Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Jordon Cooper rightly argues that Brad Wall’s plan to slash education will only doom Saskatchewan to be further trapped in boom-and-bust resource cycles. And Toby Sanger discusses (PDF) how Saskatchewan can get back on track without imposing cruel cuts on the people who
Continue readingTag: Ed Broadbent
Accidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the first few steps of the federal NDP’s leadership race. For further reading…– CBC News reported on Peter Julian’s campaign launch, while Alex Ballingall covered Charlie Angus’ and Aaron Wherry wrote about Guy Caron’s. And Mia Rabson reports that Niki Ashton will officially announce her candidacy next week.–
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the first few steps of the federal NDP’s leadership race. For further reading…– CBC News reported on Peter Julian’s campaign launch, while Alex Ballingall covered Charlie Angus’ and Aaron Wherry wrote about Guy Caron’s. And Mia Rabson reports that Niki Ashton will officially announce her candidacy next week.–
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Support by Rachel Notley for Donald Trump’s Keystone XL Pipeline decision may be unnerving, but it’s politics
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley at yesterday’s news conference in Edmonton (Government of Alberta photo by Chris Schwarz). Below: Greenpeace Canada campaigner Mike Hudema, U.S. President Donald Trump (who may not appear exactly as illustrated), and Otto von Bismarck (who, actually, often pretty much did). Premier Notley just pledged to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Owen Jones argues that UK Labour needs to make far more effort to connect with working-class citizens in order to hold off the populist right, while Jamelle Bouie examines Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns as a worthwhile model for uniting groups of disaffected
Continue readingAlex's Blog: Alex’s Blog 2016-05-12 18:36:30
A couple of days back, Ed Broadbent, Hugh Segal and I published an op-ed making the case for some form of proportional representation. Yesterday the government announced its process for assessing a range of options, making 2015 the last federal election under our first past the post system. And today the editorial pages are awash … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how Justin Trudeau’s control over the federal electoral reform committee looks to extend a familiar pattern of top-down government into the design of our electoral system. (And I’ll add one point here which didn’t make it into the column: the …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Tom Bawden notes that inequality is as much a problem in our relative contribution to climate change as it is in so many other areas of life. And Steven Rosenfeld lists some of the ways in which the increasingly-weal…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On historical context
Twice before, the federal NDP has been in roughly the same position it holds now, emerging from an election with a relatively high historical seat count that was nonetheless disappointing due to the expectation that a seasoned and respected leader could have done better. After the 1988 election, Ed Broadbent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Michael Hiltzig examines the evidence showing that austerity serves as a major obstacle to economic growth. And Ian Hussey argues that Alberta (like other jurisdictions) is out of budgetary balance due to a lack of income rather than any need to cut
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Genevieve LeBaron, Johanna Montgomerie, and Daniela Tepe-Belfrage write that inequality is getting worse in the UK based on class, gender and all kinds of other grounds, while a supposed “recovery” isn’t benefiting anybody except the people who least need it: (E)conomic policies
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There’s no way the Broadbent Institute should have hired a high-profile strikebreaker to moderate a panel on Alberta’s election
PHOTOS: A striker, at right, confronts a security guard during one of the dark days of the 1999-2000 labour dispute at the Calgary Herald. Below: Calgary Herald political columnist Don Braid and Broadbent Institute Executive Director Rick Smith. I was genuinely shocked when I learned a few days ago that
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Amanda Lang Interviews Ed Broadbent
If you have as low an opinion of the CBC’s disgraced chief business correspondent, Amanda Lang, as I do, watch the following video. I think you will find that, with her absolutist questions typical of the extreme right and the intellectually deficient, she does not exceed expectations. For Broadbent’s thoughts
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Who leads Canada’s progressives?
Canadian media are a lazy bunch. They follow the paths of least resistance and false assumptions. Take this past week when some supposed progressives were gathered at the Broadbent Institute in Ottawa for its Progress Summit. The one question that was never answered was ‘Who were the Liberal Progressives at
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Elias Isquith interviews Mark Blyth about his book on the disastrous consequences of austerity, while Paul Krugman writes that austerity is particularly sure to cause economic destruction when combined with a push toward consumer deleveraging. And Bruce Campbell looks to Syriza as
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Canadian Wealth Gap – Far Worse Than Most Think
We hear a great deal about the giants who walk among us – the Canadian masters and mistresses of the universe, all those ‘self-made’ men and women who accomplished their feats thanks to daring, sheer hard work, and exclusive reliance on their own resources. They didn’t ask for any ‘handouts.’
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Child poverty a problem worth eliminating in wealthy Alberta
Tweet November 24, 2014 marked 25 years since members of the Canadian Parliament voted unanimously to end child poverty in our country. The motion introduced by then-NDP leader Ed Broadbent supported of abolishing child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. Twenty-five years later, we are far away from reaching this goal.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The 25th anniversary of Parliament’s unanimous – if failed – commitment to eliminate child poverty has given rise to plenty of worthwhile commentary. Marco Chown Oved talks to Ed Broadbent about what the resolution meant at the time (as well as how it
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Good advice for Alberta New Democrats from Quebec: this time, make it easy for voters to support you
Ray Guardia, one of the key architects of the federal NDP’s 2011 breakthrough in Quebec, at yesterday’s closing session of the Broadbent Institute’s 2014 Progress Summit in Ottawa. Below: Environmental activist Tzeporah Berman. OTTAWA Here’s a tip for Alberta New Democrats from one of the principal architects of Jack Layton’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Chris Hall notes that Brad Butt’s admitted fabrications can only hurt the Cons’ already-lacking credibility when it comes to forcing through their unfair elections legislation. And Ed Broadbent sums up what’s at stake as the Cons try to rewrite the rules to
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