Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- Mary O’Hara reviews Daniel Hatcher’s new book on the U.S.’ poverty industry which seeks to exploit public supports for private gain:(A) new book published last week by law professor and advocate Daniel…
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Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Christopher Majka reviews Henry Mintzberg’s Rebalancing Society as a noteworthy discussion of the need for balance between the public, private and “plural” sectors. And David Madland is pleased to see the U.S.’ Democrats finally fighting back against the view that the corporate
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Michael Schwartz and Kevin Young make the case for a greater focus on influencing corporations and other institutions first and foremost – with the expectation that more fair public policy will be possible if a dominant business sector doesn’t stand in the way.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Sara Mojtehedzadeh highlights how Ontario employers are exploiting temporary workers rather than making any effort to offer jobs which can support a life: Under Ontario’s antiquated Employment Standards Act, which is currently under review, there is no limit on how long a company
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jeffrey Simpson lambastes the Cons’ determination to slash taxes and hand out baubles to the rich for the sole purpose of undermining the fiscal capacity of government to help Canadians. And Jeremy Nuttall highlights how a cuts to the CRA are allowing tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Jason Warick reports on how the Cons’ decison to gut federal environmental assessments will have a particularly acute effect on Saskatchewan: The federal government has cancelled nearly 700 environmental assessments in Saskatchewan for oil wells and pipelines, sewage lagoons, hydro projects, a major
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – On the anniversary of Jack Layton’s death, Tim Harper points out how far the NDP has come in just a year, while Brian Topp highlights where the party still needs to go: (W)hat to do about the federal government’s crisis of relevance? Recent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Michael Harris neatly sums up the Harper Cons’ legacy: In many ways, the Harper legacy will come down to this: how much can he get away with? Incumbency furnishes a speedy getaway car. From a legislative perspective, Harper might as well be King
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Doug Saunders points out that we have a relatively simple choice between seeking to exact revenge on criminal offenders and actually reducing crime: We know exactly why Norway has such lower recidivism numbers. Prisoners, being under constant observation, are very easy to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – April 23, 2012
Monday, April 23 was the first day back in the House of Commons following the Easter break. And it featured some of the most lively and telling discussion we’ve seen yet on the Cons’ anti-refugee legislation as the second-reading debate reached its end. The Big Issue As part of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: No tough choice
Back here, I discussed how ridiculous the Cons’ “tough on crime” model would look if applied to any other area of policy – and used that comparison to question why we’d handle criminal justice any differently. But after a minority government period where the Cons mostly limited their shows of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: A Healthy Society – Chapter 5 Discussion
Chapter 5 of Ryan Meili’s A Healthy Society deals with our justice system. And once again while there’s little to dispute in Meili’s broader point, it’s worth noting just how much distance there is between Canada’s current governing philosophy, and anything which could possible be expected to produce healthy outcomes.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – In the last couple of days’ worth of developments on Robocon, the Cons defaulted to their standard setting of admitting nothing and misleading about everything – though it’s hard to see that strategy working out well given the amount of information that’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – In the surest sign yet that the Robocon scandal involved a calculated decision by political operatives rather than having anything to do with mere overzealous volunteers, the Star reports that call centre staff hired by the Cons to perform live calling actually tried
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 9, 2011
Friday, December 9 saw the final day of debate at second reading on the Cons’ seat allocation bill. And as usual, plenty of valid questions went entirely unanswered. The Big Issue Marc-Andre Morin rightly questioned the Cons’ trumped-up sense of urgency in dealing with seat allocations while they do nothing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 8, 2011
Thursday, December 8 saw debate on four separate bills – though once again, the Harper Cons were most conspicuous by their silence on a bill they were in the process of ramming through Parliament. The Big Issue That would be the Senate patch job which was being debated at second
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Mike de Souza’s report on the Cons’ attempts to hide both the oil industry’s involvement and its own lack of credibility is well worth a read in full. But let’s focus on a more basic revelation: Harper has set up a publicly-funded
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 2, 2011
Friday, December 2 saw the final day of debate in Parliament on the Cons’ omnibus crime bill. And for at least a moment, the proceedings took a perhaps surprising turn. The Big Issue As debate wound down on C-10, Irene Mathyssen questioned why the Cons insisted on delaying the passage
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 1, 2011
In the midst of a week of acrimonious debate over both the substance of the Cons’ dumb-on-crime legislation and the government’s procedural maneuvers to prevent even improvements which it recognized as necessary, December 1 served as a comparative beacon of cooperation (as noted specifically by Don Davies). The Big Issue
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: November 30, 2011
After the previous day’s debacle in which government-sponsored amendments to the Cons’ dumb-on-crime bill were ruled out of order, one might have expected at least some acknowledgment of fallibility on the part of the Harper Cons. The Big Issue But Wednesday, November 30 saw nothing of the sort, even when
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