This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Eric Levitz discusses the glaring gap between Americans’ policy preferences, and the outcomes from a political system which falls far short of representing most people in the face of the influence of the ultra-rich. And Matthew Yglesias comments on the hack gap
Continue readingTag: Doug Ford
Babel-on-the-Bay: Dougie did it!
There is an explanation for this. I have a younger brother whose name happens to be Douglas. When we were young, the standard answer to a bloody nose or a broken lamp was always “Dougie did it.” I can admit now that if the fresh blood was mine, I could
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Kate Aronoff interviews Mariana Mazzucato about The Value of Everything, including some important discussion about the relationship between governments and markets: Aronoff: You talk a lot about the power of the state in shaping markets. What does the idea that the government
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Day the Federal Liberals Deflated Doug Ford
It's the kind of news that can make some people scream in horror, and others like myself keel over laughing.But believe it or not, Doug Ford has only been Premier of Ontario for 111 days, and although he's been acting like a bull or a hog in a China shop, and clearly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rupert Neate reports on the latest Credit Suisse study showing that wealth continues to concentrate in the hands of a few ultra-rich individuals. And Lawrence Mishel and Julia Wolfe take note of a similar trend for U.S. wages, particularly when it comes to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Cost of challenging climate change.
The bills keep rolling in. Dougie and the Deplorables should take their show on tour and give things a rest at Queen’s Park. This provincial government, that ran on promises of saving us taxpayers money, ran up bills over the summer that make the previous liberal regime look like pikers.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Robert Cribb, Patti Sonntag, Michael Wrobel, P.W. Elliott and Carolyn Jarvis examine the Saskatchewan Party government’s utter refusal to monitor or regulate pollution caused by the oil industry – and the people who have been kept at risk as a result. And Geoff
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Doug Ford and the Billion Dollar Carbon Tax Boondoggle
Earlier today I wrote about the way Canadians could punish the members of the Carbon Gang for waging war on the federal carbon tax.Even though scientists believe that they are the best way to fight climate change, and green our economy.Well now it appears that one of the Carbon Gang members,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Ben Chu reports on the conclusion from the chief economist of the Bank of England that decreased unionization in the UK is responsible for reducing wages for all workers by .75% per year over the past 30 years. – Hassan Yussuff warns
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP Leader Jason Kenney drops hints of radical plans during policy fan dance before Calgary Chamber of Commerce
A recent speech by Jason Kenney to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce indicates the Alberta Opposition leader intends to ram a radical program through the Legislature with minimal public consultation if his United Conservative Party wins the election likely to be held in 2019. Oddly, it took almost a week
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, and the Carbon Tax Deniers
When I first saw this picture of Doug Ford and Jason Kenney staring into each other's eyes I thought they wanted everyone to know how much they love each other. But sadly I was wrong.It seems it was just their way of letting everyone know how much they hate the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tiffany Crawford interviews Kirsten Zickfeld about the contradiction between new fossil fuel infrastructure and any serious attempt to reverse our climate breakdown. Murray Mandryk offers a reminder of the local costs of climate change. Fatima Syed highlights how Doug Ford’s supposed climate plan
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Michael Harris writes that we shouldn’t expect politicians to lead the way toward the action we need to combat climate change. Katie Dangerfield reports on new research showing that the economic effects of carbon pricing are modest, while ignoring climate change will have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, following up on this post about the potential for a truly federal carbon pricing system if right-wing provincial governments keep griping about having the ability to develop alternatives. For further reading…– Anna Desmarais reports on the NDP’s push for climate change policy to meet the standards set out in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Charles Smith writes about the importance of a living wage as a matter of fairness and justice. But Stephanie Taylor reports on Regina City Council’s lamentable vote against ensuring that the people who make the city function are able to earn enough
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Can Canadians live with this?
It is more important than we knew. We are talking about the environment. Our environmental poster boy Justin Trudeau has made too many promises that he has no way of keeping. Our Pollyanna environment minister Catherine McKenna makes promises she cannot keep and quotes government policy that will never happen.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Evelyn Forget makes the case for a national basic income which would provide a more stable fiscal base for Canada’s provinces as well as its citizens. And Dennis Raphael writes about the social murder resulting from the wanton destruction of income supports and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP candidates’ reaction to storm over photos with ‘Soldiers of Odin’: We had no idea!
They crashed the party, did they? But I wonder why they picked a United Conservative Party affair to crash? I speak, of course, of the “Soldiers of Odin,” the unsavoury anti-immigrant group founded by a Finnish white supremacist whose Edmonton chapter’s members dress like bikers and have been making a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On necessary measures
I’ve previously linked to columns by Paul Wells and Jen Gerson on the coordinated right-wing attack on carbon pricing. (And even the Notley government has made a show of withdrawing from a coordinated federal climate change plan, though without abandoning its own climate change policy.) But let’s not assume that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Carbon taxes are the Obamacare of Canada: invented, then cynically abandoned, by the right
“Putting a price on carbon” was always going to be unpopular with people who use fossil fuels out of necessity and for fun – viz., a large portion of the population in a well-off northern country that, climate change notwithstanding, still gets pretty cold in the winter. In other words,
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