Screen shot 2012-06-19 at 4.37.47 PM.png There are precious few voices in the U.S. capital these days that are speaking the truth about climate change. Which is what makes Senator John Kerry's speech on the Senate floor today so powerful, and so necessary. In his speech, which clocked in at nearly
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Song of the Watermelon: The Senate Election that Refuses to Die
Three months ago, I wrote a post warning of coming Senate elections here in British Columbia. Now it seems that the private member’s bill providing for such elections, despite Premier Christy Clark’s support, will not be making it through the … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – It’s undoubtedly an embarrassment for John Baird to have leapt at a thoroughly implausible bit of anti-UN spin. But I’d think there’s more reason for hope than concern in the long run: if a year into their majority mandate the Cons are still
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Jim Stanford neatly sums up how the Cons’ obsession with selling off both natural resources and natural resource producers affects other industries: There is no doubting the statistical correlation between oil prices and the loonie. Econometric analysis indicates that since the turn of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: March 27, 2012
Tuesday, March 27 saw a day dominated by the type of serious discussion about the role of the financial sector that we should expect in the years to come – even if the basis for that discussion was less than we should have hoped for. The Big Issue The main
Continue readingWhy I am eating my ballot.
With one week to go in the Alberta general election campaign, I’m wondering what you perceive the biggest issues to be. Perhaps it is F-35 fighter jets, maybe it is the abolition of the gun registry, the omnibus crime bill, perhaps it is public service cuts related to food safety
Continue readingWhy I am eating my ballot.
With one week to go in the Alberta general election campaign, I’m wondering what you perceive the biggest issues to be. Perhaps it is F-35 fighter jets, maybe it is the abolition of the gun registry, the omnibus crime bill, perhaps it is public service cuts related to food safety inspectors or the CBC. …So, … Continue reading Why I am eating my ballot. →
Continue readingImpolitical: Conservative Senators bring the optics on budget eve
Conservative Senators are complaining today about news that they’ll be losing a cafeteria in one of the buildings in which Senators work, the Victoria Building. Former Conservative party president, Don Plett, unfamiliar with the phrase “entitled to their entitlements” apparently, said this: “What a bad, bad idea. The Victoria cafeteria
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Beginning of The End for Big Oil’s Billion Dollar Subsidies?
oil-drum-stuffed-with-money.jpg Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (N.J.) has introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to kill, once and for all, the billions of dollars worth of subsidies that are flowing from the federal government to the oil industry. Under Menendez’s proposal, the $4 billion annual corporate welfare handed out to oil companies
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Steve Harper’s Personal Freak Show – the Senate of Canada
Steve Harper has some curious thoughts. Not a lot of them, admittedly, and what there are tend to be astonishingly shallow and always just a bit quirky. That certainly comes through from the maladjusted freaks and lunatics Steve has packed into the Senate apparently for his personal amusement. PostMedia’s Sue
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: Obert Madondo’s indefinite hunger strike against crime Bill C-10: Letter to the Governor Genera of Canada
Starting at 12:01am today, I embarked on an indefinite hunger strike to demand that Canada’s new Safe Streets and Communities Act (omnibus crime Bill C-10) be immediately repealed. Earlier, I had appealed to the Governor …Read More
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Red Chamber Blues
BC Premier Christy Clark took a break from bullying teachers yesterday to back the idea of elections to Canada’s Senate. If the private member’s bill introduced by Liberal John Les passes through the Legislature, which with the Premier’s support it almost certainly will, British Columbians could wind up voting this
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: Crime Bill C-10: Jack Harris’ Last Stand Against Stephen Harper
Jack Harris, the NDP MP for St. John’s East , spoke for three hours today against the Conservatives omnibus crime Bill C-10. He resumes his speech on Wednesday as he tries to filibuster the bill. …Read More
Continue readingRandom Ranting Raving and Ratings: The Conservative Party of Canada – A Study in Contradictions
I can’t help but notice that Conservatives have been all over the board with their policies and positions arguing on one side of an issue in one circumstance and the polar opposite in a different circumstance Here are just a few examples: The Conservative party that last year said the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 9, 2011
Friday, December 9 saw the final day of debate at second reading on the Cons’ seat allocation bill. And as usual, plenty of valid questions went entirely unanswered. The Big Issue Marc-Andre Morin rightly questioned the Cons’ trumped-up sense of urgency in dealing with seat allocations while they do nothing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 8, 2011
Thursday, December 8 saw debate on four separate bills – though once again, the Harper Cons were most conspicuous by their silence on a bill they were in the process of ramming through Parliament. The Big Issue That would be the Senate patch job which was being debated at second
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 7, 2011
Wednesday, December 7 packed plenty of contentious debate into an extremely short day, with a time allocation motion and debate on two bills fit within an afternoon sitting. The Big Issue Once again, Peter Van Loan sought to limit debate on one of the Cons’ bills – this time their
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 6, 2011
Tuesday, December 6 saw a day devoted primarily to debating the Cons’ seat redistribution bill. And the result was some interesting interplay between the three official parties in the House of Commons – if no lack of contradictions as well. The Big Issue In effect, the debate on C-20 saw
Continue readingCowboys for Social Responsibility: Today in history
Today: Gerry Nicholls wins Twitter. We’ll never top that.
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: Conservative Senator: “Every murderer should have a rope in his cell”
The Conservative government’s universally-condemned omnibus crime Bill C-10has a confirmed YES vote in the Senate. The name behind the vote: tough-on-crime Conservative Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu. Earlier today, Boisvenu said a prisoner “should have the right …Read More
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