There is a simple, time-honoured rule about attempting to “balance” human rights classes in legislation so that it works out a particular way every time, and it goes like this: You can’t. That is a court’s role. When two human rights classes are put into conflict in a way that
Continue readingTag: Youth
Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jonas Fossli Gherso discusses the unfortunate (and unnecessary) acceptance of burgeoning inequality even by the people who suffer most from its presence. And Ryan Meili interviews Gabor Mate about the ill health effects of an economic system designed to keep people under stress:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, arguing that while Stephen Poloz is indeed thoroughly out of touch in suggesting that people entering the workforce should take on unpaid internships as matters stand now, we should in fact make sure that unpaid work (or study, or other activity) is a viable option for young workers. For
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Robert Reich discusses how our economic system is set up to direct risk toward the people who can least afford to bear it (while also directing the spoils to those who need them least): Bankruptcy was designed so people could start over.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dennis Howlett discusses what we lose when corporations are able to evade taxes, and points to some positive signs from the NDP in combating the flow of money offshore: Federal and provincial governments lose an estimated $7.8 billion in tax revenues each
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Mark Taliano highlights the distinction between corporate and public interests (while pointing out that both military and economic policy are all too often based on the former). And Jamie Doward discusses how the perception that government is either unwilling or unable to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Benjamin Shingler reports on the push for a basic annual income in Canada. And Christopher Blattman notes that cash serves as a valuable treatment for poverty wherever one diagnoses the disease: The poor do not waste grants. Recently, two World Bank economists looked
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Bryce Covert rightly challenges the claim that poverty bears any relationship to an unwillingness to work – along with other attempts to blame the poor for their condition: In fact, the majority of able-bodied, adult, non-elderly poor people worked in 2012, according
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Young Adults Are More Than Alright
Baby Boomers are just like their parents – they complain about all the problems they think the youth are causing (as if it’s the youth fault the planet is experiencing irreversible climate change and the economy was maladjusted a few years back). The older generations often accuse younger people to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the Canadian public’s widespread recognition – and worrisome acceptance – that life will be worse for younger generations than for older ones. For further reading…– Ipsos-MORI’s poll referenced in the column is here. – The CCPA’s feature on post-secondary education costs is here, while Holly Moore reports on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Ezra Klein comments on the U.S.’ doom loop of oligarchy – as accumulated wealth is spent to buy policy intended to benefit nobody other than those who have already accumulated wealth: On Thursday, the House passed Paul Ryan’s 2015 budget. In order to get
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – The Star-Phoenix discusses how the Cons are systematically attacking the independent institutions which are necessary to ensure a functioning democratic system: When a handful of Conservative MPs from Saskatchewan attacked the integrity of the province’s electoral boundaries commissioners last year in an attempt
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rick Smith hopes that the Cons’ backtracking on income splitting means that they won’t go quite as far out of their way to exacerbate income inequality in the future: (T)he unfortunate reality is that we are still becoming ever more unequal, a trend
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jo Snyder discusses how poverty makes everybody less healthy, and recognizes the need for higher basic wages as a result. And Laurie Penny highlights the futility of trying to badger young adults into service jobs which offer no opportunity for personal, professional
Continue readingLeft Over: Harper: The Working Class Can Kiss My….
Minimum wage in Canada: One woman’s story No fancy meals and no vacations: ‘I am working poor’ CBC News Posted: Jan 14, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Jan 14, 2014 7:06 AM ET This is an article that could have been written forty-odd years ago, when I arrived
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Frank Graves recognizes that the dismal mood of young Canadians is based on the economic reality that the expected trend toward intergenerational progress has been reversed. – Meanwhile, Jesse Myerson discusses five policy proposals which would give younger citizens a far more fair
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: I Believe the Children Are Our Future: Barf
Faisal and Azeem, getting it done! Platitudes and paternalism aside, the 21st century actually does belong to the young. And not that they’re OUR future, like an extension of us, but that we are stewarding the future for them. And we’re doing a pretty horrible job of it. But since
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Common Ground voting is closing soon, support my policy on Encouraging Youth Voter Participation and Improving Civic Education!
http://commonground.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Encouraging-Youth-Voter-Participation-Improving-Civic-Education/13731-25935 It’s on a Liberal website, but I think it’s a good non partisan idea that could have a positive impact on youth participation in the electoral process. Many American states allow for youth voter pre-registration, so this isn’t a radical idea – it works in other places, why not
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The new epidemic: Death cults and the culture of despair
An article in The Atlantic speaks to the growing death-fetish that is gripping more and more youth. It is a bad omen for the state of modern industrial civilization as a whole, I would contend, and it indicates a broader trend toward anxiety, hopeless and despair, which must be confronted
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Trans kids, washrooms and the new harassment
On October 13th, a story appeared at the Christian Broadcasting Network about girls being harassed by a trans youth in the washroom of a Colorado-area school. Soon afterward, the story was picked up by the Daily Mail, the Examiner, FOX News, and several webmedia outlets. One even embellished it with
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