefits to fall in real terms, and refers to “the regrettable 5.2% blanket benefit increase put through in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jenny Carson asks what governments are doing to lift poor workers out of poverty. (Spoiler alert: the Cons’ answer is “why would we want to do that?”). – Meanwhile, Kemal Dervis and Uri Dadush discuss the desperate need to rein in inequality
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Mark Leiren-Young shares Corky Evans’ perceptive take on how the B.C. NDP has lost its way – and the message is one which we should apply elsewhere as well: I remember when one of the Leaders I worked for asked some guys
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Simon Lewchuk makes the case for genuine participatory budgeting in contrast to the little-known and unduly-narrow means for Canadians to even make suggestions for our country’s public spending priorities: Operating under the guise of “consultation,” in June the federal finance committee announced
Continue readingSaving for a rainy day
The tragedy of recent historic flooding in Southern Alberta has had a profound impact on us. As an Edmontonian who spends a good deal of time in Calgary, my heart goes out to those who have been affected. Encouragingly, the Alberta spirit lives on and Calgarians will demonstrate resiliency as the rest of us demonstrate … Continue reading Saving for a rainy day →
Continue readingSaving for a rainy day
The tragedy of recent historic flooding in Southern Alberta has had a profound impact on us. As an Edmontonian who spends a good deal of time in Calgary, my heart goes out to those who have been affected. Encouragingly, the Alberta spirit lives on and Calgarians will demonstrate resiliency as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jillian Berman reports on research showing that the predictable effect of decreased unionization is a transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders: The jump in corporate profit over the past few decades can be explained largely by a decline in union membership over
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: “Campus Alberta”: Soviet Style Research and Development Comes to Alberta
Sigh…where to start? The barrage of bad news spewing out of the Premier’s office has been so intense that the government’s Machiavellian takeover of post secondary institutions and research and development slipped by with relatively little public outcry. Sure, some students and academics staged protests on the steps of the
Continue readingTrashy's World: And all these years…
… We’ve been told that conservatives are better money managers… So. Um. Why is $3 billion or so, um, missing? Money managers? Methinks Harper is over his head. (5) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your day. – Carol Goar discusses how the Cons’ latest attacks on Employment Insurance add just one burden to the backs of workers who have already borne the brunt of decades of corporatist policy: (L)ast Sunday, employment insurance benefits in two-thirds of the country were quietly
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Alberta Health Services Executive Bonuses: The joy of friends in high places
Ogden Nash To paraphrase Ogden Nash (actually Mr Nash did not utter this famous phrase, but for some reason we all think he did), “Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where my bonus is?” It is indeed bonus time. Executives in the private sector watched their bonuses
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – While there’s room to question whether we should accept spending as self-definition in the first place, Zoe Williams is right to make the point that arbitrary restrictions on benefits serve to put yet more barriers to full social participation in front of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Edward Greenspon discusses the importance of a public service whose focus extends beyond the narrow interests of the government of the day: The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work for governments, particularly those employed – in the evolving argot of recent
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis: Canada World Youth Concerned About The Amalgamation of CIDA and DFAIT
By: Canada World Youth | Press Release: MONTREAL – Minister Flaherty announced, on March 21st, the amalgamation of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). Canada World Youth has enjoyed a strong working relationship with CIDA over the past 40 years
Continue readingParliamANT Hill: FinAnts Minister to forego usual budget tour for Asia trip
Inspired by these headlines: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2013/03/ministers-hit-the-hometown-good-news-circuit-as-house-kicks-off-budget-debate.html http://www.globalnews.ca/flaherty+to+forego+usual+budget+tour+for+asia+trip/6442832954/story.html
Continue readingParliamANT Hill: Caucus told budget to focus on skills training, infrastructure and manufacturing support
Inspired by this headline: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/03/19/pol-flaherty-budget-letter.html
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has unveiled its alternative federal budget – which highlights the choice between the Cons’ needless austerity, and the 200,000-300,000 extra jobs which could be created alongside important social improvements which could be brought about through well-placed
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Budget 2013 (If you want to play with the Big Boys, you play by Big Boy Rules)
“Opening new markets across Canada and around the world has become job one for this government.”—Finance Minister Horner on the 2013 Budget priorities, Alberta Hansard p1440. That simple sentence tells you all you need to know about Budget 2013 and how your tax dollars are going to be spent in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lawrence Martin discusses how the B.C. Libs, Harper Cons and other governments have responded to transparency requirements by deliberately refusing to record what they’re doing and why: News from the government of British Columbia. Sorry citizens, we have no files. There is
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