This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tom Parkin writes that the economic boost provided by an expanded child benefit offers another indication of how action to fight poverty ultimately helps everybody. And Dylan Matthews discusses how much more could be done through a well-designed basic income – while
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dan Levin writes that Christy Clark and her B.C. Libs have turned British Columbia into a haven for capital to run wild without any social responsibility or public benefit: Like many places, British Columbia set up a system of tax incentives to lure
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jonathan Charlton interviews Danielle Martin about the health benefits of eliminating poverty. And the Equality Trust studies expenditures by household income level, finding among other areas of gross inequality that the rich are able to spend more on restaurants than the poor
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Christo Aivalis offers some suggestions for a set of progressive and effective tax policies: My view is that the Left has to combine the general philosophy of economic redistribution with the practical needs of getting the money to preserve existing social programs and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Alex Hemingway reviews the evidence on two-tiered medicine from around the developed world, and concludes that a constitutional attack on universal health care would only result in our paying more for less. – Marc Lee takes a look at the national climate change
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michal Rozworski writes that the Trudeau Libs’ economic model has come into view, and that we should be fighting back against what it means for the public: I’ve long argued that the Liberals are at the leading edge of rebuilding a centrist, neoliberal consensus for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on what we need to do to clean up political funding – and how both the Saskatchewan and federal systems offer painful examples of the problems with big money in politics. For further reading…– Brad Wall’s top-up pay from the Saskatchewan Party – being one of the many noteworthy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Toby Sanger offers some important background to the federal government’s expected plan for privatized infrastructure by noting that the anticipated result would be to double the costs. And Luke Kawa notes that the Libs are already having trouble spending the money they’ve
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – John Quiggin argues that public services and corporate control don’t mix – no matter how desperately the people seeking to exploit public money try to pretend otherwise: Market-oriented reforms, particularly in the provision of human services like health, education and public safety,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Andrew Leach’s after-the-fact addendum to his review of Alberta’s climate change policy offers an important reminder as to the costs of inaction on climate change – and the message is one which applies equall…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how political fund-raising scandals in Ontario and British Columbia only highlight the complete lack of rules governing donations in Saskatchewan.For further reading…- SCOTUS’ Citizens United decision is here (PDF). And Michael Hiltzik discu…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Martin Regg Cohn exposes the Ontario Libs’ pay-to-play governing strategy, as cabinet ministers have been instructed to use their roles and access to meet fund-raising targets of up to half a million dollars per…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Time To Bask
After so many years spent in darkness, Canadians can, perhaps, be forgiven for feeling exuberantly good about themselves once again and letting the world know it. And, according to Martin Regg Cohn, there is more to what is happening than narcissistic …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Critical Thinking – Yes. Fear Mongering – No.
Last week I wrote a post critical of Rex Murphy’s CBC opinion about how the Syrian refugee situation should be handled by Justin Trudeau. At first blush, his view that more time should be taken in admitting 25,000 to Canada seemed reasonable. However, …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Luddites of Education
Throughout my career as a high school teacher, I believed, as I still do, that education is one of the prime tools by which society can be bettered and critical thinking cultivated. And yet there are Luddites among us who would severely circumscribe the use of this all-important mechanism, preferring
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Genevieve LeBaron, Johanna Montgomerie, and Daniela Tepe-Belfrage write that inequality is getting worse in the UK based on class, gender and all kinds of other grounds, while a supposed “recovery” isn’t benefiting anybody except the people who least need it: (E)conomic policies
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Thursday Morning
H/t Toronto Star The events of yesterday were undeniably tragic. A young man, Nathan Cirillo, died. As I noticed on a Facebook posting by my cousin’s wife, Nathan was a friend of their son with whom he played organized hockey. Six degrees of separation and all that, I guess. Nonetheless,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is Andrea’s Day Of Reckoning Drawing Nigh?
Andrea Horwath, the current leader of the Ontario NDP, about whom I have written the odd past post, may indeed soon be facing the consequences of her recent decision to force an Ontario election that ran the risk, happily averted, of the election of a right-wing Progressive Conservative Party under
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Andrea Comes Down From Her Perch
But only a little bit. And only because her campaign is being criticized from within. As I noted in a recent post, Ontario NDP leader Andrea’s Horwath’s hubris following what almost everyone else would call a failed Ontario election campaign has been both unseemly and wholly unjustified. She initially avowed
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: An Invitation To The Dance Party
What dance party is that, you ask? Why, the one being hosted by the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party whose name, it is rumoured, is in the process of being rejigged into the New Dance Party. At least, that is how it appears to this political observer. As
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