Category Archives: Canadian Politics
Sun Media Brings Fox News to Canada
This is almost hilarious. It must be the most absurd media promo I’ve ever seen – as if it’s a parody made by the people at The Colbert Report or The Onion. Unfortunately, these yahoos are serious. Posted by Colin Welch at 8:21 PM Edited on: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 5:20 PM
Why I Would Never Vote for Harper’s Conservatives: A List
Sometimes you need a list to keep yourself organized, or at least to remember all the things you don’t want to forget. With this in mind, I’ve decided to create a list of all the reasons why I would never vote for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Here they are, in no particular order: Prorogation: The cynicism […]
Hypocrisy Reigns
Now that the federal Conservatives have fallen after a litany of ethical and legal transgressions, it looks like they are using the bogeyman of a coalition against their opponents. This 2004 letter is all you need for a response: ……….. September 9, 2004 Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D. Governor […]
A Discussion of George Grant
As I’ve mentioned before, I think TVO is one of the best broadcasters in Canada [I started watching it when I lived in Toronto during grad school] and I wish we had more of this sort of broadcasting on our local Knowledge Network station. A case in point is a recent panel discussion [see below] […]
Ben Levin’s thoughts on education
The presentation below, by Ontario professor Ben Levin, makes some interesting points about modern education. The first point is that many of the elements that differentiate the education systems of Canada and the USA – and lead to better PISA results in Canada – are macro-factors outside the control of individual teachers. Levin points to […]
Gabor Maté: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
One of my favourite books of 2010 is Dr. Gabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. The following is a series of interviews with Maté, a Vancouver doctor who treats drug addicts in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver. The interviews are conducted by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now: Posted by Colin Welch at […]
Another Fraser Institute Joke
I’m pleased to see that Craig McInnes of the Vancouver Sun doesn’t take the Fraser Institute’s latest salvo against Canada’s surgical wait lists too seriously. A 16% return rate on a voluntary survey makes a mockery of any official conclusions. Little wonder that the report’s authors fail to mention the response rate in their section […]
A Carole James Requiem
It was another eventful day in B.C. politics. Carole James mercifully stepped down as the leader of the BC NDP party, and soon the spin was thick and saucy, with a hint of bovine dung. James, of course, cast the 13 dissident MLA’s as “bullies” and unity-wreckers, and herself as the innocent, hard-working victim who […]
The Neo-Liberal Agenda: The Effects in BC, Part 2
In my last entry, I wrote about the pernicious attempts by the BC Liberals (and other neo-liberals) to promote tax cuts on the basis of improvements in productivity. I explained that these productivity increases simply haven’t happened. This, in turn, suggests that Campbell’s tax cut agenda is bogus and self-serving. The question, then, is what […]
The Neo-Liberal Agenda in BC: Reduce, Just Don’t Shift
Aside from shifting taxation from the business sector to the middle class (like in the HST), the neo-liberal agenda seeks to reduce the overall size of government, particularly in relation to GDP. A classic example of this reduction in government can be found right here in BC. Below is a chart from the BC government’s […]