Monumental Stupidity
Jim Flaherty likes to wag his finger. Two days ago, he wagged it at the business community for sitting on $500 billion. It was the private sector’s time, he said,…
Owen Gray
McGuinty And The Teachers
Governments these days aren’t into labour relations. And so, Dalton McGuinty has torn a page out of Stephen Harper’s playbook, ordering Ontario teachers back to work before they took strike…
Observations From An Odyssey
I returned from a trip across Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with the following impressions: 1. In Quebec, Jean Charest and his Liberals are in deep trouble. Nonetheless, the…
What Science?
Stephen Harper claims that science will determine the viability of the Enbridge Pipeline. But he also insists that science must meet his deadline of 2013. However, as the Canadian Press…
What Happened To Progressive Taxation?
In the last thirty years, the idea that taxes should be progressive has disappeared from public discourse. Robert Reich writes that the father of free market capitalism believed that nations…
The Ghost Of Trudeau
John Ibbitson writes in this morning’s Globe that the Harper government is quietly preparing for a Parti Quebecois victory in Quebec. The Harperites are busy mapping out their game plan:…
Stockman’s Broadside
Pundits were buzzing this week, after David Stockman released an op-ed in The New York Times. Ronald Reagan’s former budget director had little good to say about the party he…
They Call The Shots
The Globe and Mail reports this morning that: For two days every summer, a select group of CEOs, other business leaders, and policy experts is invited to a retreat with…
Canadians and Climate Change
Stephen Harper likes to claim that his values are Canadian values. If Harper truly based his decisions on evidence, he might begin to revaluate that assumption. According to a new…
All That Outrage
It’s interesting to see what’s happened to the Party of Moral Outrage. When the Sponsorship Scandal broke, the Conservatives were in high dudgeon. They had a right to be outraged.…
Wealth and Health
We have known for twenty-five years that neo-conservative economic policies produce extreme income inequality. Now a report by the Canadian Medical Association makes clear that the same policies have led…
Romney, Ryan and Cheap Grace
Now that Mitt Romney has chosen Paul Ryan as his running mate, the transformation of the Republican Party is complete. The Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Ayn…
Harper’s Assault On Knowledge
Valerie Knowles writes this morning that, to date, the press has paid little attention to what federal budget cuts have done to government libraries: To date, the Immigration and Refugee…
How Not To Do Labour Relations
Just as Peter Kent is the Anti-Environment Minister, Lisa Raitt is the Anti-Labour Minister. Her job has been to legislate Canada Post, Air Canada and Canadian Pacific workers back to…
Man Of Science
Stephen Harper said yesterday that there would be an independent review of the proposed Northern Gateway Project: “The only way that governments can handle controversial projects of this manner is…
Federalism Upside Down
Don Lenihan and Graham Fox argue this morning that, under the Harper government, federalism has been turned upside down: The federal government seems to have opted for a more transactional…
Much Ado About Religion
Lawrence Marin takes a little time and space this morning to rebut the theocons who were outraged when he asked whether the prime minister’s religious faith influences his policies —…
Quebec’s Generation Gap
In the spring, it became clear that Quebec was experiencing what — in my youth — we called a “generation gap.” Konrad Yakabuski writes, in today’s Globe an Mail, that…
Flanagan’s Folly
Tom Flanagan beats the drum in the morning’s Globe and Mail for the Northern Gateway pipeline and all other pipelines. He cites section 92(10) subsection (a) of the BNA Act…
Riding Herd On The Civil Service
Michael Harris reminds his readers that the RCMP has been a troubled organization for a very long time: There were all those sled dogs they slaughtered; there was that dynamite…