As you know, I have always portrayed Andrew Scheer as a deplorable clown.A dangerous clown, but a clown nonetheless, who likes to blame everything bad on Justin Trudeau's carbon tax.And now that Scheer is also blaming the tax for GM's closure of that Oshawa plant, even some in our useless media are starting to
Continue readingTag: Doug Ford
Montreal Simon: Caroline Mulroney And The Day The Dream Died
It was supposed to be a political fairy tale. Caroline Mulroney, the daughter of Brian, joining the Ford regime.And on her way to one day being crowned prime minister.But sadly for her and her father, it just didn't work out that way.After the glittering coach that was supposed to carry her
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thoughts from the road: General Motors, China and Alberta, a new landscape emerges from Monday’s dust
OTTAWA Now that the dust is settling from Monday’s announcement General Motors Corp.’s last auto assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., will soon be closed, the emerging landscape is not promising for Alberta. Leastways, it’s not hopeful from the perspective of an Alberta that has no plan to transition from a
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Joe Oliver and the Crazed Climate Change Deniers
I'll never forget how in the dying days of the sinister Harper regime, Joe Oliver, who was the finance minister, suddenly disappeared.And since the economy was threatening to collapse like a rotten pyramid scheme, and the Cons had "lost" the surplus, I suggested they should put Oliver's face on milk
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Where bullies wear blue.
Welcome to Queen’s Park. This is that island in the centre of Toronto that carries the weight of Ontario’s provincial government. The uniform of the day on this island of pecker heads is a blue suit. A white shirt or blouse is appropriate and a tie is obligatory for the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta politicians need to tread carefully when they comment on the coming job losses at GM Canada in Oshawa
We don’t yet know why General Motors Corp. has decided to walk away from its last auto-assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., which CTV reported last night the Detroit-based company will announce it is doing at 10 o’clock this morning. I’m sure there will be plenty of suspects. I have one
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Crawford Kilian reviews Christo Aivalis’ The Constant Liberal, and discusses how Justin Trudeau is continuing a family tradition of betraying progressive voters: [Pierre Trudeau] wanted to strengthen unions and workers in general — up to a point. It wasn’t to help the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doppelgangers don’t do it.
There is a tendency among political leaders to have someone very much like themselves to serve as their chief of staff. It gives them confidence that the person will react as they do and carry out solutions much the same as their principal. It is a lazy person’s solution. And
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Is This The Beginning Of The End Of Andrew Scheer?
Andrew Scheer has been keeping a very low profile recently. He's been absent from Question Period quite a few times. He seems to be hiding from the media, the fake news as he calls it.But then who can blame him? His situation is desperate. It's all going horribly wrong. He's trailing Justin Trudeau
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – May Bulman reports on the growing gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor in the UK. And Owen Jones offers a reminder that it was the political choices of the UK Cons – regardless of their position on Brexit –
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Spark Of Integrity
If one follows politics closely, it is easy to become quite jaded. On almost daily display are scenes of arrogance, condescension and the corrupting influence of power. We are reminded of those sorry aspects of our species regularly by Ontario’s Doug Ford government, one I hesitate to label by any
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Kathleen Harris reports on a federal budget update designed to have Canada borrow to shovel money into the pockets of big business. And PressProgress points out the absurdity of that plan when the corporate sector already has far too many loopholes and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports that the Ford government’s move to strip sick days away from workers was made without any attempt to consider the consequences for public health. And Emma Paling reports on how public protests at least delayed the final passage of the
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Is this the best they can do? The weak case against $14 in Ontario
Today the libertarian Montreal Economic Institute think tank released a short report claiming that Ontario’s $14 minimum wage is costing thousands of young workers their jobs and raising prices for everyone else. These overblown claims, based on skewed and cherry-picked data, came out—purely coincidentally to be sure—on the same day
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Chuckles’ confusion of conservatives.
Federal conservative leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer knows that a bunch of whales is a ‘pod,’ and a group of geese a ‘gaggle.’ We are guessing that he has also found out that a collection of conservatives might be a ‘confusion.’ He was at a celebration with an Ontario confusion of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Chris Hughes discusses how progressive politics, including expanded social programs and more progressive taxes, are proving to be a winner for U.S. Democrats in both primaries and general elections. Jacob Bacharach writes about the myth of the U.S. as a particularly wealthy country
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Andrew Scheer and Doug Ford’s Ill Fated Bromance
When I last left Andrew Scheer and Doug Ford, they were hanging out together at the Ontario Con convention. Vowing to go after Justin Trudeau's dastardly carbon tax.And looking like they were about to get hitched. But what a difference just a couple of days can make eh?Now Scheer is desperately looking
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Alex Morris writes about the barriers between the U.S.’ working class and any hope of financial stability and security: In 1960, the annual average health care costs in America were just $146 per person; in 2016, that figure had risen to $10,348.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Evening Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Nick Charity reports on the observations of the UN’s envoy on poverty and human rights that callous and cruel austerian political choices have caused harm to millions of UK residents. – Tess Kalinowski reports on the reality that Doug Ford’s move to remove
Continue readingMontreal Simon: How Doug Ford Is Hurting Andrew Scheer And His Cons
There was Doug Ford last night at the Progressive Conservative Convention, addressing his adoring Ford Nation.No doubt getting one standing ovation after the other. Because he likes them a lot.And even though his government is already struggling to recover from one ugly scandal after the other, and is already running Ontario
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