Northern Reflections: Where’s The Outrage?

That’s what Bob Dole trumpeted almost twenty years ago, when he was running against Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski. Try as he might, Dole couldn’t generate public outrage against Clinton. Susan Delacourt wrote last week that Conservatives can’t seem to generate any outrage over the fact that their top security

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Northern Reflections: Robothugs

Yesterday, Lawrence Martin asked a question, the answer to which has been obvious since Stephen Harper became prime minister: Does the fish rot from the head down? The story behind those recent robocalls in Saskatchewan gives the lie to the Conservative claims that robocalls in the last election were the

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Northern Reflections: The Hard Sell

Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor keep digging. This morning, in the Ottawa Citizen, they report that: A training manual used by call-centre workers soliciting donations for the Conservative Party outlines high-pressure tactics designed to overcome the objections of pensioners, widowers and the unemployed to raise money for the party. The

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Northern Reflections: What’s In a Name

When Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay agreed to their marriage of convenience nine years ago, they dropped the word “Progressive” from the party brand. It was a momentous omission and a harbinger of things to come — particularly the roboscam scandal. It signalled that everyone outside the party’s narrowly defined

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