This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot writes about the dangers of allowing wealthy and privileged individuals to speak as the voice of the poor and downtrodden: As the UK chairs the G8 summit again, a campaign that Bono founded, with which Geldof works closely, appears to
Continue readingTag: unfitness for office
Accidental Deliberations: Deep thought
“The Conservatives are being asinine, let’s shut down Parliament!” isn’t a recipe for more functional politics, it’s a means of encouraging more asinine behaviour from the Conservatives.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: All for show
Predictably, the Cons are running through their Rolodex of excuses as to why they’re spending public money on partisan media monitoring – with the answer being that they want to make sure that PR stunts achieve additional partisan goals: The prime minister’s spokesman Andrew MacDougall told HuffPost PCO tracks the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ed Broadbent takes a look at how our tax system can combat inequality in more ways than one: The Broadbent Institute is presenting proposals Tuesday to the Finance Committee of the House of Commons. Our primary recommendation is that Canada establish as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your day. – Carol Goar discusses how the Cons’ latest attacks on Employment Insurance add just one burden to the backs of workers who have already borne the brunt of decades of corporatist policy: (L)ast Sunday, employment insurance benefits in two-thirds of the country were quietly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Edward Greenspon discusses the importance of a public service whose focus extends beyond the narrow interests of the government of the day: The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work for governments, particularly those employed – in the evolving argot of recent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lawrence Martin discusses how the B.C. Libs, Harper Cons and other governments have responded to transparency requirements by deliberately refusing to record what they’re doing and why: News from the government of British Columbia. Sorry citizens, we have no files. There is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Michael Harris rightly points out that a steady stream of scandals and incompetence from the Cons says plenty about Stephen Harper’s own judgment (or lack thereof): Sooner or later, the country is going to realize that there is something terribly wrong with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – In response to the Fraser Institute’s latest attempt to foment panic (to be used as an excuse to attack public programs and hand yet more free money to corporations), Trish Hennessy explains the province’s choices in terms anybody should be able to understand:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Dennis Gruending writes about the importance of Edgar Schmidt’s whistleblowing against unconstitutional legislation: Schmidt says that he has over a period of years raised concerns about what he considers the department’s flawed practices. He has done that through various official channels, up to
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: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Bruce Anderson worries that the Cons might think they face no restriction on their ability to get away with dirty tricks. But Noah Richler suggests that the best way to fight back against the Cons’ disdain for democratic debate is to treat them
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Burning question
An even faintly ethical government, confronted with reprehensible behaviour that escapes any ramifications based merely on a technicality, might be expected to at least turn its mind to trying to fill in the gap. Anybody want to take bets on who’ll even waste their breath suggesting that the Cons could
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On manual adjustments
For all the failings of a Con government that combines extreme centralization with an utter lack of vision, let’s give Stephen Harper credit for successfully bludgeoning satire to death. Just this week, I considered this to be at least somewhat of an exaggeration in the department of “using what’s been
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links
Assorted content for your evening reading. – Alex Himelfarb finds a few positives in the Cons’ ramming their dumb-on-crime bill through the House of Commons: Thankfully many are not willing to “get over it”. How heartening, for example, to hear Leadnow.ca announce that they were simply regrouping for the next
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – If anybody hasn’t yet seen Bruce Anderson’s critique of the Cons’ dirty tricks, it’s well worth a read – especially in emphasizing how a party supposedly built around morals and ethics is so quick to declare that anything goes when it comes to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: The new normal
It wasn’t long ago that I considered it remarkable for a government to make any claim to concern about privacy which was so implausible as to demand refutation by the responsible Privacy Commissioner. But the Cons are managing to make a habit of it.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your afternoon reading.- Lawrence Martin argues that with an NDP Official Opposition at the same time as the effects of inequality and greed continue to send shockwaves across the globe, there’s no time like the present for Canada …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On primary purposes
Yes, it’s striking enough that multiple parties’ MPs went out of their way to destroy information about constituent requests to make it harder for new NDP MPs to do their job. But it’s particularly worth comparing the Cons’ treatment of constituents’ p…
Continue reading