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By John Klein, on June 18, 2013, at 10:25 am I’ve felt badly for a while now that conservative voters have no ethical right wing party to vote for in Canada (or the USA, for that matter). The Conservative Party of Canada is the only Canadian political party with the word “coalition” in its Constitution. The CPC coalition of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives, removed right wing voters’ choice, so Harper’s new CPC could more easily cheat their way to victory.
Rathgeber: "There is speculative talk about starting a new political party and even reviving old ones." brentrathgeber.ca/brents-blog/— Paul Wells (@InklessPW) June 17, 2013
With the (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on June 12, 2013, at 1:16 pm Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Doreen Massey observes that our political vocabulary has largely been hijacked by corporatist language: At a recent art exhibition I engaged in an interesting conversation with one of the young people employed by the gallery. As she turned to walk off I saw she had on the back of her T-shirt “customer liaison”. I felt flat. Our whole conversation seemed somehow reduced, my experience of it belittled into one of commercial transaction. My relation to the gallery and to this engaging person had become one of instrumental market exchange.
The message underlying this (Read more…)
By Obert Madondo, on June 7, 2013, at 6:00 pm
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s ex-chief of staff Nigel Wright tried to kill the Senate expenses scandal. He cut that $90,000 cheque which paid off Sen. Mike Duffy‘s fraudulent claims. Until now, the Conservatives have insisted that Wright used his own healthy bank account.
The money possibly came from a secret $1 million fund in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
According to the CBC News, the Harper Conservatives established the clandestine fund when they came to power in 2006. Most importantly, Wright had “exclusive signing authority” over the fund when he was chief of staff.
From the CBC:
CBC News has learned that (Read more…)
By thescottross.blogspot.com, on June 6, 2013, at 1:38 am If there was no John A. Macdonald, there would be no Canada.
Our most important founding father and first Prime Minister died 122 years ago today. Canadians of all political persuasions should take a moment and remember John A. Macdonald because they share so much in common with the man who made this country.
For Conservatives they owe much to Macdonald. Their majority government was elected because of moderation and stability, two values Macdonald owed his 19 years as Prime Minister to.
Jack Layton undeniably shared perhaps the most valuable trait with Macdonald, and that is being a man of (Read more…)
By Stephen Elliott-Buckley, on June 4, 2013, at 12:00 pm I have heard lots of people blaming the following people for why we didn’t get a positive change in government in BC three weeks ago:
apathetic, nihilistic young people apathetic people who don’t follow politics apathetic people who simply don’t vote bad people who generally don’t care about a better world.
But what really happened in the election? And why are people not voting?
Here’s the what:
NON-VOTING LIB NDP GP CP LBN OTHER Provincial Total 1,313,575 795,946 715,999 146,607 85,783 2,049 56,667 1,803,051 % of Popular Vote 44.14% 39.71% 8.13% 4.76% 0.11% 3.14% (Read more…) . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: What Do We Do About Those Pesky, Apathetic Non-Voters?
By thescottross.blogspot.com, on May 31, 2013, at 12:11 am Out of Canada’s 33 Fathers of Confederation, only one went to university.1
It’s not that Nova Scotia’s Charles Tupper was the only intelligent one among them, other founders were businessmen, doctors, and lawyers, it’s that none of those jobs, and many others, did not require any post-secondary education.
The eduction jobs in the late 19th century did require was entirely made free shortly after confederation because provincial governments, though extremely small and limited, believed that their public schools should provide all the instruction necessary for citizens to obtain jobs in any sector, be it agriculture, engineering, manufacturing, commerce, medicine (Read more…)
By The Liberal Scarf, on May 30, 2013, at 10:42 pm This is Trevor Hache earlier today, quitting the Ontario NDP over their rejection of revenue models to expand transit options for families in the Greater Toronto and Greater Hamilton Area.
Hache twice ran for the NDP in Ottawa-Vanier, and as Policy Director for Ecology Ottawa, a major Ottawa-area environmental organization which he was also a founding member of. (In the interest of full disclosure, I also worked for Ecology Ottawa for several months as a fundraising canvasser.)
Horwath moved the ONDP away from promoting public transit and sound environmental policy in the last election when the ONDP platform included (Read more…)
By John Klein, on May 29, 2013, at 7:53 pm The Conservative trolls will have to get new talking points so they don’t look hopelessly dated. Multiple Conservative parties, the NDP, and another Liberal MP were all fined thousands of dollars for broadcasting robocalls in a deceptive manner where the true identity of the caller was not revealed.
