Because That’s What’s Really At Stake Here…
May 30, 2011 | 7 Comments
Let me be blunt, I find myself thoroughly disenchanted with Canadian politics right now. I probably shouldn’t be. After all, there is a majority government in power with which I’m on record as having fundamental disagreements. Additionally, “my guys” have the greatest number of seats in the House they’ve ever had and occupy the role [...]
Are you there Mr. Layton? It’s me, Joe Canada
May 30, 2011 | 2 Comments
It never fails to amaze me how pervasive the bubble over Parliament Hill can be for those trapped inside it. The latest example can be found over the per-vote subsidy for political parties. The Conservatives plan to kill the public subsidy, which allows each political party to collect $2 for every vote they receive in [...]
Friday Afternoon Links
May 27, 2011 | 1 Comment
It’s a rainy Friday in Ottawa, so why not spend some quality time with the internet? Here are some worthwhile links: Conor Friedersdorf has published his list of 100 great peices of journalism for 2010. There’s lots of great stuff. I would recommend The Wrong Man and The Killer in the Pool. I had never [...]
Next stop, the U.K.! Huffington Post arrives in Canada
May 27, 2011 | No Comments
Yet another shift in the Canadian media landscape occurred this week with the launch of the Canadian edition of the Huffington Post. Although, with the headline at the time of writing “Obama signs extension of PATRIOT Act,” you might be forgiven for wondering how it differs from the U.S. version. Arianna Huffington apparently began scoping [...]
Officially Sanctioned Violence
May 27, 2011 | 2 Comments
Writing in the Huffington Post, Radley Balko has a typically excellent report on typically abhorrent police abuse. Jose Guerena was an Iraq war veteran who died while protecting his family from armed intruders one night. Unfortunately for him, those intruders were drug cops executing a no knock raid on Mr. Guerena’s house looking for drugs [...]
Dion on secession
May 26, 2011 | 1 Comment
My first year of university, I wrote a paper on Plato’s Republic. I tackled this daunting subject before the extent of my ignorance became apparent to me. I went to discuss the paper with my professor, specifically, the difficulty I was having making the transition from journalistic to academic writing. My professor deplored the journalistic [...]
The people in Nunavut might argue with this
May 25, 2011 | 6 Comments
Among industrialized countries, Canada is second only to Australia when it comes to quality of life, according to the OECD’s latest survey. The survey found that 79 per cent of Canadians are satisfied with life, compared to the average of 59 per cent in other industrialized nations. Great news right? This is certainly something to [...]
Raising Paradigms
May 25, 2011 | No Comments
I’m with The Ottawa Citizen‘s Kate Heartfield on this story: My first thought, on reading about the couple in Toronto keeping the sex of their baby secret was that they must be exhausted. Parenting is tiring enough without adding arguments with miffed relatives or daily spiels to bewildered new acquaintances. Every parent makes choices about [...]
What if the world had ended?
May 24, 2011 | 3 Comments
A week or so ago, I was watching a re-run of The Golden Girls. It was a regular feature of Saturday evening viewing in my pre-teen years, partly because it was a favourite of my mom, and we all tended to watch it together. At the end of this episode – one, no doubt, I [...]
Life outside the bubble
May 24, 2011 | 1 Comment
The continued hand-wringing and soul-searching over the new Conservative majority among the parliamentary press gallery and parliamentary gadflies makes me think of my one defining moment as a journalist on Parliament Hill in 2006. I was a freelancer and I was fortunate enough to be hired on for the summer as a parliamentary reporter. One [...]