This Magazine

Progressive politics, ideas & culture

Menu

Party Politics

Wednesday WTF: "Women and children last" as Liberal Party capsizes

Graham F. Scott

Pretty much every “women and children first!” joke has already been made relating to the upcoming G8/G20 conferences in Toronto and Muskoka, and the Prime Minister’s announcement that maternal and children’s health would be the core of the agenda. The Conservatives have been dancing around the issue of reproductive planning and what they actually consider […] More »

Ann Coulter in Canada: it's not the band I hate, it's the fans

Graham F. Scott

Last night, I wondered whether it was worth writing about Ann Coulter. When I think of her at all — which isn’t too often, actually — I think of her as being a deeply vile but mostly irrelevant self-promoter. (It would be going too far to call her an ideologue, because that would imply ideas, […] More »

Wednesday WTF: We watched the PM on YouTube so you don't have to

Graham F. Scott

Most videos on YouTube are total fiascos, but at least they’re entertaining fiascos. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s debut on YouTube—in which he responded with carefully prepared talking points to carefully screened video questions in a carefully pre-taped appearance—was dull because there was nothing at stake. It was like watching a man walk a tightrope across his […] More »

Stop Everything #20: Gagged scientists leave media—and public—in the dark

darcy higgins

The climate issue is struggling to gain political traction in this country as of late. As much as media likes a hot story, they also appreciate access to good information, to local quotes and home-grown science. The Conservative government is continuing a war on science, not just because of their distrust of the method, but […] More »

LISTEN: Progressive groups react to last week's Budget announcement

nick taylor-vaisey

Progressive Canadians seldom get very excited whenever a Conservative government brings down a budget. More often than not, the priorities of the two groups are so wildly different that it’s almost not worth the effort to make a fuss. Last year’s budget was a different story. Stephen Harper’s team came up with a plan of […] More »

Link Roundup: Federal Budget 2010 edition

luke champion

The release of the federal budget yesterday brought few surprises, but plenty of opportunity for debate. With total spending this year of $280.5 billion, up $12.8 billion from last year, the government will run on a $49.2 billion deficit. The government hopes to curb that deficit by 2015 and bring up back to the black […] More »

Stop Everything #14: Renewing our own energy after Copenhagen

darcy higgins

We’ve marched, oh how we have marched. The “get back to work” signs now find their place in the closet where dust has begun to flirt with the climate-themed “350” signs of October and December. The proroguing of Parliament has left the country with no ability to act on any sort of climate legislation (though […] More »

Last weekend's No Prorogue in pictures (coast-to-coast edition)

Graham F. Scott

Last Saturday saw thousands of people rally in cities across Canada (and around the world) to protest the proroguing of parliament. On Monday we brought you a gallery of signs we saw in Toronto, but that was just what we managed to snap first hand. Ever-resourceful, not to mention generous, This readers across the country […] More »

A gallery of protest signs from Saturday's anti-prorogue rally

Graham F. Scott

We took our cameras to Saturday’s anti-prorogue rally in Toronto and snapped pictures of some of our favourite signs (or, in some cases, the zaniest ones). Click through the gallery to see what the people were proudly waving in the air last weekend. These are just the signs we snapped personally — a bunch of […] More »

Interview: Jesse Hirsh on the Prorogue, Facebook, comedy, and small-group activism

rea mcnamara

[Editor’s note: an experimental guest post today from online-culture columnist and Tumblr-er Rea McNamara, in Skype-chat-conversation with Jesse Hirsh. The large screengrabs of that chat below may not display 100% correctly for everyone, please let us know if you have insurmountable trouble.] TGIF, if only to sit back and click through the old media misunderstanding […] More »

Prorogue, Facebook, and the politics of self-doubt

Graham F. Scott

It’s been a week now since the Prime Minister’s December 30 announcement that the house of commons would be prorogued until March 3, 2010. Peter Mansbridge’s toothless interview with the Prime Minister last night (first question: the underwear bomber? Seriously?) was disappointing. Mansbridge didn’t challenge the PM on anything of substance, and used that favourite […] More »