I doubt that this performance will endear Mr. Trudeau to women or indigenous communities: Recommend this Post
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Politics and its Discontents: Breaking News! Wilson-Raybould Has Resigned
You can read her official announcement here. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Where Is The Public Good In All Of This?
H/t Greg Perry His fulminations about the need for a public inquiry notwithstanding, it should surprise no one that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer met with officials of SNC-Lavalin to discuss the criminal charges they were facing. But to simply accuse him of his obvious hypocrisy and dismiss the controversy of
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Some Habits Die Hard
In some ways, it is hard to believe that the old Liberal propensity for corrupt coziness with corporate chums has reasserted itself so quickly, barely three years into Mr. Trudeau’s tenure. In other ways, it is not hard to believe at all. After all, old habits die hard. Th latest
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Pleasing Words Mean Nothing
Unless they are in the thrall of rabid partisanship, nice hair, sunny smiles or pleasing but empty rhetoric, most people, I suspect, would agree that the Trudeau government has been a massive disappointment. And while the list of its failure to live up to its promise is long, for me
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: On The Carbon Tax
Now that Ontario, under the thuggish leadership of Doug Ford, is in the process of withdrawing Ontario from its cap-and-trade alliance with Quebec and California, baring a failure of political will, next year will see Justin Trudeau imposing a carbon tax here and in other recalcitrant provinces. Despite the fact
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: About That Odour In The Air
While The Great Pretender and his faux Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, continue to utter platitudes about climate-change action while visiting formerly Beautiful British Columbia, smoke is not the only pollutant in the air. The unmistakable stench of a steaming pile of bovine excrement is also becoming
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Neoliberal Friends With Benefits
Kinder Morgan couldn’t have a better friend than Justin Trudeau: Texas-based Kinder Morgan made a seven-fold return on the sale of its Trans Mountain pipeline system to Canada’s federal government, according to a new report that also warns the federal budget deficit could jump by 36 per cent because of
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Justin Trudeau: A Reality Check
While Canadians are rightfully applauding the retaliatory tariffs the Trudeau government will be imposing on the United States, my concern is that distraction will diminish the outrage that same government’s nationalization of the Kinder Morgan pipeline has engendered. Far too many people, it seems, are incapable or unwilling to hold
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Blood On Our Hands
As Canadians, we like to walk around feeling good about ourselves, convinced both of our good intentions and our innate rectitude. Ours is a generally peaceful society, the rule of law largely respected. We look to the violent domestic madness that is an undeniable part of the U.S., and we
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Full Of Sound And Fury
… signifying nothing. So says Macbeth about life in Act V Scene 5 of Shakespeare’s eponymous tragedy. He might also have been talking about the ‘policies’ of the Justin Trudeau government. Watching Global News last night, I was struck by the sheer lack of substance so apparent in the Liberals’
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Words Versus Deeds
Our Prime Minister, always keen to appear as a progressive on the international stage, is decidedly less so at home, as recent events are demonstrating. Another reminder of the gross disparity between his words and deeds came when he met in London with Teresa May, who is planning to ban
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Last Gasps?
Some days, writing this blog is quite easy, as I only have to turn to the letters page of my newspaper to aggregate the well-considered thoughts of my fellow Canadians. Today is such a day. To believe our Prime Minister, we can have our economic and environmental cake served upon
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Defining The National Interest
As the video included in yesterday’s post shows, Justin Trudeau likes to defend the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline as in ‘the national interest.” The term itself is a contentious one, given its nebulous nature. For the Prime Minister, it seems to mean economic growth, moving Alberta’s bitumen to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: That Was Then; This Is Now
Funny about campaign promises. Most people take them with a large grain of salt, yet once in awhile, large segments of us are drawn in by the hope for a better day, hope fueled by an earnest politician who seems intent on upending the traditional shoddy, cynical and ultimately heart-breaking
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: That’s Another Fine Mess He’s Gotten Himself Into
In a post yesterday, The Mound offered a searing assessment of Justin Trudeau’s abject failure on the climate-change file. Only the most ardent acolytes of the Prime Minister will fail to see that his soaring rhetoric has far outpaced his level of achievement. Says Mound: Raising public awareness about climate
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Are Two Sellouts Pending?
He’s loved of the distracted multitude, multitude, who like not in their judgement, but their eyes. Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 3 As Claudius in the above states, there will always be those who suspend their deeper thinking when evaluating public figures, preferring to reflexively accept the public images the latter
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A New Record In Canadian Debt
It is $1 trillion and counting. While I am by no means a fiscal hawk, such a high debt level should concern all of us, given the looming spectre of interest rate hikes, which means the cost of servicing that massive debt has only one way to go – up.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Who Do You Trust?
When it comes to a choice between believing a government with a vested interest in protecting a $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia and independent reports that those armaments are being used against domestic populations, I tend to side with the later. Consider the evidence.The Saudi Arabian National Guard,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Seeking Some Substance – Part 2
In Part 1, I tried to establish that there is a gross discrepancy between the rhetoric and the reality of Justin Trudeau’s promise to makie sure corporations pay their fair share. Indeed, if truth be told, his government has done little or nothing to alter the CRA ethos, imposed during
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