April 5, 2010
How the Communist Party changed Canadian elections forever
“Working people did not cause this crisis … and we won’t pay for it!” These words were printed in bright red letters on a flyer recently published by the Communist Party of Canada as part of its effort to raise public awareness about the root causes of the global economic crisis. The flyer sat atop a pile of documents at the entrance to the Communist Party’s central office in Toronto,... [More >>]
March 30, 2010
As governments reject Royal Commissions, public policy suffers
The Gomery Commission, underway in 2005. Sweeping Royal Commissions have fallen out of favour as governments fear they cannot control the outcome. For the past six months, opposition parties in Ottawa and in Quebec City have been persistently calling for the appointment of Royal Commissions. At the federal level, the demand has been for an impartial inquiry into the fate of detainees that Canadian... [More >>]
March 2, 2010
How to bring democracy back to Alberta
There’s voter apathy and then there’s Alberta. In the 2008 provincial election, a mere 41 percent of eligible voters came out. The provincial Conservative government went on to claim a historic 11th straight victory, a win that Athabasca University history professor Alvin Finkel believes was the result of Albertans not believing that there’s a viable alternative to the Tories. So this past June,... [More >>]
January 7, 2010
Which party leader uses social media better?
Separating the hax0rs from the n00bs in Canada’s parliament Part of Barack Obama’s victory came on the back of a grassroots campaign that effectively used the internet to collect supporters and funds. Among social-media-savvy politicians, the president is The Man. While Obama might be down with the kids today, have any Canadian leaders managed to cash in on the social-media cachet? Or is Twitter... [More >>]
August 24, 2009
Deadly dealings surround Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
Juan Pablo Ochoa, left, addresses a crowd of cane cutters in Bua, Colombia after a court hearing related to their strike. "What is going on is a frame-up." Photo credit: Dawn Paley. “You know that here in Colombia, there are many human-rights violations,” says José Oney Valencia Llanos, who earns his living cutting sugar cane in Colombia’s fertile Cauca Valley. “Business people,... [More >>]
May 1, 2009
Baffled at the Ballot Box
In 1864, Thomas Hare argued at the Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales meeting in Amsterdam that proportional representation — in which parliamentary seats are awarded based on political parties’ share of the popular vote — was a much fairer system than the “single member plurality” system being used in his home country of England. Within 60 years,... [More >>]
March 1, 2003
Confessions of a Playa Hata
Conservatives have mounted a war against envy—blasting anyone who questions CEO pay or tax cuts as jealous, green-eyed wannabes. What are they so scared of? Martha Stewart was searching for the perfect word. She was trying to describe her disastrous year to Jeffrey Toobin from the New Yorker. It began last summer, when Stewart was accused of insider trading, and her good friend, ImClone CEO Samuel... [More >>]
