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By: Andrew Stevens | First published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on May 3, 2013: Sweeping changes to Saskatchewan’s labour relations and employment standards legislation are on the verge of being passed. Bill 85, the Saskatchewan Employment Act, will dramatically transform the laws governing trade unions and industrial relations in the province. The [...] The post Saskatchewan: A beachhead of labour law reform? appeared first on The Canadian Progressive. By: Andrew Stevens | First published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on May 3, 2013: Sweeping changes to Saskatchewan’s labour relations and employment standards legislation are on the verge of being passed. Bill 85, the Saskatchewan Employment Act, will dramatically transform the laws governing trade unions and industrial relations in the province. The [...] The post Saskatchewan: A beachhead of labour law reform? appeared first on The Canadian Progressive. 90% of Americans support universal background checks for guns yet on Wednesday the American Senate struck down that legislation. That’s not very democratic, is it? Those in Canada who fervently cling to the idea that voting will make our Senate democratic almost completely ignore the problems that come with it, such as the lobbyists and interest groups, like the National Rifle Association, that frequently override public opinion. Contrasted with the American example, it is the Canadian appointed Senate that actually represents its citizens, because in not being elected the Senate recognizes the public does not empower it to drastically change (Read more…) defeat bills from the House of Commons. And when the Senate does, in the rare times, reject bills from the elected house, it is to protect the interests of minorities and Canada’s regions, as it did in 1991 where it defeated a bill to re-criminalize abortion. Considering the . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: The Undemocratic Elected Senate & The Democratic Appointed One By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Mar 4, 2013: The New Democrats today repeated their call for the abolition of Canada’s scandal-ridden “useless, expensive, undemocratic appendage of government”, the Senate. The Official Opposition’s MP for Toronto-Danforth, Craig Scott, issued the following statement earlier today: In order to address the irresponsible conduct of the unelected Senate, NDP Democratic and Parliamentary Reform Critic Craig Scott READ MORE “Washington is broken.” – Barack Obama Looking at the Canadian Senate in isolation might motivate many to question it, but compared to the American Senate, Canadians should be proud of their upper chamber. Besides the fact that googling “Ottawa is broken” brings zero related results, the American Senate is so dysfunctional quite a few of its members, like former Senators Olivia Snowe and Evan Bayh, have actually quit, citing that the American institution is just too broken. From the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s to bringing the world’s largest economy to the brink of collapse in the fiscal crisis . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Why Canada Needs An Elected Senate Just Like America’s There might not be a more persuasive argument against an elected senate than the American example. From filibustering to partisan deadlock to disproportionate representation, this broken institution south of our border is largely responsible for the lo… . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: America’s Broken Senate This article was originally published on www.LFTI.ca The Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC)’s articling task force has released its final report on its proposed solution for what has been dubbed the “Articling Crisis” facing recent law grads in Ontario. The report directly concerns current law students, new graduates of law programs, law firms, and those considering entering the legal profession. Its main recommendation is the creation of a new Law Practice Program (LPP) — a blend of coursework and co-operative work placement — to co-exist with the current 10-month articling requirement. If approved, the program would (Read more…) The [Manning] centre would not be another political party, but help build an “infrastructure” for existing Conservative parties federally and provincially, Mr. Manning said. (source) As other progressive bloggers have pointed out, the Manning Centre for Building Democracy is obviously partisan – slanted towards the Conservatives. You really just had to look at their board of directors, 1. Preston Manning – Reform party founder and leader for many years. Long time associates with Harper for obvious reasons.2. Cliff Fryers – currently the far-right party Wildrose party chairman. He was also party and campaign chairman for the Reform (Read more…) “I feel morally compelled to remain on the side of other uprooted men and women everywhere. Today, as yesterday, a nation is judged by its attitude towards refugees.” The sobering words of Jewish-American political activist, Nobel laureate, writer, professor, Elie Wiesel. The Holocaust survivor’s response to the Harper Conservative governments’ draconian changes to Canada’s refugee system, to be implemented through Bill C-31, ”Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act.” The Romania-born Wiesel has joined with the Toronto Board of Rabbis to express concern about the bill, which amends Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. The . . . → Read More: CANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Immigration Bill C31: Auschwitz Survivor Wiesel Confronts Harper 1. Free post-secondary education is a student loan that the country takes out and gets more money back than it ever put in. The government will receive more money from income taxes on the resulting increased salaries and wages of graduates than it spent on the initial investment for free higher education. (Compared to high school graduates, college graduates have a 21% higher income and university graduates have a 61% higher income.) 