This morning, Ontario, I am ashamed of you. Ontario, you had an opportunity to do the right thing, and chose — deliberately chose — not to. I am ashamed and embarrassed by your choice. And that includes your choice not to vote. At stake was the future of this province;
Continue readingTag: Canadian Politics
Canadian Dimension: The hopeless malaise of the Ontario election
Progressive Conservative Party leader Doug Ford. Photo courtesy QP Briefing. Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives spent the election in Ontario hiding from protestors, the press, and the public. Ahead of the leaders’ debate, nurses were pushed around. PC candidates opted out of local debates and dodged the press. There
Continue readingScripturient: Right v. Left in Modern Politics
There’s a lot of palaver on social media about right v. left (or left v. right if you are so inclined), with webs of comments about the differences between these opposing political wings. And, at least among the comments I’ve read from Americans, there’s also a lot of misinformation and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government’s persistent habit of advocating U.S.-style gun laws bears repeating, and remembering
On May 17, just three days after the racial-hate-motivated massacre at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, N.Y., the Kenney Government was publicly complaining about new federal regulations intended to ensure that the increasingly frequent mass shootings in the United States stay south of the world’s longest undefended border. Alberta Premier
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Jason Kenney, through a glass darkly
Jason Kenney has long maintained an address in fantasyland. Back in 2016 he somehow came to the now clearly erroneous conclusion that only he could fashion a robust and longstanding political dynasty out of two fractious conservative movements. Instead he resigned as United Conservative Party leader on May 18 after
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Putting the performance back in petroleum politics, Mr. Kenney goes to Washington
Everybody in the room yesterday at the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing in Washington, D.C., knew perfectly well the United States is never going to stop buying Saudi Arabian “dictator oil,” and why. Three amigos: Democrat in Name Only Joe Manchin, at left, cuddles up with his
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Conservative leadership debate: Not as funny as The Debaters! Not as informative, either
Hey! I watched The Debaters on the CBC last night! Frontrunner Pierre Poilievre at the exact moment he tried to think of the title of a book he’s read and came up with 12 Rules by Jordan Peterson (Photo: Screenshot). That new host wasn’t as funny as Steve Patterson, though,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta premier prematurely celebrates court’s view Ottawa’s environmental assessment law is unconstitutional
Jason Kenney and his allies in the United Conservative Party are noisily celebrating the Alberta Court of Appeal’s opinion yesterday that the federal government’s environmental assessment law is unconstitutional, and who can blame them? Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). The 4-1 opinion in the Alberta government’s reference case
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canadian Conservatives, heavily influenced by Republican ideology, are keen to squelch debate about U.S. Supreme Court’s planned abortion ruling
Canada’s conservative political parties are desperately trying to declare discussion of the leaked United States Supreme Court draft ruling on abortion a political no-fly zone. The young Jason Kenney, now Premier of Alberta (Photo: Screenshot of YouTube video). The powerful and extensive influence of radical social conservative opponents of women’s
Continue readingScripturient: Debunking Poilievre’s Tweets, Part 2
This is a continuation of my debunking of a small sample of Pierre Poilievre’s (aka Skippy’s) 2022 tweets. His tweets are presented in italics; my responses follow in roman text. See if you can spot in his words 1) His lack of knowledge about the subject; 2) Blatant lies; 3)
Continue readingScripturient: Debunking Poilievre’s Tweets Part 1
Pierre Poilievre — aka Skippy — tweets a lot. A lot. Not quite in the Donald-Trump-tweeting-on-the-toilet range, but close. And he often repeat-tweets his angry, bumper-sticker slogans that are little more than libertarian micro rages. They are big on emotion but empty on substance. no details, facts, or anything even
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Separate and Distinct?
The Premier of this province has been bumbling around, talking about how his party wants to create a distinct “nation within a nation” in Saskatchewan, and that they want to somehow create a more autonomous province. There’s media out there today about how a good chunk of folks who live
Continue readingScripturient: Poilievre’s Wacky, Quacky Economics
Pierre Poilievre — aka Skippy — loves cryptocurrency and wants to make Canada the world’s crypto capital. Crypto is a computing process, not a product, it’s well outside the capabilities of individual computer systems to “mine” so it is controlled by large crypto-mining farms owned by corporate interests, using vast
Continue readingScripturient: Debunking Poilievre’s Freedom Myth
If you listen to Pierre Poilievre, the leading — and rightmost — candidate for the Conservative Party’s leadership, Canada is a dictatorship suffering under the thumb of the tyrant, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. To escape from the authoritarian rule of the Liberals, Poilievre (aka Skippy) promises to make us “the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On the 40th anniversary of proclamation of the Constitution Act, Conservative distrust of the Charter still runs deep
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the proclamation of the Constitution Act, 1982 – including, importantly, our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The English-language version of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Image: Government of Canada). Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: What you didn’t know about the Liberal-NDP pharmacare plan
Despite the fanfare, the clause on pharmacare contained in the new Liberal-NDP agreement lacked in both detail and ambition. Photo by James Yarema/Unsplash. There is one true measure of the strength of the pharmacare pledge contained in the new Liberal-NDP “supply and confidence” agreement. That measure is to be found
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Blog Move is official as of April 7th.
As of tomorrow, this site will be no more. I thank all of those who helped me with this over the years. The new site will be at https://scottdiatribes.wordpress.com. You’ll see I’ve kept all the old posts I’ve made.. but the site will look very.. minimalist at this point.. and
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: A Potential Blog Move
Well.. its renewal time for the server that hosts my blog due on April 7, and at this point, with lack of blog activity (except what you see on my Twitter feed that pops up on the sidebar), I’m not particularly inclined to pay the renewal fees for something I’m
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Liberal-NDP cooperation deal leaves many questions, and opportunities for progress
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. Photos courtesy Canadian Press. On Tuesday morning, it was announced the Liberal Party and the NDP had reached a supply and confidence deal to keep the current government in power until 2025 in exchange for key priorities held within the NDP’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hysterical Conservatives outdo themselves with ‘coalition’ histrionics, but Parliament is operating exactly as it should
Let it be conceded that the Conservative histrionics over yesterday’s confidence and supply agreement between the Liberals and the New Democrats in Parliament has far outdone the “spectacular national Conservative tantrum” predicted in this space. Naturally one would have expected a right-wing Opposition party to argue that any deal between
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