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By awreeves, on April 26, 2013, at 12:56 pm Enbridge buried pipeline marker – east Toronto. Credit: Adam Scott/Environmental Defence.
Federal opposition MPs and environmental groups are crying foul over what they see as the government’s attempt to curtail public comment on Enbridge’s proposed 639-km Line 9 reversal pipeline route through southern Ontario and into Quebec.
Tucked away in last spring’s Bill C-38 omnibus budget bill from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is a requirement that any member of the public or other stakeholders wishing to comment through the National Energy Board on Enbridge’s proposed pipeline must apply for permission to comment on the project by filling out (Read more…)
By Beth, on March 6, 2013, at 8:36 pm Every extractive capitalist economy needs a mechanism that allows corporate heavyweights to snuggle up with elected officials. In the US, there’s American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and if you haven’t yet been horrified by Bill Moyers’ piece on how ALEC essentially enables corporations to write state laws, you’re in for a treat.
Where I live, we have the seemingly innocuous Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA). Made up of municipal leaders and business partners, NOMA has been an outspoken advocate for the forestry industry, butting heads with the province over issues like the Endangered Species Act. Quite open about its allegiances,
. . . → Read More: Boreal Citizen: Boreal greenwashing: Mill-town politics in Northern Ontario
By Beth, on February 6, 2013, at 6:40 pm Last month, while reading and reviewing Too Much Magic, I came across a line in the latter half of the book that really stung: “Not even people who are preoccupied with climate change like to think about it anymore.” It hurts because it’s true. I’m tired, and disheartened by the snail’s pace of climate progress. Meanwhile, the malaise of a feverish planet is rapidly intensifying, each drought or extreme weather event unfurling a new set of problems, foreshadowing our own undoing.
Kunstler goes on to write,
The more you explore the problem, the worse it seems and the
. . . → Read More: Boreal Citizen: From the mouths of Muppets: Why climate solutions are “simply not done”
By Beth, on January 30, 2013, at 3:18 pm I don’t want to be one of those grandpas who spoils the grandkids with a habitable planet. It’s the same reason I will not buy life insurance. I get hit by a bus and my family gets rich? Sorry, I don’t want anybody happy at my funeral. –Stephen Colbert’s facetious bit about President Obama’s “radical pro-survival agenda,” January 28, 2013
Sticks and stones can break my bones but “alarmist” doesn’t hurt me. I do find it irritating, however, and exhausting. In Terrance Corcoran’s Financial Post article, Extreme media alert, he trots out the over-used “alarmist” and “extremist” insults countless
. . . → Read More: Boreal Citizen: Nonsense Alert: When Canadian journalists succumb to climate denial folly
By Beth, on December 13, 2012, at 9:31 pm Parliament is winding down, and it’s getting close to Christmas…do you know where your politicians are? Most likely they’re boarding a plane and heading back home to sip egg nog with their constituents. Which has me thinking, why should Conservative MPs enjoy such a festive holiday when we citizens are still reeling from another year with the Harper government? Policy was rammed through without debate. We watched our democracy erode as our leaders bent to the will of industry, removing crucial environmental protections. Scientists were muzzled and dissenters were labeled “radicals”.
My MP’s annual party is scheduled for December 20
. . . → Read More: Boreal Citizen: Occupy the MP Party / A Harper Year in Review
By awreeves, on December 13, 2012, at 4:48 pm Niagara River © RokaB – Fotolia.com
The Niagara River has come a long way since the 1980s. One would still be advised not to drink the water, swim in some of the public beaches or eat the fish you reel in, but the latest report on the remediation plan reveals a river recovering from decades of abuse.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Niagara River Remedial Action Plan, first agreed to in 1987, a report from Niagara College engineering professor Anne Michaud outlines the steps taken to improve the river on both sides of the border.
The action
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Cleaning up the Niagara River
By Rev.Paperboy, on April 1, 2012, at 4:08 pm Last weekend @TheBrazman was all over twitter challenging reporters to step into the ring with him and demanding to know how much they were paid and generally making an obnoxious ass of himself. Having seen last night’s fight, I believe Nelson Muntz said it best for all of us: Once again a Conservative let his mouth write cheques his ass could not cash and reality is shown to have a liberal bias. Trash-tweeting Sen. Patrick Brazeau and his karate black belt talked his way to being a 3-1 favorite in the “Showdown in O-town”. He even bragged that he thought
. . . → Read More: the woodshed: Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose
By Rev.Paperboy, on March 6, 2012, at 5:00 pm
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By Rev.Paperboy, on January 20, 2012, at 1:56 pm
with a tip of the beaver hat to the esteemed Mr. Otter, who reads & comments but does not blogTweet The Rev. Paperboy Feed
By awreeves, on January 18, 2012, at 2:00 pm Now that the Liberal Biennial Convention has wrapped up and people have headed home to regroup and figure out how best to build on the ideas and momentum that so energized them in frigid Ottawa, a look back on the weekend that was — in photo’s!
