Romeo Saganash has the right attitude regarding low party membership numbers in Quebec.In an interview with APTN National News Monday, Saganash dismissed concerns raised by high-profile Quebec MP Thomas Mulcair who said candidates from Quebec were at a disadvantage in the leadership race because the NDP lacked a provincial wing there.Mulcair, seen by many as a top NDP candidate, told reporters Monday that he was holding off declaring his intentions to run because he believed the numbers were against him.Saganash admitted that the newness of the NDP in Quebec and its lack of a provincial base …
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So we have a race; sort of. Two, count em, two candidates for the leadership of the New Democratic Party have officially thrown their ushankas into the ring. The two candidates are NDP President Brian Topp and NDP MP for the Quebec riding of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, Romeo Saganash. Of course, neither announced candidate are officially candidates yet. Both must collect the required number of signatures and...Zzzzz. Sorry, I dozed off. If you're interested in the boring technical details of the leadership race, knock yourself out.Now this early in the race there isn't much to say …
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I was naively hoping decorum would prevent our national media from beginning the silly speculation about who will replace Jack Layton as leader of the New Democrats until the man was buried but it hasn't happened. So lets look at the first absurd list of random names hastily thrown together.At the risk of being labelled ageist, Gary Doer, Nycole Turmel, Joe Comartin, Bill Blaikie, Lorne Nystrom and Greg Sellinger are too old to take over the role at 60+ years of age. Look at it this way. It's 4 years until the next election and should the New Democrats prevail you'd want the party's leader to …
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With the usual suspects once again caterwauling for the privatization of mail delivery in Canada I thought I'd put together a simple flowchart that illustrates the reality--not textbook economic theory--of what happens when you privatize government services. …
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Full story here.Michaela Keyserlingk's website. …
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Our concern trolling media is calling for the New Democrats to replace Nycole Turmel as interim leader of the party. Make them cry by sending the clear message that dippers, not our national media will decide who leads the party. …
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It began with the hysteria over the Sherbrooke Declaration during the recent federal election, moved on to outrage over ambiguous comments regarding their views of Quebec separatism from a couple of new MPs and now revelations of past party memberships has Canada's political class apoplectic with anger. The it of course is the political narrative being crafted that the New Democrats are the New Separatists. It's a silly narrative to be sure, but not unexpected. Creating silly narratives (see: Dion is not a leader, Harper is scary, Ignatieff is not here for you, etc.) is what the political …
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Dear New Democrat Supporter;Parliament has just reconvened and the 103 New Democrat Members of Parliament you helped to elect are hard at work fighting for the issues that matter to you. Unfortunately, the 166 Conservative Members of Parliament elected by the minority of voters are also working hard. They are working hard to insure rich Canadian corporations become even richer. They are working hard to insure Canada will always have impoverished seniors. They are working hard to insure Canada will remain a laggard in the battle to curb greenhouse gas emissions.Mostly though, Conservative …
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Quebec's separatism, while a fixture of Canadian politics for the past few decades, has always been something of a mystery to me. So after conservatives began using it as boogeyman a couple of years ago to justify cutting the per vote subsidy I decided to explore this phenomenon in greater detail. And what I discovered was quite shocking; despite being paraded around by the media, Quebec separatism had already passed away. It's easy to see this now with the decimation of the Bloc Quebecois, the internal strife within the Parti Quebecois and the stunning CROP poll showing 82% of Quebecers want …
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...On his own net. I'm watching CPAC's coverage of the budget debate and NDP MP Brian Masse asked LPC MP Bob Rae to respond to his party's flip flopping on their support of corporate tax cuts. It was idiotic of Mason to bring this up considering the NDP just spent close to an hour asking the CPC to reconsider their position on the budget. If they did exactly what the NDP wanted, would Mason then ask one of their MPs to respond to their party's flip flopping. I think not, so why badger the Liberals for changing their minds. It makes no sense and only undermines what the NDP is trying to …
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Since amending the constitution is likely to be a topic of interest over the next few years, I thought I'd put together a list of relevant information on the subject. This post will be updated as required.HistoryWiki's overview of the constitutional history of Canada.Canada's constitution has been successfully amended 10 times since 1982. There has been 2 failed attempts to amend the constitution since 1982; the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord.Polling A May 26th, 2011 Harris Decima polls shows the majority of Canadians are open to amending the constitution.For instance, 61 per …
