PHOTOS: The late Jim Prentice, during his successful 2014 campaign to lead the Progressive Conservative Party, with supporters in Edmonton. Below: Anti-union “liberty conservative” Derek Fildebrandt, NDP Premier Rachel Notley, and Athabasca University Labour Studies Professor Bob Barnetson. It was probably his “math is hard” moment in a televised debate
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Angella MacEwen offers her suggestions as to what a fair and progressive trade agenda should look like: Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms are especially unpopular, as they prioritize investor rights over investor responsibilities. Canada and Mexico have had similar dismal experiences under NAFTA
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Another Trudeau Hater Trashes Canada in the United States
You might think that the Cons would know better to keep trashing our country and our government in the United States. Especially after polls showed that their treasonous behaviour wasn't making them any more popular in Canada. But sadly that's not the case. For first there was Peter Kent, then
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Cole Eisen points out how Sears – like far too many other businesses – has deliberately depleted employees’ pension funds while extracting billions of dollars for executives and shareholders: Sears Canada’s woes stem from what appears to be a methodical process of value
Continue readingIn This Corner: The Return of Stuff Happens, week 28: Justin Trudeau, the free world’s best hope … really?
Rolling Stone magazine is the latest American media outlet to fall under the hypnotic spell of Justin Trudeau. The Perfect Prime Minister got the full Rolling Stone cover treatment this week, an occasion that had much of the Canadian news media in full snicker and guffaw mode. The article, some
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Justin Trudeau and the Tall Poppy Syndrome
I've mentioned this before, but sometimes I feel like Gulliver must have felt in the land of the Lilliputians.And can't help wondering why if Canada is so big, why are so many of its people so small.And the latest example of that is the reaction of so many to this
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Never mind the Ottawa bashing, Jason Kenney launches bid to lead UCP pitching coded woo to religious right
PHOTOS: Jason Kenney makes it official he’s running to lead Alberta’s United Conservative Party at Edmonton’s Italian Cultural Centre yesterday (Photo: Radio Canada). Below: NDP Premier Rachel Notley and Education Minister David Eggen. How soon before Jason Kenney makes permitting the teaching of “creation science” in Alberta schools a formal
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Many Lies and Scheer Nonsense of Andrew Scheer
Andrew Scheer may be the new leader of the religious right in Canada, but he seems to have as much respect for the Ten Commandments, as he does for our Canadian values.Especially the commandment that instructs him to "not bear false witness".So I'm glad to see that somebody has challenged
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why the Cons Failed to make the Khadr Story Work for Them
You might think that the grubby Con Andrew Scheer was smart enough to realize that his ugly Khadr Show was going nowhere.And given it and himself the hook.But no, even though two polls have shown that it hasn't put the slightest dent in Justin Trudeau's popularity. And even though the Cons are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on why we should be skeptical of Donald Trump’s NAFTA demands – and why it should be willing to walk away from the table if it’s not possible to push for dramatic improvements to what’s being offered. For further reading:– The U.S.’ list of negotiating objectives is here (PDF).
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Rolling Stone Cover and the Con Clown Lisa Raitt
As soon as I saw Justin Trudeau on the cover of Rolling Stone, I groaned loudly, and cranked up the music in my ears, because I knew exactly how the Cons would react, and that it would be ugly.And sure enough it was. They wailed like banshees, they ground their
Continue readingMontreal Simon: John Ibbitson’s Obscene Ode to Andrew Scheer
I realize that the Globe writer John Ibbitson has written some rotten columns before, most of them in praise of Stephen Harper.And I realize he works for a newspaper that somehow managed to endorse the Cons, if not Harper, in the last election.Which was of course somewhere between absurdity, and insanity.And after
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Traitor Cons and the Trudeau Derangement Syndrome
As you know, I believe that the decision by Andrew Scheer's Cons to take their campaign against the Khadr settlement to the U.S. on the eve of the NAFTA talks, can only be described as treason.So I'm glad to see that even some in the Con media agree.Conservatives are entitled
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mike Konczal responds to a pathetic attempt to drain the word “neoliberal” of all meaning (which seems to have won favour with Canadian Libs desperately trying to disassociate themselves from their own governing ideology) by discussing its application in both the political and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Something useful for the premiers to talk about: the right’s perpetual myth making about equalization
PHOTOS: Edmonton’s stately old Macdonald Hotel, named for the prime minister of the same name and site of Canada’s premiers’ annual summertime beanfest this week. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Jake Wright) and B.C. Premier-Designate John Horgan, who will be
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Another Season of Stampede Politicking in Calgary
Politicians of all stripes descended on Alberta’s largest city this week for the annual Calgary Stampede festivities. Though most of them have probably never ridden a horse or woke up at 5am (or earlier) to start their day on the farm, they were almost all brandishing big shiny belt buckles,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Susanna Rustin reports on a new study from the London School of Economics demonstrating the lifelong personal impacts of childhood poverty. And Colleen Kimmit writes that the solution to food insecurity (along with other elements of personal precarity) is a guaranteed income,
Continue readingMind Bending Politics: Exclusive: Monia Mazigh Responds To Omar Khadr Settlement
(Monia Mazigh Human Rights Advocate and Author Best Known For Her Advocacy of Her Husband Maher Arar Responds to Omar Khadr Settlement) Mind Bending Politics sat down with Monia Mazigh this week to discuss the Omar Khadr settlement and her thoughts on the future of human rights in Canada. Before
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Justin Trudeau, Omar Khadr, and the Monster Stephen Harper
I've been having too much of a good time sailing and fishing in the north of Scotland to keep up with what has been happening in Canada.But everywhere I go, as soon as people find out I'm a Canadian, they can't wait to tell me how much they admire Justin
Continue readingIn This Corner: The Return of Stuff Happens, week 25: Khadr’s big payday a big pain for Trudeau
I’ve always found the Omar Khadr story infuriating. That $10 million smile. Khadr is, of course, the Canadian-born former child soldier (just 15 at the time) who was forced to join al-Queda by his despicable parents. His upbringing could be described as child abuse. His father was a pal of
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