This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ed Broadbent comments on Parliament’s review of inequality in Canada: In a more encouraging vein, the majority report cautiously endorses some positive proposals. Given stated support from both of the opposition parties, these could, and should, move to the top of the
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Alberta Diary: Hoist with their own petard, Harper Tories face veterans’ Remembrance Day protest
A typical Canadian Remembrance Day ceremony: the scene in St. Albert one year ago today. Below: B.C. Conservative MP Mark Strahl, on-air Conservative partisan Don Cherry, and NDP Veterans’ Affairs Critic Peter Stoffer. No Canadian government in living memory, and probably no Canadian government in history, has worked as hard
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Charles Campbell discusses Robert Reich’s work to highlight the importance of a fair and progressive tax system. And while Lawrence Martin is right to lament the systematic destruction of Canada’s public revenue streams under the Libs and Cons alike, his fatalistic view
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Plenty more commentators are weighing in on the Harper Cons’ enemy list, including the Star, the Globe and Mail, and Lawrence Martin. But Robyn Benson makes the most important comment about the Harper with-us-or-against-us mentality that’s being applied to the federal government
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This and that for your Thursday reading. – Paul Krugman makes the case for significantly higher taxes on the rich: What would raising tax rates at the top accomplish? It would, to some extent, mitigate the rise in inequality, which some of us consider a good thing in itself: You
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Yes, there’s plenty more on the Cons’ Senate scandal, with Tim Harper headlining the latest discussion: Mike Duffy is radioactive. The one-time Conservative cheerleader is now the poster boy for the filth which envelops the party brand. The man holed up on Friendly
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Reason To Hope?
Canadians want a vision for the future. Canadians know we’re not going in the right direction. A lot of Canadians are dismayed at the calamity that has befallen our democracy and the mean-spirited authoritarianism and the divide and conquer politics that have become the benchmark of our federal government. Give
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Karl Nerenberg reports on the House Finance Committee’s hearings into income inequality in Canada, featuring a few familiar themes which we should hear far more often from our policy-makers: “I would make all tax credits refundable, including the current non-refundable ones,” Boadway
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This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lawrence Martin discusses how the B.C. Libs, Harper Cons and other governments have responded to transparency requirements by deliberately refusing to record what they’re doing and why: News from the government of British Columbia. Sorry citizens, we have no files. There is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Molly Ball writes about the false assumptions underlying far too much political discussion – with one looming as particularly significant for Canadian purposes: 5. Campaign ads really, really, really don’t make much difference. In this part of the paper, Fiorina’s exasperation becomes
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: Friday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Lawrence Martin questions the media’s obsession with fabricating stories out of imagined motivations and insignificant shifts in poll numbers: In the year before an election, the media’s heavy focus on tiny political twists and turns is understandable. Here in Canada, a federal campaign
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – John Cameron highlights the importance of liberal arts education – as well as the fact that only a few people (who happen to nicely coincide with the Wall government’s base) stand to benefit from a citizenry with less of a tendency toward
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week.- Susan Delacourt comments on what’s often lacking from Canadian political coverage – and the challenge facing journalists looking to stop relying excessively on horse-race numbers which may miss what ultimately moti…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Laura Ryckewaert reports that Elections Canada’s response to Robocon is now including an unprecedented level of public consultation, while Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor are digging deeper into voters’ complain…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
This and that to end your week.- Tavia Grant writes that at least one region of the globe – Latin America – is seeing some real progress in combating inequality. And the World Bank has some ideas to keep up the momentum:The bank still sees room for imp…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Lawrence Martin’s take on Robocon doesn’t offer much by way of new information, but nicely sums up exactly what deliberate vote suppression and electoral fraud should mean for a governing party:At issue here is …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Heather Scoffield reports on the Canadian Index of Wellbeing’s stunning finding that Canadian quality of life declined by a quarter between 2008 and 2010, while the Vancouver Sun and Lindor Reynolds comment on the collapse in well-being far beyond the economic damage
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Lying Politicians
Given the level of odium in which the public holds politicians, the title of this post probably seems redundant. However, it is also appropriate given an article written by Lawrence Martin yesterday and a not-so-surprising revelation made in today’s Toronto Star. First, Martin’s article, published yesterday in iPolitics, posits that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – No, the aftershocks of an e. coli outbreak which has unfortunately given both Canadians and export markets reason for concern about the safety of some of our major food sources aren’t about to end simply because the Cons are again pretending everything’s fine.
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