Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Chris Hatch discusses the glaring contradictions between Canada’s lip service to the fight against climate change, and its actions in pushing to expand dirty energy production for decades to come. The Globe and Mail’s editorial board rightly recognizes that increasing the production and
Continue readingTag: proportional representation
Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Rachel Shabi writes that UK Labour’s plans for universal social investments would be both more compassionate and more efficient than the Conservative-created tearing patchwork. – Simon Jäger, Benjamin Schoefer and Jörg Heining study (PDF) the positive effects of worker representation in corporate governance.
Continue readingBig Bump for PR (take note Mr. Trudeau)
Has this election awakened Canadians to the need for proportional representation? The results of a recent Angus Reid poll certainly suggest so. From the support of under half the electorate following the last election, PR is now supported by over two-thirds. Support has increased with voters of all parties but
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Stephen Mihm writes that among other positive outcomes, wealth taxes and other progressive tax options reliably produce a boost in life satisfaction for a large number of people (while having little impact on the positional interests of the ultra-rich against each other). And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Robert Frank reports on the latest galling threshold in wealth inequality, as millionaires consisting of less than 1% of the population now control effectively half of the wealth on Earth. And Steven Greenhouse asks why actual workers aren’t being included in talks about
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Klaus Schwab comments on the importance of making decisions with far more of a long-term focus, rather paying attention only to short-term dollar calculations: (W)e should develop scorecards to track our performance on these long-term priorities. To that end, I have three
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On legacies
For all the campaign talk about how this year’s election campaign could have proven a parallel of the 1972 result, we’ve instead ended up seeing Justin Trudeau repudiate his father’s response to another contentious result. When he won a majority government in 1980 which lacked representation from the western provinces,
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: The Case for Electoral Reform – AGAIN!
Once again, the results of yesterday’s federal election demonstrate the unrepresentative nature of our Parliament. It also illustrates why the Liberals, who came second in votes but first in seats, were so willing to backtrack on their 2015 promise to bring in a system of proportional representation. The chart further
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: Welcome to Scheerless Tuesday!
OK… LPC 157 : CPC 121 : BQ 32 : NDP 24 : GPC 3 : IND 1 : PPC 0 A Liberal minority government it is, eh Canada. A Liberal minority government is NOT the worst thing ever. In fact, w/ the seat count, either the NDP, or the
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: The NDP never did explain…
THE NDP NEVER DID EXPLAIN… WHAT IS WRONG W/ RANKED BALLOT?! In case you forgot, the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform, AKA ERRE, was an all-party Parliamentary committee convened and empowered to “conduct a study of viable alternate voting systems to replace the first-past-the-post system”, as well
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – In an excerpt from his new book, Martin Lukacs examines the disappointment Justin Trudeau has inflicted on anybody who thought his carefully-cultivated progressive image would be matched by action: Long before photographs of Trudeau partying in black-face and brown-face in his twenties
Continue readingMy Relulctant Strategic Vote
Here’s an irony. I’m forced to vote Liberal (again) because Justin Trudeau betrayed me. No, it doesn’t make any sense and, furthermore, it pisses me off. But that’s just the way it is. In his 2015 campaign, Justin promised that that election would be the last under the grievously undemocratic
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Cédric Durand and Razmig Keucheyan highlight the return of economic planning as a widely-recognized public policy option – while pointing out the need for our democratic systems to allow for public direction of the planning process. And Lauren Townsend writes about the importance
Continue readingPR Isn’t Enough
Advocates of proportional representation (PR) make a powerful case. They claim that our current electoral system, first-past-the-post (FPTP), is not democratic. They are right. More often than not a political party that gains less than half the popular vote wins the election. In 2015, for example the Liberals, with under
Continue readingThe Senate—No Solution to Regional Alienation
Canada has always been a highly regionalized country—the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, B.C., all with varying interests and economies and, with Quebec at least, culture. One particular complaint is that the country is run from the centre, i.e. Quebec and Ontario dominate with the other regions struggling to be
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Phil Dzikiy discusses how GE is already losing massive amounts of money due to its incorrect assumption that fossil fuels would be profitable. And Brad Plumer points out that far more corporations are recognizing the need to plan for the fallout from a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Eoin Higgins discusses a new report by Elizabeth Warren and Pramila Jayapal on a U.S. political system which is even more corporatist than ever under the Trump administration. – Meanwhile, Sarah Petz reports on Boots Riley’s recent talk in Winnipeg – including
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Bob Hepburn discusses how Doug Ford has turned a populist campaign into government solely for the benefit of the privileged few. And Paul Krugman rightly notes that it’s the Republicans who stoke resentment in the U.S.’ rust belt who actually express contempt for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Kurtis Alexander points out how climate change is exacerbating the gap between wealthy and poor countries. Megan Mayhew Bergman highlights the importance of discussing climate change even where it’s all too often treated as a taboo topic, while Jeff Sparrow points out
Continue readingwmtc: jason kenney and doug ford. how depressing.
The chickens have voted for Colonel Sanders again. It’s an old, old story, and we seem farther away than ever from changing the ending. Doug Ford is destroying Ontario in a way Mike Harris only dreamed of. Healthcare, schools, libraries, parks, public transit — all programs, all supports, and countless
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