Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk discusses how Alberta and other petro-states have ended up destroying their treasuries and their democratic systems alike by relying excessively on…
Senate
Premier Wynne can push for national referendum on future of the Senate
By Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Feb. 18, 2013: In, 2004, Stephen Harper described Canada’s Senate as a “dumping ground for the favoured cronies of the Prime Minister.” He…
Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your Family Day. – Gerald Caplan comments that it’s long past time to put the Senate out of its misery: Who knew that when well-known Canadians…
The Senate Encourages A Few Party System
We all know that Senators, who are appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister of the day, are supposed to, in theory, represent the views of the provinces or…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michael Harris concludes that we’re currently stuck in a golden age for political falsehood and deceit: (T)here are problems with blotting out inconvenient…
Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova offer up a framework for a more progressive and fairer tax system. – Andrew Hanon looks behind…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Carol Goar discusses Canada’s broken fiscal stabilizers – as unemployment insurance and social programs intended to assure citizens of at least a reasonable…
A More Democratic Senate Is Less So
Canadians certainly are no Nero, but they do have at least one thing in common with the late Roman emperor. In 64 AD it is said that while Rome burned…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tabatha Southey rightly turns Brad Trost into a poster boy for the Harper Cons’ deliberate aversion to critical self-evaluation: We shouldn’t be too…
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – While we may sometimes lose track of the continuing differences between Canadian politics and those in the U.S., here’s a reminder of how…
Brazeau kicked from Caucus
Conservative-appointed Senator Patrick Brazeau Early this morning, Harper-appointed Senator Patrick Brazeau was expelled from the Conservative Caucus after being taking into police custody. Rumours are circulating about charges of domestic…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday morning reading. – Sixth Estate is the latest to weigh in on Statistics Canada’s findings about inequality: Progressive taxes are based on the idea that…
Sex and the Senate
Winston Churchill is credited with an exchange that when adapted illustrates, not only the similarities between prostitution and politics, but current inconsistencies in the popular view of our Canadian government.…
New column day
Here, on the danger that Stephen Harper’s long-term plan for Canada includes unelected Senators taking a page out of the Republicans’ obstructionist playbook to keep elected officials from doing their…
Idle No More: Canadian Citizen Writes to the Governor General
A Canadian citizen writes to the Governor General, declaring fierce opposition to numerous pieces of legislation recently passed by the Harper Government. The bills the writer has issue with seek…
U.S.: Cutting through the indefinite detention and NDAA controversy
by Cora Currier | ProPublica: Last Tuesday, the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a yearly military spending bill. Last year, the bill affirmed the U.S.’s authority…
Conservative Senator Mike Duffy’s $33,000 allowance is daylight robbery
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:…