by Maude Barlow | Council of Canadians The Federal Court rejected the Conservative Party MPs’ motions on security for costs against the ongoing legal challenges in the robocall scandal. You’ll remember the Conservative Party MPs called for the nine individual applicants to put up a total of $260,409 as a
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Tim Harper weighs in on the Cons’ latest campaign of coordinated lies, and notes that the NDP looks to have learned one important lesson in how to respond: The NDP may be here at the federal level for the first time, but they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jessica Bruno reports on Tom Mulcair’s first six months as leader of the NDP. But while it’s certainly a plus for pundits to recognize the NDP as a viable government in waiting, perhaps the most significant development is Mulcair’s ability to persuade Canadians
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Pamela Palmater discusses how the Cons’ push to monetize First Nations reserves ultimately looks to be little more than another giveaway to the oil industry: By now most of you have heard about the Harper government’s intention to introduce legislation that will turn
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Dave Coles comments on Brad Wall’s attempts to erase a century’s worth of gains when it comes to labour rights, but recognizes that we instead have an opportunity to again lead the way toward social progress: During this moment of relative prosperity
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, expanding on a previous blog post as to how the Etobicoke Centre appeal heard by the Supreme Court this week may affect future Canadian elections. For more, see the coverage from Macleans, Postmedia, the Hill Times and CBC, as well as columns from Susan Delacourt and Adam Goldenberg (who
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your long weekend reading. – Jim Stanford highlights how anti-labour “right to work” policy is spreading from the U.S. into multiple Canadian provinces: It’s clear we’re going to have to gear up our arguments on right-to-work laws, dues check-off, the Rand Formula, etc. In the last year
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Robocalls Fraud Federal Court Challenge: Council of Canadians Needs Our Support
Editor’s Note: I’m pleased to publish and share with you the letter below, from Maude Barlow (pictured), the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, regarding the ongoing robocalls election fraud case currently before the Federal Court. During the May 2011 federal election, thousands of Canadians were robbed of their
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Susan Delacourt notes that while the NDP’s leadership convention points out some of the risks of online voting, the real problem lies in the people working to block democracy through any available means: While those who use computers have become accustomed to the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On voter information
Andrew Coyne raises some noteworthy points about what political parties know about us and how they use that information. But while I agree as to the need for parties to treat voters as something more than a resource to be exploited, I’ll sound a note of caution that some of
Continue readingOccupy Ottawa: Robo-calls Scandal: Council of Canadians Contemplating Legal Action
The Council of Canadians announced today that it is canvassing its members and other Canadians to determine the extent to which the “robo-calls” and other dirty tricks during the May 2011 federal election may have …Read More
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 13, 2011
Tuesday, December 13 served to confirm the range of concerns that hadn’t yet been taken into account in the Cons’ seat redistribution bill – even as debate came to a close and the bill was rammed through against the protests of a united opposition. The Big Issue In response to
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: NCC fundraising letter exposes Stephen Harper’s hypocrisy
Way back in 2001, Elections Canada charged a certain Paul Bryan for violating section 329 of the Canada Elections Act. Stephen Harper, then President of the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative lobby group that has …Read More
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 8, 2011
Thursday, December 8 saw debate on four separate bills – though once again, the Harper Cons were most conspicuous by their silence on a bill they were in the process of ramming through Parliament. The Big Issue That would be the Senate patch job which was being debated at second
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 7, 2011
Wednesday, December 7 packed plenty of contentious debate into an extremely short day, with a time allocation motion and debate on two bills fit within an afternoon sitting. The Big Issue Once again, Peter Van Loan sought to limit debate on one of the Cons’ bills – this time their
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: November 30, 2011
After the previous day’s debacle in which government-sponsored amendments to the Cons’ dumb-on-crime bill were ruled out of order, one might have expected at least some acknowledgment of fallibility on the part of the Harper Cons. The Big Issue But Wednesday, November 30 saw nothing of the sort, even when
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Emily Dee takes a first look at what may be a highly important story about the Cons’ use of the notorious right-wing push-poller Responsive Media Group: I had been conducting some research into the last federal election campaign, which was probably the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Stephanie Larocque highlights the Cons’ gall in hanging onto federal reimbursements from their own ad scam even after having admitted their guilt: You don’t have to prove guilt when the charged plead guilty. And that is exactly what happened last week when the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On agreed facts
Most of the commentary on the Cons’ publicly-admitted law-breaking has focused on the mere guilty plea itself. (And I’ll post to Sixth Estate’s post as deserving of a look.) But the agreed statement of facts – which the Cons have equally admitted as tr…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Everything wrong with Canadian politics in a nutshell
The Conservative Party of Canada admits to breaking the law, and describes it as a victory.
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