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By Greg Fingas, on June 11, 2013, at 9:33 am This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- Deborah Gyapong discusses CMA President Anna Reid’s presentation to the federal All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus, with the positive response of MPs from all parties looking like a particularly noteworthy development: The CMA put forward seven recommendations for governments at all levels to examine to improve health outcomes.
– A comprehensive prescription drug strategy in consultations with the life and health insurance industry to make sure that 10 per cent of Canadians who lack access to prescription drugs can get them.
– Ensuring low-income Canadians have access to rehabilitation, mental health, home care and (Read more…)
By bigcitylib, on May 30, 2013, at 10:34 am Andrew Coyne, in response to a query from Ezra Levant, has written a short letter outlining his position with respect to the CRTC’s granting CBC special distribution rights. I have been able to acquire (through secret sources at the National Post) an early draft of this letter, which I think more clearly reveals Andrew’s state of mind during these hard times in the newspaper business:
So there you have it.
By Greg Fingas, on May 27, 2013, at 9:29 am Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Andrew Coyne notes that the Robocon decision finding electoral fraud using the Cons’ voter database fell short of naming names – but recognizes that there’s still a glaring need for further investigation, a sentiment echoed by the Globe and Mail. Tim Harper explains that Stephen Harper hasn’t earned the benefit of any doubt about his party’s role in facilitating and covering up the fraud, while Thomas Walkom sees Robocon as entirely consistent with the Cons’ usual operations: (O)rganized, computerized fraud takes matters to an entirely new level of illegality.
Whoever was using the (Read more…)
By Lorne, on May 22, 2013, at 8:42 am I have a bit of a busy morning, so I only have time for a couple of short posts. For reasons I have indicated elsewhere, I rarely watch CBC’s The National anymore. However, given yesterday’s shameful and feeble refusal by the Prime Minister and his trained seals to address the rot engulfing his administration, I decided to watch a special At Issue Panel last evening.
Below, you can watch Andrew Coyne, Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson evaluate Mr. Harper’s efforts:
Recommend this Post
By David Climenhaga, on May 22, 2013, at 1:26 am Prime Minister Stephen Harper, not pictured because he’s pretty well disappeared, has heeded the touristic lure South America, illustrated above. Below: Canadian Parliamentarian Joan Crockatt and U.S. Representative Davy Crockett. Note to Globe and Mail: There is a difference! Below them: Allaudin Merali.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was apparently grinding away at his Conservative caucus yesterday morning about the need for Senate reform.
An interesting strategy, his!
First you pack the place with self-entitled cheats and porkchoppers like Mike “The Puffster” Duffy, then you argue that their misdeeds are proof the institution needs reform!
If nothing else, this suggests (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 18, 2013, at 10:45 am Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Not surprisingly, plenty of commentators have weighed in on the latest set of Senate scandals engulfing Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Nigel Wright and Stephen Harper among others. Diane Francis takes the opportunity to point out that the Senate is an institutional anachronism (a point with which I of course agree). Murray Mandryk notes that the Cons’ story involves the belief that their clan can do no wrong, Chantal Hebert sees the Cons having simply changed the party name in the Liberal culture of entitlement they once claimed to despise, while Andrew Coyne (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 12, 2013, at 11:52 am Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading.
- Daniel Boffey catches one of David Cameron’s top aides saying what most Cons leave as an unstated assumption: that recession and depressed wages are good for business (as long as “business” is defined only to mean short-term profits based on exploitation): The prime minister’s adviser on enterprise has told the cabinet that the economic downturn is an excellent time for new businesses to boost profits and grow because labour is cheap, the Observer can reveal.
Lord Young, a cabinet minister under the late Baroness Thatcher, who is the only aide with his (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 9, 2013, at 9:31 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- George Monbiot writes about the absurdity of the right-wing choice to promote inequality in the name of competition among the wealthy when the ultimate results are worse for everybody: The capture by the executive class of so much wealth performs no useful function. What the very rich appear to value is relative income. If executives were all paid 5% of current levels, the competition between them (a questionable virtue anyway) would be no less fierce. As the immensely rich HL Hunt commented several decades ago: “Money is just a way of keeping score.”
(Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on April 18, 2013, at 9:02 am Here, building off of my previous analysis on the current positioning of Canada’s federal parties.
For further reading, see:- Bob Hepburn and Carol Goar on the purpose and effect of attack ads in general; and- Andrew Coyne on the Cons’ particular brand of personal attack, featuring some suggestions to reduce the amount of negative advertising.
By Greg Fingas, on March 30, 2013, at 12:32 pm Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Paul Krugman discusses how a myopic focus on slashing taxes and services figures to cheat future generations out of desperately-needed social structure: You don’t have to be a civil engineer to realize that America needs more and better infrastructure, but the latest “report card” from the American Society of Civil Engineers — with its tally of deficient dams, bridges, and more, and its overall grade of D+ — still makes startling and depressing reading. And right now — with vast numbers of unemployed construction workers and vast amounts of cash sitting . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on March 28, 2013, at 10:01 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Edward Greenspon discusses the importance of a public service whose focus extends beyond the narrow interests of the government of the day: The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work for governments, particularly those employed – in the evolving argot of recent decades – as knowledge workers or symbolic analysts or members of the creative class, are, in a sense, servants. They owe a duty of loyalty to carry out the programs and policies of the elected government of the day. But they also have a broader public duty to the pursuit . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on March 14, 2013, at 10:48 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Yves Engler highlights the two-tiered justice system exacerbated by the Harper Cons, as anybody with a sufficient level of privilege avoids any punishment for wrongdoing: One law for the rulers and another for the rest of us — wasn’t that supposed to have ended with feudalism?
If a poor person is caught taking a computer or some other piece of property from a federal building you can bet police will be called and the thief will go before a judge to decide if she/he goes to jail. Yet when a Senator who
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By bigcitylib, on March 14, 2013, at 9:32 am From an email I received yesterday evening from Matt Certosimo, the National Membership Secretary:
Presumably, the deadline extension will give the party time to contact anyone who is serious about following-up on their original contact, although I expect the final tally will be embarrassingly low. That said, if Joyce Murray hangs tough for the next couple of weeks this could still be an interesting race. She can’t win, but her message of LPoC/NDP cooperation is resonating in some quarters, and I’d be curious to see if she can move the field, or what is left of it, in her direction a bit. I
. . . → Read More: BigCityLib Strikes Back: LPoC Registration Cracks 100,000
By CuriosityCat, on February 26, 2013, at 1:00 pm Andrew Coyne – truthteller
Andrew Coyne in an article in the Vancouver Sun headed To improve our politics we have to repair our broken electoral system, puts a devastating case forward as to why pre-election cooperation followed by post-electoral meaningful electoral reform is necessary:
If you never make the case for electoral reform, then yes, it will remain an abstraction in the public mind. But if you believe it is necessary, presumably it is because of the real-world problems of the current system.
So many of the well-known ills of our politics — the phoney majorities, the exaggerated
. . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: Electoral Reform: The Case that 7 of the 8 Liberal candidates will not or cannot answer
By Greg Fingas, on February 14, 2013, at 8:51 am 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 the Fraser Institute’s labour-bashing and finds that what it’s really criticizing is fair pay for women in the public sector.
- Fern Brady notes that conservatives have succeeded in pitting exactly the people with the greatest need for social assistance against each other – with the result being that far too few people are questioning whether cuts serve any useful purpose in the first place: Logically, I’d expect those on
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By bigcitylib, on February 14, 2013, at 5:45 am Debating what might occur in the aftermath of the reform or abolition of the Canadian Senate, as Andrew Coyne does in the OpEd piece through the link, is like debating whether, if pigs should ever fly, we should all wear a protective helmet while flying our flying pig. Pigs won’t fly, ever, so why waste time debating?
That is all.
