“Soon, we will find out if breaking the law is illegal.” The line is Stephen Colbert’s and, no, he wasn’t talking about Alberta. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). The well-known American comedian and TV personality, of course, was referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Martin Wolf reviews Mariana Mazzucato’s The Value of Everything, including its distinction between value creation and value extraction. And Yvonne Roberts points out how millenial workers are being left with little but large debts as a result of inequality between classes and
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: How to vote in the Calgary-Heritage and Calgary-Midnapore by-elections
By-elections will be held in the federal ridings of Calgary-Heritage and Calgary-Midnapore on April 3, 2017. Voting stations in those ridings will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on that day. If you are unable to cast a ballot on the by-election day on Monday, April 3, 2017, you can vote in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Roy Romanow writes about the dangers of focusing unduly on raw economic growth, rather than measuring our choices by how they actually affect people’s well-being: At the national level, the picture that emerges over the past 21 years is a GDP rebounding post-recession
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Alistair MacGregor Tables Bill To Limit Federal Election Period
Alistair MacGregor OTTAWA- Alistair MacGregor, Member of Parliament for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, introduced a bill today to ensure that governments cannot set an election period longer than 46 days in order to spend more money. This Read more…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Up for discussion
Kady O’Malley has already highlighted a few of the noteworthy resolutions (PDF) submitted to this weekend’s NDP policy convention. But I’ll point out a few more which look to me to deserve attention.First, in the category of simple good ideas regardles…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Ed Miliband offers his take on inequality and the political steps needed to combat it:(T)he terms of the case against inequality have changed. I have always believed that inequality divides people, deprives ma…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On turnout
Daniel Schwartz reports on the final vote count from last month’s federal election. And given the record vote total and unusually high turnout based on the percentage of eligible voters, it’s particularly worth noting what’s changed since previous, lower-turnout elections. Since 2011, the Conservatives eliminated the per-vote subsidy, which provided
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Robyn Benson rightly argues that it’s long past time for the Harper Cons to be booted from office. Stuart Trew sets out just five of the worst ways in which the Cons have changed Canada, while Murray Dobbin offers his take on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: This seems pertinent
In light of the Cons’ latest misleading ads, let’s take a quick stroll through the offence provisions of the Canada Elections Act: 480.1 Every person is guilty of an offence who, with intent to mislead, falsely represents themselves to be, or causes anyone to falsely represent themselves to be,(a) the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On final choices
Following up on this post and some additional discussion, let’s take a look at the question of what options would be available to Stephen Harper if he decided he wanted to escape a drubbing at the polls by cancelling the federal election. And fortunately, the answer looks to be “not
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On acceptable surprises
When Alice Funke first identified the effect of an extended writ period under the Cons’ well-hidden revisions to the Canada Elections Act, I mused the effect was less problematic than it appeared at first glance. But now that the possibility of an extra-long campaign looks fairly real and the issue
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, following up on these posts about the possibility the Cons might decide to ignore their own fixed election date and delay the election expected for October 19. For further reading… – The Canada Elections Act is here. And for an interesting comparison, see Saskatchewan’s fixed election date provision from
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On half measures
Having written this column a couple of weeks back on electoral financing in Saskatchewan, I’ll take a moment to address this letter to the editor in response from R. Curtis Mullen. It’s indeed true that Saskatchewan has spending limits which apply during an election campaign. But the Canada Elections Act
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Elias Isquith talks to David Madland about the connection between increasing inequality and the breakdown of trust in the U.S. political system. CBC and Larry Elliott follow up on the IMF’s findings about the economic damage done by income and wealth disparities. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Sean McElwee examines new evidence of the deliberate choice of past U.S. governments dating back to Ronald Reagan to completely discount the policy preferences of anybody but the rich: In a new book, political scientists James Druckman and Lawrence Jacobs examine data
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sean McElwee offers a new set of evidence that the right-wing Republicans who run on the economy in fact do it nothing but harm. And David Dayen discusses how Bernie Sanders may be able to push the U.S.’ policy discussion into a far
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Scott Sinclair studies the effect of NAFTA on government policies, and finds that it’s been used primarily (and all too frequently) to attack Canadian policy choices: A study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) finds over 70% of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Monica Pohlmann interviews Armine Yalnizyan about the undue influence of our corporate overlords in setting public policy: What’s your sense of the state of our democracy? We have a troubled relationship with our democratic institutions. We need to get over the idea
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On corporate takeovers
CTV reports on the funnelling of money from SNC-Lavalin into the Cons’ coffers. And we shouldn’t be surprised to see that connection in light of the Cons’ attitude toward corporate wrongdoing. But it’s especially worth noting what’s missing from the Cons’ denials of involvement: Elections Canada records reveal that 10
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