Articles
Currently viewing articles in the Canadian Politics, Economy and Foreign Policy category.
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BC’s Election Stunner: Five Lessons for the Left
When Preston Manning founded the Reform Party in 1989 he said that if it hadn’t achieved power in 20 years he would dissolve it and make room for something else. It actually happened sooner than that, of course. Manning wasn’t married to any political party, even his own. He was committed to changing the world.
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Harper stokes resentments in discreet class war
The willingness of much of the Canadian media to go along with the Conservative narrative about Stephen Harper’s “moderation” has allowed the prime minister to wage a discreet class war against working people without attracting too much attention.
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Defeating Harper from Below
The swaggeringly pro-capitalist, neoliberal and militarist Harper juggernaut makes enquiring into its limits seem impertinent. So, prima facie, do developments elsewhere. The 2008 financial crisis, the greatest crisis of neoliberalism, appeared to reinforce the power of capital everywhere. However, a longer historical perspective appears more encouraging.
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Justin Trudeau, Boy King
There is no accounting for political judgment when it gets caught up in irrational euphoria. The overwhelming victory of Justin Trudeau in the Liberal Party’s leadership race demonstrates just how impoverished the state of our political culture has become.
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The end of CIDA - Planned and Predictable
The planned merger is the death sentence for an agency that obviously has no place in the vision of a (neo)conservative government
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Canada needs a NDP-Liberal-Green Coalition
There is no question that Canada has a dysfunctional political system in which the views of the majority of Canadians cannot be represented by a single political party. Although almost two-thirds of Canada’s voters in the last three elections opposed the platform, policies, and philosophy of the Conservative party, it is the Conservatives who have formed the government. The majority vote was split amongst four parties, thereby thwarting the predominant will of the people and making a mockery of democracy. And this may very well continue into the future.
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The NDP, poised for power but to what effect?
Fifty years after its founding, the New Democratic Party swept to Official Opposition status in Ottawa on May 2, 2011, propelled by the “Orange wave” in Québec where it captured an astounding 43% of the popular vote. Canada-wide, the NDP share of the vote increased from 18% in the previous federal election (2008) to 30.6%.
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What the Fraser Institute Report Really Says About Public Sector Compensation
The Fraser institute’s recent report states that public sector workers are greatly more compensated than their private sector counterparts and its implication that the Alberta government should look at public sector compensation in order to deal with the province’s financial problems. But is the argument valid?
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2013: The year of the democracy coalition
When historians write the chapter on the current period of social democracy in Canada they might well conclude that the worst thing that happened to it was the 2011 election when the NDP got 103 seats it hadn’t really earned. It was such an unexpected event that the NDP could not cope with it. You could see it in the euphoria of election night – the same night that the dismantling of the country (whose best government features the party could take much credit for) would begin in earnest with a Harper majority.
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Time for an Adult Conversation on Taxes
The suggestion that we need to raise taxes in this country has become so taboo in the nation’s politics that even talking about it is seen as tantamount to political suicide. The right and its benefactors, the wealthy and large corporations, have had the field to themselves for a long time. Their framing of taxes as a “burden” and their promises of tax “relief” (borrowed from the Republicans in the U.S.) has become so imbedded in the public consciousness the spontaneous reply to the question of whether we should raise taxes is usually “no.”
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