By CuriosityCat, on January 27, 2013, at 8:03 pm Andrew Coyne
The debate is gathering steam, and Andrew Coyne has posed several questions which every candidate for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada (and particularly Justin Trudeau, whose father modernized the Canadian democracy almost beyond compare with his priceless gift of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms): Fundamentally, it comes down to this: are the opposition parties serious? Do they really want to beat the Conservatives, or just talk about it? Are they serious about electoral reform, or is it, too, just a talking point? And assuming they mean either, do they realize how crucially each depends on the other? Let me put it plainly: They aren’t going to beat the Conservatives until they change the electoral system. They aren’t going to change the electoral system until they beat the Conservatives. And they aren’t going to do either until they find some way to cooperate.
Justin Trudeau: . . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: Justin Trudeau, read Andrew Coyne if you are a bold, serious leader
By Greg Fingas, on January 27, 2013, at 10:57 am This and that for your Sunday reading.
- James Galbraith compares the mindless drones carrying an increasing share of the U.S.’ military load, and those serving to try to attack social programs in the name of illusory deficit reduction. But sadly, Galbraith misses one of the most important similarities: in both cases, the use of replaceable machines for the task makes it far too easy to keep launching attacks even when reason would dictate otherwise.
- Meanwhile, Ivan Semeniuk reports on how poverty can influence childhood development. And Rob Carrick reports that lenders are finding ways to extract
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
By Simon, on January 11, 2013, at 2:49 am There was an incredibly revealing moment today. A moment that summed up the way many in the MSM have been going after Chief Spence and the Idle No More movement.And like it has been all along, it was both banal and brutal.Read more »
By Greg Fingas, on December 22, 2012, at 12:47 pm Assorted content for your Saturday reading.
- Kate Heartfield worries that the NRA knows exactly what it’s doing with its jaw-dropping response to the Newtown shootings – and that it should be all too familiar based on the tactics of the Harper Cons: It’s ridiculous, but ridiculous works, time and time again. “Elite” no longer means rich and powerful. It means smart. It means anyone who takes the time to look at the evidence and construct a logical argument. Not to be trusted, that. So all academics and journalists are suspect. The only way a journalist can avoid being seen
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on December 14, 2012, at 8:47 am Assorted content for your Friday reading.
- Paul Dechene interviews Marc Spooner about Saskatchewan residents left behind in the province’s boom: One way that our growing income gap can be hand-waved away is by pointing to the fact that every other province that goes through an economic boom faces this.
Perhaps it’s just a natural result of us going through a transitional phase?
Spooner doesn’t find that argument compelling.
“That implies a very non-responsive government,” he says. “Can we not learn from our neighbours in the west? Can we not see what happened in Alberta and be forward-looking and do
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on December 8, 2012, at 4:25 pm Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Frances Russell discusses how the Harper Cons have capitalized on the general public’s lack of familiarity with how our parliamentary system is supposed to work – and the conventional checks and balances which have been overridden at every turn by a governing party which isn’t interested in preserving a functional system of accountability: Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of politics at the University of Manitoba, calls the debasement of Canada’s Parliament under the Harper Conservatives “stark.” He cites such recent developments as: the government forcing committees to meet in secret and muzzling opposition
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
By CuriosityCat, on December 4, 2012, at 3:58 pm The Undemocratic Democracy
Recent byelections have once more proved that The Power Trap has the leaders of two of the opposition parties firmly in its grip. The State of Play post Calgary Centre Byelection Some recent reflections on the divided opposition parties:
Yet most Liberals here still see other parties joining them rather than the other way around.As for the Greens, they are enjoying a surge of support, particularly in B.C., where they came close to winning the byelection in Victoria. Combining forces with one of the old-line parties — the NDP or the Liberals — would
. . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: The Joyce Murray Cooperate First, Reform Later Plan’s advantages
By Greg Fingas, on December 3, 2012, at 8:29 am Assorted content to start your week.- Susan Delacourt comments on what’s often lacking from Canadian political coverage – and the challenge facing journalists looking to stop relying excessively on horse-race numbers which may miss what ultimately moti… . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
By CuriosityCat, on December 2, 2012, at 11:28 pm Joyce Murray: Targeting our democratic deficitAndrew Coyne has supported Murray’s idea of removing the Harper Tories from power and reforming the electoral system.This is a brief report of what Joyce Murray said, by Joan Bryden:But her proposal for co-… . . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: Joyce Murray is right: Our electoral sytem is broken and needs fixing
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