Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Andrew Coyne asks some disturbing questions as to how the federal government is becoming less and less accountable:In other countries, executive power is subject…
October 2011
A Plan for Cities in Canada
Finally we get to see some policy stuff roll out from leadership hopefuls. Jack Layton championed this as head of the Canadian Federation of Municipalities and as NDP leader The…
Go for Plan A, Christie
Media troll Christie Blatchford has a go at the health care system. here I used to think that before I got really old I’d get me a gun so I…
OWS – the next step: occupy the boardrooms of large corporations & the internet
OccupyWallStreet is spawning offspring at a healthy click, and I'm not talking about occupy some other city kind of spawning!A fascinating website named epolitics has a posting on two recent…
A need for debate
It's been pointed out elsewhere that the Cons are invoking closure on multiple difference types of legislation in order to ensure that their sweeping changes aren't subject to proper public…
Vote Only Once And Never Have To Vote Again! Get Future Gov’t Policies For The Unforeseen Future, No Matter Who’s Governing!
Susan Delacourt points this out in her blog this morning. Some examples are cited. One of which, the most obvious and recent, was in this legislation to scrap the long…
Canadian Wheat Board files lawsuit against federal government
I looked through the Act and could not see the basis to claim there is a requirement for a plebiscite -- perhaps I missed it?http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1076277The Canadian Wheat Board is launching…
Open Access Research: Cities and Climate Change
It may be an urban legend, by they say that the average academic article is read by a grand total of 6 people. That's not an inspiring thought, especially for…
We don’t see what we most need to notice
Take note America: the public is angry, Moisés Naím, Financial Times, October 26, 2011 "Over a century ago Alexis De Tocqueville wrote that Americans’ higher tolerance for inequality relative to…
It won’t end with killing the gun registry
I won't bother writing a long obituary on the coming death of the long gun registry; I've made all my arguments previously and the issues pro and con have been…
Apropos of nothing in particular…
I just picked up a Freedom of Information form from the Town of Collingwood. I’m still debating what to do with it. Any suggestions?
Stop the Cap: New report finds ISPs grossly overestimate costs of meeting increasing demand
By Phillip Dampier for Stop the Cap Internet Service Providers who use “increasing bandwidth costs” as an excuse to raise prices or implement an Internet Overcharging scheme like usage limit...
Taxes, Pensions and Health care
More than half of Canadians do not have money saved up for a rainy day according to the Royal Bank (RBC). What is rainy day money? Since I was a…
Chris Hedges Discusses OWS On Charlie Rose
Just back from my hiatus, I found a very recent Charlie Rose interview with the always articulate Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. It is well-worth watching as…
Open fire on the long gun registry
While I certainly don’t agree with the decision to abolish the long gun registry, I can say that I understand why the government is doing it: mainly to appease their…
Port, Province Set to Steamroll Over Delta’s "Meaningless" Farmland
We’ve known it all along, but at last we hear it out loud. Robin Silvester, the President and CEO of Port Metro Vancouver, has stated that:“Agriculture is emotionally important, but…
140 Law – Legal Headlines for October 26, 2011
Here are this rainy day's leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter: 'Thou Shalt Not ...' Visit Any of Our 11 McDonald's Restaurants for the Remainder of Your Life…
Tips for Highly Effective Blogging
Via copyblogger, two posts – written a year apart – on the habits of highly effective bloggers. The 16 tips are pretty simple and pretty straightforward but they are as…
Test for leave to appeal
Johal v. Virdi, 2011 BCCA 412, deals with leave applications in a costs context. While arising under British Columbia legislation the case has useful language:Leave to appeal an order respecting…
No More Bubble Gum
Who could have envisioned Occupy Wall Street and its sudden wildflower-like profusion in cities large and small? John Carpenter could have, and did. Almost a quarter of a century ago…