They kissed us once. Will they kiss us again? Alas, in Alberta right now, there’s no way to be cert- cert- certain. Alison Redford chats with a typical Alberta voter last spring – although, Alberta politicians and their supporters may not turn out to be exactly as illustrated. Below: The
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Bill Curry reports on what looks like a thoroughly warped view of the role of the Minister of Justice and Parliament in assessing the constitutionality of legislation (h/t to bigcitylib): Ottawa is crafting legislation that risks running afoul of the Charter of Rights
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Misleading with statistics: the Fraser Institute on health care and ‘value for money’
This just in! The latest mainstream media news straight from the Vancouver studios of the Fraser Institute, complete with no fact checking! No sooner noted than illuminated – yesterday morning mainstream media was credulously reporting another “Fraser Factoid,” this one a report by the far-right political lobby group purporting to
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Calling The Canadian Revenue Agency. Hellooo? Hellloooo?
The Fraser Institute continues to take ($150,000) in Koch Brothers money, and claims zero political activity in 2011. If the Sierra Club is in violation, you would think Fraser would be. Mind you, its probably not enough to bitch. Someone would probably have to lodge a complaint with the Compliance Division
Continue readingAlberta Diary: In 2011, Fraser Institute continued to take Koch Brothers donations and file tax returns claiming no political activity
Michael Walker, right, President of the Fraser Institute Foundation and former director of the Fraser Institute, looks at a copy of the Edmonton Sun with a well-known columnist from that newspaper. The great public intellectuals of the Canadian right may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Consistent Fraser Institute donors
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Why wait? Read 2013’s shocking political headlines right now on Alberta Diary!
The Dagny Taggarts, a synchronized skating team from Ottawa get ready to do their popular routine, “Where Is John Galt?” Defence Minister Joan Crockatt is in the front row, second from right. Below: Senator Tom Flanagan; U of C economics student Kim Jong-un, in full Calgary drag; Deputy Premier Thomas
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Why The Income Inequality Deniers Are Wrong
This article was published in an abridged form today in the National Post. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/21/armine-yalnizyan-sorry-andrew-coyne-but-income-inequality-is-a-real-problem/ I like this opening better so I posted it here. You couldn’t have made it through 2012 without running into a story about income inequality. Chances are, it made you think about how you fit into
Continue readingAlberta Diary: The Stephen Harper model for Wildrose power: promise free votes and deliver the Borg Hive
Singing along: What we were promised by the Reform-Conservative platform. Below: What we got. Alberta’s Wildrose Party blossomed at the edges of the same muddy spring whence sprang the federal Reform Party of Preston Manning and Stephen Harper. As is well known, the Reform Party went on to engineer the
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Who’d a thunk it? #nlpoli #cdnpoli
There is something truly frigged up in a world where the Premier who has admitted to fiscal mismanagement by she and her colleagues for years and hasn’t done anything to correct the problem can be named the best fiscal manager among provincial Premier’s in Canada. In her current budget, Kathy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Paul Boothe discusses the dangers of giving in to resource-boom hype rather than planning for sustainable development:The resource roller coaster and the crazy things it causes us to do are not new. Remember the…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Yves Engler thoroughly discusses how the Harper Cons’ foreign policy has included bullying countries around the world into placing the profits Canadian mining interests over the needs of their own citizens – …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- David Macdonald takes a closer look at a Fraser Institute study on income mobility, and finds strong evidence that there’s a significant lack of mobility at both the bottom and the top of Canada’s inco…
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Newsflash: Canadian PM’s American Idol supports Stephane Dion-esque carbon tax shift
Note: for non-Canadian readers (or, indeed for Canadian readers who don’t follow politics) Stephane Dion was the milquetoast who led the Liberal Party of Canada to its then-worst-ever federal election result in 2008. He ran on a campaign of a carbon tax shift (“The Green Shift“), for which the Conservative Party mocked and savaged him. We’ll […]
Cowichan Conversations: It Is Time For Our Politicians To Legalize Marijuana-No More Bullshit!
Richard Hughes-Political Blogger The growing list of politicians that are calling for the legalization and or decriminalization of marijuana has just gained another truth teller. The latest to join that list is former BC Liberal Solicitor-General Kash Heed. Former Solictor-General-BC Liberal MLA Joins The Growing List Of Politicians Calling For
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Advice to Alison Redford: Own fair and reasonable, and leave the comedy riffs about Danielle Smith to us bloggers
Yuck! Alberta Opposition Leader Danielle Smith learns about veterinary medicine at the source. Or was this the lesson on Wisconsin’s “grassroots democracy”? Whatever. After that, she had cheese in Wisconsin. Below: Alberta Premier Alison Redford. I recall hearing somewhere the image experts have come to the conclusion that “if you
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Michael Harris follows up on the previous activism to save the Experimental Lakes Area by noting that efforts to work with the Harper Cons are providing both divisive and disastrous: (J)ust a few months after the Death of Evidence rally, another event is
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Time to call out the media for uncritically reprinting ‘Fraser Facts’
Sun News Network columnist Lorne Gunter, bottom centre, listens as a Fraser Institute “senior fellow” tells a wonderful story about the benefits of private health insurance. Right wing bloviators may not be exactly as … oh, never mind! Below: The real Mr. Gunter. Claims by the market-fundamentalist Fraser Institute widely
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Walkom discusses how the McGuinty Libs are going beyond imposing immediate pay freezes on the public sector, and instead passing what’s better seen as the War on Workers Measures Act – giving Ontario’s government the power to dictate labour outcomes by decree
Continue readingAlberta Diary: The only sector where you can’t have a union is the only one with no health and safety rules? Explain, please…
Alabama farm workers in 1935 – not so different from Alabamberta farmworkers in 2012. Below: Premier Alison Redford. LETHBRIDGE, Alberta Literally everybody – and that includes Alberta Premier Alison Redford – knows that permitting an industry to “voluntarily” self-regulate the health and safety of its own workers amounts to a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Labour Day Links
Assorted content for your Labour Day reading. – The Star comments on the place of the union movement in the face of a determined push to silence workers: Given the challenges ahead, and all the ground that’s been lost so far, it remains to be seen if the new union
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