Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
Stephen Harper promised accountable government but hasn’t delivered
May 12 2012
Harper used the words “accountable” and “accountability” no fewer than 10 times on the first page of the manifesto…. This is political sleight-of-hand and message control, and it appears to be an accelerating trend. These shabby tactics keep Parliament in the dark, swamp MPs with so much legislation that they can’t absorb it all, and hobble scrutiny. This is not good, accountable, transparent government. It is not what Harper promised to deliver.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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You can talk about efficiency, but you can’t hide the axe
May. 11, 2012
The line is that budget cuts of $4-billion will not affect service to Canadians, but rather can be absorbed by (the following words are in the budget): rationalizing, consolidating, integrating, streamlining, refocusing, reconfiguring, modernizing, realigning and everywhere seeking efficiencies… Doubtless, efficiencies can be found and should be pursued. But there are not $4-billion of them to be found. Only if governments stop doing things can such sums be saved, which is what is happening…
Tags: budget, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Stealth and misdirection are constants of Harper’s majority
May 3, 2012
The recent budget… signals “the crushing of the progressive state,” conjuring images of “the ’20s and ’30s, a time of massive inequality and personal vulnerability which presaged the Great Depression… The policy direction has firmed up, perceptibly… What has not changed is the refusal to explain what it is doing, still less why. All is stealth and indirection, surprise and ambiguity, as before. Big changes, when they happen, are done suddenly, casually, without warning or justification, as if they were of no importance: buried deep in an omnibus bill
Tags: budget, featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Bill C-38 shows us how far Parliament has fallen
Apr 30, 2012
The bill runs to more than 420 pages. It amends some 60 different acts, repeals half a dozen, and adds three more, including a completely rewritten Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. It ranges far beyond the traditional budget concerns of taxing and spending, making changes in policy across a number of fields from immigration… to telecommunications… to land codes on native reservations… It is what is known as an omnibus bill. If you want to know how far Parliament has fallen, how little real oversight it now exercises over government, this should give you a clue.
Tags: ideology, participation
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Harper unbound: An analysis of his first year as majority PM
Apr. 28, 2012
For most of Canada’s history the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives did not differ fundamentally in political philosophy. Each attempted to broker competing regional, linguistic and class interests. A third, values-based party, the NDP, camped out on the left. But Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is infused with his own dedication to economic and social conservatism. Rather than being a brokerage party, it is values based. Eventually, a progressive coalition will rise to challenge it, making national politics a two-party, values-based contest. That progressive coalition could form around the NDP or the Liberals – or it could emerge from a merger of the two.
Tags: ideology
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Harper’s revolution missing in action
April 28, 2012
Very simply: there is nothing, not a line in Budget 2012, that could arguably not have been introduced by a Liberal Party led by a John Manley (minister of everything during the Chretien years), or a Frank McKenna (former premier of New Brunswick) – in other words, by conservative Liberals… There is one area, arguably, where the Tories are doing things in a way that looks and feels quite different… That is its handling of federal-provincial relations, which hurls entire areas of provincial jurisdiction, previously seized by Ottawa, back at the provinces. But even here, the concept is not new or particularly radical…
Tags: ideology
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In the provinces, restraint without the hard edge
Apr. 28, 2012
The post-recession hangover of deficits and higher debt means provinces, like Ottawa, have entered a period of spending restraint. Politics is about management these days, not vision or grand schemes or social advancement. It’s about trying to operate in leaner times… So there’s little to suggest that the agenda that seems to drive the national Conservative Party has much appeal at the provincial level… If a difference exists, it would be that the federal Conservatives really want to cut, whereas provinces feel they have no choice.
Tags: budget, ideology
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Social issues sank Wildrose during campaign, experts say
Apr 24, 2012
“The lesson here is that the Alberta voter, and certainly I think the Canadian voter, has decided that issues that have already been settled are best left alone, particularly social issues”… the Wildrose Party was doomed the moment it tread into social conservatism without assuring voters it had limits. Ms. Smith chose not to draw a “clear line in the sand” and instead espoused free speech and freedom of religion, refusing to condemn candidates for making bigoted and racially charged comments… “There can’t be any doubt. People want to have a level of comfort the person they’re going to elect is a competent, fair individual and they’re not going to do any great social engineering.”
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
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Dalton McGuinty and Andrea Horwath have cut a sensible deal to avert an election.
Apr 23 2012
The wealth surtax is projected to affect a mere 0.2 per cent of taxpayers and will raise $470 million next year. But the money won’t go to new programs as the NDP wanted. McGuinty plans to use it, conservatively, to pay down the deficit. “We all gave a little bit,” said McGuinty, calling the surtax a “sensible compromise” to make minority government work. It’s more than that; it’s good policy. But the only reason he’s agreeing to it now is that recent polling has shown it to be a popular idea. Support for higher taxes for the very wealthy runs in the 80 per cent range. There are few things that any government, anywhere can do to generate public support numbers like that.
Tags: budget, child care, disabilities, featured, Health, ideology, tax
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Thousands descend on Queen’s Park to protest McGuinty budget
Apr 21 2012
More than 15,000 protesters from labour unions and community organizations across the province rallied outside Ontario’s Legislature Saturday afternoon to vent their fury over the minority Liberal government’s austerity-focused budget. “We’re sending a signal to Dalton McGuinty that the budget he’s introduced is grossly unfair”… “They need to step back. Touching pensions, it’s just not the right way to go”… “All we want to see is a little bit of fairness. The very least we can ask for is that the very top earners in Ontario put in a little bit more when times are tough.”
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, pensions, tax
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