Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Errol Mendes points out that any commitment to securing human rights in our foreign policy is currently limited by the lack of any systematic attempt to see how those rights are being treated. And Rick Mercer…
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Montreal Simon: The Con Clown Circus and the Hypocrisy of Tony Clement
Uh oh. Move over Michelle Rempel. There's a new star at Rona Ambrose's Con clown circus.His name is Tony Clement also known as The King of Muskoka.Or the new shadow minister of Foreign Affairs.And he couldn't be funnier… Read more »
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why Are Some Progressives Saying That Justin Trudeau Has Failed Already?
It's just been two months and five days since Justin Trudeau was sworn in as Prime Minister.But already the Cons, the Con media, and even some some progressives are claiming that he is a total failure.And while that is to be expected from the shell…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Short-term jobs and profits notwithstanding, Canada’s interests are not served by Saudi armoured vehicle sale
PHOTOS: A Canadian LAV III similar to the armoured vehicles to be sold by General Dynamics Land Systems (Canada) of London, Ont., to the Saudi National Guard. Below: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion, former MI6 head Sir Ri…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Canadians Speak Out About Saudi Arabia
While our new government would, I’m sure, dearly love to change the channel on the indefensible arms deal with Saudi Arabia that I have been recently writing about, it is clear that Canadians are not about to be easily diverted. A selection of letters …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Government Secrecy Returns
Having lived for almost 10 years under a cone of silence and secrecy, Canadians can be forgiven for expecting more openness from the Trudeau government. That expectation appears to be a forlorn hope, at least if this is any indication: The Liberal gove…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- John O’Farrell argues that a basic income provides a needed starting point for innovation and entrepreneurship by people who don’t enjoy the advantage of inherited wealth:But in fact it is the current situation that …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Justin Fox explores why it took the economic field in general (with some noteworthy exceptions) decades to start dealing with burgeoning inequality. And Bryce Covert discusses the latest study showing that in l…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: UPDATED: A Further Indictment Of Canada’s Arms’ Deal With Saudi Arabia
Yesterday’s post dealt with the egregious hypocrisy of Canada’s condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s recent spate of executions while at the same time refusing to revisit the $15 billion arms sale to the Middle East kingdom. A report in today’s Globe and Mai…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Limits Of Principles
Despite the widely-condemned mass executions recently perpetrated by Saudi Arabia, the Trudeau government is going ahead with its $15 billion arms sale with the Middle East kingdom.Foreign Affairs Minster Stéphane Dion released a statement this week d…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Saudi Arabia and the Shameless Con Clowns
The situation couldn't be more dire or more dangerous.Saudi Arabia's execution of 47 prisoners, including the well known Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, has set off a firestorm in the region.It's threatening to lead to an all-out confrontation b…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why Canada’s belligerent Conservatives are likely praying for peace in the Persian Gulf
PHOTOS: The nuclear powered American aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf in in 2014. (U.S. Navy photo.) Mighty warships are the carriers, but in the constricted waters of the Gulf, vulnerable nevertheless. Below: A map of the Gulf…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Year in review: from plunging oil to rising hope, the Top Ten news stories of 2015
PHOTOS: Cameras try to follow a nearly invisible Rachel Notley through the crowd at an Edmonton hotel on May 5, 2015, moments after she had been declared the winner of the Alberta election. No one could quite believe that the NDP had just won a majorit…
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: When Is War, War?
Don Maroc One thing we can feel secure about, a lot of out neighbours seem to know a great deal about what’s happening in Paris, France and Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and all the other Read more…
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Justin Trudeau and the Day the Cons Came Back From the Dead
It seems only too tragic that just ten days after being sworn in as Prime Minister after promising to restore our Canadian values, and bring back sunnier days, that Justin Trudeau should be hit by the darkness of the Paris massacre. Only too ironic that the son of Pierre should have
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Devil Canada Has Made A Deal With
Although it generated some heated discussion during the election campaign, don’t expect the $15 billion armoured vehicle deal the Harper government signed with human-rights-hater Saudi Arabia to be rescinded now that a new government is about to be sworn in. Because the country is seen as a stabilizing presence in
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper, Raif Badawi, and the Barbaric Practices of Saudi Arabia
He liked to portray himself as a champion of human rights, and the leader of the war against cultural barbaric practices. But Stephen Harper never lifted a finger to ask the barbaric regime in Saudi Arabia to stop savagely flogging the blogger Raif Badawi. Even though his family lives in Canada… Because he was
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Could Syria Become the 21st Century Sarajevo?
There were plenty of proxy wars during the Cold War only back then the principals had enough sense to avoid direct clashes. That was then, this is Syria where today we find the rival superpowers circling each other inside the same phone booth. You could search the world over and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Lawyers, guns and money: Russia’s intervention in Syria offers a useful teaching moment for Canadians
PHOTOS: A Russian Su-34 bomber releases a bomb near the provisional ISIS capital of Raqqa in Syria. (Russian Ministry of Defence photo.) Below: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian civil war has offered a unique teaching
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: As Clear as Mud
In under 2-minutes, the BBC explains who is fighting whom in Syria. It’s as clear as mud.
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