Just the other day I had to mock a flying monkey that was using this year old canard: “No mention in the article that the only confirmed case of robocalls involved the Liberals.” That hapless chap was stuck on the Liberal MP for Guelph sending a robocall that got confused (Read more…)
By John Klein, on May 29, 2013, at 1:00 pm “We depend too much on coal” — @MayorMandel #p2syyc; glad someone said that too— Chris Turner (@theturner) May 29, 2013
.@MMandryk IEA says we have ~3 years left (worldwide) to stop building coal power to avoid 450ppm. SaskParty renewables investment is poor.— Saskboy K. (@saskboy) May 29, 2013
The Leader-Post may be giving kudos to the Sask Party’s singular focus on Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), but I won’t be. The primary reason CCS (clean coal) is getting so much Conservative and Sask Party government funding, is because it’s a hidden subsidy to the oil (Read more…)
By Obert Madondo, on May 27, 2013, at 8:54 am The CBC is threatening to take the Harper Conservatives to court over their attempt to impose dictatorship-style control on the Crown corporation through budget Bill C-60.
The post CBC threatens to take Harper Government to court over budget Bill C-60 appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
By Shawn Whitney, on May 26, 2013, at 9:00 am Well, well, well, it’s been quite a week or two. Rob Ford supposedly smoking crack on video. Doug Ford’s past as a supposed hash dealer exposed – along with the drug related charges and violence connected with his other siblings. This follows and endless string of scandals, foibles and general foolishness on the part of the mayor of Toronto. What fun!
There has been lots of handwringing about
By thescottross.blogspot.com, on May 24, 2013, at 2:31 am Justin Trudeau is popular? It doesn’t matter.
The federal Liberals are still extremely behind in the polls. The last three major polls conducted, with 100% accuracy, show the Liberal Party is far behind the Conservatives and in fact the Grits are at their lowest level of support in Canadian history. Those polls were of course conducted in the last three general elections and they are the only ones that matter.
A lot of Liberals will take refuge in a new opinion poll out that shows their party with an incredible lead, 44% to the Conservatives’ 27%, with the NDP even (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 23, 2013, at 9:09 am Here, featuring my suggestion to minimize the damage done by the Senate even if constitutional change isn’t on the table.
The column was intended largely to respond to the camp whose every reaction to Senate issues is to declare there’s nothing we can do but put up with the status quo.
But there may well be more of a push for abolition than I’d anticipated: Tom Mulcair and the NDP are leading the charge, Democracy Watch is also launching a campaign, and Pat Atkinson makes the case in the Star-Phoenix. And Antonia Maioni points out how the (Read more…)
By Song of the Watermelon, on May 15, 2013, at 7:04 pm In a stunning upset of “Dewey Defeats Truman” proportions, the BC Liberals have defied all the polls save one and returned to power with a fourth straight majority government. No doubt, there will be much soul searching and wound licking over the coming weeks. I believe that five lessons — real, imagined, and not-quite-clear — will be gleaned from the experience.
1. Proceed with caution when predicting the future.
In last year’s US Presidential election, statistician Nate Silver made fools out of all those television pundits who privileged “gut feeling” over quantitative analysis. But sometimes even the data geeks get (Read more…)
By CuriosityCat, on May 15, 2013, at 1:09 pm Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion in BC
I think Gordon Gibson’s take in the Globe & Mail on the vote-shifting caused by the position-shifting of Dix in the last week of the campaign is the most plausible explanation of why the polls were so different from the actual results:
The NDP looked way ahead before voters went to the polls in British Columbia. Then it all changed. Why? One word: “Pipelines.” Or more precisely, two: “Kinder Morgan.”
Until two weeks ago it was the election of the NDP’s Adrian Dix to lose.
Then he got greedy. Worried (Read more…)
By cityprole, on May 15, 2013, at 11:19 am By now the entire country knows what happened here in BC…the re-election of the Provincial Liberals (or Con-Lites) …to say that I am depressed is to state the case in an all-too delicate way.
If I can derive any tiny bit of satisfaction from the election, it is that… a) my old home riding, Kitsilano in Vancouver, did not elect Christy Clark as their MLA – and this is Gordon Campbell’s old riding, where we fought long and hard to unseat him (unsuccessfully, I should add)… and b) Vancouver Island, my current home base, stubbornly true to form, went (Read more…)
By thescottross.blogspot.com, on May 15, 2013, at 3:51 am Christy Clark is unstoppable.
