Archive for the ‘Governance History’ Category
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Liberals embellish their record — clumsily
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Jul 19 2011
… a taxpayer-funded pre-election handout or a serious defence of his government’s social policy record. Either way, Ontario Building Stronger Communities fails… Their self-congratulatory verbiage eclipsed their genuine achievements. They transformed Ontario’s child welfare system with their $1,100 a year provincial child benefit. They made Ontario a leader in the development of clean energy and water conservation technology. They introduced full-day kindergarten in Ontario’s schools. And they carved out 4.3 million acres of green space.
Tags: ideology, standard of living
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The Quiet Revolution is over
Friday, June 24th, 2011
June 23, 2011
Quebec’s intelligentsia focused on the obvious inequality in wealth and education of French-speaking Quebecers. In explanation, the political class applied to Quebec the theories of decolonization advanced by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Memmi, Frantz Fanon, according to which all inequalities and dysfunctions among the colonized was caused by the colonization, hence by the colonizers. C’est la faute des Anglais!… It was the legacy of French colonization, not British or Canadian, that kept the Québécois poorer till recently.
Tags: ideology, participation
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Canadians have soured on Big Government
Friday, June 10th, 2011
Jun. 9, 2011
Canadians’ confidence in the ability of government to fix our problems is clearly fading. Three times as many people say they’re losing faith that government can solve social challenges, like improving health care and education, or environmental issues, as those who say their confidence is growing in government remedies; twice as many Canadians report decreased confidence in the government’s ability to addressing economic challenges than are encouraged by the government’s record.
Tags: ideology, Indigenous, multiculturalism, poverty, rights
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Why did all the West’s big centrist parties go down the drain?
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011
May. 21, 2011
For decades, they were the untouchable monoliths of politics: The big nation-wide parties that straddled the centre ground, leaning slightly to the left or right, capturing big swathes of votes across the spectrum, forming the lion’s share of national governments during the half-dozen decades after the Second World War… Suddenly, they are falling apart, their gradual seepage of voter support during the past 10 or 15 years exploding into sudden ballot embolisms.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Is the government party over?
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
May. 16, 2011
What were the traditional roots of Liberal dominance? A solid block of seats from Quebec gave them a regular grip on majority governments… [their] stand as the defender of a strong federal government and a Canadian nationalism closely tied to the national state… As a classic centrist brokerage party, they were able to adapt, chameleon-like, to the challenges of change in the economy and society… With the apparent demise of the government party model, the question is whether the Liberal Party has any role left to play.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation
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Advice for Jack Layton from distinguished roster of NDP elder statesmen
Sunday, May 15th, 2011
May 15 2011
Here’s what they expect him and want him to do: • Restore civility to Parliament. • Put economic equality front and centre… • Define the NDP platform’s cap-and-trade proposal for climate change. Come to grips with a carbon tax. • Try to align Quebecers’ social democratic values more permanently with a federal, as opposed to a separatist, party. • Articulate a foreign policy that would restore Canada’s role in the world, not as a warmonger but as an advocate of peace, human rights and development. • Lead a values debate at home to help reverse the right-wing tilt of our public policy.
Tags: budget, ideology, rights, standard of living
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No country for good men
Sunday, May 8th, 2011
May 4, 2011
What is so remarkable about Ignatieff’s tenure as Liberal leader, and with this past election campaign in particular, is how little he tried to take advantage of intellectual strengths and interests. Confronted with a cartoonishly small-minded prime minister acting as chief puppeteer over a caucus of frat boys, yes men, and idiocrats, surely there was an opportunity for a leader who would speak to those Canadians who see themselves as responsible citizens of the world… Having seen how Michael Ignatieff was treated, can any reasonably intelligent and ambitious person be ever expected to go into national politics?
Tags: ideology, participation, rights
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Where’s Laurier when you need him?
Monday, April 18th, 2011
Apr. 16, 2011
Laurier’s greatest strength lay in the art of compromise. As Mr. Pratte deftly observes, “If Canada still exists today, it is because there have always been Canadians who felt that Laurier was right, that compromise is not surrender or cowardice, but rather daring and courage.” In this era of wedge politics, targeted tax cuts and slapdash spending promises, it’s painful to realize, through Mr. Pratte’s retelling, that Laurier’s Big Canada vision has all but disappeared.
Tags: economy, multiculturalism, rights
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Who created Canada: Conservatives or coalition?
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
Apr 13, 2011
“Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister, a Conservative, was what media outlets like the CBC call ‘the architect of modern Canada,’” Mr. Soudas said…. if historians generally attribute the creation of Canada to a coalition, surely Mr. Harper didn’t intend to highlight the positive potential of a coalition, given his pejorative use of the word to dissuade people from supporting the Liberals this election… But as to creating Canada? The answer is it was a compromise.”
Tags: ideology, participation
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The withering of the state
Monday, March 7th, 2011
March 7, 2011
The welfare state, Prof. van Creveld said, peaked in 1977, when governments realized the only way to expand programs was to pay for the expansion with borrowed money… the welfare state was effectively destroyed by its own success… “The shrinking of the state,” he said, “will affect every living person, producing upheavals as profound, and probably as bloody, as the upheavals that propelled humanity out of the Middle Ages.” The state responded by swapping sovereignty for economic growth… It adopted free-market economics to generate faster growth – and to capture more tax revenue. It began to break its promises.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology
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