Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne discusses the need to address inequality through our political system. But that will require significant pressure from exactly the citizens who have decided they’re not well served by today’s political options – and Trish Hennessy’s look at Canadian voter turnout reminds
Continue readingTag: Mike De Souza
Alberta Diary: Don’t let any ‘celebrities’ tell you different, we’ve got friends of science here in Alberta
Don’t worry: you have absolutely nothing to do with the apocalypse. You might as well mine more bitumen while you wait for it. Below: Barry Cooper; another version of the Friends of Science billboard; yet another great billboard supporting democracy and the people. Billboard photos found on the Internet. Alberta’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – PressProgress digs into the PBO’s report on tax giveaways to look at what Canada has lost from the Cons’ cuts to federal fiscal capacity – and how little has been gained as a trade-off: (T)he Harper government, by starving the public coffers, is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Doug Saunders interviews Thomas Piketty about the need for checks on the undue accumulation of capital, and the readily available means of achieving that end: To solve the problem of rising inequality, you propose small worldwide taxes on capital transfers and on
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Postmedia Fires A Useful Guy
From J-Source: Postmedia Network is downsizing its parliamentary bureau and had laid off five parliamentary bureau staff.Three political reporters—Mike De Souza, Andrea Hill and Tobi Cohen—as well as planning and production editor Rhonda Cumming and librarian Kirsten Smith were laid off. Mike De Souza is, or was, pretty much the
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Mike De Souza and the Buying of the Media
Mike de Souza is arguably the best MSM environmental reporter in Canada. A hardworking newshound who has exposed many grubby dealings between the Cons and Big Oil. And is no doubt a thorn in the sides of both of them.Or should I say he was.Because today along with a number
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dan Leger and Leslie MacKinnon both theorize that 2013 represented a new low in Canadian politics. But while the Cons may have taken some new steps in petty scandals and cover-ups (and Rob Ford’s clown show managed to attract an unusual amount
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes that Canadians care plenty about the well-being of hungry children even if the Cons don’t: After a firestorm of shocked responses from Canadians, Mr. Moore apologized for his “insensitive comment” uttered days before Christmas. What he did not apologize for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Nick Cohen writes that the corporate sector is home to some of the most dangerous cult philosophy in the world: (T)he language of business has become ever more cultish. In the theory of “transformational leadership”, which dominates the business schools, the CEO is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
This and that for your Labour Day reading. – Jared Bernstein writes about the fight for fair wages in the U.S. fast food and retail industries. And Karen McVeigh notes that political decision-makers are starting to try to get in front of the parade of workers seeking a reasonable standard
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes that it’s long past time for Newfoundland and Labrador to boost its minimum wage: Last year, a statutory review of minimum wage, conducted by a government-appointed panel, called for action to be taken on the minimum wage. The panel recommended
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Martin Lukacs offers up the definitive response to the Lac-Mégantic rail tragedy: The deeper evidence about this event won’t be found in the train’s black box, or by questioning the one engineer who left the train before it loosened and careened unmanned into
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Scott Sinclair discusses how CETA could create extreme and unnecessary risk in Canada’s banking and financial system: The failure of a single company (such as Lehman Brothers in October 2008) or unchecked growth in markets for high-risk financial products (such as sub-prime
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Mike Konczal discusses the distribution of U.S. tax breaks and incentives, and finds that measures normally presented as offering breaks for everybody in fact serve mostly as giveaways to the wealthy: (T)he government is very responsive to the interests of the top 20
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – For all the talk of fraud and cover-ups among the Cons this week, the most important story on that front looks to be the release of Judge Mosley’s decision on Robocon – featuring findings of fact based on the best evidence presented by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Helene Leblanc argues that we should make sure the Internet is treated as a commons accessible to all, rather than a privilege denied to many (particularly in rural areas): Many Canadians living outside urban centres do not have access to high speed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – We shouldn’t be surprised that the corporate sector is reacting with contrived outrage to the Cons’ tinkering with a severely flawed temporary foreign worker program. But Jim Stanford points out what it would take to actually move labour standards upward rather than
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – George Monbiot discusses the fallout from decades of corporate-controlled governments abdicating their responsibility to consider the public interest: In other ages, states sought to seize as much power as they could. Today, the self-hating state renounces its powers. Governments anathematise governance. They declare
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Daniel Cohn theorizes that the only real problem with RBC’s outsourcing of Canadian jobs is that they called attention to the government policies which facilitated that outcome. But for those of us who think there’s actually a problem with an economy designed around
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Thomas Walkom adds another piece to the picture showing the Cons’ efforts to shift both jobs and wealth offshore, pointing out that lax visa rules have only encouraged RBC-style outsourcing schemes. Craig McInnes recognizes that a cheap, low-rights worker strategy is a
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