Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – I wouldn’t go as far as Haroon Siddiqui in suggesting that all temporary foreign worker programs be shut down entirely (at least absent some concurrent change to encourage a flow of new workers who are able to set down roots in Canada). But
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Alberta Diary: Advice for Tom Mulcair and Justin Trudeau: Hammer Stephen Harper on the economy
The neoliberal Harper economy at work: a Toronto street scene, last week. Below: Thomas Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, Stephen Harper and Margaret Thatcher. Here’s some free advice for a couple of would-be Canadian prime ministers who are both in the news these days, the NDP’s Tom Mulcair and the Liberals’ Justin
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Michael Harris discusses the impending moment of truth for the Cons in owning up to their substantive failures toward Canada’s First Nations: Whether it’s Canada’s natives or its health ministers, Stephen Harper’s preferred place for his opponents is under his thumb. He has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Frank Graves’ review of the current state of Canadian politics focuses in on the growing gap between the Cons’ waning interest in listening to the public, and their growing expenditures on advertising and marketing: In Canada in 2006, the federal government spent roughly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Crawford Kilian comments on Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats as a useful expression of trends many of us have seen in action for some time: (T)he plutonomy is not just booming, but skewing the still-depressed economy the rest of us live in. Many of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Frank Graves writes about the decline of Canada’s middle class – and notes a parallel between the type of economy which tends to produce broad social failure, and the Cons’ familiar obsession with extraction: The other key factor is rising inequality and a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On alternatives
A couple of polls this week have been used as evidence that the Cons are largely in control of the federal political scene. But I’ll argue that while each suggests the limitations of a possible course of action, taken together they point to plenty of reason for hope over the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- George Monbiot all too accurately describes the current state of politics around much of the developed world:Humankind’s greatest crisis coincides with the rise of an ideology that makes it impossible to addres…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Toby Sanger discusses how wealthy Canadians – especially in the financial sector – are making more and more use of offshore tax havens to avoid paying their fair share: The latest Statistics Canada figures show 24% of Canadian direct investment overseas in 2011
Continue readingAlex's Blog: Going, Going, Gone: Dismantling the Progressive State
“An Auction”. William Pyne and William Combe (1808). Now that some time has passed since the federal budget it might be useful to step back and assess what it says about where the government is taking us. Reaction has been pretty muted. The “centrist punditry” generally see this as an
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2012 Roundup
With the NDP’s leadership campaign entering its final week, it’s no great surprise to see plenty more punditry than usual surrounding the race. But what might influence the ballots cast this week (which may end up making all the difference)? – The most attention over the last day or so
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On subtle effects
I’m not the first to make the point, but I’ll briefly wade into the Frank Graves vs. Nik Nanos debate over Robocon by noting why this may be a scandal which may have far more of an impact on Canadians’ perceptions than prorogation or contempt of Parliament. In those cases,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Frank Graves notes that for all the spin from the Cons and their enablers about public acquescience in program slashing, there’s actually another issue taking centre stage among Canadian voters: (I)f people prefer spending cuts to increased taxes and debt, they prefer “investment”
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