For the Record
I often engage anonymous right-wing trolls at the Sudbury Star and Northern Life website’s comments sections. While some of the online conversations that I’ve engaged in have been, to say…
Sudbury Steve
Prime Minister Harper Should Resign – or Be Dismissed
Enough is enough. Which version of the “truth” will Prime Minister Stephen Harper try to sell Canadians tomorrow on his involvement in the Senate Scandal – a scandal which threatens…
Laraque Deserves the Green Party’s Continued Support, but should Step Aside for Good of the Party
The Green Party of Canada prides itself on doing politics differently. Often, that’s what sets us apart from the other old-line political parties, and our progressive approach to politics is…
Brian Topp Reveals How NDP Plays Cynical Partisan Games with Environmental Issues
I have been trying to get through B.C. NDP campaign manager and former federal leadership challenger Brian Topp’s August 21, 2013 “Campaign Post Mortem” (Topp’s own name for this document)…
Neoliberalism’s Green Foil, Part 3: The Green Party, the New Left, and the Greening of the NDP
In my earlier blogposts, I looked at the dual nature of change, and what that means for a left-wing political environment which is wedded to the current economic status quo.…
Neoliberalism’s Green Foil, Part 2: The Emergence of the New Left
Change is inevitable. That was one of the first lessons taught to me when I went to Planning School at Ryerson University in the early 1990s. It was a pretty…
Neoliberalism’s Green Foil, Part 1: the Climate Crisis and the Old Left
My oldest daughter, Veronica, has started to speak in ways that I don’t always understand. Having turned 3 years of age this past summer, I’ve noticed that she has picked…
Feds Spend Tax Money to Justify Northern Gateway Pipeline Project
The following text has been modified slightly from text which was recently submitted as a letter to the Editor of a local newspaper with general circulation in Greater Sudbury. At…
Nomination Meeting’s Dirty Laundry Continues to Cling to NDP
Why does the provincial NDP seem intent on tearing itself apart over the now-dated Adam Giambrone nomination meeting scandal? With 5 provincial by-elections in the rear-view mirror, and the NDP…
Cynical Politics, Bad Economics: Feed-in-Tarriffs and the Political Left
The following letter to the Editor of the Sudbury Star was published on Friday, August 30, 2013, under the headline, “All forms of energy subsidized in Canada”. I wrote this…
Minister Rickford Needs to Back Words up With Actions in the Ring of Fire
The following letter to the Editor of the Northern Life was published by the Northern Life on August 22, 2013 as, “Will Rickford back up words with actions?“. The letter…
Federal Change of Tone on Ring of Fire Should Be Followed Up with Real Action
The following letter to the editor of the Sudbury Star was published in the Star on August 21, 2013 as, “Feds should pursue stronger EA on Ring of Fire“. You…
Liberals and NDP Use Cynical Fear Tactics About Vote Suppression in Latest Example of Partisan Gameplaying
It looks like the Liberals and New Democrats are back at their usual and constant partisan political game-playing. Today, it was reported that Liberal MP Ralph Goodale went to the…
What Lessons Canada’s Green Party Can Learn for 2015 from the Australian Greens in 2013
In the heat of a federal election campaign, an unelected and unaccountable group of television media heads makes a decision about which Party Leaders to invite to the televised leader’s…
Is the Green Party Still Relevant? Part 3: Values, Costs and the Pursuit of Power
In the current Canadian political reality which I’ve described in the first two posts of this series, the question “Is the Green Party of Canada still relevant?” appears to remain…
Is the Green Party Still Relevant? Part 2: The Inside Baseball of Green Electoral Co-Operation
Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party stands astride Canada’s political reality like an unmovable colossus. Scandals and legal suits are not changing public opinion, and the Conservative Party remains poised to achieve…
Is the Green Party Still Relevant? Part 1: Canada’s Political Reality from a Green Perspective
Is the Green Party still relevant? That probably seems like a bit of a silly question coming from a dyed-in-the-wool Green partisan such as myself. Especially one who just recently…
Adding My Voice to the Growing International Call for a Boycott of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic & Paralympic Games
Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been making grim international headlines lately. Never the sort of bastion of freedom of expression which many in the West hoped it might become after the…
The Latest in the Adam Giambrone Scarborough-Guildwood Nomination Meeting Scandal
This is just a quick update for my readers who may have been following the Adam Giambrone Ontario NDP nomination contest “scandal” in the Scarborough-Guildwood riding. You may recall from…
Ontario’s New Energy Vision Misses the Mark on Climate Change
An interesting little program was brought to my attention earlier this evening as a result of tweet from someone whom I’ve only started following recently, but who seems to be…