“It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be plausible.” Tom Flanagan’s unusually candid statement about the Harper Cons’ view of politics received plenty of attention. And rightly so, given how it signals a party and government with absolutely no interest in anything approaching honest discussion or debate.
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – The Canadian Labour Congress calls out Jim Flaherty for stalling on his promise to work on boosting the Canada Pension Plan. Meanwhile, in attempting to keep profits flowing to the financial sector, several Fraser Institute drones find that increased CPP contributions…substantially increase
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that to end your weekend. – Dave Coles introduces readers to the Cons’ latest attack on labour – with a backbencher’s private member’s bill again serving as an excuse to introduce unprecedent restrictions on union organization. – Michael Harris suspects that the Cons’ attempt to delay any public
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jillian Berman reports on research showing that the predictable effect of decreased unionization is a transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders: The jump in corporate profit over the past few decades can be explained largely by a decline in union membership over
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David Cay Johnston and Miles Corak both discuss the results of a study which compares economic outcomes in technologically advanced countries, and shows that tax giveaways to the wealthy exacerbate inequality without doing anything at all to contribute to economic development. – And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – A new Ipsos-Reid poll shows that nearly 90% of Canadians support higher taxes on the rich generally, and million-dollar incomes in particular. And there’s an obvious need for change based on how distorted tax systems already are – as Reuters reports on a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Juxtaposition
From Warren Bell’s devastating comparison between the Peter Kent of yesteryear and the embarrassment he’s become, here’s Canada’s environment minister on why we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about the environment effects of the tar sands: “One of the opposition parties has taken the treacherous course of leaving the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading… – Joseph Stiglitz discusses the abuse of intellectual property law to turn publicly-funded research into privately-held profit centres (no matter how many people die as a result): (A) Utah-based company, Myriad Genetics, claims more than that. It claims to own the rights to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Distinction without a difference
Erin is right to question Doug Elliott’s attempt to split hairs between a “slowdown” and a “deceleration”. But Elliott’s parsing ranks a distant second behind Russ Marchuk in the field of evasive dissembling. Shorter Marchuk: It’s outrageous that anybody would suggest we’re imposing a disastrous policy like universal standardized testing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – Daniel Kaufman notes that the EU is on the verge of implementing new standards for transparency in oil extraction – while recognizing that big oil has fought the effort every step of the way in an effort to keep its activities secret. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – Daniel Kaufman notes that the EU is on the verge of implementing new standards for transparency in oil extraction – while recognizing that big oil has fought the effort every step of the way in an effort to keep its activities secret. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Peter Gillespie discusses the problems with tax cheats (and the overseas tax havens which encourage them): Multinational corporations and banking and financial institutions routinely use tax havens to lower or eliminate their tax obligations, avoid regulation, and shield themselves from liability. Tax havens
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On contradictions
Aaron Wherry nicely points out some of the jaw-dropping contradictions in the Cons’ climate change messaging. But let’s not forget a few more worth adding into the mix. Having refused to implement any meaningful regulations or carbon pricing at the federal level, the Cons have tried to take credit for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jim Stanford points out that any “bitumen bubble” will only get worse if the Cons and their provincial cousins get their way in shifting the Canadian economy even further toward immediate tar sands extraction: (I)f the problem exists because we’re pumping out
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michael Harris concludes that we’re currently stuck in a golden age for political falsehood and deceit: (T)here are problems with blotting out inconvenient truths with self-serving Newspeak. It’s catchier than a flu-bug in a pup tent. Quite a few pairs of pants are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Carol Goar discusses Canada’s broken fiscal stabilizers – as unemployment insurance and social programs intended to assure citizens of at least a reasonable standard of living have been cut to well below that level: Canada’s economic shock absorbers are badly worn. Employment insurance,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Question and answer
Sixth Estate and impolitical have both followed up on the Cons’ attempts to attack Canada’s opposition parties for having the nerve to ask questions of their government by noting that in contrast to the Cons’ spin, the UK offers answers to MPs’ questions at a hundredth of the cost. But
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Michael Harris asks why Stephen Harper is afraid to look Theresa Spence in the eye: (Harper) believes that the government’s lying about all these things is far less important than the fact that it is the government. Incumbency is a magic potion. Under
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Saturday reading. – Kate Heartfield worries that the NRA knows exactly what it’s doing with its jaw-dropping response to the Newtown shootings – and that it should be all too familiar based on the tactics of the Harper Cons: It’s ridiculous, but ridiculous works, time and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Paul Dechene interviews Marc Spooner about Saskatchewan residents left behind in the province’s boom: One way that our growing income gap can be hand-waved away is by pointing to the fact that every other province that goes through an economic boom faces this.
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