Assorted content to end your week. – On the Robocon front, Terry Milewski connects the dots between identification of voters as non-Con supporters and the deceptive robocalls that followed. Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc discuss how Elections Canada figures to determine who placed the Cons’ fraudulent calls, while Glen McGregor
Continue readingTag: budget
Accidental Deliberations: On risky business
Michael Den Tandt suggests that the Cons’ budget later this month will be “revolutionary” – which fits the conventional wisdom that a majority government will try to get its most controversial moves out of the way at the earliest opportunity in order to seem less dangerous by the time the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – In the latest on Robocon, John Ivison rightly notes that the scandal figures to give many Canadians a long-overdue first look at the Cons’ computerized voter information. Meanwhile, Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher note that the Cons’ spending in last year’s election
Continue readingImpolitical: Putting a price on accountability
From Friday: “MPs question true dollar value of questions asked of government.” As budget cuts loom, and Parliament’s budget itself has been floated as a target, this looks like a set up. Conservative MP Brian Jean asked in December by written question to the government how much it was costing
Continue readingImpolitical: Late night
Who knew a video of an Arctic research station, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, Nunavut, could be so oddly compelling. Maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s the circumstances where a key Canadian scientific research asset in the Arctic is denied the $1.5 million it needs to
Continue readingImpolitical: Mystery budget on its way
The budget date was set yesterday, finally, for March 29th, possibly as a bit of a distraction from all things robocall. This should be good: Flaherty said Wednesday the budget will not lay out in specifics where the government plans to find between $4 billion and $8 billion in annual
Continue readingImpolitical: Flaherty changing his budget tune?
Flaherty seems to have found a new word for his upcoming budget: The federal budget expected in mid-March will focus on “moderate” measures to cut government spending and encourages provinces to do the same, he said. “We are not one of the countries, many of them in Europe, that have
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: An Open Letter to Kevin Falcon
Kevin Falcon Minister of Finance Government of British Columbia Dear Mr. Falcon, During your budget speech yesterday, you announced that BC’s carbon tax will be frozen, and its place in our economy reexamined, after its final scheduled increase later this year. Forgive me if I am being presumptuous, but given
Continue readingImpolitical: Harper eyes the parliamentary budget for cuts
News from CTV last night that Harper is looking for a 10 per cent cut to Parliament’s $585M budget. A few thoughts come to mind. First, is this a distraction from Harper’s humongous internet surveillance bungle? Maybe. After the tremendously bad p.r. they’ve been getting over the last week or
Continue readingHellberta: February mid-month round-up: Greece burns, Alberta gambles & Canada trades soul for Pandas
Well it would appear that China has finally found a spot to park it’s unwanted USD. That would be here in good old Canada and all it cost them was leasing us two Pandas. What a deal! Back in 2011 I wrote a quick post about why Canada’s economy is
Continue readingImpolitical: Why Flaherty was so upset with the PBO yesterday
Well, there was the main takeaway from Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page’s report release yesterday on the fiscal sustainability of Old Age Security that Flaherty would not have been too pleased with: “OAS sustainable under current rules, says budget watchdog.” That main point runs counter to the government’s messaging. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Geoffrey Stevens discusses the basic problem behind the Cons’ insistence on cutting back actual help to people while wasting billions on prisons and fighter jets: (I)f the government did have a weakness (which, as noted, it does not concede), it might be
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 1, 2011
In the midst of a week of acrimonious debate over both the substance of the Cons’ dumb-on-crime legislation and the government’s procedural maneuvers to prevent even improvements which it recognized as necessary, December 1 served as a comparative beacon of cooperation (as noted specifically by Don Davies). The Big Issue
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: Occupy Boston: No War On Iran
On Saturday, February 4, The Action for Peace Working Group of Occupy Boston will co-sponsor a rally and march as part of an international day of action to demand NO WAR ON IRAN. The march, …Read More
Continue readingBill Given: Welcome to 2012
We are now a week in to 2012 and so far it doesn’t seem like the end of the world. Unseasonably warm, yes. But end-of-the-world hot … I don’t think so.2011 was a busy year; for me personally, in the region and here at city hall. In fact I was so…
Continue readingBill Given: Welcome to 2012
We are now a week in to 2012 and so far it doesn’t seem like the end of the world. Unseasonably warm, yes. But end-of-the-world hot … I don’t think so. 2011 was a busy year; for me personally, in the region and here at city hall. In fact I was
Continue readingBill Given: Welcome to 2012
We are now a week in to 2012 and so far it doesn’t seem like the end of the world. Unseasonably warm, yes. But end-of-the-world hot … I don’t think so. 2011 was a busy year; for me personally, in the region and here at city hall. In fact I was
Continue readingDriving The Porcelain Bus: Toronto City Budget – The Problem Is Ford
Numbers Game | Toronto Media Co-op The City budget is not and has never been in a financial crisis according to figures released by the Wellesley Institute, an urban health research and policy institute in Toronto.…Ford, along with the rest of the administration’s allies have often repeated the $774 million
Continue readingImpolitical: Nothing to see here
“All about the economy, says Harper.” Yes, yes, what else would he say in an interview on what to expect in 2012. Anyhoo, this is an interesting reassurance being rolled out: Harper said Canadians can expect modest cuts to federal spending in the budget to be tabled later in the
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