Was Lac Megantic Disaster Caused By Too Much Government Regulation?
Probably not, but I made you look, no? I promised a commenter a more detailed post on an unrelated topic today, but I’m bogged down on that, and in the…
Sixth Estate
Climate Change Mitigation and the Tyranny of Small Minds
We cultural critics easily jump to conspiracy theory explanations (the media must be making up nonsense to support their corporate masters!) but the more likely answer, the more chilling one,…
The Seasons Test: Are People Too Stupid for Democracy to be Viable?
Last week, an interesting story flashed around the world’s media: in pretty much every country, men are much more knowledgeable about politics than women. Now, you might think that journalists…
Breathing the Air of Unreality in the Conservative Caucus
Whenever the vexed topic of Senate reform comes up, I’ve always tried to show the absurd air of unreality that surrounds the Harper government’s vapid proposals for making an elected…
Union Bill Debacle Shows Why The Senate Should Not Be Elected
I’m intrigued by the battle lines drawn over the Senate’s recent decision to reject a terrible and churlish piece of legislation which would attempt to impose an improper and hypocritical…
Responsible Government? No, Thanks.
An extraordinary thing will happen in British Columbia today. The legislature will resume sitting for the first time since the spring election. Now, normally, that wouldn’t be exceptional. But in…
Flood Aid and the Self-Serving Hypocrisy of the Free Market Right
I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming, as sure as you know that when a big disaster happens in our neighbour to the south, sooner or later…
Steal an Election, Win a Cabinet Seat
While the media was playing up the make-believe non-ethical non-scandal of the fact that Justin Trudeau used to charge (gosh!) speaking fees for public lectures, those of us who are…
Ethics, Shmethics: All Politicians are the Same (Not!)
You’ll have noticed how fixated the media is on the bright shiny object that is now-Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s speaking fees. I can’t help but notice that during the time…
12 Reasons the Harper Government Doesn’t Punish People Who Steal Elections
That’s 12 reasons apart from the fact that under Harper, the Conservative Party itself successfully attempted to steal the 2006 election by deliberately exceeding its spending limit and laundering the…
Are Canadians Tuning Out of Democracy? Only Sort Of.
A couple of weeks ago, I started a new series on popular apathy and the decline in popular interest in Canadian democracy by noting that, since 1867, the relative voting…
Mass Surveillance: Shamrock, Prism, and Supercomputers
As I kind of expected, when I suggested on Friday that we could now foresee an age where mass surveillance by governments was so cheap and easy that it would…
The Obama Snooping Scandal and the Inevitability of the Surveillance State
As you may have heard, the Obama administration has been outed as ambitiously Big Brother-ish, overseeing a National Security Agency surveillance program which essentially scoops user data from every major…
Inside Canada’s Basketcase, Charity-Dependent Inspection System
Recently evidence surfaced, quietly and unobtrusively, of the ways in which other inspection regimes suffer from the same sort of lackadaisical approach that the Harper government has applied to food…
Guest Post: Despair, Hope, and Leadership in Canadian Politics
I wanted to respond to the posts Sixth Estate has written over the last week or two about Canadians’ apathy and despair. Sixth Estate has kindly given me the opportunity…
The Great Anti-Ford Conspiracy of 2013
Ah, the sweet taste of vindication. A week ago, I made a deeply depressing suggestion: that a critical mass of the electorate are simply prepared to accept just about any…
Dodos, Efficient Governments, and the Unsolvable Problem of Climate Change, Part 3
This is the third part of a series on evolution and politics. You can also check out “Why Bacteria are Smarter than Drug Companies” and “Science Denialism and the Future…
Democratic Deficit Quantified: Canadians’ Representation in Parliament Declines by 97%
This post is the first of a new series on the history and future of Canadian multi-party democracy. The posts will be based on a spreadsheet of election results which…
Canadians Want Their Religion Cheap, Easy, and Inoffensive
What really irks me about religion coverage in this country is the remarkable credulity with which it is regularly treated. Of course that’s not limited to religion, but it’s an…
Conservatives Will Weather Duffygate
As my commenters were happy to point out, my last post on Senator Mike Duffy and Conservative political strategy was hilariously mistimed, since Duffy resigned from the Conservative caucus mere…