I’m an outsider to Alberta politics so I will attempt to refrain from making any statement about who I think should win or what the important issues are in the election. But there are some disturbing, anti-democratic threads in the wave of editorial endorsements for the ruling PC party in Alberta
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Pop The Stack: On the significance of sound and fury.
Oh journalists, you love a strong response to an unanswerable question don’t you? The media are really into nailing down what each party leader thinks about coalitions after the next election at the moment. Case in point, this week’s little drama with Liberal leader Justin Trudeau trying to answer questions about
Continue readingPop The Stack: Progressive Voters Unite! …Around Someone…
So in case you hadn’t heard there is a by-election coming up on Monday, three in fact, and the polls look interesting. The most exciting is the by-election in Calgary Centre where polls indicate a three way race between the Conservatives, the Liberals and (deep breadth) the Green Party. Now
Continue readingPop The Stack: Progressive Voters Unite! …Around Someone…
So in case you hadn’t heard there is a by-election coming up on Monday, three in fact, and the polls look interesting. The most exciting is the by-election in Calgary Centre where polls indicate a three way race between the Conservatives, the Liberals and (deep breadth) the Green Party. Now
Continue readingPop The Stack: For Once, I’m Glad I’m Not Voting
Democracy is the greatest sport on Earth. I feed on elections and leadership contests but I’m kind of glad I don’t have a vote this Saturday in the NDP leadership convention. Since I don’t have a vote I haven’t spent as much time researching all the leaders as I could
Continue readingPop The Stack: For Once, I’m Glad I’m Not Voting
Democracy is the greatest sport on Earth. I feed on elections and leadership contests but I’m kind of glad I don’t have a vote this Saturday in the NDP leadership convention. Since I don’t have a vote I haven’t spent as much time researching all the leaders as I could
Continue readingPop The Stack: Liberals Turn My Dreams a Whiter Shade of Pale
I just flipped on the radio and Michael Ignatieff is talking about electoral reform. Am I in some kind of Fringe-like alternate universe where my dreams (ahem, remember The Liberal Nuclear Option?) are about to become reality? Well, not exactly. Iggy…I believe you have a large bucket of ice world water for me? I’ve said […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Harper’s Constitutional Double Down Strategy
This was meant to be a reply to the cat’s latest column, regarding Stephen Harper’s outrageous stance on forming government in a minority situation in parliament. Something went wrong with the form so I’ll post it up here instead. I think Harper understands fully, which makes it worse. He is purposely setting up a constitutional crisis down the road […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Old People Vote Like Crazy, Now Will Crazy Young People Vote?
Hey “YoungPeople™”, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this but…there are a LOT of old people around. By young people I’ll be very broad here and say everyone who is young at heart and/or under 35 (I’m in there somewhere…ahem). Basically, the people in the 1950′s were so happy after the war that they […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: To Think Outside the Box, Sometimes You Need to Leave the Box
Some very offensive man this morning on the panel on CBC radio called Ignatieff a “carpet bagger” and chuckled. No one called him out really, they just moved on. When I hear that I hear that he is essentially attacking Ignatieff for having a successful career abroad trying to contribute something to improving the world […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: This month of May don’t just stand there with your arms folded tight
I just looked into these vote mobs that LeadNow is encouraging young people at campuses around the country to create. I noticed Guelph and a few others already had some videos up. The UVic video is a lip-dubbing extravaganza. This prompted me to suggest that UBC has got to do one of these. But really, students […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: The Liberal Nuclear Option
I’ve suggested this before but here it is again in brief, can anyone explain to me what the downside of this would be for the Liberals? Nuclear Option: The Liberal party makes a statement in the last two weeks of the campaign such as If we form government, our party will put forward legislation to […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Deja Vu Election All Over Again
Hey there, election season in Canada is here. Can you smell the ballot papers, the baby powder, the stench of hateful attack ads? Doesn’t make you feel alive… Well, unfortunately this election has come at a bad time for me so I won’t be posting much this election. I’ve got a thesis to write (in fact, […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Every Vote is a Strategic Vote
Fellow DemReform blogger CuriosityCat has a great post today on a little tidbit that passed the lips of Jack Layton: “The way to stop Stephen Harper from getting a majority is to take Conservative seats one by one, and defeat the MPs who are there. That’s how you stop Mr. Harper from getting a majority,” I […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: The Real Tyrant in Canada is You
Today, as the Liberals put forward a motion to find the Conservative government in contempt for withholding information and misleading parliament, House government leader John Baird used the phrase “Tyranny of the Majority” to describe the action. I wrote last week about another MP using this same outrageous phrase. It is actually quite surprising for Minister Baird to […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Andrew Coyne speaks to the Liberal Party, but will they listen?
I’m just growing more and more fond of Andrew Coyne as time goes on. Maybe I’m getting older and more conservative, or maybe he’s getting less so. Or just maybe, the old templates of “conservative” and “liberal” aren’t nearly as useful as they once seemed to be. That is essentially the point of Coyne fantastic […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Liberals Need to Stand Out and Stand Up
Gordon Gibson has a nice piece today in the Globe and Mail today on how the Liberals can differentiate themselves in the next election and help the country with a big problem at the same time. It turns out, Gordon agrees with me, that Electoral Reform is the safest and most exciting issue for the […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Harper plays games while democracy crumbles
My comment on the Globe and Mails recent story: Tories seek parliamentary extension This is a non story, by casting it as some kind of tricky dilemma for the Liberals and NDP the Globe is accepting the Conservative game. You can almost hear the writer salivating at the dramatic irony of the opposition voting against […]
Continue readingPop The Stack: Liberals stand out like a raisin in a raisin muffin.
Its clear that the with the prorogation of parliament the Conservative party has wasted most of its ‘benefit of the doubt’ support that was keeping it ahead of the Liberals. A new poll shows the two parties are neck in neck in national support. Just as clearly, this statistical tie has not come about because […]
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