Category Archives: Canada

T-13: A Way To *Guarantee* Stephen Harper Loses #elxn42 #canpoli

A couple years ago in April 2013, soon after the NDP and Liberals had their respective conventions, I blogged about how each party had a strong “cooperation” element within their party – represented in the NDP by Nathan Cullen who took third place in that party’s leadership race and ended up with 25% of the vote. […]

T-15: Music Monday – “Your pipeline will spill its disease/You shut down all the research libraries” #elxn42 #canpoli

You know it’s bad for Stephen Harper when even one of Canada’s most popular bands releases a song slamming your government’s record. (and includes citations for all the facts in the video on their web site to head off criticism)… “I recently visited Montreal and I was just awash in nostalgia at what Canada was […]

Introducing T-19: An Election Countdown #elxn42

So beginning tomorrow, I’m planning to have a 19 day series of posts with various thoughts and observations about the Canadian Federal Election. My politics are no secret and much of the content will be focused on reasons why the Conservative Party of Canada led by Stephen Harper has to go but I’m hoping I can […]

Friday Fun Link  – The Elevator Works

How To Vote in 31 Swing Ridings (Maybe) – Some Thoughts on Strategic Voting

  Strategic voting is a fairly controversial idea – should you support the party/candidate who best represents your views no matter what or do you consider voting for a more ideologically aligned party that’s not your first choice if it might mean keeping one you disagree with more strongly out of power? In the current […]

Saturday Snap – It Was Twenty Years Ago Today… Looking Back to My Four-Month University Exchange to York, England

Hard to believe but twenty (!) years ago today, I took off from Regina, Saskatchewan and landed in Paris, France, a couple weeks before I was set to begin a one semester exchange in York, England (where I took three courses including a Film Production class that gives us the slightly un-PC clip at the top […]

Music Monday – New #NDP Ad: “Would you stand up and walk out on me?” #cndpoli #canpoli #skpoli

The NDP has released an effective new ad that highlights some of Stephen Harper’s “friends” – various criminals, fraudsters and cheaters… That’s pretty bad but this ad only highlights the senators (Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin) and other insiders (Nigel Wright) at the top of the Conservative party. There have also been some recent revelations that show […]

“Matthew tells us that Jesus and his family fled the wrath of Herod and were refugees in Egypt…” #canpoli #cndpoli

So it’s no secret that I’m an atheist. One of the many reasons I lost whatever inherited belief I had as a child growing up was seeing the wide range of hypocritical behaviours by (so-called) believers. I never saw the proverbial “stepping over the homeless person to get to the church on time” (or much worse).  But I did […]

“His Name Was Alan Kurdi”

A “refugee crisis” is something far away and remote.  Kenya.  Bangladesh.  Syria. Foreign.  Easily ignored. But this.  This is something different. This is a child. A child whose death has given a face to the millions of other children and adults around the world who are fleeing natural disasters and famine and war. A child posed as […]

Music Monday – “Who muzzles the poor scientist?/Calls troubled people “terrorists”?/Who wants the courts to just say yes?/Suppresses freedom of the press?”

The “Harperman” protest song is interesting for a number of reasons: the person who wrote and sang it is a federal civil servant and is now suspended from his job for an investigation about whether he violated the Federal Government’s employee ethics agreement At issue is whether Turner violated the code of ethics that all public servants […]