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When I first began blogging many years ago Progressives were fairly united in the common cause of creating a progressive Canada that is just and fair for all. There existed a camaraderie amongst us that made this goal attainable but that changed when it was needed the most in the face of a newly elected Conservative minority government. The progressive coalition splintered into warring tribes as Grits began blaming Dippers and Dippers began blaming Grits for the derailment of our shared progressive agenda. Over the years a widening chasm, fueled by petty feuds and cheap political shots, has …
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Welcome back to MyBlahg. …
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one. An corporatist walks into a bar and demands corporate tax cuts in order to spur economic growth. The bartendergovernment quickly serves the corporatist what he wants. Now for the punchline. “Consider that in most provinces, direct government spending and investment has accounted for the majority of real GDP growth during the past five years. In Ontario and Nova Scotia, all of the economy’s growth can be traced back to the government sector.” Government-related hiring, in construction and public administration, has accounted for a …
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Nothing demonstrates your fiscal responsibility like spending $650,000 on a vase. …
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Jack Layton: “Well, let me tell you, just because someone flipped pancakes for the Conservative Party doesn’t give them the right to override the wishes of elected MPs.” …
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Peter Van Loan: “In every election campaign, I have committed to work to deliver smaller, better and more responsive government.” Reality: “As part of its deficit elimination program, the government has promised to contain the size of the federal bureaucracy that has grown by a record 14 per cent since the Conservatives came to office five years ago.” Why do conservatives put up with such obvious incompetence? That of course is a rhetorical question as we all know the answer is because they’re a pack of rubes. …
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Whinger World #51 …
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Remember when conservatives would howl over corporate welfare. Now it’s all good. The federal government rolled out Thursday $278 million in subsidies to private sector players in Canada’s pulp and paper industry… A summary of today’s Canadian handouts (to be updated as the announcements are made), all but one of which are in ridings held by Conservative MPs: In fact, the Cons have gone one step further by combining corporate welfare with patronage. …
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Read this, especially this part. Although the battle to win brokers’ affections has become a defining characteristic of Canada’s life insurance industry, it’s kept well out of the sight of the consumers, businesses and corporations who are buying policies – and who, the insurers admit, are paying for the trips, too. Regulators and the industry examined the issue six years ago, and publicly acknowledged that some practices – including how brokers are compensated – weren’t in alignment with the customers’ best interests. But the brokers pushed back, and little changed. An …
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I only have one thing to say about the current document release by wikileaks and that’s this: Dear governments of the world. We are watching you. Get fucking used to it. …
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That harmless little old white man might not be a harmless little old white man. A young Asian male has been intercepted by authorities in Vancouver after boarding a flight from Hong Kong disguised as an elderly white man, officials say. …
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The three worst performing provincial economies in Canada were all helmed by conservative governments while the best performing provincial economy was helmed by those “economy destroying socialists”. And just to rub a little salt into the wound. The City of Toronto has built up a financial cushion of $275 million that can be used to help balance the 2011 operating budget, Mayor David Miller announced Thursday… Mihevc credited the windfall to Miller’s restraint program. “One thing it shows is that the fiscal management of the Miller administration has been good,” he …
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“You’re under arrest for corruption of morals.” …
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Hey kids, remember that $33.7 $50.2 $55.9 billion deficit we were supposed to run for 2009. Well, funny story… Any day now, Flaherty will have to deal with a bit more bad news when the government releases the latest accounting of its debt financing. The final numbers from the 2009-10 fiscal year that ended March 31 are expected to indicate that last year’s budget deficit was worse than the $53.8 billion forecast by Flaherty. Do you remember when some people would become upset by larger than forecasted surpluses? Oh what naive days those were. …
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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this video, via The Galloping Beaver, is worth a million. …
