Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Justin Worland writes that the financial sector is belatedly and slowly waking up to the dangers of the climate crisis – with…
February 2020
The Canadian Culture Wars
The Conservative Party is deeply divided. But there is one thing that unites them. Alan Freeman writes: Conservatives may be divided on all sorts of questions, like gay marriage and…
The Dishonourable Senator from Northwestern Ontario: Enough is Enough
In all my years of writing and blogging I’ve developed some rules for myself when it comes to what I do. Those have come from experience and honestly just best…
Fighting Bill 21 in Québec
A sticker seen in Montreal on May 20, 2019 referring to Québec’s ban on religious symbols enacted by Bill 21. Photo from Flickr. During the federal election, Bloc Québécois leader…
A Decade of Playing Left-Wing: Sports Heroes of the 2010s
Sports journalism is not immune from the year-end “listicle”, the clickbait content that dominates the Web every December. While I admit to being a sucker for these “best of” exercises,…
Heritage Minutes: history, culture, and propaganda
Still image from “Jacques Cartier” (1991), part of Heritage Minutes, a collection of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. The Minutes integrated Canadian history, folklore…
An Oral History of Propagandhi’s “Oka Everywhere”
Frontman and guitarist Chris Hannah of the Winnipeg-based thrash-punk band Propaghandi during a show in Brisbane, Australia, May 29, 2011. This summer will mark 30 years since the start of…
Canada’s Tax System Should Oppose Inequality, Not Subsidize the Rich
Members of the GUE/NGL protest the existence of tax havens in the European Parliament in 2014. Photo by GUE/NGL (Flickr). Successive Canadian governments have treated taxes like a problem that…
Is Canada Driving “Surveillance Capitalism”?
The use of facial recognition is problematic for several reasons, including its infringement on privacy and civil rights. Photo from Flickr. Unethical industries run much of Canada’s economy. From the…
The greed that consumes Alberta.
It was at the end of December that Babel-on-the-Bay discussed the hopes of Alberta premier Jason Kenney for the Teck Frontier mine in North-East Alberta. The proposed open-pit tar sands…
Trudeau’s “Middle Class Tax Cut” Is a Sham
Justin Trudeau unveiled his full election campaign in early October, 2019, which included a new Canada Child Benefit and reduced income tax for the middle class. In the 2019 federal…
The War on the Poor in the Age of Austerity
Homeless camp in East Vancouver, September 2017. Photo by Kenny McDonald (Flickr). Last year, I stepped down as an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) after 28 years…
Ernst & Young review of Alberta Health Services gives UCP cover to do lots, flexibility to do little
We’re not closing any rural hospitals, have you got that? Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro strove to make that point perfectly clear at his news conference in Edmonton yesterday on…
Rush Limbaugh – One Smoke Over the Line
He’s the dean of open-mouth radio, widely loved by American nativists, xenophobes, racists, misogynists and garden-variety bigots and just as widely deplored by everyone else. Rush Limbaugh, whose signature prop…
Talking CoronaVirus, the Iowa Caucuses & More Strife in Ontario’s Education Sector with Kristy Cameron
Today I had the chance to join Kristy Cameron on CFRA’s “Ottawa Now” with Katlyn Harrison and Shane MacKenzie. We talked about the CoronaVirus and the attempts to get Canadians…
The Ugly Cons and the Incredible Contracting Leadership Race
The last time the Cons held a leadership contest, just about everybody agreed that there were too many candidates, and it was real horror show..But this time the Cons have…
The Death Knell for Fossil Fuels?
There’s really not much to like in CNBC’s brash investment guru, Jim Cramer. Until now. Cramer warns that the fossil fuel industry has entered the “death knell stage.” Cramer added…
Sarah’s Eulogy for a Long-Dead Democracy
Is today’s America no longer a democracy but a tyranny? In today’s Globe, Sarah Kendzior persuasively makes the argument. The Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump was never a matter…
… And Now We Indoctrinate Our Children
As if we needed yet another example of Albertans’ deep denial of global warming. Education Minister Adriana LaGrange claims she is receiving reports from parents of “extremist views” being taught…
News From the Front – "What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear"
Something is happening that the climate modelers didn’t foresee. Well, most of them anyway. Bloomberg reports their models are suddenly running “red hot.” There are dozens of climate models, and…