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By thescottross.blogspot.com, on May 14, 2013, at 1:51 am Christy Clark had as much chance of winning BC’s election today as Canadian politics has gender equality, and that’s close to zero.
With six female premiers, soon to be five, Canada looks like a pretty equitable place, but just as with Christy Clark’s chances on election day, looks can be deceiving.
For instance, on the face of it, British Columbia looks like a province of better gender representation, Christy Clark wasn’t its first female premier after all, Rita Johnston received that honour back in 1991. But considering the similarities between Johnston and Clark, what is clear is not gender equality, (Read more…)
By Nancy Leblanc, on May 5, 2013, at 6:27 pm One item in the Ontario budget that was released this week that deserves some attention is this indication that Ontario is going to proactively step up on gender diversity in corporate Canada. In a series of measures on securities regulation, there was this statement: The government strongly supports broader gender diversity on the boards and in senior management of major businesses, not-for-profit firms and other large organizations. In conjunction with others, including the OSC, the government will consider the best way for firms to disclose their approaches to gender diversity, with a view to increasing the participation of women on (Read more…)
By Mystro, on April 26, 2013, at 8:01 am The last week or so my view of humanity world over has been severely soured. I’ve often expressed an attitude that Alberta is the ‘Texas of Canada’ when it comes to issues of equality and progressive society. Hidden in that stance is the inference that other places aren’t as backward, that in other civilized areas these issues are all but resolved. This inference, it turns out, is ill-founded. Hillbilly homophobia is running rampant even in “high culture” nations.
The French government in pushing through a bill that will legalize same sex marriage and allow same sex couples to adopt. It (Read more…)
By vanillaman, on March 31, 2013, at 7:00 am With Rob Portman, the senator from Ohio along with the many prominent Republicans like Dick Cheney, Meg Whitman and Laura Bush supporting gay marriage is it possible to see a GOP candidate in 2016 run supporting gay marriage.
In 2012 all the GOP candidates where opposed to same sex marriage. Most in fact supported a constitutional amendment prohibiting the marriage of anyone other than a man and a women. Only John Hutsman supported civil unions. And it should be noted that Ron Paul said that the government should get out of marriage and let everyone pretty much define it for themselves.
Currently most of the
. . . → Read More: The Happy Wanderer: Pro Same Sex Marriage GOP Candidate…….Maybe?
By vanillaman, on March 29, 2013, at 7:00 am This week the U.S supreme court has been hearing oral arguments for and against same sex marriage as well as the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA). The answers to these cases will come in at the end of June. Quite frankly I am hopeful, but know that the supreme court will probably not make a national consensus on this issue.
The Supreme court of the U.S unlike our own is very politically motivated. It is relatively safe to assume that their our 4 justices on both sides of bench for and against same sex marriage and Anthony Kennedy in the middle
. . . → Read More: The Happy Wanderer: Same Sex Marriage….. About Time!
By Stephen Elliott-Buckley, on March 28, 2013, at 11:00 am Educate First Nations to be modern citizens
Don Olsen, The Daily News
Published: Wednesday, March 27, 2013
via Educate First Nations to be modern citizens.
This is the most racist thing I have ever seen published.
The Nanaimo Daily News published a document either as an editorial or a letter to the editor [likely the latter] that is so vile and hateful, I will not reprint it here. I can’t stand the thought of this filth being on our website.
The link is above. I encourage you all to read it to get a sense of what some people think (Read more…)
By kevin harding, on March 25, 2013, at 11:00 am The 1921 “Ethnic Outreach” Campaign(Courtesy Past Tense Vancouver)
The complaints are familiar – “Asian immigrants are taking our jobs,” “Asian immigrants are buying our property and keeping us out.”
Instead of being complaints found in the Richmond Review’s letters-to-the-editor section, however, these are the complaints that were found in a Liberal Party advertisement in 1921 that was posted on a Vancouver history site.
Our history – the history of Vancouver, BC, and Canada – especially that of Asian immigration is one fraught with historical wrongs. The Chinese head tax, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese internment (Read more…)
By Stephen Elliott-Buckley, on March 8, 2013, at 1:00 pm Men, especially white men, sleep too easily at night while women earn 70 per cent of what we do. Secretly, I think we’d prefer to not have to talk about this much. Sure, March 8 and December 6 are days we set aside for reflecting on this, but, most likely, we don’t want to be bothered with it every other day of the year. Plus, the NHL is back.
