Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The New York Times editorial board chimes in on how Kansas serves as an ideal test case as to illusory benefits of top-end tax cuts: The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by
Continue readingTag: ontario libs
Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links – #VoteOn Edition
This and that for your Thursday (and Ontario election day) reading… – Joseph Heath makes the case against Tim Hudak’s PCs in particular, and the shift from public to private goods in general: (I)t’s fairly clear what the PCs are planning. They are proposing a general shift in Ontario away
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Susan FitzGerald reports on new research that growing up in poverty has a significantly more damaging effect on a child’s development than exposure to drugs – leading to obvious questions as to why so many governments loudly wage a nominal war on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Hassan Arif theorizes that a failure to identify and address growing inequality may have played a significant role in the rise of Rob Ford’s destructive anti-socialism: The Toronto of towering new condos, of downtown coffee shops and trendy restaurants and stores, is far
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 readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne comments on the biggest of the Cons’ many lies about the role and capacity of the federal government: Canada’s $18.7-billion deficit has (its) roots in failed economic policies, decisions made before the world financial crisis, including reckless corporate tax cuts. Remember,
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: 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: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Adams rightly points out that there’s no inherent value in centrism merely for the sake of centrism – especially when the spectrum of choices is itself shaped by decades of distorted assumptions: (T)he reality of modern politics is that the muddled middle
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 readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Paul Dechene interviews Marc Spooner about Saskatchewan residents left behind in the province’s boom: One way that our growing income gap can be hand-waved away is by pointing to the fact that every other province that goes through an economic boom faces this.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the increasing attempts of executive government at all levels to declare democracy irrelevant – and how strong grassroots party structures may be the key to reversing the tide. For further reading…– Again, Andrew Coyne’s column remains the definitive discussion of the issue at the federal and provincial levels.–
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Crawford Kilian talks to Ed Broadbent about the effect of increasing inequality and the prospect of changing course: On how quickly things could turn around: “I’d like to see a strategic plan. We can’t change overnight after 20 years. We could take
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On self-destruction
I’m sure we’ll eventually learn more about the reasons why Dalton McGuinty decided to jump ship. But it’s worth pointing out how his move looks to completely undercut his own party. After all, Ontario’s Libs have spent nearly a decade branding McGuinty as the dull but reliable Premier Dad –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Thomas Walkom comments on the Cons’ preference for low-wage, no-rights immigrant labour as a means of avoiding good jobs for Canadians: Theoretically, temporary work visas are supposed to be reserved for those with unique skills. But increasingly, the notion of skill has been
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Walkom discusses how the McGuinty Libs are going beyond imposing immediate pay freezes on the public sector, and instead passing what’s better seen as the War on Workers Measures Act – giving Ontario’s government the power to dictate labour outcomes by decree
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: The End of the Blue Grit?
Yes, last night’s Kitchener-Waterloo by-election resulted in a resounding victory for the Ontario NDP and new MPP Catherine Fife. But perhaps more noteworthy is the signal the result sends to the McGuinty Libs – as well as his partymates elsewhere in Canada. In effect, the Libs’ by-election message boiled down
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kady points out that despite the Cons’ best efforts to stonewall, the Robocon investigation in Guelph looks to have locked in on the source of their fraudulent robocalls. And while it’s indeed somewhat concerning that Elections Canada hasn’t reached anywhere near the same
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jeffrey Simpson criticizes the Cons for killing off the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy as punishment for telling the truth about climate change at its own request: In a letter to the National Round Table on the Environment and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Pathologies revealed
Paul Wells is right to point out the parallels between the McGuinty Libs’ environmentally-destructive, all-or-nothing omnibus bill and the similar legislation being rammed through Parliament by the Harper Cons. But there’s an even more telling connection between Ontario and federal politics. At the time they presented their 2008 FU to
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