Assorted content to end your week. – The Star’s editorial board highlights why our elected representatives should be countering the effect of precarious employment (rather than exacerbating them as the Cons have done): Simply put, programs like Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan were created back in the days
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – John Moore questions the much-hyped assertions of a permanent Republican Conservative majority by pointing out that Canadian values haven’t changed at all even as the Harper Cons have tried to use public money to change the channel. And Justin Ling sees the Cons
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: "His Most Preposterous Policy Statement Yet"
As noted here the other day, young Tim Hudak, in another move that shows the caliber of his leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, announced that student loans should be tied to student marks. This morning’s Star describes his proposal as silly and his most preposterous policy statement yet
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: The Media Is Owed Nothing
Its worth remembering that the last “exciting” race the LPoC ran provided fodder for attack ads against both the leader who emerged that year and in ’08. Star columnist Tim Harper naturally wants more. Cooler heads should not tell him no. And of course Harper undermines his own point pretty
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Erika Shaker rightly tears into the special brand of FAIPOF demanding that First Nations protesters focus solely on their own community leaders rather than recognizing broader and more systematic inequality: Much is being made of Chief Spence’s Escalade (although I’m unsure if she
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jeremy Warren reports on the origins of the Idle No More movement – recognizing it as an ideal example of how a few people resolving to take action can have a massive impact on public discussions. And Tim Harper notes that Stephen Harper
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tim Harper writes about Tom Mulcair’s success in building the NDP up as the leading alternative to the Cons for Canadian voters: Two-thirds of his questions since becoming leader have dealt with the economy as he attempts to build the case that
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The MacKay Mission
I really have nothing new to add to the sad spectacle of ministerial incompetence epitomized by Defense Minister Peter MacKay, whose ongoing mission and primary responsibilibilty seems to be never admitting to error or apologizing. However, the Star’s Tim Harper does have some thoughts on the reasons for his intransigence
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Steven Hoffman highlights the Cons’ utter refusal to recognize that foreign aid – as defined by global treaties – doesn’t mean the same thing as corporate giveaways: Reports and commentary on Canada’s new foreign aid policy reveal the extent to which international development
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week.- Susan Delacourt comments on what’s often lacking from Canadian political coverage – and the challenge facing journalists looking to stop relying excessively on horse-race numbers which may miss what ultimately moti…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Timothy Noah writes that since Republicans haven’t been able to convince the American public that inequality is desirable or acceptable, they’re taking another angle: engaging in inequality denialism to try to pretend a growing problem doesn’t exist. – Tim Harper discusses the importance
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tim Harper slams the Cons for yet another omnibus abuse of parliamentary democracy: Stephen Harper didn’t invent prorogation and omnibus legislation, but he has made two arcane polysyllabic political terms part of our everyday lexicon, improving our vocabulary but diminishing our democracy. His
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Stephen Harper’s Worldview
For those seeking insight into how Stephen Harper and his regime views the world, The Star’s Tim Harper offers some interesting insights. In New York snubbing the U.N. while accepting his reward award as World Statesman of the Year from the Appeal of Conscience Appeal, the Prime Minister offered the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Social Media and Margaret Wente
About two years ago, I wrote a blog post explaining why we cancelled our subscription to The Globe and Mail. At the same time, I sent an email with a link to the post to Globe editor-in-chief John Stackhouse, suggesting that if he wanted to know why he had lost
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Tim Harper weighs in on the Cons’ latest campaign of coordinated lies, and notes that the NDP looks to have learned one important lesson in how to respond: The NDP may be here at the federal level for the first time, but they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jeffrey Simpson marks Peter Lougheed’s passing by discussing what he brought to Alberta’s political scene that’s been sorely lacking ever since: Mr. Lougheed, defending Alberta’s jurisdictional turf in conflicts with Liberal and Conservative governments in Ottawa, navigated his province through these shoals. The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – On the anniversary of Jack Layton’s death, Tim Harper points out how far the NDP has come in just a year, while Brian Topp highlights where the party still needs to go: (W)hat to do about the federal government’s crisis of relevance? Recent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Tim Harper suggests that the Cons are running out of options to try to push the Gateway pipeline on a thoroughly-opposed public in British Columbia. But in keeping with the Cons’ general view of the world as nothing but a public relations problem
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: What "Flexibility" Really Means
Reading the print version of the story I posted a link to yesterday regarding young Tim Hudak’s latest attempt at formulating policy (a.k.a. union busting) got me thinking once more about how politicians misuse and debase language. In what I guess in his world passes for bold and innovative thinking,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dan Gardner draws some parallels between the Cons’ attacks on Europe and the well-worn (and entirely false) Reagan-era “welfare queen” line of spin. But I wonder whether the Cons are making matters somewhat more difficult for themselves by trying to negotiate a free
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