Finally — for now, at least, until the Tories and NDP release the rest of their platforms, and the Libs release anything at all — I’m going to take a quick look at the Green Party of Ontario’s platform. It’s the shortest, and the slimmest when it com…
Continue readingTag: Ontario
Updated with hyperlinks
A previous version of this post is the most Googled thing I’ve ever written, so I’ll keep re-posting it with updates as the busy electoral season approaches. It’s a calendar of upcoming dates and deadlines for political junkies/candidates/hacks across …
Continue readingthe reeves report: Ontario and Equalization Payments: ‘have-not’ actually means ‘has-no-oil’
In the two years since Ontario officially joined the ranks of the ‘have-not’ provinces, the volume of equalization payments received has jumped 534%. That’s right – 534%. From the first payment of $347M to this years whopping $2.2B – Ontario is officially suffering through a massive downturn brought on by the loss of almost 300,000 … Continue reading »
Those Emergency Blues: Hotocalypse
Hot enough for ya? For you non-metric types, that 38C is an even 100F. I think I speak for most of my fellow Canadians when I say, “WTF?” I suppose it’s redundant and unnecessary to add that staying out of the sun, finding a cool, air-conditioned place to hole up in (if possible) and drinking […]
Canadian Progressive World: Did You Sign The Abortion Petition, Tim Hudak?
Apparently, the man who wants to be Ontario’s next premier signed a petition seeking to end abortion funding. But Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak only admits that he ”may have” signed the damn thing. “May …
Continue reading350 or bust: Go Big Or Go Small: Mapping A Sustainable Future For Ontario
Mennonite Central Committee Ontario (MCCO) is committed to caring for creation. As part of that commitment, they have produced a youtube video that they’ve entered in the Watts Next contest, which is inviting video submissions from across the p…
Continue readingOn the Ontario PCs’ platform
[Sorry for the double-post. Had some unfixable errors in the previous version.]So, here we go with the Ontario PC Platform, the Changebook (warning: PDF). Or is that the Change Book? ChangeBook? I don’t know, and I don’t think they do, either.According…
Continue readingOn the Ontario PCs’ platform.
So, here we go with the Ontario PC Platform, the Changebook. Or is that the Change Book? ChangeBook? I don’t know, and I don’t think they do, either.According to this, Tim Hudak was a Customs Officer at the Peace Bridge. I knew there was a good reason …
Continue readingOn the Ontario NDP’s 2011 platform.
Okay. The Ontario NDP’s platform. The Plan for Affordable Change (warning: PDF). Jeez, focus-group that name much? I’m splitting this into the four areas that the ONDP did in the platform, for ease of reference.1. Making life affordableYou mean it’s no…
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Ontario Catholic Schools To Get GSAs
Great news! Thanks to pressure from students, the Ontario government has announced that all schools receiving public funding, including Catholic schools, must allow GLBT support groups starting this September. “The choice to have an LGBTQ group will be the choice of students, not the choice of principals and school boards,” MPP Glen Murray announced to […]
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Toronto Councillor Tapes Parade, Tries To De-Fund Pride
I hope all my friends in Toronto partied it up at Pride over the weekend, because it could be seriously jeopardized if a Toronto city councillor gets his way! Giorgio Mammoliti—along with his bestest friend in the whole-wide-world, mayor Rob Ford—wants to take Toronto Pride off the books and into the gutter. I guess he’s […]
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Wedding and Honeymoon
The weather was perfect on July 2nd, just like I told people it would be. It was less perfect today, but still awesome. The hail stones that were half the size of golf balls were problematic, at least one hitting my car in an apparently non-damaging way. Now April and I head off into our […]
the reeves report: Thespian as Politician ≥ the Political Theatre Press Conference
It is amazing the lengths that politicians will go to in order to give a rather mundane message a twist, a hook, a pull, some pizzazz, or often, a point. Sometimes they can do it all – and sometimes the assembled media are left scratching their heads while the political hangers-on clap wildly at the … Continue reading »
The Liberal Scarf: Tim Hudak and his own caucus vs. your wallet
When Hudak MPP Garfield Dunlop isn’t too busy being contracdicted by his own party over handing tax payers the bill for eco fees (see: http://theliberalscarf.blogspot.com/2011/06/tim-hudak-vs-your-wallet-and-his-own.html), he’s handing taxpayers the bi…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The price of a loan guarantee
Ontario is planning to build two new nuclear reactors to meet the province’s energy needs in the near future and finance minister Dwight Duncan signalled on Tuesday that the Ontario government will be looking for help from the federal government. Th…
Continue readingthe reeves report: Feature: Questions remain on the future of eco fees in Ontario
It’s not often I sympathize with Tim Hudak and the Conservative Party of Ontario, but on the future of eco fees, they have their work cut out for them. To recap, last summer, the Liberal government in Ontario introduced an eco fee on select electronics and household hazardous materials, which was Phase 1 of a … Continue reading »
The Liberal Scarf: Tim Hudak vs. your wallet (and his own caucus)
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/27/tories-eye-eco-tax-on-electronicsTim Hudak showed his recklessness with his flip-flops on the HST (Going from being in favour of it, to wanting to scrap it, to saying he would reduce it, to now keeping it), health c…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Use University Research to Increase Manufacturing Jobs
Manufacturing jobs have been declinining as a percentage of total jobs in most OECD countries for several decades, with Ontario being especially hard-hit as a jurisdiction. At the end of the Second World War, manufacturing jobs accounted for 26% of all Canadian jobs; by 2007, this figure had dropped to just 12%. And as I’ve […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: The Most Useless Form on the Planet
Imagine this: you’ve had the shift from hell, no beds, every other patient is moments away from seeing Jesus/Allah/Buddha and to top it off, the department is down three nurses, another nurse is transporting the multisystem trauma downtown, and you feel really think working conditions were unsafe for both you and more importantly, your patients. […]