Enjoy!
Media Stage at LPC 2012
Liberal Party President Mike Crawley rallies the troops in the lead up to the vote.
Candidate literature at LPC 2012.
Party volunteers reshuffling stage props between speeches.
Mike Crawley volunteer keeping a Crawley Shark afloat.
Creative fundraising. Anonymously domate upwards of $20 (at a time) to "Hot Button"
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Photo Gallery: Liberal Biennial Convention 2012
By Rev.Paperboy, on January 17, 2012, at 3:21 pm
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By awreeves, on January 15, 2012, at 2:50 pm Stage in Canada Hall at the Liberal Biennial Convention.
Canada’s die-hard Liberals are wrapping up their Biennial Convention in Ottawa this afternoon. It has been an enthusiastic affair, despite the fact that it is not a leadership convention. (Although the Liberals have had enough of those in the past decade to last a generation.)
Turnout has been much larger than anticipated which everyone takes as a welcome sign of the party’s future prospects, especially when you factor in that by most accounts, over 1/3 of the delegates are likely under 26. So interim leader Bob Rae was not far
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Liberals opt to tread cautiously into the future
By awreeves, on January 2, 2012, at 11:00 am NDP leadership candidates at the first debate held in December, 2011.
As the race to replace Jack Layton heats up, it was only a matter of time before the candidates began taking significant steps to differentiate themselves from their fellow candidates. Eight candidates remain in the race to lead the NDP and Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, and the New Democrats should be proud of the field that vies to lead them.
It represents an engaging and representative swath of the population, increasing the likelihood that Canada’s New Democratic Party members will be able to identify with more leadership candidates than
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: The cautious politics of choosing a leader
By awreeves, on December 29, 2011, at 5:09 pm Laureen and Stephen Harper.
Even though it has been Ottawa’s worst kept secret for years, the rumour (which in all likelihood has some truth to it) that Laureen Harper has moved out of 24 Sussex Drive and into the Chateau Laurier has been making the rounds yet again. The rumour also suggests not only that the Prime Minister’s wife has moved out because of marital difficulties, but insinuates that Laureen has also taken up with a female RCMP officer, and that her (rumoured) homosexuality forms the bulk of their marital discord.
Though it might seem a silly question to any
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Laureen Harper’s Big Opportunity
By awreeves, on December 12, 2011, at 11:38 am St. Boniface Catholic School in Toronto.
The question of funding for Catholic education in Ontario is similar to the question of reforming the first-past-the-post system we employ for electing members of parliament – any rudimentary thinking on the issue would show it to be egregiously undemocratic and discriminatory, yet politicians are consistently able to hide behind a perceived public distaste for altering the status quo.
Which may have been the case for much of the past century and a half that separate schools have existed in this province. But as Ontario’s deficit tops $16B, difficult choices will be made across
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Fighting the deficit by defunding the Catholic school system
By awreeves, on December 7, 2011, at 2:48 pm Agriculture Minister Gary Ritz on 'Marketing Freedom'
Judge Douglas R. Campbell has ruled that Agriculture Minister Gary Ritz violated the Canada Wheat Board charter and the law with regards to making fundamental changes to the structure of the organization and “must be held accountable.”
“Had a meaningful consultative process been engaged to find a solution which meets the concerns of the majority, the present legal action might not have been necessary,” thus exonerating the head of the CWB, Allen Oberg, whose decision it was to take the Minister to court.
Campbell argued in his ruling that Ritz demonstrated “disregard
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: UPDATED: Federal Court rules Agriculture Minister violated the Wheat Board charter
By awreeves, on December 6, 2011, at 11:15 am Globe columnist and author John Ibbitson.
A standing room only crowd assembled last night at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto to hear Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson speak on the current state of Canadian political affairs. Ibbitson’s talk, it would seem, was convened to inform the assembled crowd of Toronto elite just how the consensus they historically had helped form has been supplanted by a Western set of values that has largely overtaken the entire country.
