“The Harper government is the most environmentally hostile one we have ever had in Canada.” – Maude Barlow, Chair of the Council of Canadians About 1,500 scientists, lawyers, students and activists from across Canada gathered on Parliament Hill yesterday and held a mock funeral to mourn the death of Canadian
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The Liberal Scarf: First post in a long time, some policy discussion!
I haven’t posted in forever, so I decided to break out of the doldrums of summer by posting a policy I’m considering submitting for OYL Summer Fling on reforming Canadian Content regulations. Here it is: Whereas – Canadian music deserves to be supported and funded for both economic and cultural
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: What To Expect When You’re Electing: Part 2 – Mitt Romney
Romney.jpg In Part 1 of this series, we explored the overall environmental issues that are facing the U.S., mostly as a part of coordinated attacks by politicians in Washington. In the next few articles, we’ll take a look at what each candidate has said or done in regards to both
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Harper Government Must Set Canadian Scientists Free
Nature, one of the biggest and most-read scientific journals in the world, made this call in a February 29th editorial. The journal lamented the Harper Government’s undisguised hostility to openness, expert opinion and publicly-funded scientific expertise. Rightly so. At some point, the government’s stated communication policy, posted on a federal website and
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Opposing Supply Management & Economic Principles
While supply management is bad for our economy, the discussion around it has at least managed to supply how the majority who oppose it are intellectually dishonest. For the Conservatives, libertarians, Liberals, and the like who are now so vocal in their opposition to supply management, a relatively minor economic
Continue readingCalgary Grit: Issue Management
I spy with my little eye, someone running for leadership In her Star column today, Chantal Hebert supposes that the Quebec Nation resolution might resurface as a divisive issue during the Liberal Leadership race, as it did in 2006. While I don’t think there’s any appetite to revisit that specific
Continue readingeaves.ca: The End of the World: The State vs. the Internet
Last weekend at FooCamp, I co-hosted a session titled “The End of the World: Will the Internet Destroy the State, or Will the State Destroy the Internet?” What follows are the ideas I opened with during my intro to the session and some additional thoughts I’ve had. To avoid some
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Free Post-Secondary Education Makes Money
Free post-secondary education would increase incomes, and income taxes would not just recover the initial cost to government but would actually generate additional public revenue. This paper from the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives compares incomes from higher education and the subsequent increased government revenue from income taxes, and finds
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Free Post-Secondary Education Is Bad Because You’re Afraid Of Change
You have a reason to oppose free post-secondary education? You sure do, it’s your unwillingness to change. The fact is a majority of Canadians do offer justifications for opposing free post-secondary education, but those arguments do not come from research or evidence, they come from a fear of change. This
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: House Republicans Go All In With Dirty Energy Industry Bonanza Legislation
Powerplant-and-EPA.jpg The dirty energy industry might experience Christmas in June if House Republicans have their way. Earlier this month, members of the House Energy Action Team (HEAT) unveiled a “package” of legislation that includes numerous bills that would give the industry everything that they’ve dreamt of for years. The legislative
Continue readingArt Threat: City of Vancouver launches Arts & Culture Policy Council
The City of Vancouver is now home to an Arts and Culture Policy Council which will advise City Council on civic programs relating to arts and culture. The creation of the council was announced back in February, but last week members of the council were finally announced. The 15-member council
Continue readingCalgary Grit: The Third Way
The latest Ipsos poll paints a rather dreary picture of Liberal fortunes, with what was once the natural governing party languishing more than 15 points behind both the NDP and the Conservatives. Of course, the NDP are in their post-leadership honeymoon, the Liberals don’t have a permanent leader, and a
Continue readingeaves.ca: Public Policy: The Big Opportunity For Health Record Data
A few weeks ago Colin Hansen – a politician in the governing party in British Columbia (BC) – penned an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun entitled Unlocking our data to save lives. It’s a paper both the current government and opposition should read, as it is filled with some very
Continue readingArt Threat: Art for social justice: 12 remarkable women – Roots to Resistance project shares stories of courage
Natalia Estemirova Twelve women. Twelve stories of political courage. Twelve portraits. The Roots to Resistance project is spreading word about the groundbreaking work of twelve women who have dedicated their lives to fighting for social justice. Artist Denise Beaudet is creating portraits of 12 remarkable activists. Postcards of these images
Continue readingbastard.logic: The Real Bev Oda Scandal: Politicizing (& Corporatizing) Canadian Foreign Aid
That now-infamous taxpayer-subsidized luxury hotel switcheroo in Mother London? Small potatoes. Don Cayo: [A]nalysis by Fraser Reilly-King, a policy analyst at the non-profit Canadian Council for International Co-operation, shows substantial cuts to foreign aid in last month’s federal budget are aimed mainly at the same kind of underprivileged countries [that were
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: New Poll: American Voters Very Concerned About Global Warming Pollution, Support Taxing Dirty Energy
global climate change.jpg A new poll released today shows that American voters take global warming pollution very seriously and want to see action from government and the private sector to curb emissions and support clean energy solutions. The new Yale-GMU survey found that 76% of Americans believe that regulating CO2 emissions
Continue readingArt Threat: That’s a wrap? – Killing Saskatchewan’s film tax credit is economic nonsense
The cast from InSecurity. The TV show will no longer be produced in Saskatchewan. With the announcement of the axing of the Saskatchewan Film Employment Tax Credit, we are effectively telling the rest of the film-producing world that Saskatchewan is closed for business. It’s a commonly known fact that film
Continue readingArt Threat: Ai Wei Wei installs live webcams in home – Artists winks at Chinese authorities with a Big Brother flourish
Artist Ai Wei Wei has installed live webcams in his home so that authorities – and worried supporters – can keep track of his day-to-day whereabouts and welfare. Feeling hemmed in by increasingly invasive state surveillance – being followed day-to-day, round-the-clock surveillance on his home, searches of his studio, phone
Continue readingArt Threat: Step Right Up to See the GOP’s Amazing War on Women
Mother Jones’ illustrator Zina Saunders takes on the GOP’s oppressive and backwards stance on women in her illustrated political cartoon this week, in which you are invited to step right up and watch the greatest circus on earth – the 2012 Republican presidential campaign. Watch it over at Mother Jones’.
Continue readingArt Threat: Some kind of monster – Film screening cancelled amid unsubstantiated copyright fears
Canadian filmmaker and activist John Greyson is no stranger to controversy — whether haranguing Justin Bieber to pull concerts scheduled for Israel, supporting queer film festivals in hostile environments, or scuffling with TIFF over the erasure of occupation in special programming, the prolific auteur has seen his share of messy
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