One conversation I have never had, goes like this. I’m in the lunchroom at work with a group of men discussing workplace realities. The topics drifts around to how women in (Read more…)
By Daniel, on February 24, 2013, at 11:51 am I know this isn’t new to many, but it doesn’t get said enough. Various conservatives and neoliberals get away with saying “I’m for greater equality of opportunity, meritocracy, but not enforced greater equality.“
They should be called out on it, as it is utter nonsense. You cannot promote equality of opportunity without some amount of greater equality. Some kind of economic wealth redistribution is required.
Take education, the favourite go-to issue of “equality-opportunists” – you say you want to ensure low income people are able to attend good or even elite schools. Well Harvard isn’t cheap. If someone
. . . → Read More: Autonomy For All: Equality of Opportunity Requires Greater Equality
By Obert Madondo, on February 4, 2013, at 11:35 am by Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Feb. 4, 2013: Legendary is Prime Minister Stephen Harper‘s contempt for women and the issues important to them. This photo of the prime minister and his security detail confirms the truth: Harper is still to wake up to the reality that women can be as lethal personal bodyguards as men. Mr. Harper, women are READ MORE
By Guest Contributors, on January 28, 2013, at 12:00 pm By Rachel Goodine
The FSAs, or Foundation Skills Assessment tests, administered annually in British Columbia since 2000 to students in grades 4 and 7, are once again under way. They began on January 14 and will continue until February 22, 2013. In the meantime, the debate is on.
For many, it’s simple: How is testing our children and being notified of their progress a bad thing?
Well, that’s the problem. The BC Liberals are hoping the public will buy this overly simplistic defence of the FSAs. The Ministry of Education’s webpage states the tests will give a “snapshot” of student
. . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Foundation Skills Assessment: Another Dirty Trick
By thescottross.blogspot.com, on January 27, 2013, at 10:22 pm Kathleen Wynne becoming our sixth female premier isn’t newsworthy, what will be, is when a premier’s gender doesn’t make headlines.
It’s of course understandable why newspapers should report on Ontario’s first female premier, it is historic, but ultimately what will determine progress on gender equality is whether the media and Canadians in general eventually stop making it an issue.
Currently in Canada women lead five provinces and one territory, approximately 87% of the population now have a woman premier. Though it is important to recognize the advancement of females in politics and the necessity for that to continue, the persistence
. . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Powerful Women Shouldn’t Be News
By Simon, on January 21, 2013, at 11:52 pm What a fairy tale day it was. What an awesome spectacle of democracy. What a great day to be a progressive.A black President on Martin Luther King Day standing up for freedom, justice, and equality.A solemn President Barack Obama took the oath of office for the second time in as many days on Monday, this time before an estimated 800,000 jubilant citizens who cheered on his appeal for Americans to come together and fight for cherished U.S. principles of justice and equality.Read more »
By Guest Blog, on January 17, 2013, at 2:53 am by Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada | Jan 15, 2013 In honour of the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s historic 1988 decision to overturn the nation’s criminal abortion law, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada is delighted to dedicate a new website to the anniversary: www.morgentaler25years.ca The day of the court decision – January READ MORE
By Tia Everitt, on January 11, 2013, at 2:53 pm Green Party leader Elizabeth May published a well-thought out and clear article on Wednesday, breaking down the reasons why the ongoing media banter about Attiwapiskat fund mismanagement and Chief Theresa Spence are merely distractions from an ongoing legacy of government failure to protect indigenous people and the environment. Twitter and Facebook have become virtual battlegrounds for both government supporters and those who are involved with the Idle No More uprising. Racism, sexism and classism are rampant, and tension arising from finger pointing and blame displacement are escalating. The crux of it all is that the Canadian government, and the majority
. . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Attawapiskat Audit is Merely a Distraction
By Stephen Elliott-Buckley, on January 5, 2013, at 1:08 pm
Twitter / suzhawkins: As settlers… #idlenomore ….
York University’s Suzanne Hawkins is my hero today for showing us all this amazing poster that succinctly describes how us non-indigenous settler folk can stand alongside with the world’s indigenous people seeking redress for generations of racism and discrimination.
Solidarity matters! Dialogue matters!
Let’s make 2013 a year of reconciliation!
By Larry Hubich, on January 3, 2013, at 6:24 am .
