Archive for the ‘Governance Debates’ Category
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Will Canadians fall prey to a politics of fear?
Canadians might be most concerned about your increased dictatorial policies and practices, as well as this bill’s provision for secret law and courts in the name of fighting terrorism — too vaguely defined… If passed, this act, piled on already stringent legal authority, will expand your national security bureaucracies and their jurisdictional disputes, further encourage dragnet snooping and roundups, fuel fear and suspicion among law-abiding Canadians, stifle free speech and civic action and drain billions of dollars from being used for the necessities of Canadian society.
Tags: globalization, ideology, multiculturalism
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Harper government should fix flawed anti-terror bill or scrap it
… Bill C-51… “goes very far” by criminalizing words and thoughts, enabling a surveillance state and impinging on basic freedoms. Far from being the “sound, reasonable, well-balanced” law that Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney described… it is a coarse affront to civil rights. While it is far from clear that the bill would noticeably bolster public safety, it most assuredly would sap our freedom. Constitutional and legal experts who have pored over the fine print raise serious concerns:
Tags: crime prevention, featured, ideology, rights, standard of living
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Cap third-party spending on election campaigns
Ontario is increasingly an outlier in refusing to adopt spending controls. Ottawa limits spending during federal campaigns at $188,000 per group. And provinces such as Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick have all adopted controls on third-party advertising… Free speech? How can anyone hear it when it’s being drowned out by the $9 million lavished on advertising by special interest groups?
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights, standard of living
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Supreme Court on the loose
The federal and provincial parliaments should assert their right to define statutes, including the Charter of Rights… The people elected the legislators and the legislators installed the judges, not the other way round… transforming the legislators into mute robots, and leaving a vacuum to be filled by trendy judges… will not get us where we should be going.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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What Jon Stewart can teach the Stephen Harper fan club
Canadian voting habits have barely budged. Harper hovers around 33-39 per cent. Left-leaning parties (Liberals, NDP, Bloc, Greens) get roughly 60 per cent. Harper majorities don’t reflect voters; they’re entirely due to our undemocratic first-past-the-post system. Where a shift has happened is in news media. In 2011, every daily in Canada except the Star backed Harper — a ratio to make fans of the old Soviet Union nostalgic, or envious.
Tags: economy, ideology
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How to clean up the inconvenient stench in Ontario politics
Former prime minister Jean Chrétien first introduced limits for companies and unions, and Stephen Harper eliminated them entirely. Our current prime minister has it right, while our premier has it wrong… The political wheeling and wheedling and dealing will continue behind closed doors. If we really want to clean up the lingering odour in Ontario, we need to follow the big money. And ban it.
Tags: crime prevention, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, rights, standard of living
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Harper got spy powers right, but civilian oversight very wrong
When abuses of power became better known as a result of the Arar and other inquiries, it was a common conclusion, together with the Major Report, that robust powers of surveillance needed to be matched by robust accountability and review. This is what is missing in the reforms Mr. Harper has put before Parliament… The rule of law and justice matters to all of us, and the protection of our ancient freedoms depends on a vigorous defence of both our security and our liberty.
Tags: crime prevention, featured, ideology, participation, rights
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Weak-kneed opposition lets Conservative terror bill sail through
They had nothing to say about measures that would criminalize speech the government deemed pro-terrorist. They had no views on proposals that would give 17 security agencies access to any information in any government department on any Canadian. They said nothing about a section of the bill that would permit the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to engage in illegal and unconstitutional dirty tricks.
Tags: crime prevention, globalization, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Is Stephen Harper friend or foe of democracy?
Conacher cites nearly 30 cases of broken Harper promises, eight moves that weakened government accountability and some 100 cases of ignoring loopholes and flaws in the accountability system… the Tories removed a rule requiring ministers, their staff and senior government officials to “act with honesty” and failed to strengthen enforcement for unethical activities… the Conservatives have broken almost all their promises for open government and to bolster the Access to Information Act.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
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Conservatives’ use of government ads is unbelievably cynical
the Harper government was born of public anger, elected to clean up the misappropriation of public money for partisan purposes. Instead, Conservative election planners are gorging on public money in the run-up to an election… this is no rogue operation… They want voters to feel good about the way things are. And worried about how they would be if another party was running things… [advertising this year’s budget] will be another multimillion-dollar taxpayer subsidy for the Conservative campaign.
Tags: budget, ideology, standard of living
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