Monday, May 7 saw another day largely dominated by debate on the Cons’ omnibus budget bill. The Big Issue Plenty of MPs rightly focused on the Cons’ move to combine so many disparate types of legislation into a single behemoth of a bill. Don Davies remembered his first instruction as
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – It’s undoubtedly an embarrassment for John Baird to have leapt at a thoroughly implausible bit of anti-UN spin. But I’d think there’s more reason for hope than concern in the long run: if a year into their majority mandate the Cons are still
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On federal cases
Paul Krugman compares the effects of burst housing bubbles in Florida and Spain to point out how the EU’s lack of genuine fiscal federalism has exacerbated its crisis. But there’s an important lesson to be learned for Canada as well. After all, the Harper Cons and their big-business allies are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Paul Krugman highlights the anti-social austerity agenda at work in the U.K. and U.S.: (T)he austerity drive in Britain isn’t really about debt and deficits at all; it’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programs. And this is, of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Thomas Walkom makes the point that the hysterical response from Brad Wall and others can’t mask the fact that Thomas Mulcair is right in his analysis of the effect of a high, resource-driven dollar: Mulcair’s solution is hardly radical. He argues that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Toxic Sludge is Good Enough for You
I don’t actually doubt Joe Oliver’s sincerity in claiming that as far as he’s concerned, people will soon be able to drink from tar-sands tailing ponds. But I do suspect that mostly has to do with the Cons’ pathetic idea of water safety, rather than any reasonable belief that Canadians
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On trade-offs
Much of the recent discussion as to how to develop a strong and sustainable Canadian economy has included absolutely no challenge to the theory that natural resource development is somehow a driver of increased jobs. So let’s take a closer look at the relative economic contributions of the natural resource
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom criticizes the Cons’ war on labour at the federal level – though John Ivison notes that the Cons’ habit of interfering in every federal labour dispute looks to help the NDP all the more. And Pat Atkinson worries that the Sask
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – May 4, 2012
Friday, May 4 saw a relatively short day of debate on the omnibus budget bill – but with a few twists on the discussion seen to date. The Big Issue Claude Gravelle noted that the range of major changes in C-38 goes far beyond the environment alone. Ted Hsu wondered
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – May 4, 2012
Friday, May 4 saw a relatively short day of debate on the omnibus budget bill – but with a few twists on the discussion seen to date. The Big Issue Claude Gravelle noted that the range of major changes in C-38 goes far beyond the environment alone. Ted Hsu wondered
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Harald Bauder comments on the Cons’ continued efforts to provoke a race to the bottom when it comes to wages: (B)oth the planned EI reforms and the temporary foreign workers program are part of a wider strategy of lowering the bar on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On shadow governments
Plenty of others are theorizing that it’s time for some radical action in response to the Cons’ continued contempt for democratic accountability. But I’ll take a few minutes to work through some of the considerations which should be kept in mind in deciding where to go from here. To start
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: May 3, 2012
Thursday, May 3 saw yet another debate over the Cons’ use of time allocation – this time respecting the omnibus budget bill which features so many radical changes that demand serious discussion. And not surprisingly, the opposition parties raised plenty of entirely valid concerns, while the Cons obfuscated and ran
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Bruce Johnstone reminds us that much of Stephen Harper’s low-wage, anti-worker agenda has been rather poorly hidden for a long time: Everything from growing trees for farmers to processing immigration applications to inspecting meat to examining evidence in criminal investigations, all of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: May 2, 2012
A combination of the one-year anniversary of Canada’s 2011 federal election and a relatively short day in Parliament left little room for a lot of debate on Wednesday, May 2. But the day did see some serious questions raised about the Cons’ rush to pass their budget without debate. The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: May 1, 2012
Tuesday, May 1 saw more debate on a couple of relatively non-contentious bills – along with a prime example of the Cons’ blinkered focus on mandatory minimum sentences. The Big Issue In continued debate on the Lucky Moose self-defence bill, the NDP pointed out some of the ways the legislation
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michael Harris rightly tears into the Cons for turning our federal government into Versailles on the Ottawa: The Harper government has more than a touch of Queen Nancy. It has already morphed into Versailles on the Ottawa. The facts, and the rules, are being
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Julian Beltrame reports on the Cons’ concerted efforts to add to corporate bottom lines by attacking working Canadians: One of the measures is so sneaky, says NDP MP Pat Martin, nobody seemed to notice the line buried deep in the 452-page Bill C-38
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: April 30, 2012
Monday, April 30 featured discussion of two opposition motions dealing with the federal government’s responsibility to ensure the safety of Canadians. And on both fronts, the Cons went out of their way to disclaim any such role for our public servants. The Big Issue Jack Harris started off the safety
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – April 27, 2012
Friday, April 27 saw another day of relatively non-contentious debate on the main bill up for discussion in the House of Commons. But there was plenty of reason to question why the focus would be as narrow as it was. The Big Issue That main bill was the Cons’ elder
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