Dear people of Durham, we need to talk about Erin O’Toole. Your Minister of Parliament is becoming a national joke when it comes to Twitter. Times Erin O’Toole has directly tweeted about GM since the closure announcement? 16. A majority of those tweets were criticizing Justin Trudeau, 3 were criticizing
Continue readingTag: democracy
THE FIFTH COLUMN: Is American Democracy Fucked ?
So is the American political system completely dysfunctional. I suppose the easy answer is to say they elected Trump so case closed, but of course it is much more complicated than that. What advanced developed democracy cannot manage to keep it’s government functioning. The obvious answer should be “none” but
Continue readingPolitical Potshots: Rempelsputin: An Experiment In Political Thinskinnedness
Ra ra RempelsputinLover of the Twitter BlockThere was a cat with really thin skin… When I was relatively new to Twitter there was a urban legend that I heard about on Canadian political Twitter about a politician who would block anyone for any reason. Michelle Rempel, a newish Calgary MP,
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Leadership, Democracy & Twitter
Recently I read an opinion piece in The Hill Times decrying the ‘Lack of Leadership’ in both the U.S. and GB given the current Cluster Fk in both countries. It goes on to say ‘The answer is fairly simply: lack of leadership.’ and that ‘Unbridled populism fails unless it is
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Our Fragile Democracy.
A new index released this week offers a sobering look at how democracy is faring in the United States. According to the 2018 edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, the U.S. doesn’t even make the list of top 20—its demonstrably “flawed democracy” notching it the 25th spot. The
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Pro Rep: Infinity War; or, In Defence of Endless Referendums
Winston Churchill (apocryphally, as it turns out) is believed to have said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” In light of British Columbia’s referendum on electoral reform this past fall, one is tempted to agree. But let’s not let the media, politicians, and
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Pro Rep: Infinity War; or, In Defence of Endless Referendums
Winston Churchill (apocryphally, as it turns out) is believed to have said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” In light of British Columbia’s referendum on electoral reform this past fall, one is tempted to agree. But let’s not let the media, politicians, and
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Orwellian Musings
As we end the year that could perhaps be called ‘annus horribilis’ to use the Queens description of 1992 I find it hard to be optimistic about our future here across the other side of the ocean, or indeed for the rest of the world. I cannot find the words
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Democracy in decline?
As my small cadre of regular readers will know I have been writing about our Canadian democracy for nearly 10 years much of that time spent documenting the Harper Regimes disdain for the democratic process. Although I now have less inclination to write the need to continue to keep those
Continue readingThe Maple Monarchists - Blog: Jagmeet Singh’s Reply to the Monarchist League of Canada
Photo Credit: Yvonne Bambrick Recently, while doing an interview on the topic of the spending of theformer Governor General AdrienneClarkson, Mr. Singh stated that hedid not see the relevancy of themonarchy and that he was arepublican. Various members of theMonarchist League of Canadasought clarification (and probably totry and convince him
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Who is running Ontario?
Dean French was Mr. Ford’s campaign chair. The day after the PCs won power in June, Mr. Ford named him his chief of staff. Since then, he has emerged as something even that job title can’t fully capture: an omnipresent force seen by some of the new government’s members as
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Amalgamation raises it ugly head again?
‘Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark sent a correspondence to Association of Municipalities Ontario members communicating the province is undergoing a regional review to take a broad look at the current model of municipal governance.’ The above little clip appeared in a short article in a recent Bayshore News
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Enough said…
In a longish op-ed published in iPolitics Michael Harris says the next election is Trudeau’s to loose, I cannot help but agree for the other choices are bleak. “By insisting on making war on the carbon tax his call to political arms, Scheer couldn’t say more clearly that he is
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Vancouver Sun Letter
I have a letter in today’s Vancouver Sun, not so much supporting proportional representation (although I do support proportional representation) as addressing what I consider to be baseless objections to the current electoral reform referendum. My letter is second from the top, under the (perhaps regrettable) heading “Complexity isn’t a
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Vancouver Sun Letter
I have a letter in today’s Vancouver Sun, not so much supporting proportional representation (although I do support proportional representation) as addressing what I consider to be baseless objections to the current electoral reform referendum. My letter is second from the top, under the (perhaps regrettable) heading “Complexity isn’t a
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Political and Rhetorical Privilege
“It’s perfectly possible for a man to lead a comfortable, indeed enviable life by any objective standard, yet be consumed with bitterness driven by status anxiety.” Dr. Paul Krugman in a NY Times article He goes on: “This sort of high-end resentment, the anger of highly privileged people who nonetheless
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: THE FIFTH COLUMN 2018-10-13 19:17:00
On Democracy What a better way to restart The Fifth Column than by a treatise on how to make our democracy actually democratic. Hopefully this will be the first posting in a newly regenerated Fifth Column. I write this at a time when there are so many examples of democracy
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Our Unsung Hero.
Now that much of the initial commentary on the US – Canada – Mexico trade deal has run its course and the usual right wing suspects continue to nit pick the few things that were not resolved 100% in our favor its time to thank our team for their work.
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Municipal Government Vulnerability
Lost among the back-and-forth political battles between Ford and Toronto city council is that municipalities are not constitutionally protected as sovereign levels of government in Canada. As a federal state, Canada is a confederation of two co-equal levels of sovereign government: provincial and federal. But municipalities fall under the jurisdictions
Continue readingThings Are Good: Less Open Debates for a More Open Democracy
The last few years of this bizarre decade have witnessed the resurgence of hate groups. Some of these hate groups are just nicer sounding Nazis and that’s a really bad thing. Since this site is dedicated to good news let’s take a look at how to deal with these ignoramuses.
Continue reading