Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Danyaal Raza highlights how Canadians can treat an election year as an opportunity to discuss the a focus on social health with candidates and peers alike: Health providers are increasingly recognizing that while a robust health care system is an important part of
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The Disaffected Lib: This is Canada. Of Course We Live In a Democracy. Right? Think Again.
Do you know the difference between liberal democracy and illiberal democracy? It can be a complex issue. There are oodles of papers to read if you really want to get a handle on it but, for now, here’s a somewhat useful explanation taken from Wiki. An illiberal democracy, also called
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On motivating factors
Andrew Coyne offers what’s probably the most reasonable argument to treat the negligible threat of terrorism differently from the other risks we so readily accept (and indeed which are regularly exacerbated by deregulation). But Coyne’s argument falls well short of justifying the response actually on offer from the Cons –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Nicholas Kristof discusses how U.S. workers have suffered as a result of declining union strength. And Barry Critchley writes that Canada’s average expected retirement age has crept over 65 – with that change coming out of necessity rather than worker choice. – Alex
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On oversight
Since one of the main issues talked about so far in relation to the Cons’ terror bill is the question of oversight, I’ll point back to what I said the last time we were told that the way to split the difference between abuses of power and a desire for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the Cons’ attempt to spin an election narrative out of a fictional bogeyman rather than protecting or helping Canadians. For further reading…– The National Academy of Sciences offers a comparison of death rates from multiple causes in Canada and elsewhere, while Statistics Canada has more detailed data. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jeffrey Sparshott discusses new research into how automation stands to displace workers and exacerbate inequality, while a House of Lords committee finds that 35% of the current jobs in the UK could fall prey to exactly that process. And Szu Ping Chan
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Cameron Dearlove laments the fact that Canada is failing to recognize and replicate other countries’ successes in using the social determinants of health to shape public policy: Today we know that social and financial inequities — particularly the experience of poverty — has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Simon Wren-Lewis nicely describes the austerity con (coming soon in extreme form to an Alberta near you): ‘Mediamacro’ is the term I use to describe macroeconomics as it is portrayed in the majority of the media. Mediamacro has a number of general features.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Elias Isquith interviews Mark Blyth about his book on the disastrous consequences of austerity, while Paul Krugman writes that austerity is particularly sure to cause economic destruction when combined with a push toward consumer deleveraging. And Bruce Campbell looks to Syriza as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Elizabeth Renzetti makes clear that we can’t count on one-time crowdsourcing to perform the same function as a social safety net: This is the problem with the wildly popular new online world of what you might call misery fundraising: It semi-solves one small
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – John Hood discusses how the privilege of the political class makes it difficult for elected representatives to understand, let alone address, the problems of the precariat. And Lawrence Mishel and Will Kimball document the continued connection between the erosion of unions and income
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Gregory Beatty reports on Saskatchewan’s options now that it can’t count on high oil prices to prop up the provincial budget. And Dennis Howlett writes about the need for a far more progressive tax system both as a matter of fairness, and as
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