Overcompensated: CEO Pay Rates Show Growing Inequality in Canada By 1:18pm on January 2, the first official working day of the year, Canada’s top 100 CEOs will have already pocketed $45,448 – the income that it takes the average Canadian an entire year of full-time work to earn.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has produced a fact sheet, Overcompensating: Executive Pay in Canada, highlights some key numbers around executive pay in Canada and also includes a list of Canada’s highest paid 100 CEOs. http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/overcompensating
You can also visit their pay clock, The Clash . . . → Read More: Larry Hubich’s Blog: PayWatch: The Clash for Cash
By thescottross.blogspot.com, on January 1, 2013, at 10:46 pm “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin
The fiscal cliff in the United States did not just endanger its own country’s economy but the world’s, including Canada’s heavily dependent one. But in the American problem lies, at least partially, a Canadian solution: an estate tax.
The inability for Democrats and Republicans to prevent the fiscal cliff and the current uncertainty relating to the world’s largest economy is threatening the fledgling global recovery.
Canada, a country whose economy is always extremely vulnerable to external crises, is now only more so.
. . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: If A Fiscal Cliff Kills, Canada Should Tax Death
By Stephen Elliott-Buckley, on January 1, 2013, at 12:00 pm December 2012′s Politics, Re-Spun panel on Co-op Radio included Julie McArthur, Alnoor Gova, Imtiaz Popat, Anna Davey, Kevin Harding and Stephen Elliott-Buckley discussing:
International Human Rights Day, experiencing “My Voice, My Right, My Voice Counts” Over-consumption, just consumption, Christmas consumption, sexism, quality of life, consumption as a proxy for enhancing our relationships and happiness. And we enjoyed thematically appropriate music by Dan Mangan and Tim Lawson,
Listen to the podcast here: itpc://dgivista.org/pod/Vista_Podcasts.xml
Or you can listen to the mp3 file here: http://www.dgivista.org/pod/2012.12.10.PRS.CoopRadio.mp3
By Song of the Watermelon, on December 31, 2012, at 7:45 pm I have never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions. The practice always struck me as little more than an excuse to put off self-improvement until next year. But now, with year’s end upon us, and solutions nowhere in sight for the host of problems that we face as a country and as a world, the moment may finally have arrived to exploit this silly annual tradition and appropriate its language for purposes of cynically presenting a false common cause with any blog readers who happen to be into that sort of thing.
With such ingeniously devious trickery in mind,
. . . → Read More: Song of the Watermelon: Three New Year’s Resolutions for Canada
By Greg Fingas, on December 30, 2012, at 12:02 pm Assorted content for your Sunday reading.
- Pam Palmater explains the historical background to Idle No More: (M)ost Canadians are not used to the kind of sustained, co-ordinated, national effort that we have seen in the last few weeks — at least not since 1969. 1969 was the last time the federal government put forward an assimilation plan for First Nations. It was defeated then by fierce native opposition, and it looks like Harper’s aggressive legislative assimilation plan will be met with even fiercer resistance.
In order to understand what this movement is about, it is necessary to understand how
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
By Song of the Watermelon, on December 15, 2012, at 1:23 pm
Assuming that the world survives this coming December 21, the United States Supreme Court is expected to rule on two cases in June which could result in the nation-wide legalization of gay marriage.
I cannot forecast with certainty how the court will decide, but supposing for a moment that it rules in favour of marriage equality, the short-term results are easy to predict: conservative commentators across the country will complain of judicial activism, despite having in many cases urged precisely such an overreach one short year before when Obamacare hung in the balance. Right on cue, public support for same-sex
. . . → Read More: Song of the Watermelon: Emerging Consensus on Gay Marriage
By Adam, on December 14, 2012, at 11:13 am Costa Rica has become the first Latin American country to ban hunting for sport. The country has seen a lot of ecotourism and will continue to be a destination for people who watching shooting wildlife with a camera instead of bullets.
The central American country is already known for its environmental mindset, with 25% of its land protected as national parks or reserves.
Under the new law, those caught hunting can face up to four months in prison or fines of up to $3,000.
Smaller penalties for people who steal wild animals or keep them as pets were also included
By Mystro, on December 2, 2012, at 8:10 am I have done a few ‘Hero of the Day’ posts and I have a few more on the ways. The recipients have done great work spreading important information, rallying against injustice, educating us masses, and have been generally awesome. But today’s hero is special. On top of those usual achievements, she’s done it all while [...] . . . → Read More: Dead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice and Hero of the Day Special Edition: Malala Yousafzai
By Greg Fingas, on November 13, 2012, at 8:18 am This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Lawrence Martin’s take on Robocon doesn’t offer much by way of new information, but nicely sums up exactly what deliberate vote suppression and electoral fraud should mean for a governing party:At issue here is … . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
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