The Ultimate New Year’s Resolution
It’s mostly us. Many of us have heard of the idea of planning policy to consider effects seven generations downline. We’re pretty smart. It shouldn’t be that hard. But we…
Canada
Remember the reason for the season: It’s time to put Krampus back into Christmas
Jiggers, look busy, it’s Krampus! And why is this mom giving him the thumbs up, I wonder? Below: Santa Claus, the God of Coca-Cola; Che Guevara; and Jesus Christ. Never…
Canadians get lots of coal, oil and gas in holiday trash dump
The Friday night trash dump is a well-known trick of governments looking to dispense with bad news as quietly as possible. Controversial announcements are made in the last hour of…
Canadian Words, eh?
I went down to Timmies to pick up a Double double for my coworker who is on the Pogey so they couldn’t afford it. While I was there I bought…
Enbridge: What Now? We Escalate Our Fight
Some breaking news occurred yesterday, the Joint Review Panel of the National Energy Board approved the Enbridge pipeline, but with 209 conditions. To quote a teenager from 1994: “Big whoop.”…
Canadians becoming downright peaceable
Stats Can has released Canada’s crime statistics for 2012 and the country continues to look increasingly like the peaceable kingdom. Crime overall continued the decline it began in 1992, with…
Supreme Court strikes down Canada’s prostitution laws
A few weeks ago I did a “mini-cruise” to Amsterdam. We spent two nights on a ferry (which was really a small cruise ship) and had about 6 hours to…
PMO: Anger Betrayal Deception; Oil
Our lying Prime Minister felt betrayed and angry, and … deceived? The scheme only became public after a CTV news report on the evening of May 14. The next morning,…
New Conservative Ad Reveals Stephen Harper’s Fear of Justin Trudeau [VIDEO]
The possibility of “waking up in 2015 to Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister” of Canada unnerves Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. The post New Conservative Ad Reveals Stephen Harper’s Fear…
Don’t Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas..(Or Do I?)
Rob Ford’s Christmas gift advice: ‘Women love money’ Toronto mayor makes comments on U.S. sports radio show when asked what he plans to get his wife CBC News Posted: Dec…
No Federal Childcare Program: An Exercise In Strengthening Hegemony
Canada, a nation among the wealthiest in the world, cannot meet its daycare needs. The problem has grown to crisis proportions in the country’s largest cities. In Toronto there are…
The in-and-out trick: Thoughts on Canada Post, CPP and your child’s breakfast
The past few days have not been great for public services in Canada. Canada Post will be phasing out home delivery of mail. Expansion of the Canada Pension Plan was…
Fried Squirrels
It’s a crisp, foggy November Saturday morning in the south side of the city. Seventeen people sit in the large open area at the back end of an organic fair…
Harper Conservatives not bothered by Third World-style child poverty in Canada
Federal minister James Moore shows that the Harper Conservatives aren’t at all bothered by the fact that 1 in 7 children live in poverty in Canada today. The post Harper…
Legislating a real raise: Minimum wages and real earnings growth
In a recent post titled, “What happened to the distribution of real earnings during the recession?”, Stephen Gordon presents a graphs that shows some significant growth in real (adjust for…
Canada Post writes its own obituary
Headline news this week: Canada Post moves to end home delivery. End home delivery? For me, both as a writer, a lay historian, and growing up in an era where…
The new Canadian Plague: Have We all been Infected?
Sadly, Rob Ford epitomises what Canada has become With his crack smoking and drunken misbehaviour, Toronto’s mayor personifies our crude, swaggering, bungling New Canada Robert Hays in the Guardian Fri…
Video: Human rights, yes! Quebec Charter of Values, non!
Winnipeg, Dec. 10, 2013: Winnipeggers gathered at the Manitoba Legislative Building to speak up for human rights and against Quebec’s proposed “Charter of Values” that would, among other things, prohibit…
Notes on pensions and risk
Canada’s finance ministers are meeting this weekend and a proposal to expand the CPP is at the top of the agenda. If implemented, this proposal would bolster an important public…