Category: Canadian Politics
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Justin Trudeau and the progress of democratic reform
Photo credit: World Bank Photo Collection via VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND A few days ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said something true about electoral reform and people freaked out. Ok, most people didn’t freak out and the ones who did are primarily opposition partisans who want electoral reform because they believe it will improve their…
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Anything But Conservative is good enough for now
For the last 10 years, Stephen Harper has been the government of Canada. I do not mean the Prime Minister of Canada or the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, I mean that he has been the government. Anyone in his party that got in his way was out of the caucus, shuffled to…
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If you think the Green Party is progressive or science based, think again
If you’re like me, you’ve found Elizabeth May’s debate appearances impressive. The Green Party has some worthwhile positions on important issues. As they are fond of pointing out these extend beyond issues related to the environment. With that said, there is a problem and it’s a big one. The policies discussed in the debate and…
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Am I still a “progressive”? It depends on who you ask
I have always considered myself to be “progressive” but, over the last few years, I’ve become uncomfortable with the term. I am certainly in favour of progress but many “progressives” seem to have fashioned it into a hard and fast dogma from which there is no room for variation. Because human knowledge and circumstances are…
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The NDP’s proportional representation petition and Canadian democracy
Canadian democracy is in a sad state, we are going to have to do some serious repair work on the government (the institution, not just the current one) before we can really fix much of anything else. Somehow I was still somewhat irritated by the NDP’s “Demand That Your Vote Count” petition. First I’ve begun…