The current situation has brought many questions to mind for us all with the majority connected with our governance in one form or another be it provincial heath departments or national financial supports. Yesterday a small group of federal MPs gathered in Ottawa to pass some necessary measures to support
Continue readingTag: Democratic Sustainability
Democracy Under Fire: The beginning of the end?
As my ever decreasing small cadre of regular readers will know I no longer write here on a regular basis having become so disillusioned with world wide ‘democracy’ that I have little positive to say. Here in Canada it has not yet reached the depth of disillusionment that appears to
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Democracy in danger?
Given the title of this blog I must ask the question is our very democracy in danger from the proliferation of discourse on social media, whether true or not, about our political leaders and their various ‘platforms’. I will freely admit that being one of the rare individuals that has
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Comparing Dictators….
There are those progressives who have made a point of not comparing the Trump Regime with that of Hitler in the early 30s, I make no such distinction for I see many similarities, that Trump’s focus in not so much on one particular ethnic minority make little difference to the
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: The Future of Democracy (repost)
This previously published bit from 2009 in which Steve May‘s seriesis highlighted perhaps shows how little things have changed in 10 years. Much of his series is focused upon “green” issues (and even more relevant now than previously) but the following is food for thought regarding where are we going
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: A Long and Very Scary List
Antonia Zerbisias is keeping a list. She’s counting the things that Doug Ford is doing to make the lives of “the people” more miserable: Here’s the list thus far. Thanks to Debra Gallant, Antonia Zerbisias and Kev Holman for it’s beginnings. This is what Doug Ford has done since July,
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Lies & Spin (repost)
“In a political landscape where lies and spin is the norm we must thank and support those individuals who do not fall prey to this insidious trend, and condemn and publicly identify those who do.” The above quote from the following 2010 article is just as relevant today as it
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Threats to Democracy (repost)
“An obstacle to democracy is that the value of its name often exceeds the principles of its practice.” From an old speech by former MP David Kilgore – In his speech, of which this is but a few small extracts, he was talking about democracy across the world but it
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: I beg to disagree..
Premier Doug Ford says mainstream journalists have become irrelevant because social media allows him to speak directly to Ontarians. No Mr Fraud, we now need the MSM more than ever with our so called leaders flooding the ‘social media’ with unsubstantiated spin and highly partisan rhetoric. Ford said the spin
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: A Broken System?
Recent events and reports have made it clear that our system of governance has some major flaws in it as it currently operates, whist efforts to improve the way we elect our representatives have failed it is becoming increasing obvious that those we do elect have very little power to
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 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: Ho, Ho bloody Ho
This time of year is not my favorite season, yes its nice to visit family and catch up with both their recent activities and their plans for the future but the whole clamor of what is now largely a retail opportunity leave me less than enthusiastic. For far too many
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 readingDemocracy Under Fire: Backbenchers just decoration?
In this era of hyper-partisanship, can backbenchers have an effective voice, or have they been relegated to the role of a modern Greek chorus, anonymous figures advancing a pre-determined story? This is the question Hershell Ezrin asks in a short article in Ontario News Watch “In defence of hyper partisanship,
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 readingDemocracy Under Fire: I’m Tired……
I’m tired of the impossible promises that Doug Fraud keeps spouting, many issued before his newly elected MPs (blindly Con supporters?) had a chance to have any say in the matter. No one could accuse Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government of being unambitious in the agenda set out in its
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: New Report on the State of our Democracy.
The Samara Centre for Democracy interviewed 54 former MPs from the last Parliament about their experience in Ottawa and found many of them questioning the very purpose of being an MP in an era when political power is concentrated in the hands of party leaders. The Samara Centre is a
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Weeding the Garden
“You have to tend to this garden of democracy, otherwise things can fall apart fairly quickly. And we’ve seen societies where that happens,” Former president Barack Obama And we have now seen how quickly that can happen by simply looking to the south of us, no one should think that
Continue readingDemocracy Under Fire: Falsehood Flies, especialy on Twitter
Falsehoods almost always beat out the truth on Twitter, penetrating further, faster, and deeper into the social network than accurate information. So says Soroush Vosoughi, a data scientist at MIT who has studied fake news since 2013 and who led the study referenced here. A massive new study analyzes every
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