She became Liberal Leader with only the support of one MLA. Members of her caucus criticized her. 17 of them fearing defeat didn’t run for re-election. Practically every pundit and journalist thought Clark was going to lose and so did every single polling firm. But last night she won.
Not only did she turn around a failing election campaign, Clark turned around a failing party.
Her predecessor with an approval rating of only 9% was the least popular Canadian politician in the last 40 years. The poorly implemented Harmonized Sales Tax had mobilized over 700,000 British (Read more…)
By Stephen Elliott-Buckley, on May 14, 2013, at 6:22 pm Here we are: only hours to go until the polls close.
What will be the next BC government?
What are your hopes, fears, dreams, goals?
This page will refresh every 15 seconds, or you can manually reload it.
Please add in your comments below
What are your seat predictions? What do you think will be the final popular vote results? Will Christy Clark lose her seat? If the Liberals lose, will Christy Clark (a) resign tonight, (b) vow to rebuild the party, or (c) take time to reflect on her future?
/*< ![CDATA[ */ setTimeout(function(){live_blogging_poll("6029");}, 15000) /*]]>*/
15.49
OK, final popular vote:
NDP: (Read more…)
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 vsp, on May 13, 2013, at 10:59 pm Don’t gloat. Don’t lose that smile. Don’t get distracted. The real goal is the election in 2015. The NDP have been pushed aside. In the 2012 byelection in Calgary-Centre the NDP went down to 2%, and in Labrador they were moved aside in today’s byelection. The Conservatives have been somewhat humbled — taking illegal donations [...]
By Obert Madondo, on May 13, 2013, at 4:30 pm By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: A new analysis by democracy advocacy group, Samara, suggests that the Conservatives’ characterization of Peter Penashue as a “strong voice” for Labrador in the House of Commons is a grotesque political exaggeration. In fact, the Conservatives insulted our collective intelligence when they warned that “if Newfoundland and Labrador want [...]
The post Peter Penashue: Harper’s “strong voice” rarely heard in the House appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
By Obert Madondo, on May 10, 2013, at 12:07 pm By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: Last week, the Auditor General reported that the Harper Conservatives can’t account for $3.1 billion of the $12.9 billion allocated to the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism Initiative [PSAT] for the period 2001 to 2010. The New Democrats are demanding action and accountability. Via a motion that was scheduled for [...]
The post NDP demands action on missing $3.1 billion in anti-terrorism funding appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
By Regan Wolfrom, on May 9, 2013, at 1:00 pm Is there really any point in talking about it?
Almost every blogger I’ve read in Manitoba who’s covered political issues had mentioned that the NDP has been up to something. Manitoba Hydro Smash-and-Grab, Public Utilities Board Gouge-and-Grab, WRHA Mad-Cow-Expansion-and-Grab, PST Change-The-Law-To-Take-More-Money-and-Grab…
But what’s the point in talking about it anymore? So we keep whining about it, and then maybe if we’re “lucky” the NDP will lose and the “Progressive” Conservatives will win and we can start complaining about the upcoming Hydro Privatization-and-Switch, or the Health Care Slash-and-Switch, or the Education Blah-Blah-and-Switch…
It’s gangrenous (Read more…)
By Scott Tribe, on May 3, 2013, at 7:23 am This is a post that some (but not all) of my BC Liberal acquaintances may not like, but as the BC Election draws near and the polls tighten, I’ll say without apology that to me, it would not be a bad thing if the provincial BC Liberal Party gets dumped out of office and the NDP led by Adrian Dix takes over the reins of power.
I’ve made it rather publicly known that I consider the BC Liberals LINO’s (Liberals In Name Only) who should be returning the name “Liberal” back to us as the party stands in its current (Read more…)
By David Climenhaga, on May 2, 2013, at 2:51 am “’Ave you got a leesence for your minkey?” An investigator for Elections Alberta pauses momentarily in his probe of political donations made to the Progressive Conservative Party by seeing-eye monkeys. If you don’t get it, I can’t help you. Actual Elections Alberta investigators by now have likely been transferred back to plain clothes. Below: Justice Minister Jonathan Denis, retired Chief Elections Officer O. Brian Fjeldheim and drugstore billionaire Daryl Katz.
In Alberta, lawbreakers must be punished, and they will be punished – unless, of course, they happen to be supporters of the ruling Progressive Conservative Party.
So, the government (Read more…)
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