Votes and voices suppressed
February 26, 2012 | 3 Comments
At last year’s Canadian Association of Journalists’ Annual Conference, one of the panels was a post-mortem on the recently held federal election. The panelists (Chantal Hebert, Elly Alboim and Jeff Sallott and Paul Adams of the Globe and Mail) debated the question of whether it could be called “the Twitter election”. The panelists addressed this [...]
Do it for Kate
February 23, 2012 | No Comments
Our beloved Kate Chappell is set to embark on another adventure. Through CUSO International, she will soon be heading to Kingston, Jamaica to work with YOU Jamaica, a non-profiit organization that does mentoring and career counselling with the country’s youth. CUSO will be partially funding this endeavour, but Kate also needs to raise some funds, [...]
Abortion and the right way to kill our daughters
February 22, 2012 | 8 Comments
Recently, the Canadian Medical Association Journal made some waves with an editorial arguing in favour of regulations that would effectively ban sex-selective abortion. The desire to fight the misogyny associated with female feticide was quickly embraced by the population, as opinion polls showed that a clear majority of Canadians would support laws criminalizing sex-selective abortion. In [...]
Political Smears: Just The Latest In An Old Cycle
February 21, 2012 | No Comments
All of the insults and political attacks being thrown back and forth over the new Internet surveillance bill being debated in Parliament remind me in their own way of the last few federal elections. What many people seem to forget, in their attempts to score partisan points off one another, is that both sides are [...]
Smears? Meaner political discourse in Ottawa?
February 20, 2012 | No Comments
When messages appeared on Twitter about details of the divorce of Canada’s minister of public safety, I thought nothing of it. Unlike most of my friends and acquaintances, I have not signed up. Then, thestar.com published this column and Calgary Herald published this column. I prefer the tenor of Kris Kotarski to Tim Harper. Politicians [...]
Trudeau-mania, 2012 edition
February 16, 2012 | 2 Comments
Several things are true about the latest episode of Canadian political drama involving MP Justin Trudeau and his comments on Quebec separatism. (He said the following: “I always say, if at a certain point, I believe that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper — that we were going against abortion, and we were going [...]
Ontario to rid itself of full-day kindergarten
February 10, 2012 | 4 Comments
This is (potentially) tremendously good news: Love it or hate it, the government’s costly new full-day kindergarten program is on the chopping block. Don Drummond will propose axing the all-day school program for tots in his much anticipated report on ways to control government spending, a senior Queen’s Park source says. Drummond, a former TD [...]
Canada’s World
February 8, 2012 | 5 Comments
On Tuesday, the New York Times published an article on the declining influence of the United States Constitution. The article chronicled how, once upon a time, constitutional designers looked to the United States Constitution as a model for their own. As a citadel of democracy and home to world’s oldest written constitution, the United States [...]
A newfound appreciation for Rob Ford
February 1, 2012 | 5 Comments
Ottawa’s former mayor, Larry O’Brien, got into a bit of trouble. How ’bout we let him tell the story: Anyone who knows me understands that being politically incorrect (PI) has been a special strength all my life. Unfortunately being so blessed is not good for my relations with the chattering class and other such [...]