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
Continue readingTag: thomas mulcair
Driving The Porcelain Bus: NDP Tied With Conservatives, And, Mulcair Doing Well
Two poll results from March (early March and then just after Mulcair won the leadership of the NDP), by Environics in early March and by Forum in late March, show the NDP tied with the Conservatives. The Environics poll from March 6-18, 2012, had the NDP and Conservatives tied at
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: Canada Federal Budget 2012: Canadians React
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair slammed the Harper Conservatives for recklessly cutting services vital to many Canadians’ livelihoods, such as Old Age Security. Liberal Leader Bob Rae called the budget “an exercise in small-mindedness and mean spirited-ness. And ordinary Canadians weighed … Continue reading →
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Thomas Mulcair and the Struggle for Canada
(Click pic to enlarge) Oh boy. What a difference a week makes. It seems like just yesterday when I was waiting for the fog to lift, and wondering who will save us from Stephen Harper’s ghastly regime? Because I really don’t want to live in a country like this one.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On regional impacts
Back here, I pointed out the prairie numbers from Forum Research’s poll about Canada’s federal leaders as an indication that the NDP has plenty of opportunity to grow after electing Thomas Mulcair as leader. But Volkov points out the fact that the NDP’s chances of making major gains in western
Continue readingThe Equivocator: Thomas Mulcair’s flip-flop on cannabis is disappointing but not surprising
On January 25th, 2012, a survey was released on EndProhibition.ca (a pro-NDP anti-prohibition website) where Thomas Mulcair’s campaign stated that he was in favour of decriminalizing cannabis and was very much in favour of medical marijuana. On March 18th, 2012 Mulcair was doing a t.v. interview with Tom Clark (see
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – If there’s any lesson we should all be able to draw from the past decade in Canadian politics, it’s that anything can happen. But it’s still rather amazing to see Gerald Caplan get hopeful about the NDP’s prospects of forming a social-democratic government:
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Mulcair – impressive in CBC interview
This is a day ago, but I thought it worthwhile to post for those who didn’t see it in it’s entirety. The new NDP and Official Opposition Leader is being interviewed by Evan Solomon on his reaction to the Conservative 2012 Budget. I thought it was a pretty impressive performance.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Yes, there was huge news in Robocon yesterday, with Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand rightly declaring the Cons’ fraudulent vote suppression to be “absolutely outrageous” while sharing the news that reports of wrongdoing have now come in from two-thirds of all of Canada’s
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Thomas Mulcair? We can’t spare that man. He fights!
Ulysses S. Grant, exactly as he appeared. Below: Thomas Mulcair (from a Toronto Star photo), for comparative purposes; President Lincoln. I like Thomas Mulcair for the same reason Abraham Lincoln liked Ulysses S. Grant. As President Lincoln famously said of Gen. Grant, the Commanding General of the Union Army in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Setting the agenda
Quick, spot what’s different in the NDP’s response to the federal budget compared to any other official opposition ever: NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair today slammed Stephen Harper’s Conservatives for introducing a budget that recklessly cuts the vital services that Canadians rely on—such as Old Age Security and health care. “Stephen
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Guest Post: On governing authorities
Dan Tan offers another guest post – this one responding to a bit of misplaced advice from Embassy with a helpful reminder as to how policy is formulated within the NDP: The foreign-affairs publication ‘Embassy’ recently published the following article: Advocates hope new Opposition leader shifts NDP position on Israel
Continue readingLeDaro: Mulcair’s debut and poor Bob Rae abandoned by the media
Watch the full video and you will get the picture.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading… – No, we shouldn’t read too much into the first wave of polling following Thomas Mulcair’s election as NDP leader. But there are a couple of points where the early returns are far enough out of line with expectations to be worth pointing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Fred Wilson weighs in on Thomas Mulcair’s mandate as the NDP’s new leader: (M)any progressives with no interest whatsoever in a “Blairist” agenda had found their way to the Mulcair camp. They supported Mulcair for two reasons — to maintain the party’s base
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On standards of disproof
In keeping with my own admonition, I won’t spend too much time amplifying the messages the Cons want to send in attacking NDP leader Thomas Mulcair. But I do think it’s worth pointing out how the main theme could prove to be self-defeating. One of the points which worked well
Continue readingwRanter.com: Why Thomas Mulcair gets it when it comes to Israel
Not surprisingly, Thomas Mulcair won the NDP leadership last month, replacing Saint Jack Layton as the man social democrats hope can rally left-of-centre voters to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Here’s hoping he’s successful, but as I argued in an earlier post, it seems unlikely that he will be, because
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Guest Post: The Progressive Consensus
Last week, I pointed out Greg Lyle’s polling showing that the NDP’s brand of social democracy enjoys plenty of popular support as a primary value system for a party seeking to form government. But reader Dan Tan looked at the numbers in a bit more detail and with an eye
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor report that the Council of Canadians is leading the charge in challenging election results which may have been influenced by Robocon. And perhaps the most noteworthy point as to how the move may shine a spotlight on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On early definition
It’s entirely predictable that far too many in the media are starting their coverage of Thomas Mulcair’s election as NDP leader with the Cons’ instant spin – in some cases even while showing plenty of optimism about Mulcair. (On that front, due credit to the Winnipeg Free Press for criticizing
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