Give Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party their due: They got a large and enthusiastic crowd out last night to their rally in Calgary against taking action on climate change. Leastways, I’d say 1,500 warm bodies at a rally on any topic should concern the government they came out
Continue readingTag: Doug Ford
Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Nicholas Shaxson writes that the UK’s disproportionate dependence on the financial sector is akin to the resource curse facing Western Canada among so many other jurisdictions: (T)he finance curse had more parallels with the resource curse than we had first imagined. For one
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: How do you like Premier Ford so far?
When you throw a question such as that into the general chatter today, you can really stop people cold. Recently, I threw the question to a group of fellow poker players in Toronto with whom I have been playing for more than a quarter century. Back at our game in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There’s a meeting in Calgary tonight, and the people there are going to be very, very angry
Two well-heeled older men who never wanted for anything during their upbringings and now live comfortable, privileged lives will be getting together in Calgary this evening to talk about just how very, very angry they are. The idea of a $15-per-hour minimum wage makes them very, very angry. The idea
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jim Stanford writes that the D-J Composites lockout should offer Canada a much-needed reminder as to the reality of labour conflict: Through 640 emotional days, the picket line has remained peaceful: the only injury was a union member hit by a vehicle charging
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Doctors are doubling down.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about the troubles the medical specialists are causing for the Ontario Medical Association (OMA). To make matters worse, there is now a breakaway movement among the specialists. Nobody seems worried about our hard-working general practitioners (GPs). This is a fight between specialists. It seems
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lana Payne offers a reminder (with reference to Lars Osberg’s new book) that extreme and growing inequality is a choice rather than an inevitability – but that it also represents a self-reinforcing trend: “The Age of Increasing Inequality: The Astonishing Rise Of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: “What fools these mortals be…”
Just to show how consistent we humans are, we can use the words of William Shakespeare to describe more recent events. What brings this to mind was a recent Ryerson University democracy forum. Chaired by Martin Regg Cohn of the Toronto Star, the debaters were campaign heads for the three
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Oliver Milman reports on new indications that we’re far beyond any reasonable pace in trying to rein in climate change. – The Star’s editorial board discusses why lower-income Ontarians are right to feel like they’re under attack from Doug Ford’s government. And Noah
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Patrick Kingsley points out how children are feeling the effects of the UK’s austerity, including by being driven into avoidable poverty. And Michelle Bellefontaine reports on the predictable damage to Edmonton’s schools even from the cuts being bandied about by Jason Kenney
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP in damage control mode, its troll farm busy, in face of Edmonton Public School Board budget cuts analysis
Alberta’s United Conservative Party Opposition was in furious damage control mode yesterday after Edmonton Public Schools’ release of “hypothetical” estimates of four budget scenarios for what anticipated UCP cuts could mean for students, parents and teachers. The scenarios were based on past hints UCP Leader Jason Kenney has dropped about
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Sickening Saga Of Doug Ford and Faith Goldy
It's now been four days since Doug Ford and Faith Goldy met at the Ford Fest and had their picture taken together.And despite the fact that Goldy is a white supremacist and an alt right extremist, Ford has refused to condemn her, or apologize for his bad judgement.And yesterday was more
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Climate Action hits a wall in Ontario.
To our chagrin and horror the Province of Ontario has turned its back on climate action. In a to-the-point report, environmental commissioner Dianne Saxe made her report to the legislature at Queen’s Park on Tuesday morning. We hear that nobody from the conservative caucus attended. In the afternoon, the environmental
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: No, Dougie isn’t done.
One of the Toronto Star’s better political writers wrote last week that Doug Ford’s motive (for interfering in Toronto’s civic election) might not be pique. That could be right. Doug Ford’s vendetta with certain people in Toronto politics goes way beyond ‘pique’ or even annoyed. And is Dougie done? Not
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Now Can We Call Doug Ford A Fascist?
As you know I like to portray Doug Ford as a political ape, a brutish demagogue drunk on power who is leading Ontario to disaster.But now I think I may have underestimated the threat he poses to this country and its values.Now I think we can all start calling him a
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Doug Ford and the Rise of the Resistance
It's like a nightmare come true. And after only three months in power.It's Saturday night. Parts of Ottawa are looking like a disaster zone after a tornado hit the region. Thousands are in the dark.But please don't bother Doug Ford.He's busy. Read more »
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: …Now, where were we?
It seems to me that we left off when premier Ford of Ontario pulled a rabbit out of his hat and told Toronto council hopefuls to stop running for 47 council wards in Toronto and just run for 25. Since people had been campaigning for weeks for the 47 wards,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Sam Pizzigati discusses the predictable social consequences of allowing inequality to grow: What sort of unintended consequences [result from increased inequality]? The British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have some compelling answers in their powerful new book, The Inner Level. The more
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The furious denunciations of Tzeporah Berman in Alberta are unprecedented, hypocritical and dangerous
Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. — George Orwell, 1984 + + + The stream of vituperation directed at B.C. environmentalist Tzeporah Berman for her consistent opposition to Alberta’s pipeline demands is unprecedented, hypocritical and dangerous. I am not just talking about the death threats
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Doug Ford Shits The Bed
And its not just the nation as a whole that thinks he’s a right douche-bag. It’s here in Ontario: In Ontario Doug Ford is 24% positive – 51% negative (-27). Once a star, Doug Ford is now a case. It happens to all leaders, but as it ever happened as
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