By: Canadian Auto Workers Union | Press Release PORT ELGIN, ON – A CAW owned and operated wind turbine started operating today generating clean wind energy to the electrical grid in Port Elgin, Ontario. “This is an important day as the start-up of this wind turbine marks an environmental milestone for our union
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The Canadian Progressive: Ontario’s 2012 austerity measures causing an economic slowdown: Report
Press Release | Posted Mar 18, 2013 Ontario’s experiment with austerity in 2012 is contributing to an economic slowdown that demands a different course of action in 2013, says a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Ontario office (CCPA-Ontario). The report, by CCPA-Ontario Director Trish Hennessy and CAW economist Jim
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Guest Blog from Chris Watson: “If You Can’t Buy, I Can’t Sell”
The following guest post was written by Chris Watson, legislative liaison for CUPE Ontario based in Toronto: In stark contrast to the austerity budget strategy of Don Drummond, Dalton McGuinty and Dwight Duncan, a plan premised on Drummond’s core belief that strong economic growth in Ontario is not possible and
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Tim Hudak says Ontario is protecting too many endangered species?
Bit of an odd priority for a leader looking to be taken more seriously, but here we are. Hudak’s already on the record as wanting to eliminate full day kindergarten and put 10,000 education workers out of a job, but I guess we can add endangered species to Hudak’s chopping block.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Environmental Education Improving in Ontario
Teaching people about the environment makes a lot of sense since we live in it. Surprisingly, in many school systems knowledge and awareness about the environment is not shared. In Toronto, Evergreen has been working for years to make the environment important in education. Their efforts are paying off as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Michael Harris rightly points out that a steady stream of scandals and incompetence from the Cons says plenty about Stephen Harper’s own judgment (or lack thereof): Sooner or later, the country is going to realize that there is something terribly wrong with
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Elephant in the room: Hudak continues to flip-flop on power plants
The literal elephant in that picture is from a PC photo op stunt done in Mississauga on September 28th, in an attempt to attack the Liberals over the power plant issue. The bigger elephant though, are the numerous statements made by Hudak and local Mississauga Conservatives in favour of scrapping
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Hudak wants a $300 million election, vows to vote against a budget that hasn’t been written yet
Yesterday, Finance Minister Charles Sousa started his first round of pre-Budget consultations in Mississauga, listening to the concerns of everyday Ontario families as he works to prepare a budget focused on creating jobs, lowering youth unemployment, and fostering growth and opportunity as the way forward. “My hope is that the
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Check out the Ontario throne speech live at 3 pm!
http://www.livestream.com/premierofontario Kathleen Wynne’s first Throne Speech as The Premier is starting in just a few minutes! Watch at the link and see Premier Wynne’s Way Forward for a better Ontario!
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Premier Wynne can push for national referendum on future of the Senate
By Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Feb. 18, 2013: In, 2004, Stephen Harper described Canada’s Senate as a “dumping ground for the favoured cronies of the Prime Minister.” He also said: “I will not name appointed people to the Senate. Anyone who sits in the Parliament of Canada must be elected by the people
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Joseph Stiglitz discusses how the combination of increasingly concentrated wealth and deteriorating has eliminated any pretense of equal opportunity within the U.S.: It’s not that social mobility is impossible, but that the upwardly mobile American is becoming a statistical oddity. According to
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Hudak would end support for students from low income families with attack on 30% tuition rebate
Tim Hudak rolled out his latest double down on right-wing policy, announcing he would end the 30% tuition rebate for Ontario post-secondary students. Hudak and his post-secondary education critic, Rob Leone framed the tuition cut as not helping mature students or single parents (ironic, given the not so high regard
Continue readingCarbon49 - Sustainability for Canadian businesses: A Cardboard Box and Green Business Strategy
Each day offices across Canada and the U.S. receive thousands of shipments in cardboard boxes. Once unpacked they go straight to recycling depots or landfills. Office supplies chain Grand and Toy and its US parent OfficeMax launch their reusable Boomerang Box to help their customers go green and reposition themselves
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Your new Ontario cabinet, and some facts and firsts
Excited to see the new cabinet sworn in today. In particular, I’m very happy to see Charles Sousa and Yasir Naqvi as Finance and Labour Minister respectively. I started this blog in 2007 in large part to help support the local campaigns in Mississauga South and Ottawa Centre, so seeing
Continue readingPample the Moose: Define "junior", oh great Toronto Star!
Kathleen Wynne’s new Ontario cabinet is being announced today, and my local MP, Liz Sandals, has apparently been tapped to become the new education minister. But that’s not the observation that leapt out at me from today’s Toronto Star article about the cabinet shuffle. Authors Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson
Continue readingPample the Moose: Define "junior", oh great Toronto Star!
Kathleen Wynne’s new Ontario cabinet is being announced today, and my local MP, Liz Sandals, has apparently been tapped to become the new education minister. But that’s not the observation that leapt out at me from today’s Toronto Star article about the cabinet shuffle. Authors Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson
Continue readingPample the Moose: Define "junior", oh great Toronto Star!
Kathleen Wynne’s new Ontario cabinet is being announced today, and my local MP, Liz Sandals, has apparently been tapped to become the new education minister. But that’s not the observation that leapt out at me from today’s Toronto Star article about the cabinet shuffle. Authors Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson note that former Education Minister Laurel Broten has been “demoted” to Intergovernmental Affairs, calling it a “a ministry so junior McGuinty ran it himself for years.”
[ETA: Interesting to note that the updated version of the article calls Intergovernmental Affairs: “barely a stand-alone department because the premier usually handles all its major files personally.”]
To me, this drives home just how ill-served we are by many of our journalists these days. Just because a portfolio is held by the premier does not make it junior or unimportant. Indeed, given how Canada’s system of federalism works (or doesn’t), the role of intergovernmental affairs minister can be quite important indeed. Federally, that role was once held by Stéphane Dion, in the aftermath of the 1995 referendum. Many Canadian Prime Ministers also acted as their own foreign affairs minister. And what does it say that Wynne is planning on running the Ministry of Agriculture herself? Just last Wednesday, the Star ran an article arguing that this decision was a way of signalling the importance of this ministry!
Just to be clear, I do think that the decision to move Laurel Broten out of education is probably a demotion. But to conflate that with implying that the Intergovernmental Affairs ministry is insignificant betrays a woeful lack of perception of how Canada’s system of government operates.
Continue readingThe Equivocator: Thank you Minister Bentley
Just under a year ago I was co-presenting with Theresa Lubowitz at the LPC(O) AGM. Our presentation was on social media and politics but we put a large emphasis on how both of us actually got involved in politics. After one of our panels finished I was approached by a
Continue readingThe Equivocator: Kathleen Wynne’s Speech & Some Thoughts on the 2013 OLP Leadership Convention
“I want to put something on the table: Is Ontario ready for a gay premier? You’ve heard that question. You’ve all heard that question but let’s say what that actually means: Can a gay woman win? That’s what it means. So, not surprisingly, I have an answer to that question.
Continue readingbastard.logic: Something In The Water
BCL on the chutzpah of Jonathan Kay, junk science enabler debunker: [T]here’s a real lack of self-awareness here. Jonathon [sic], after all, is comment pages editor at the National Post, and under his watch it has for years entertained junk science from Global Warming deniers. Sometimes this nonsense has been confined to
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