It’s certainly a plus to see a new site encouraging Saskatchewan citizens to speak out against the Saskatchewan Party’s planned attacks on workers. But while Brad Wall’s party obviously has its own reasons for limiting any discussion to the issues it’s chosen, there’s no reason for anybody making an outside
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Mia Rabson writes that patronage and secrecy are thriving under the Harper Cons, even after they’ve lost any excuse about other parties’ ability to stop their plans: But when the federal appointments process has no transparency, any time someone with political ties as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your long weekend reading. – Jim Stanford highlights how anti-labour “right to work” policy is spreading from the U.S. into multiple Canadian provinces: It’s clear we’re going to have to gear up our arguments on right-to-work laws, dues check-off, the Rand Formula, etc. In the last year
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: What To Expect When You’re Electing: Part 1 – What’s At Stake
vote-smart-button.jpg Environmental and energy issues became one of the central issues of the 2008 U.S. presidential election. While the economy itself took center stage, energy issues were right behind it, being pushed by the insufferable chant of “Drill baby drill.” In the four years that have followed, the U.S. has
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Parasites
Parasites are nasty things that take the lifeblood of other creatures, and escape to reproduce with it, leaving damage and disease in their wake. There are wood ticks and deer ticks. How do they differ from Spillopec (Sinopec) and Pains Midstream Oil [Spill], and other Ethical Oil companies? The oil
Continue readingCanadian Trends: There is no Canada, only Zuul
Perspective is everything. When a Canadian citizen looks up at their government, they see a democratic institution being stolen from them through deceptive practices. When an international corporation looks down at a government, they see a tool for the implementation of policy. To understand the multi-facted implementation of policy and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Chantal Hebert theorizes that Canada’s political scene has taken every turn Jack Layton might have hoped for since his passing last summer, while Gerald Caplan discusses what the NDP needs to do next: As the Liberals flounder their way through the next year,
Continue readingCanadian Trends: Debt fuelled economy unsustainable? Gee, what a surprise
So, can we finally drop the act? Debt-fuelled economy unsustainable, Carney says. Canada’s relatively healthy economy has been largely based on borrowed money but the situation cannot go on indefinitely, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney warned Thursday. Relative to the circus currently going on in the EU, or the
Continue readingCanadian Trends: One big idea: Banking Oversight? Please.
Emerging from their resort world leaders have come up with one idea that just might work. Banking Oversight. No seriously, this is what they are spending money coming up with. Click the link, see for yourself. Of course their brand of banking oversight is new. It’s nothing like the banking
Continue readingCanadian Trends: Expensive resorts and lavish dinners, austerity is in the air
The G20 leaders continue to excel at making a credible case for austerity. Hunkered down in a Mexican luxury resort the reality of the world most people live in is no where to be found near them. Between lavish meals economic talk erupts, lots of talk which these leaders insist
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – It’s a few months old, but the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s comparison of U.S. states with a zero personal income tax to those with the highest tax levels looks like one of the most clear refutations yet of the idea that
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Media Helps Sell The Myth Of “Job Killing Regulations”
unemployment-numbers.jpg Repeat something often enough, and it becomes true. That phrase has been a common theme among think tanks and politicians for decades. And sadly, there is a lot of truth behind that statement. But the claim itself relies on the belief that people will not seek out the truth
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your day. – Thomas Walkom highlights why we should be nothing but dubious about the austerians’ call to slash public supports: The Harper Conservatives are scaling back spending on national parks to save about $20 million. But at the same time they are planning to spend
Continue readingCanadian Trends: Contrarian optimism and the omnibus ballet
The Canadian economy, ‘the envy of the world‘. Remember that? Of course that in itself was a complete lie more of which is revealed all the time. But who needs memory when you have what passes for politics? For it is only in the world of politics that a government can
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – The OECD is the latest independent observer to confirm Thomas Mulcair’s point that dutch disease is a real problem for Canadian manufacturing. And Marc Lee calls for a green industrial revolution as a better path toward economic development and environmental responsibility than
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: CEAP Adscam 2.0?
The annoying Canadian Economic Action Plan acronym CEAP appears in the latest Conservative phone calling scandal because a company Dean Del Mastro hired, got CEAP money to develop GeoVote. It’s unclear to me at this moment exactly how the economy would be stimulated by a program that identifies voters geographically
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: “My place is destroyed” – Albertan
Plains Midstream Canada, wow, what an ironic name given their midstream oil leak on the plains of Alberta. I hope Plains Midschool Canada, or Plains Midlake Canada don’t operate in Regina. Gord Johnston grew up on the banks of the Red Deer River, at a place his family first settled
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Erika Shaker points out how Quebec’s student protests are a natural and justified reaction to the policy choice to saddle young workers with debt: (T)he effects of student debt are not exactly “character building”. Postponement of owning a home or starting a family.
Continue readingelementalpresent: How to Eliminate Tuition Fees (and do it right)
Quebec student group CLASSE has come forward with an offer of what it would take to end their almost four-month strike: the elimination of tuition fees by 2016. The plan is based on taxing banks, starting at 0.14 per cent per cent this year, and rising to 0.7 per cent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – May 8, 2012
Tuesday, May 8 saw another day of debate on the Cons’ omnibus budget legislation – and another day of general non-responsiveness from the Cons as to its actual effects. But that wasn’t for lack of important contributions from the opposition benches. The Big Issue Marie-Claude Morin raised issues about the
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