This and that for your Tuesday reading. – As we approach the anniversary of Jack Layton’s death, Tom Mulcair discusses some of the lessons he learned from his predecessor as NDP leader: (W)hen Mulcair first joined the NDP caucus in 2007, he was sometimes frustrated by the ‘go-around’ sessions —
Continue readingTag: opinion polling
Accidental Deliberations: On potential support
Abacus’ latest federal poll includes some noteworthy data on which voters see a real prospect of shifting their preferences – and particularly on the number of voters who are willing to entirely rule out a vote for either the Cons or the NDP. In particular, Bloc and Lib supporters are
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Robyn Allan notes that there’s plenty of weakness in Christy Clark’s position on the Gateway pipeline. But Barbara Yaffe writes that Clark has little choice but to stick to at least the requests she’s made so far – and Vaughn Palmer points
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Dan Gardner nicely sums up how any Con cabinet shuffles are utterly irrelevant since Stephen Harper prefers ciphers to functional ministers in any event: In the past, parties in power always had factions, and ministers with their own political clout, and these provided
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Dan Gardner rightly notes that we should be encouraging more public advocacy from charities and other groups with useful input to offer into policy debates – not shutting it down as the Cons are doing: “Many charities have acquired a wealth of knowledge
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for a sunny Sunday. – Paul Wells offers some theories as to why the Cons haven’t yet launched attack ads against Thomas Mulcair. But I’d think the more important aberration is the fact that they did do so against Bob Rae before he ever became the Libs’ permanent
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: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Erika Shaker points out how Quebec’s student protests are a natural and justified reaction to the policy choice to saddle young workers with debt: (T)he effects of student debt are not exactly “character building”. Postponement of owning a home or starting a family.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – T.C. Norris points out that one of the most important developing themes in economic research is the recognition that reductions in employment insurance benefits only force job-seekers into damaging situations rather than creating economic benefits. But as we all know, mere facts won’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Guest Post: On Standards of Fairness
Dan Tan offers this assessment of the CP’s reporting on recent polls about Thomas Mulcair’s economic comments: Harris-Decima recently asked a group of Canadians what they thought about Thomas Mulcair’s “dutch disease” warnings. A majority of Canadians responded that they had never “heard about Mulcair’s comments”. Of the minority who
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Duncan Cameron discusses how the Cons have already taken Canada and the world in exactly the wrong direction. But Murray Dobbin points out that we should be working on how to change things for the better once they’re finally removed from office,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Drew Anderson comments on the support the NDP is winning among groups which have historically supported the Cons: Seniors and men. Until now they formed the rock-solid base of the Conservative Party. But they’re trending towards Mulcair, and that should have Harper’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your day. – Kayle Hatt’s blog looks to be a must-read from here on in. And his post on what to draw from the latest polls is particularly worth a read: Every poll that has been released since Thomas Mulcair was elected leader of the NDP
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On tectonic shifts
I haven’t spent much time discussing the spate of recent polls showing the NDP with a modest lead on the Cons, as those top-line results can easily enough be considered an expected consequence of a tired government trying to force through controversial legislation against a popular new leader. But CARP’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On equivocal labels
I’ll agree with the commentators pointing out that Nanos’ polling on party labels shows far more trouble for the Cons than for the NDP. But let’s point out another part of the story that the media spin seems to be leaving out. Plenty of the terms used in association with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
This and that to end your week. – Paul Wells comments on the NDP’s new style of opposition: When I used to ask the Liberals, when they were the Official Opposition, why they didn’t calm down a bit in QP, they would complain that gesticulating was the only way to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Yesterday’s Alberta election certainly proved somewhat of a shocker – producing about the best possible result short of a minority scenario that would have allowed the NDP to exercise the balance of power, as the slightly-less-right party won even as its most
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Alex Himelfarb laments the Cons’ dismantling of a progressive state in Canada. But lest we lose all hope, Annie Lowrey reports on the Piketty/Saez economic work that’s paving the way for fairer taxes in the U.S. And Kelly McParland has to admit
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Slightly Aged Column Day
Here, on how the latest round of cuts at multiple levels of government has been conspicuously designed to avoid having the wealthiest pitch in to improve public balance sheets. And while the column discusses earlier polling, the Broadbent Institute provides the best confirmation yet that the selective pain has nothing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to end your day. – Boris sums up the Cons’ budget message to poor Canadians. David Macdonald assesses the Cons’ impact on jobs – with -70,000 not exactly looking like a positive number. Trish Hennessy frames the Cons’ plans as death by a thousand cuts, while Paul Wells
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