Winston Churchill (apocryphally, as it turns out) is believed to have said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” In light of British Columbia’s…
Winston Churchill (apocryphally, as it turns out) is believed to have said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” In light of British Columbia’s…
As we end the year that could perhaps be called ‘annus horribilis’ to use the Queens description of 1992 I find it hard to be optimistic about our future here…
As my small cadre of regular readers will know I have been writing about our Canadian democracy for nearly 10 years much of that time spent documenting the Harper Regimes…
Photo Credit: Yvonne Bambrick Recently, while doing an interview on the topic of the spending of theformer Governor General AdrienneClarkson, Mr. Singh stated that hedid not see the relevancy of…
Dean French was Mr. Ford’s campaign chair. The day after the PCs won power in June, Mr. Ford named him his chief of staff. Since then, he has emerged as…
‘Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark sent a correspondence to Association of Municipalities Ontario members communicating the province is undergoing a regional review to take a broad look at…
I have a letter in today’s Vancouver Sun, not so much supporting proportional representation (although I do support proportional representation) as addressing what I consider to be baseless objections to…
I have a letter in today’s Vancouver Sun, not so much supporting proportional representation (although I do support proportional representation) as addressing what I consider to be baseless objections to…
“It’s perfectly possible for a man to lead a comfortable, indeed enviable life by any objective standard, yet be consumed with bitterness driven by status anxiety.” Dr. Paul Krugman in…
On Democracy What a better way to restart The Fifth Column than by a treatise on how to make our democracy actually democratic. Hopefully this will be the first posting…
Now that much of the initial commentary on the US – Canada – Mexico trade deal has run its course and the usual right wing suspects continue to nit pick…
Lost among the back-and-forth political battles between Ford and Toronto city council is that municipalities are not constitutionally protected as sovereign levels of government in Canada. As a federal state,…
The last few years of this bizarre decade have witnessed the resurgence of hate groups. Some of these hate groups are just nicer sounding Nazis and that’s a really bad…
“Democracy is going every four years to elect a government…without worrying about your mandate being overturned,” said Mr. Ford. No Mr Premier that’s Fordocracy or if you prefer Dougocracy our…
Maxime Bernier On September 14th former ConservativeParty leadership hopeful Maxime Bernierannounced the founding of a new party. This ‘People’s Party‘ still has not fullydefined its party policy. Mr. Bernier doesn’tgive…
To be sure, the elevation of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario to government redounds to everyone’s shame. Led by a buffoonish thug, Doug Ford, it is a party that…
To paraphrase that old E.F. Hutton commercial, when Barack Obama talks, people listen. Last week Obama spoke at the University of Illinois. He broke with the tradition of ex-presidents stepping…
Assorted content to end your week. – Joesph Stiglitz writes that history has proven wrong the theory that the weak recovery from the 2008 economic crash was the result of…
Enough said…
In a longish op-ed published in iPolitics Michael Harris says the next election is Trudeau’s to loose, I cannot help but agree for the other choices are bleak. “By insisting…