In light of her refusal to say much about anything, a political disease she may have caught from her federal cousins, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath is being viewed increasingly as little more than a political opportunist. Probably the most recent example of this sad state is her reticence to
Continue readingTag: martin regg cohn
Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Cassidy makes the case to call the U.S.’ war on poverty a success – pointing out that there has been a meaningful reduction in poverty over the past 50 years connected almost entirely to government programs. But lest that be taken as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
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
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Joan Walsh discusses how employers are exploiting the U.S.’ wage supplement policies by taking the opportunity to severely underpay their employees – resulting in both insecure income and employment, and significant public expense to reduce the poverty suffered by full-time workers. And Lana
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Pension Reform
More of the white stuff has fallen, and I can ignore the importunate call of the snow shovel no longer, so I will make this brief with two reading recommendations for your Sunday morning discernment. In today’s Star, Martin Regg Cohn writes convincingly on the need for real pension reform,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellanous material for your Sunday reading. – Sean McElwee highlights the fact that inequality is an avoidable result caused by policies oriented toward rewarding greed: The problem, then, is not machines, which are doing a great deal to boost productivity; the problem is that the benefits from increased productivity no
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Ibbitson reports that the Cons’ obvious priorities have finally been made explicit: as far as they’re concerned, the sole purpose of international diplomacy is to serve the corporate sector. And Ian Smillie documents how the Cons hijacked Canada’s foreign aid program (while
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Martin Regg Cohn discusses EllisDon’s ability to dictate political choices by the Ontario Libs and PCs as a prime example of corporate manipulation of the political system: What Wynne didn’t say was that EllisDon, its subsidiaries and executives, have been shockingly generous donors
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Peak Behind the Political Curtain
If, like me, you are of the firm suspicion that governments regard the needs of its citizens as largely secondary to those of its corporate backers, you will derive much from Martin Regg Cohn’s column in this morning’s Star. Entitled How corporate Ontario gets its way at Queen’s Park, the
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Privatization: The “big bad mistake” Ontario is intent on repeating
“The stealth privatization of Ontario’s gas plants over the past decade set the stage for the inevitable payouts that we now face for decades to come.” – Martin Regg Cohn, Toronto Star columnist, October 9, 2013 Has Kathleen Wynne really … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On benefits at stake
Martin Regg Cohn is right to note that there’s no empirical support for attacks on unions when it comes to jobs or economic development: Why then is Hudak trying to turn the clock back? He points to the rise of Right to Work states in the U.S., where right-wing legislators
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The NDP – Just Another Political Machine
Although I will likely vote NDP federally in the next election, I am under no illusion that the party is much different from its two major competitors. Indeed, I see it as occupying the middle ground that the Liberals once laid claim to, and quite frankly, compared to the latter’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Deborah Gyapong discusses CMA President Anna Reid’s presentation to the federal All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus, with the positive response of MPs from all parties looking like a particularly noteworthy development: The CMA put forward seven recommendations for governments at all levels to examine
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that to end your weekend. – Dave Coles introduces readers to the Cons’ latest attack on labour – with a backbencher’s private member’s bill again serving as an excuse to introduce unprecedent restrictions on union organization. – Michael Harris suspects that the Cons’ attempt to delay any public
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: For Your Sunday Reading Pleasure …
Whether or not you live in Ontario, you may find Martin Regg Cohn’s column of some interest in illustrating the fractured and uneven relationship that Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has with the provinces. Writing in the voice of Ontario residents responding to Flaherty’s finger-wagging over the MetroLinx proposal to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Frances Russell makes the case for mandatory voting as an antidote to vote suppression: At first glance, entrenched opposition to mandatory voting in all the English-speaking democracies – Australia excepted – is puzzling. Given all the obligations of citizenship in a democracy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Murray Dobbin contrasts the B.C. NDP’s recent election loss against the type of popular focus which helped Saskatchewan’s CCF to earn a twenty-year stay in office in the face of far more hysterical opposition: You can design a campaign that projects a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ellie Mae O’Hagan and Nicholas Shaxson annihilate the claim that perpetually lowering corporate and upper-income tax rates offers any competitive advantage: Tax “competition”, it turns out, is always harmful. First, while people rarely move in response to tax changes – flighty financial
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot comments on the outsized influence of advertisers on children: How many people believe this makes the world a better place? A company called TenNine has hung hoardings in the corridors and common rooms of 750 British schools. Among its clients
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Cynical Politics – Ontario Style
It is likely a truism to observe that the value burning brightest in the hearts of most political parties is the passion to get and retain power. Concern for the public good is at best but a very distant secondary concern. We are reminded of this fact by the reaction
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