Category Archives: Canadian Politics
Michael Ignatieff`s The Rights Revolution: A Review
Here’s the first of a series of revamped book reviews that I’ve published in the past on Chapters.ca and Amazon. They’re not meant to be exhaustive, but they have helped me to focus my understanding of the books and my memory of their key ideas. Eventually I will publish most of my older reviews and […]
Inequality Makes Us Ill
Across all the Western democracies, there is a consistent pattern in which outcomes worsen as inequality increases BY WILL KYMLICKA A Review of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, Allen Lane, 331 pages http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090515.wbkspirit16/BNStory/globebooks/home ……………………….. Will Kymlicka, a noted Canadian scholar on politics and […]
Elections Do Not Equal Governments
My brother made a great point in a recent letter to the Georgia Straight. Though we may vote on the basis of party leader, we don’t actually vote for a premier or a prime minister. On election night, we vote for a local representative who will ostensibly represent our riding’s interests in parliament or the […]
The Mining Industry Gets Its Comeuppance
One of the most ideologically strident industries in Canada, and certainly its whiniest, is the mining industry. It recently suffered a well-deserved loss in Canada’s Federal Court, which ordered the industry, and its pals in the federal government, to fully disclose the industry’s pollution output. Canada’s mining industry did not have to report “the pollutants […]
Donald Brittain’s The Champions
My favourite documentary on Canadian politics is Donald Brittain’s The Champions. The three-part series explores the epic struggle between Rene Levesque and Pierre Trudeau, and their efforts to bring forth a sovereign Quebec and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, respectively. The series does a wonderful job of capturing the atmosphere of the 60’s, 70’s […]
Wheat from the Chaff : World Economic Forum
In a world where economic discussion is still overwhelmed by neo-liberal cant, it’s refreshing to see a generally pro-business organization capable of seeing competitiveness and productivity in (somewhat) broader terms than Milton Friedman’s disciples. The World Economic Forum is a Swiss-based think tank that promotes international dialogue on a variety of key global issues. Perhaps […]
Provincial deficits for 2009/2010
Here are some interesting stats re: provincial deficits. We see that Alberta has a huge per capita deficit, thanks largely to Alberta’s reliance on irregular resource and exploration taxes, and not on more stable income and sales taxes. This is a good example of how debt and deficits are as reliant on what you tax […]
Resource financing keeps Bay Street flush
Here are some telling statistics that help describe the magnitude of the American economic tailspin: ………………… BOYD ERMAN From Monday’s Globe and Mail April 6, 2009 at 4:19 AM EDT Take that, Wall Street. Bay Street bankers are finding themselves in the unprecedented situation of being just as busy selling stock as New York financiers, […]
With economy so bad, Bank of Canada may revert to printing money
Didn’t they try this in Germany after World War One? Perhaps I’ll need to be more cautious when I gloat about my variable rate mortgage! Of course, in Germany, there was a real shortage of goods and resources, as Germany was directly stripped of much of its resources by the Treaty of Versailles and by […]
Inequality As an Economic Problem for Capitalism
Here’s an interesting article that recognizes that inequality is not just a moral issue for bleeding heart lefties. It’s a very real problem for capitalism: too much equality might stifle innovation, but too little equality and the economic cycle will come to a grinding halt. Perhaps we should look deeper into the economic crisis, and […]