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Currently viewing entries by Murray Dobbin.
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Will the NDP become the new Liberal Party?
Almost since he was elected NDP leader in 2003, Jack Layton has mused about replacing the Liberal Party as the official opposition. He was roundly ridiculed for this fantasy and can now, if he chooses, tell us all that he told us so. But for the NDP and the country it could turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. Just what does it mean for Canadian politics for the NDP to replace the Liberals?
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A Conservative majority. Now what?
There is no point dwelling on the obvious other than to simply reiterate it. The election of a Conservative majority government will usher in wrenching change in Canada and we will have to witness the worse that Stephen Harper has to offer.
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Strategic voting is more important than ever
Analysts and activists across the country are still trying to get a serious grip on the stunning rise in the polls of Jack Layton’s NDP—almost pinching themselves in the aftermath of fear and the loathing that characterized the first weeks of the election.
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Layton’s Surge and the Intentional Citizen
The flurry of polls last week suggesting an unprecedented surge in support for the NDP has stunned political commentators and given progressives something to cheer about for the first time in ages. Paradoxically, it comes at a time in the election when it seemed that no matter how many sleazy scandals hit the Conservatives they stayed right on the edge of majority territory.
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Preparing for Harpergeddon
Looking for a suitable theme for Easter weekend isn’t difficult when you have a born-again Christian as prime minister who actually may think he is God.
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Alan Blakeney versus Stephen Harper: Nation builder versus nation destroyer
Politicians come and go but some go leaving a genuine legacy and that is the case with former Saskatchewan premier Alan Blakeney who died yesterday at 85.
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Dr. Harper’s New and Improved Medicare
Medicare is turning out to be the sleeper issues in this election as Canadians continue to say that public health care—universal, comprehensive, publicly administered care, transferable across provincial lines—is their most important election issue, even more important than the economy. And is the economy that Harper has based his whole campaign on—after spending over $20 million in public funds framing the argument in his favour.
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John Duncan: Another Conservative Hypocrite
The Bruce Carson story, involving a former, senior Harper advisor who managed to hook up with not one but two escort mistresses, is rich with irony.
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Why voters appear to accept Harper’s contempt
What does it say about our democracy when the prime minister of the country can with impunity almost continuously demonstrate contempt for it and repeatedly violate its rules, conventions, and the independence of its institutions and agencies? Combined with a trend to disturbingly low turnouts in federal elections there is reason to start using the term crisis in describing Canadian democracy.
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Do something
This is one of those elections where you can imagine your children or grandchildren (if you have any) will ask you years later what you were doing when the country was lost. Did you try to stop this man, grandpa? Did you campaign against the Conservative, grandma?
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