By Joe Fantauzzi @jjfantauzzi Drug use is a multifaceted issue in urban life. Addiction can take an enormous toll on individuals and can leave the municipalities in which those people live struggling to adequately service their needs as well as the needs of the community. Supervised injection facilities, in which
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Illuminated By Street Lamps: Temporary Foreign Workers: What Canada Must Do To Protect A Vulnerable Labour Class
By Joe Fantauzzi @jjfantauzziKey Findings and Recommendations:– Between 2003 and 2012, the number of temporary foreign workers admitted to Canada jumped from 102,932 to 213,573 — a difference of 107.5%.– Inquests are mandatory in Ontario when an on-the-job accident kills a worker employed at “a construction project, mining plant or mine, including
Continue readingTrashy's World: If you were the Ontario NDP…
… would YOU force an election with numbers like these? No. I didn’t think so. The great thing is that Timmy is gonna be soooooo pissed!!! (4) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Who Did The Domestic Calls? #RoboCon #elxnfraud
Some behind the scenes numbers about Elections Canada’s impotent investigation into illegal robocalls… [note Prime Contact, which came up in the blogosphere earlier this week.] 81. At the national level, the Conservative Party, using data from its Constituent Information Management System (CIMS) database, called through two primary telemarketing companies: Responsive
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: Ontario: A leading jurisdiction for intense, coercive neoliberalism
By Joe Fantauzzi@jjfantauzzi Global capitalism has liberalized incrementally since the end of the Second World War. As the Keynesian welfare state fell out of favour in the late 1970s amid a stagnating economy and rising government spending, a new business-friendly approach dubbed neoliberalism (literally, “new liberalism”), emerged and ushered in
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Fair Elections Act could sink Stephen Harper and Conservatives in 2015
by: Obert Madondo | April 12, 2014 This week Canada’s two main opposition parties declared war on the Conservatives’ Orwellian Fair Elections Act. One that could bring down Harper during the 2015 federal election. While falling short of declaring the Fair Elections Act an election issue for 2015, both the Official Opposition
Continue readingQuebec—another majority that isn’t
A lot of euphoria last night from Liberal supporters and those many Canadians (including not a few Quebecers) who don’t want to hear about separation for another generation at least. Not only did the Liberals win, they won big, majority big. Or at least the majority that counts which, unfortunately,
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: The Toronto G20 Summit: A State of Exception
By Joe Fantauzzi@jjfantauzziBetween June 26 and 27, 2010, thousands of demonstrators[1] descended on Toronto, Ontario to protest while the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies[2] met behind a protective fence built of steel and secretive legislative authority. When the tear gas cleared and the G20 Summit ended, 1,105 people had been
Continue readingIlluminated By Street Lamps: Locating Canada’s State Multiculturalism As A Racist Doctrine
By Joe Fantauzzi@jjfantauzziCanada is a multicultural nation. More than four decades of policy, legislation and celebration have engraved this country’s pluralism into its national character. The ethnic diversity of this country is presented globally as a fundamental strength of the Canadian nation. But massive structural inequalities which have not been
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: 2014 Stapleford Lecture on Senate Reform at #UofR
Part 1 I really have to disagree with Dr. Barnhart, who had the power to sign, or refuse to sign laws of Saskatchewan into effect while Lieutenant Governor, that he is a powerful person. Now his influence may be lessened, even to the point where Global TV won’t keep a
Continue readingcalgaryliberal.com: The angst of a progressive.
Over the last week we have seen someone who had tried pull in progressives into a very un-progressive party be raked over the coals. For issues of arrogance and otherwise, Alison Redford has been the target of much acrimony, anger, and angst. This angst has been by both her party and
Continue readingLeft Over: Whores, Bores, and Liberal Cores….
Canada’s opposition NDP open to coalition, Liberals less keen Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:49pm EST – Reuters In a a comment re : http://montrealsimon.blogspot.ca/2014/02/tom-mulcair-and-coalition-dream-that.html Although in principle I agree that whatever progressives elected to Parliament should band together in the sense of controlling the votes, I fail to see why, or
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: TRANSCRIPT: Justin Trudeau’s speech to the Liberal biennial convention
by: Obert Madondo Speech by leader Justin Trudeau to the Liberal Party of Canada’s biennial convention convention, held in Montreal, Quebec, over the weekend: My friends, my fellow Liberals; what a great Convention! Thank you for your work. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your passion I want to paint
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Canada’s Mythical Middle Class and the Quislings of Parliament Hill
The government likes to say it’s all about the middle class. So, too, the opposition parties. On Parliament Hill it seems Canada’s middle class is virtually surrounded by a sea of friends, each clamouring to outdo the other to lend a hand, give a leg up. With friends like that
Continue readingLeDaro: General Andrew Leslie’s Moving Expenses
How can someone spend over $70,000 to move just a few minutes away? Did Andrew Leslie use a Lamborghini to tow the moving trailer? In an economy when many are struggling to make ends meet, when young people are struggling to find jobs, this guy can charge over $70,000 for
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Overheard in Toronto – On #RobFord’s Critics
On #RobFord’s Critics: “You know why Rob Ford still wins and will keep on winning? All these people in the newspapers, writing blogs and rushing to criticize him are upper-middle […]
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: An Open Letter to NDP-MP Murray Rankin
Dorothy Field Dear Murray, I watched your speech on the Unfair Elections Act. Well done. Thank you. And I didn’t know about Rose Henry’s court case. She’s really something. I am going to make another appeal to you. As I see it and I think you see it, Harper is
Continue readingTrashy's World: He wasn’t perfect…
… but no one is. Yet then PM Chrètien led by example back in 1993 when he came to power and significantly cut his Ministers’ budgets. Tired of the ballooning Ministerial budgets under Mulroney, he cut their Chiefs-of-staff and told them to rely more on the advice of public servants.
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: A brilliant tactical move: Justin Trudeau kicks out Liberal Senators
Sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due: Justin Trudeau just pulled a brilliant tactical move with his unexpected and unceremonious dumping of all former Liberal Senators from the Liberal caucus. As a political analyst, I often am rather unimpressed by the blunders and lack of political acumen
Continue readingTrashy's World: Canada West Foundation…
… endorses Trudeau’s Senate move… <sound of Trashy passing out on the floor> Some “first” here: First time the words “west” “endorses” “Trudeau” have even been seen in the same sentence First time The Canada West Foundation has endorsed anything connected to the Senate – except its abolition Upon seeing
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