Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Nazaneei Ismail Ali discusses how public procurement can and should be a means of improving social and economic conditions, not merely a source of easy profits for well-connected corporate contractors. Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on an all-too-rare reprisal decision against a farm employer who
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ricky Leong writes that any meaningful effort to stop the coronavirus has to include enforcement to deal with the people who haven’t responded to moral suasion. – Lauren Mascarenhas reports on the CDC’s belated recognition that masks benefit both wearers and others in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Evidence suggests U.S. conservatives have given up on democracy — can Canada’s Cons be far behind?
Yesterday was Martinstag in Germany. I suppose if you think about it, it’s St. Martin’s Day here in Canada, too. Armistice Day 1918, how the end of World War I was told to Canadians. The occasion is said to be quite popular with children, with lots of colourful lanterns, costumes
Continue readingAlberta Politics: U.S. election exposes ‘Triple-E’ Senate myth once and for all as a democratic disaster
Does anyone recall the Reform Party of Canada’s campaign starting in the late 1980s to impose on our country a “Triple-E Senate” – that is to say elected, effective, and, above all, “equal”? Pushed by the likes of Calgary-area farmer Bert Brown and would-be philosopher king Preston Manning, this call
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The morning after the night before: Meet America’s Alexander Lukashenko, Donald J. Trump
If what is happening in the United States were taking place in another country, the American foreign policy and media establishment would now be denouncing the behaviour of President Donald Trump as that of a tyrant. As is well known, Mr. Trump did better than the polls had suggested he
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Other than that, my American cousins, how have you liked the last four years?
Our American cousins vote in a historic presidential election today and we wish them well in their endeavor, even if we would have preferred they spelled it endeavour. The Capitol in Washington D.C. (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). This message, however, is for my American cousins, be they on Manhattan Island
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Justin McElroy writes about the fatigue and unfamiliarity we’re feeling in addressing a new wave of COVID-19 – along with the importance of working through those challenges in order to protect everybody’s health. Bruce Arther discusses how reopening unsafely in the name
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Paula Ethans points out how anti-maskers and other COVID cranks have cynically drawn on the language of progressive protest movements to exacerbate the dangers of a deadly pandemic. And Umair Haque argues that the upcoming U.S. election may determine whether or not the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta must learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, premier muses on the topic of energy and the environment
Jason Kenney may have missed it, but Lyndon Johnson’s famous comment about how certain people weren’t up to walking and chewing gum at the same time was an observation about their lack of intelligence, not their ability to get away with saying contradictory things at the same time. Alberta’s premier
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Erica Alini reports on Canada’s K-shaped recovery on metrics including employment, debt and housing. And Bill Curry reports on polling showing that two-thirds of Canadians recognize the need to borrow money to keep people afloat through the coronavirus pandemic, rather than rushing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The CCPA Monitor interviews William Carroll about the fossil fuel elite’s control over far too much of Canadian politics, and the barrier that creates to any meaningful climate action. And Thomas Gunton takes note of the reality that new pipeline projects can’t be
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Alberta Day, fellow Albertians! Don’t count on having two days off in September, though
Happy “Alberta Day,” my fellow Albertians! Does Jason Kenney have a plan to erase Labour Day and replace it with something called Alberta Day on or about September 1? It certainly wouldn’t be out of character. U.S. President Donald Trump (Photo: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons). Labour Day celebrates labour, which
Continue readingAlberta Politics: We have met the enemy and he is us — Alberta in the midst of a climate damn emergency
VICTORIA — The world is waking up to the fact the climate emergency is, well, an emergency. This certainly isn’t good news for Alberta, although, perversely, it may be good news in the short term of the United Conservative Party of Premier Jason Kenney and governments like his in other
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Don Pittis discusses how the spread of modern monetary theory is challenging some stale assumptions about government budgeting. And Sarath Peiris highlights how the Saskatchewan Party’s plans for severe austerity are utterly unworkable without the federal government riding to the rescue of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Good union jobs! Green jobs! UCP supporters need not panic, they’re not for anyone around here!
Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party, friends of the union man and woman, not to mention the environment! Who would have seen that coming? Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta). Yet there was Energy Minister Sonya Savage, her words in black and white in the text
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Justin Ling discusses the dangers of the U.S.’ fever swamp conspiracy theories as they get shared – and warped – for Canadian marks. Ryan Cooper writes about the conservative victimhood complex which has made it impossible for the U.S. to be governed in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Fourth of July Fever: Pay attention when your neighbour has a breakdown; it may be contagious
Happy Fourth of July. It’s Independence Day at the crazy neighbour’s place next door and the crowds are partying without masks. How the world sees Donald Trump, as a fire gremlin (Image: Der Spiegel). We can’t very well send fire trucks to help put the fires out because the borders
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The likely future history of the Keystone XL Pipeline: Yes, Alberta! The answer is still No!
Who can forget Nov. 6, 2015, the day that will live in infamy? Just about everybody, as it turned out. Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper (Photo: Facebook). That was the day that U.S. President Barack Obama decided to pull the plug on the Keystone XL Pipeline, declaring that it was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Heather Scoffield points out some of the people who have been systematically excluded from any discussion about what steps need to be taken next in response to the coronavirus pandemic, while Althia Raj focuses on self-employed Canadians in particular. Simon Enoch is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada’s universal single-payer health care system is our best vaccination against the neoliberal virus
Who would have thought a decade ago, or even six months back, that Canada’s chances of surviving as a unified country would be better than those of the United States? The thought the mighty United States of America — e pluribus unum, and all that — could be on the
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