2. All other education is free because education is a public good. If high school is free, so should post-secondary education. Previously, other levels of . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Arguments For Free Post-Secondary Education Employment Insurance isn’t perfect, and that’s why the Conservative reforms are wrong. EI’s very purpose is to give money to people without jobs, it is a program that gives the unemployed incentive not to find work. The only reform that will ever fix that is getting rid of EI, anything else is just increasing government’s size and control. The current Conservative government has argued that their EI reforms will remove the disincentive for the unemployed to find work, but as long as EI exists, there will always be a disincentive to work. Since the 16th century with the English Poor . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: EI Isn’t Perfect & That’s Why Reforms Are Wrong Way back when, a few months after the last federal election, I replied to the Susan Delacourt’s “Is the Liberal Party dead?” question, echoed ad nauseum in the nation’s press, with a warning to be wary of forcing Canadian politics to fit a certain narrative. That narrative presupposes the inevitability of a polarized left-right dichotomy; in other words, it’s natural and normal to have large social democratic and conservative or Christian democratic parties alternating in power, perhaps allied by necessity (as in Great Britain) with a small, squeezed, and increasingly insignificant centrist third party. Canada isn’t different; Canada is . . . → Read More: Beyond the 140: The Leadership Narrative Instead of raising the retirement age and distressing seniors with low-income the government should have prevented wealthier Canadians from receiving Old Age Security; not only would this have been fairer but would have saved hundereds of millions of dollars more. It makes sense that Canadians who are 65 and older and who make over a million dollars don’t receive an Old Age Security Pension; they certainly don’t need it. But what doesn’t make sense is that under the current reforms made by this Conservative government, a 67 year old senior who will make $100,000 will still receive OAS while a . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: How Old Age Security Should Have Been Reformed Many Liberals may take pride at the sight of increasing poll numbers, they shouldn’t. The Liberals have problems, increasing poll numbers aren’t going to fix them. Liberals need to build a new party, that will take time, determination and purpose. Poll numbers aren’t going to stop backroom deals, poll numbers aren’t going to hold coffee meetings, poll numbers aren’t going to make the apathetic passionate, and poll numbers aren’t going to better Canada. The Liberal Party could surge even higher, even surpassing the Conservatives, but in the longrun that will mean nothing, because polls are temporary while a party true . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Liberal Pride Having the luxury of being in government for so long allowed Liberals to think they were special, that there were huge differences between them and other parties, well there aren’t and they should stop thinking there are. Yes there are differences between all the parties, but they are far less severe than partisans on either side realize. To perpetuate the belief that Liberals differ greatly from the Conservatives or the NDP is to perpetuate the current political landscape, and our disadvantage. The fact is Canadians support the Conservatives, they do so by not supporting their party constitution or by paying . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: The Great Liberal Difference. How should we govern ourselves? Since Locke’s Second Treatise, the presumption has been in favour of self-government — that is, each individual adult person has the natural right to govern his or her own life. Thus government by others is, when legiti… . . . → Read More: On governance: (1) Principles Since the Conservatives have a majority government, they’ve been talking about Senate reform again. Mind you, it's being done in their usual clumsy, uneducated way, which seems to assume three things: their reforms actually have a vision, t… . . . → Read More: Hill Queeries: Reform without a vision Stephen Taylor has an interesting article about the decision to block the potash buyout today in the National Post. The gist is that fiscal conservatives are being betrayed by this protectionist action. I’m actually not sure which way I would go on the question of letting a foreign company own the potash resource. There are [...] The Canadian Interwebs are ablaze with anger over the recent prorogation of parliament and polls tell us that even the general population is quite upset. Hopefully the fast growing Facebook protest group “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament” will tranlate into feet on the ground during the nationwide protests against proroguing on Jan 23, the Saturday before [...] You should read this about senate reform, espeically Jim Q’s comment on a PR solution http://ow.ly/TKs3 #cdnpoli #senatereform #fairvote Posted in Politics Tagged: democracy, fairvote, parliament, Politics, reform, senate . . . → Read More: Pop The Stack: You should read this about senate reform Posted from a comment via HuffPost What I find really interesting is how this is further evidence that people always assume that others would do exactly as they themselves would do. Republicans think the Democrats would stop at nothing to stop something from the other party. Well, we know thats not true, they think too [...] |
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