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So it’s the day after the historic vote to scrap the gun registry and the right whingers are handling their defeat with all the grace we’ve come to expect from them. Over at Searching for Liberty G. Harvie says, “Welcome to Torontostan,” and accompanies his post with a photoshop of Bin Layton. “Are we shocked that the great intellectual elite of Toronto was able to marshal their forces to mislead and lie to Canadians about what the Gun Registry actually does?” he writes. Somewhere up in Conservative heaven, John Baird is beaming with pride. Not to be …
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WTF! part two. An Iranian-Canadian blogger imprisoned in Iran since 2008 on charges of creating anti-Iranian propaganda faces the death penalty, according to two prominent Canadian rights groups. Hossein Derakhshan, nicknamed the “blogfather” and considered the founder of the Iranian blogging movement, was arrested in Tehran on Nov. 1, 2008. …
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WTF! A Toronto woman has been deported to Chile for associating with a gang, even though she has lived virtually all of her life in Canada and has no criminal record. Carla Campagna, 23, was placed on a flight to Santiago late Tuesday night, hours after losing a deportation appeal in Toronto… Campagna has no stable family or friends in Chile to help her restart her life, House said. Campagna never took out Canadian citizenship after arriving in Canada with her parents as a newborn. …
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Not teh google ads. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have begun running a series Google ads on the Internet, targeting the opposition MPs who initially voted with them to scrap the long-gun registry. I wonder how much the Conservatives pay their strategists. Because it’s clearly *snicker* worth it, whatever it is. …
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From Kady O’Malley’s liveblog. Which is why — wait, *is* he resigning? He’s saying words like “my continued involvement.” Yup, he’s resigned from Quebecor, effective immediately - as of yesterday afternoon. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary - and he hopes his departure will “hit the reset button.” If the suits at Quebecor seriously wanted Sun Media to be a respectable news organization they’d immediately put David Akin in charge; provided of course, he wanted the job. Update: The suits at Quebecor obviously aren’t …
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There are only 100 shopping days left till Proroguemas. Speaking of which, Harper has already cancelled our democracy to save the nation from a coup d’etat and to save the nation from facing uncomfortable questions. So what will his reason be this year for padlocking Parliament? …
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Way to go, Mr. Layton. Federal NDP Leader Jack Layton says enough members of his party will vote to defeat a Conservative backbencher’s bill to repeal the long-gun registry. Layton said Tuesday an “overwhelming majority” of his rural caucus is on his side after consultations at the party’s caucus meeting in Regina. “After all these discussions, I’m very confident that the votes that are needed to continue the registry so that it can be fixed will, indeed, be there,” Layton told reporters. “I’m feeling very optimistic about what lies ahead …
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Four years ago I warned progressives we needed to get the jump on the next phase of the culture war. I figured it’s time we progressives got in on the culture war that’s become all the rage with the right whingers these days. Since they’ve already jumped in on movies and music, I think progressives should take it to the next level and begin identifying progressive and conservative foods. So here’s the first strike in this new front of the ongoing culture war. But did you listen? Noooooooo! And now the right whingers are claiming all the best foods. The cookbook released Sunday is the …
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Wouldn’t it have been cool if everyone over the past couple of days had said we shouldn’t burn the Koran continue killing Muslims because it will piss them off, put our troops and aid workers in greater danger and help Al Qaeda recruit more members. …
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Now I’ve seen everything. City of North Bay Mayor Victor Fedeli and the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry and Member of Parliament for Parry Sound-Muskoka, unveiled a new plaque commemorating projects that benefited from the Gas Tax Fund in North Bay. (HT Impolitical) …
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Shorter Stephen Harper: We need to give the police more powers to do the job they’ve already done without them. Lapsed anti-terror provisions — extraordinary measures the Conservative government has been trying to revive — might have been useful in the current effort to round up suspects in an alleged bomb plot, the prime minister hinted Wednesday. I’d laugh if there weren’t so many people in this country that will nod their head in agreement while swooning over how magnificant a job PMS is doing protecting them from the horde of dusky hued terrorists lurking under their …
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According to our Minister of Immigration, Jason Kenney, the European Roma that have been desperately trying to come to Canada are just a bunch of queue jumpers with nothing to fear back home. Hungary’s leading far-right party said on Wednesday that Roma who are considered a threat to public safety should be forced from their dwellings and placed in highly-controlled camps, some of them for life. Yup, life is just peachy for them there. Good call Kenney. …
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