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Currently viewing articles in the Canadian Politics, Economy and Foreign Policy category.
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Rogues Like These
It has the makings of a B-grade political thriller: a mysterious “Pierre Poutine” uses a disposable “burner” cell phone and an anonymous prepaid credit card to buy a series of automated outbound phone calls designed to harass voters in key ridings and mislead them about where they should vote in the May 2011 federal election. The drama here lies in the sheer scale of the skulduggery.
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Overshadowing the Cartagena Summit: the militarization of Central America
Stephen Harper and Barack Obama will be attending the Sixth Summit of the Americas this weekend in Cartagena, Colombia. Expected to attend will be 33 heads of government representing all the members of the Organization of American States (OAS) except Ecuador, whose President Rafael Correa is courageously abstaining primarily on the ground that the summit excludes revolutionary Cuba, still denied OAS membership by Washington.
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Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?
As this leadership race draws to a close, it is far too glib to claim that Canada’s New Democrats have, once again, failed or will fail working people and their families. That has been the mantra of so many, “right” and “left” that we have come to believe it ourselves. We are, as long time New Democrat Gerry Caplan put it fiercely in the Globe & Mail not long ago, in the midst of a world-wide class war. And our principal left(ish) electoral party seems weak, disorganized, and devoid of fresh thinking. Are we letting the 1% define us?
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A Bigger Role for Alberta
Many will remember the made-in-Alberta bumper sticker of the 1980s that told Canadians outside of Alberta that they could “freeze in the dark.” The message caught the mood of many Albertans enraged by the National Energy Program. In his role as premier, Ralph Klein rarely missed the opportunity to invoke memories of the NEP while telling the “feds” and his provincial counterparts in no uncertain terms to keep their paws off Alberta’s resources.
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Leading questions
While the times call for bold alternatives and transformative change, the NDP candidates with left sympathies have shown no imagination for how to build power or intervene in the political landscape in a way that is significantly different from the right-wing candidates. The differences that matter in this race are mostly about technical competence and style, rather than politics.
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Does Anyone in Government Really Care About Canadian Jobs?
The Canadian government has promoted the pipeline as creating thousands of jobs. But this is only during the construction phase. Enbridge’s own submission to the Joint Review Panel on the Northern Gateway pipeline suggests that the operations phase would create perhaps as few as 104 permanent jobs, and only 26 directly in Alberta. Give or take some other jobs involving regular maintenance and, sadly enough, dealing with environmental damages, Canada’s net benefit in shipping its raw bitumen seems negligible.
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NDP leadership candidates ducking biggest issue of our time
How can a political party that calls itself “social democratic”, or even “progressive,” have a leadership campaign go on for several weeks without candidates—as far as I can determine—discussing the damaging force that capitalism has become?
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Is Stephen Harper displaying fascist-like tendencies?
The stepped-up authoritarian, anti-democratic manner Stephen Harper conducts himself since obtaining his Parliamentary majority nine months ago raises serious concerns about how far right he is planning to push the country in his effort to forever change the face of Canada.
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NDPers dreamin’ of victory, ‘trash’ power sharing with Libs
The year 2015 is a long-time away but, considering the many difficulties the NDP has to overcome to win, it is hard to understand why candidates who obviously care about the country would totally rule out the possibility of a coalition government.
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Harper’s health scheme will mean ‘Goin’ Down the Road’ for Maritimers
By dramatically changing the health care funding formula, is Prime Minister Stephen Harper showing little concern for the future of the Maritime provinces?
The Health Accord “deal” that Harper practically threw in the face of the provinces and territories this week, not only cuts health funding for all the provinces starting in four years, but threatens to further widen the growing standard-of-living chasm between the “have” and “have not” provinces.
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