And why it was likely to remain that way for the forseeable future.
The Laurentian Consensus was (is?) a tight-knit group of
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Globe columnist John Ibbitson talks politics and how the West has won
By awreeves, on December 5, 2011, at 10:55 am An environmental protester at the Durban Conference mocks Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
According to CJOB in Manitoba, Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent has informed delegates at the Durban climate talks in South Africa that Canada will not renew its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol that would run from 2013 to 2017.
The Tories have long argued that adhearing to the Kyoto Protocol would have lasting impacts on the Canadian economy that would stifle economic growth, and risk plunging Canada into the kind of economic recession seen south of the border.
Stephen Harper has also long believed that any international
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Environment Minister Peter Kent tells Durban that Canada will not renew Kyoto
By awreeves, on December 1, 2011, at 4:12 pm NDP MP Peter Julian
I came across this odd nugget of parliamentary protectionism courtesy of iPolitics.ca – Peter Julian, four-time elected NDP MP for Burnaby-New Westminster, has introduced “An act to support Canadian professional football,” a.k.a. Bill C-360, a.k.a. the Canadian Football Act.
The bill acknowledges that Canadian football, as played by the Canadian Football League, is an “important cultural industry” that “contributes to the bonds of nationhood across Canada.” Meanwhile, the bill also indicates that the CFL generates “thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic activity annually…while providing sporting memories and
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: NDP MP Peter Julian defends Canadian football with Bill C-360
By awreeves, on November 27, 2011, at 10:46 am Senator Keith Davey chats with Prime Minister and Pierre Trudeau in this 1976 photo.
Peter C. Newman’s latest book When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada was supposed to be the book that chronicled Michael Ignatieff’s rise to political power in Canada. Plucked from the wilderness – question mark – of Harvard in Boston, Mass., Ignatieff was brought north of the border by the men who fancied themselves Canada’s next kingmakers, including Ian Davey, the son of a true Liberal kingmaker in the legendary Keith Davey.
Davey, the “patron saint” of the modern Liberal Party as Newman
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Is Bob Rae the Liberals next Keith Davey?
By awreeves, on November 16, 2011, at 11:37 pm Employment Insurance available through Service Canada
Making It Work, the latest report from the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto, has taken aim at Canada’s system of Employment Insurance (EI), one of the cornerstone’s of Canada’s welfare state system.
Riddled with “systemic inequities” and “regional political considerations,” the EI system as we currently understand it is not so much broken, as some have suggested, but caters to regional labour situations as they existed in the 1970s. The result is a system with uneven standards and payouts that workers, employers, and entire labour fields have gotten remarkably efficient at
. . . → Read More: the reeves report: Mowat Centre report finds current EI system riddled with “systemic inequities”
By awreeves, on November 4, 2011, at 1:34 pm A new type of immigrant is quickly taking advantage of the Canadian immigration system, and Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney wants to make it even easier for them to settle permanently in Canada. The Canadian Experience Class program is granting fast track access to immigrants who have already spent time in Canada, are familiar with … Continue reading » . . . → Read More: the reeves report: Canada rejigs how 254,000 immigrants are selected annually
By awreeves, on October 30, 2011, at 11:17 pm Tension is mounting between Canada’s public broadcaster and Quebecor Inc. over access to information requests made to the CBC, and what Quebecor Inc. President and CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau is calling a “smokescreen” around how the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation spends its tax-payer funded budget of $1.1B. Peladeau and others have been calling for the CBC … Continue reading » . . . → Read More: the reeves report: Tension mounting between CBC and Quebecor
By awreeves, on October 13, 2011, at 8:15 pm The Supreme Court of Canada is being asked to draw the line between what constitutes free speech and what crosses the faint line into hate mongering. The case against William Whatcott, an unabashedly anti-homosexual Lutheran proselytizer in Saskatchewan, will have lasting implications about where Canadians and Canadian courts should draw the line between protecting what … Continue reading » . . . → Read More: the reeves report: Supreme Court of Canada to help clarify what constitutes hate speech
By awreeves, on September 15, 2011, at 12:47 pm Fresh off the success of their summer spent tree-planting across Canada, Molson Canadian is turning their environmental sights to the upcoming Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. The brand manager of Molson must be doing their job well, as nothing says Canada quite like rewarding Canadians for planting trees with beer and t-shirts. The Red Leaf Project, … Continue reading » . . . → Read More: the reeves report: Molson Canadian turns from trees to trash
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