Harper Ignores Positive Trade Opportunity: ALBA
Trade has occurred for thousands of years, not just in the capitalist context of the last few hundred years, and not just in the current neoliberal, free trade context of the last 30 years. For over five years I have been tracking Latin America’s ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, as an alternative model [...]
Canadian Authoritarianism: Then and Now
Something has been rotting in the State of Canada for a long, long time.
Prime Minister Layton, Redux
The last time we saw a coalition possibly forming, I wrote about the unlikely but conceivable possibility of Jack Layton being prime minister since at the time there was no firm Liberal leader and no one would allow a separatist to be prime minister. Now we have polling to show that once Canadians start thinking [...]
Politics, Re-Spun on Coop Radio, 5.31.10: The HST, Federal Coalitions, Some Class War
Imtiaz Popat on “The Rational” and I, talking about the HST, the Vancouver Parks Board’s dance with class war and gentrification, and federal coalitions in the UK and Canada! The video podcast of the conversation lives at Vista Video. You can watch it in Miro, the best new open source multimedia viewing software: http://www.miroguide.com/feeds/8832 or… You [...]
PM Harper Understands ‘V For Vendetta’
It is quite clear that Stephen Harper clearly understands a movie like V For Vendetta. It’s not his arrogance that led him to prorogue parliament again by literally phoning it in to the governor-general. It’s his understanding of our collective apathy about democracy. OK, maybe it was partly arrogance that led him to phone it [...]
Oh Canada, the Climate Criminal
George Monbiot is one of my heroes. The breadth of clarity he brings to issues is quite refreshing. He has finally given in to pressure, thankfully, to start taking shots at our wonderful, glorious, selfless, polite and all-around loving country. Canada is a climate criminal. Stephen Harper and the Conservative-Liberal coalition government are the don [...]
Canadians Need a Real Education in Politics
Ipsos/CanWest just released a poll that shows that Canadians need far more education about how politics is supposed to work in a parliamentary system. Here’s what they found [see below for some of the ambiguous juicy quotes]: a large minority think Igg would do a better job of running the country a slim majority think [...]
Igg’s Empty Deal with Harper
In 2005, New Democrats turned corporate tax breaks of $4.6 billion into $1.6 billion for affordable housing, $1.5 billion for post-secondary education, $900 million for transit, $500 million for foreign aid and $100 million for pension protection. In 2009, Michael Ignatieff could only manage a “blue ribbon panel” on Employment Insurance with limited scope that [...]
Memo to Harper: Bush Doesn’t Have Your Back Anymore
Someone should really tell the prime minister that George w.Caesar doesn’t have his back on angry imperialist rhetoric anymore. It’s one thing for Ignatieff to sit quietly, saying nothing, waiting for the economy to implode Harper’s government, but for Harper to show that he still thinks the Bush Doctrine rules the world means his crash [...]
Destroying the CBC: Another Step Today
I’ve already written about the slow destruction of the CBC. And I’m at it again today. The short list of what I wrote before: constrain funding to lose Hockey Night in Canada lose the rights to the HNIC theme song kill the CBC orchestra And now: “the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. plans to cut up to [...]
Mr. Harper’s Gift of Democracy
The Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, is not a fan of democracy, transparency or accountability. His hallmark moment upon sliding into the office was to eviscerate responsible government by forcing cabinet ministers to get approval from the prime minister’s office before speaking, answering questions, sampling the decadent cheese plate in the parliamentary dining room, that [...]
Ignatieff Will Be Content as Opposition Leader
As much as it pains me to write this, I believe at 8am Vancouver time this morning, the federal Liberal leader will claim that Harper has shown enough conciliatory, cooperative gestures in yesterday’s budget to enjoy the right to govern for a while more. I hope so much to be wrong, but the budget wasn’t [...]
Prime Minister Layton and Proportional Representation
Since during the federal election campaign over the last 3 months I’ve talked with friends about the outside chance of Jack Layton becoming prime minister. It’s still an outside chance, but it improved when Flaherty said an unsurprising bunch of nothing useful last night. I’ve been impressed with the social movement that swept Obama to [...]
Why Vancouver’s NPA Lost Badly Today
Because I like to make electoral predictions, I guessed that the NPA would elect 5 people to various councils in Vancouver. It turns out I was generous. They got 4 in, unless more official results in the coming days alter that. This doesn’t really prove that the NPA is dead. Corporate donations will keep the [...]
Wendy Yuan’s Policy Emptiness is Bad for Vancouver-Kingsway
A vote for the NDP and Don Davies is a vote for progress, humanity and real political representation in Vancouver-Kingsway. A vote for the Liberals and Wendy Yuan is a vote for the federal Liberal party “brand”, elitist and pro-corporate policies and the Paul Martin-David Emerson gang. Worst of all, NOT voting is a vote [...]
keep looking »contributors
