Senator Mike Duffy has reportedly claimed more than $33,000 in “living allowances intended to defray senators’ costs of maintaining a second home in the National Capital Region”. The trouble is:…
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Martin Kirk discusses the role governments play in allowing and facilitating the extraction of a substantial portion of the world’s wealth to tax…
Assorted content to start your week.- Susan Delacourt comments on what's often lacking from Canadian political coverage - and the challenge facing journalists looking to stop relying excessively on horse-race…
A reader drew my attention to this article from 2.5 years ago. The principles are unchanged so I believe it is worth revisiting. First published April 23, 20101 Sean Holman…
Canada’s Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page has had enough of the Harper government’s lack of accountability and transparency, highlighted by it’s refusal to comply with his repeated requests for information…
This and that for your weekend reading.- Andrew Jackson takes a look at the UK's strong movement for a living wage, and notes that it's long past time for a…
I'll have plenty to catch up on over the next few days. But I'll start by pointing out the background behind what's become one of the most-discussed stories of the…
We’re presently bombarded with slick political advertising from two senior levels of government. Add industry advertising promoting natural gas as so marvellous a fuel that we should export it to…
Ten months ago, I published Talking tough, empty words and empty head, a piece mocking Attorney General Shirley Bond in her role as lead ICBC overseer. Shortly after, Finance Minister…
With only 27 weeks to oblivion, BC Liberals have limited time to pick forbidden fruit. We know about the failed bid to privatize BCLDB and the flood of high cost…
Four months ago, the Northern Insights article What’s the next dump of grungy news? included this: “In a May internal memo, Commissioner Bob Paulson warned that several salacious incidents were…
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Timothy Noah writes that since Republicans haven’t been able to convince the American public that inequality is desirable or acceptable, they’re taking another…
The Auditor General has slammed the Harper regime for spending tens of billions of dollars without cabinet, much less Parliament, knowing the long-term consequences. In his fall 2012 report released…
Make no mistake about it: Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) is on a mission to save the soul of Canadian democracy. Kevin Page is proceeding with his earlier threat to…
Others have rightly taken umbrage at the use of this weekend’s Saskatchewan Roughriders game to try to push a new stadium on Regina voters. But while I’ll agree the ‘Riders’…
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jim Coyle wonders whether or democracy is in decline, and cites as evidence the utter disconnect between the primary functions of elected…
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Erika Shaker describes the effect of the “right-to-work” laws so popular among our more regressive politicians: “Right-to-Work” still remains a dubious—even Orwellian—term, probably…
Silence is golden. A proverbial saying… With respect to the Harper government, specifically the Agriculture minister and the XL Foods recall, saying nothing is preferable to speaking. For those of…
I’m sure there are Conservative Party apologists out there ready to jump all over these stories, but the fact remains the Conservative Party continues to fail fiscal conservatives in Canada,…
