The troubling rise of Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom and President Donald Trump in the United States can both be traced to the inherent problems of geographically based electoral districts. Before Alberta’s election in April, we had a chance to fix those flaws. Instead, the work of
Continue readingTag: electoral boundaries
Views from the Beltline: Will city folk continue to be Alberta’s second class citizens?
Amid debate about adopting a voting system to replace the egregiously undemocratic first-past-the-post, another offense against fair voting is sometimes overlooked. In Alberta, an opportunity to redress that particular sin is underway. In accordance with the Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, a commission has been established to set the constituency
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Will city folk continue to be Alberta’s second class citizens?
Amid debate about adopting a voting system to replace the egregiously undemocratic first-past-the-post, another offense against fair voting is sometimes overlooked. In Alberta, an opportunity to redress that particular sin is underway. In accordance with the Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, a commission has been established to set the constituency
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Hysteriana #nlpoli
The response to the proposed boundaries for districts in the House of Assembly has been…what’s the word for it? … oh yes, totally off-the-wall, batshit crazy. On the Burin peninsula you have a bunch of people who claim that having two members represent Marystown instead of the current one member
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Goldilocks and the three mayors #nlpoli
Almost a week after we all got a peek at the new provincial electoral boundaries, things have settled down in some areas and the insanity has exploded in others. Over on the political side, things have largely settled down. The Liberals, for example have a raft of nominations to re-run
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Political Boundary Issues #nlpoli
Some people thought that the electoral boundaries commission wouldn’t get its job done within 120 days. On Friday, those people found out that was a pretty silly hope on their part. That’s the day the commission released its preliminary maps of the new 36 districts on the island. The district
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Linda McQuaig tears into the Cons for exacerbating the gap between the too-rich-to-pay-taxes class and the rest of us: Ordinary citizens diligently spend hours calculating their income and deductions and meticulously filling out forms, fearful of the probing eye and relentless reach
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your Family Day. – Gerald Caplan comments that it’s long past time to put the Senate out of its misery: Who knew that when well-known Canadians in 2011 begged old acquaintances now turned Conservative Senators to back a bill for cheap generic AIDS drugs for Africa,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tabatha Southey rightly turns Brad Trost into a poster boy for the Harper Cons’ deliberate aversion to critical self-evaluation: We shouldn’t be too quick to judge. Let’s instead take a cue from Conservative MP Brad Trost, who, when questioned regarding the calls, said,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – John Studzinski describes how a sense of social responsibility and a country-wide commitment to making jobs available have placed Germany in a better economic position than its European neighbours: Let me highlight some of the features unique to the Mittelstand model that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Tim Harper writes about Scott Vaughan’s final report as the federal environmental commissioner: Scott Vaughan doesn’t have the profile of some of his contemporaries but as the environmental commissioner bowed out with a final report Tuesday, he reminded official Ottawa how much he
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On clarifications
Shorter Fred DeLorey: Silly media, wasting its time asking whether we Cons were polling over gerrymandering Saskatchewan riding boundaries. That would involve caring about respondents’ opinions. The word you’re looking for is “propagandizing”.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The CP reports on the Canadian applicants rejected by HD Mining as it chose instead to staff its Murray River coal project solely with low-rights temporary immigrant workers: The unions, which are more broadly seeking a judicial review of Ottawa’s decision to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Ray Grigg explains how Idle No More and other decentralized social movements may make for a crucial counterweight to the Harper Cons and their command-and-control philosophy: Systems are always bigger and more complex than the individuals who try to control them. So political
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jeffrey Simpson rightly notes that Alberta (like other resource-heavy jurisdictions) should be trying to diversify its revenue sources and economic development instead of relying on the one-time sale of publicly-owned resources to pay the bills. And Robyn Allan points out why we
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The CCPA looks at Statistics Canada’s latest income data and finds that inequality has been growing steadily across the country over the past few decades. The Canadian Labour Congress notes that corporate tax cuts have led to cash hoarding rather than increased
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission Submission
As Noah has noted, I appeared in front of the federal electoral boundaries commission this afternoon. Here’s a somewhat abridged and polished version of what I had to say – with a general focus on the value of being able to define boundaries based on better evidence in future revisions
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – There wasn’t much doubt from the recent storm of astroturfed Twitter messages that NDP candidate Catherine Fife stood to do well in tomorrow’s Kitchener-Waterloo provincial byelection. But I’m not sure anybody anticipated she’d have a sixteen-point lead over all comers – and the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Linda McQuaig highlights how attacks on workers are used to distract attention from the systematic transfer of wealth to those who need it least: As long as the right can keep workers envious and suspicious of each other, the focus won’t be on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – I’ll follow up with one extra note from Mark Carney’s address to the CAW – as the headlines seem to have missed a rather important point about the relative effect of the Canadian dollar and even the widest possible definition of labour
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