You too could embark on a new lucrative career in the Canadian civil service! With little fanfare, the Conservatives announced that they are back in the race in Quebec provincial politics yet again! That’s right! Despite not having had a MNA sitting in the Quebec National Assembly since 1935, the
Continue readingTag: Harper government
Northern Insights / Perceptivity: Regulators throwing loaded dice
Propaganda is a tool favoured by leaders who suppose unthinking citizens can’t determine the common interest. Noam Chomsky says it is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. The tar sands extraction industry and parasitical agents like Ethical Oil, along with Stephen Harper’s government, are investing
Continue readingTeresa Healy's Blog: Map reading equipment
Early on in my courtship with the man himself we still hadn’t figured out the best way to drive from Eastern Ontario to Western Massachusetts. Mapquest would have us go straight through Montreal but I, familiar with the joy of discovering great secondary roads, was sure that there would be
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: When politics and science diverge
Regardless of its ultimate conclusions about the decline of Fraser River sockeye salmon, the Cohen Commission‘s December hearings may have exposed the most critical of all issues: federal and provincial regulators operate for the present day benefit of industry instead of in the public’s long term interests. Dr. Alexandra Morton
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: SSM Legal Muddle Resolved!
Nice to see that the Harper Government has moved rapidly to resolve legal confusion over the issue of same-sex marriage. As reported in The Globe & Mail today: “All same sex marriages performed in Canada are legal and the law will be changed to ensure that divorce is readily available
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Toward amoral petro-state
An Open Reply to Joe Oliver’s Propaganda for the Petro State ENERGY & EQUITY: Nikiforuk joins the fray. Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee “Canada’s Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver has just pulled a Hugo Chavez: he’s penned a formal and desperate attack on democracy and interfered in the nation’s allegedly impartial
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: ‘Dinner for two’ for first journalist who dares to explain Conservative ideology
Journalists in the mainstream Canadian media are being intimidated from fully describing the soulless ideology practised by the Harper Conservative government – at least this has been my impression for some time now. Wanting to find out what journalists are really writing about the Tories and neoliberalism, I spent some
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Conservatives ready to serve paymasters
Harper warns of ‘hijacked’ hearings on Northern Gateway pipeline, Bob Weber, The Canadian Press: EDMONTON – Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he’s listening to concerns that hearings for the Northern Gateway pipeline will be “hijacked” by foreign interests. “We have to have processes in Canada that come to a decision
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Harper’s boondoggles
F-35 production a troubling example of Pentagon spending, Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Dec. 26, 2011: “Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took the Senate floor on Dec. 15 and described the F-35 fighter program as “a mess.” “What upset the senator was not just that the cost of each plane had risen
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Better served by bird brains?
Our friends at the Blog Borg Collective noticed The Province displaying either low-class ignorant journalism or sophisticated and subtle humour. Apparently the newspaper was uncertain if the current session of the Legislature began with a “thrown speech” or a “throne speech.” Blogger North Van’s Grumps also tweaks governments for policy
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Very Conservative Christmas Message
Couldn’t resist this one. Thanks to Mark-Leiren-Young. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Merry Christmas, Diane Finley
Actually, the title of this post was just to get your attention. I would indeed be an unfeeling man were I to wish the minister of Human Resources and Skills Development the best of the season when so many Canadians are suffering as a result of her inept attempt to
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Globe & Mail demonstrates what the press can be
Instead of being handmaids to the rich and powerful – the usual role of Canada’s media – the Globe and Mail offers Gerald Caplan’s commentary; Be very afraid: Stephen Harper is inventing a new Canada. As noted by the reader who pointed me to this article, “Looks like this guy
Continue readingHarper’s Canada and Iceland’s President Olafur Grimmson
There was an excellent Globe editorial by Gerald Caplan focusing on how Harper has changed Canada in today’s paper. Give it a read. It’s good to remind ourselves what progressives are fighting for (and against). Near the end of the piece Caplan mentions an interview on CBC’s The Sunday Edition
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: There’s No Business Like Snow Business
When I was young, there used to be a polite term for B.S. We called it a snow job, and that seems as apt a description as any of the latest Harper government capitulation to the cancerous tentacles of unfettered capitalism running virtually unchecked throughout this country thanks to our
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: U.S. Steel Loses Its Appeal, So Harper Government Capitulates
Those who think that unfettered capitalism is the greatest gift to humanity imaginable will rejoice in the news that even though American steel giant U.S. Steel lost its appeal against the Canadian federal government that was seeking a $10,000 daily fine for the company’s failure to live up to employment
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Bully for Him
It is probably largely due to both the verbal and physical abuse I suffered as an elementary and high school student in the Catholic school system many years ago that I am so sensitive to abuses of authority, be it individual or institutional. I also suspect my experiences play a
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Star and Its Readers
If the Harper government keeps an ‘enemies list‘, which, quite frankly, I have little doubt that it does, given its infernal embrace of ‘values’ that are repellent to Canadians who believe in fairness, ethics, justice, and the rule of law, high on its list must be The Toronto Star and
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Public interest journalism in BC?
December 1, Glacier Media Inc. completed the acquisition of Postmedia Network Inc.’s community newspapers in British Columbia and the Times Colonist. . The Lower Mainland Publishing Group media assets include: North Shore News, Vancouver Courier, Burnaby Now, New Westminster Record/Royal City Record, Richmond News Delta Optimist Surrey Now Coquitlam Now
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Future of wild salmon depends on volunteers
Alexandra Morton: “…If the leaked document really says 100% of one run of Fraser sockeye tested positive for ISA virus, we have two very big problems. One, Justice Cohen instructed DFO to provide all documents relevant to the health of the Fraser sockeye and this was not one of them.
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