Parliament In Review: September 20, 2011
Once again, most of yesterday's session in the House of Commons was spent on what's becoming dubbed the refugee punishment bill. And while there was no sign of any willingness…
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Parliament In Review: September 19, 2011
With the start of the fall session of Parliament I'll plan to resume taking a daily look at what happens in the House of Commons - with a particular focus…
Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Simon Enoch rightly criticizes the Cons' fair-weather commitment to democracy in the wake of a fairly resounding vote on the part of Canadian Wheat…
Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Aaron Wherry takes a look at how the NDP caucus has responded to Jack Layton's death and the resulting outpouring of public sympathy:After…
ReNEWal
Every Liberal in the country needs to do one thing: stop talking to each other for an extended period of time. This is a fantastic idea that will lead to…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Chantal Hebert highlights how the Harper Cons are making a show of ignoring the needs of Quebec - and indeed making matters worse…
Strength in diversity
I'll deal in more detail with the prospect of Pat Martin running for the NDP's leadership as a pro-merger candidate. But before getting into its ultimate significance, let's note how…
Facts not in evidence
I suppose it shouldn't come as much surprise that some Libs are now suggesting they'd prefer torching every existing progressive political structure in Canada to working with the NDP in…
Juxtaposition
The Lib take on NDP policy a year ago at what was supposed to be their policy renewal conference: At the time, those were the two big, important, structural differences…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. - The Halifax Chronicle Herald pushes back against the Cons' and Libs' anti-Bloc witch-hunt: For partisan reasons, involvement with the Bloc has become a…
On improved positions
Last week, I noted the top-line results from Angus Reid's latest federal polling. But perhaps even more important than the stability in Canada's party polling numbers is the question of…
Still feigned indignation
At the very least, the media finally seems to have picked up on the reality that all Canadian national parties include some former Bloc members and/or sovereigntists in their ranks.…
On broken systems
Let's add one more to the list of theories as to how the other parties' pearl-clutching over interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel may actually play to the NDP's advantage -…
What might have been
Wilf Day offers up one what-might-have-been scenario based on proportional representation. But as one astute observer pointed out at the NDP's Vancouver convention, there's another alternate set of possibilities which…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- L. Aaron Wright nicely contrasts the fabricated hysteria over Nycole Turmel against the choices of the Libs and Cons:Where was the outrage when Stephen…
On equalization
One more note on today's fund-raising news which is best seen in Alice's historical quarterly data.For 2011 Q2, total fund-raising for the NDP, Libs, Bloc and Greens was $7,918,876.12 -…
Not quite comparable
Alice notes that all three official parties in Parliament amassed record fund-raising totals during the course of this spring's election campaign. But it's worth adding one asterisk to the raw…
On building opportunities
There's no doubt that the trumped-up story about Nycole Turmel's one-time Bloc membership reflects the inevitable first real pile-on against the NDP in its new role as Official Opposition. But…
An accidental opportunity
This morning, I theorized that the political fortunes of the NDP and the Libs will make for an interesting test case on the relative importance of leadership politics and party…