The Return of Stuff Happens, week 4: Trump’s rule by fiat
We all know how powerful the President of the United States is. But I don’t know if we ever recognized just how powerful. Almost … dictatorial? Don’t agree? Well, what…
NDP
Canadian newspaper industry advances on Ottawa, hands out, awash in red ink and democratic platitudes
PHOTOS: Stop the presses! … I mean the losses! Put me through to the red ink department … I mean the tax department … Actual Canadian newspaper owners may not…
The Return of Stuff Happens, week 3: Welcome to the world of alternative facts
“The only thing we have to fear is, fear itself.” Franklin Roosevelt, 1932 inauguration. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your…
Premier Wynne: Colour her gone.
It seems more and more likely that Premier Kathleen Wynne and her Ontario Liberals are on the slippery side of the slope. Nothing says it more emphatically than the situation…
The Return of Stuff Happens, week 1: The taxman cometh
Here in the Glorious People’s Republic of Alberta, we have begun the process of saving the Earth, 4.5 cents a litre at a time. The NDP government introduced its Climate…
Vancouver Sun Letter
For what is likely to be my last letter to the editor of 2016, see today’s Vancouver Sun (fourth letter from the top). The gist of my argument is that…
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Alex Hemingway reviews the evidence on two-tiered medicine from around the developed world, and concludes that a constitutional attack on universal health care…
The empty chair of Tom Mulcair.
In a much condemned political schtick by actor-director Clint Eastwood at the Republican National Convention in 2012, he talked to an empty chair. The chair was supposed to represent President…
Stuff Still Happens, week 49: On the ‘lock her up’ chant, and the woman they DID lock up.
Last Saturday, the right-wing rabble rouser, Ezra Levant, roused the rabble just enough to host an anti-carbon tax rally at the Alberta legislature. The crowd of probably a few hundred…
Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Citizens for Public Justice laments the Libs’ and Cons’ joint effort to vote down the NDP’s push for a national anti-poverty strategy.…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – David MacDonald examines how Canada’s tax expenditures systematically favour higher-income individuals over the people who actually have a reasonable claim to public support:…
Tommy Douglas was a “macroeconomist”, not a “provincialist”!
A guest blog post from Mario Seccareccia, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa The NDP went through a roller coaster ride in 2015. It would seem that the party still…
Stuff Still Happens, week 48: Why we (sigh) need pipelines
This week, the Trudeau government approved two pipelines, and rejected one other. Trudeau is winning lavish praise for his bold, statesmanlike decision in some quarters, hyperbolic, end-of-the-world scorn from others.…
Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Frank writes that a progressive party can only expect to succeed if it places principles of equality and workers’ interests at the…
Does Wynne cry for liberalism?
Did you hear that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne got all teary at the Liberal Party gathering this past weekend? Not being there, are we to assume these were crocodile tears…
On decision points
Needless to say, it’s disappointing that there now doesn’t seem to be any prospect of a shift to a more proportional federal electoral system without a referendum. But the NDP’s…
New column day
Here, comparing the Conservative Party’s leadership race based on fear and division to the NDP’s which looks set to bring a progressive coalition together. For further reading…– Bob Hepburn also…
This shouldn’t be a surprise: Trudeaumania 2.0 fails to deliver in Medicine Hat
PHOTOS: Trudeaumania 1.0, the real thing, in 1968. Below: Trudeaumania 2.0, not nearly as effective, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, on Oct. 13, 2016. Below: Conservative by-election winner Glen Motz, Rudyard…
Stuff Still Happens, week 40: OK, now he CAN’T win
Even the Teflon Don can’t get out of this one. Everyone except his most fanatical supporters knows Trump is a pig, a boor, a crass, classless thug. Now we have…
Stuff Still Happens, week 38: Bulletin – Liberals like to $pend money
The Trudeau government, less than a year old, has certainly adopted well to governing. Like most governments, the Trudeau Liberals have found that there is a surprising amount of money…