Carole James: Mission accomplished?
Hearing Carole James declare that the challenge to her leadership is over – because the NDP’s Provincial Council backed her – reminds me of George Bush on the US air craft carrier with the huge “Mission Accomplished” sign behind him after the initial attack in Iraq. Talk about not getting it. The NDP is now […]
Tax cuts + ensuing loss of revenue = a deliberate financial crisis…and a reason to introduce P3s to BC
I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. … I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given […]
Corporations: 'citizen' psychopaths
National governments have been back in the news over the past two years because of the financial crisis and the havoc it wreaked on the global economy. Belying the ideology that nations were obsolete in the grand new order of transnational corporations, they are now front and centre trying to save the corporations that supposedly […]
Sea to Sky shadow toll story makes national news courtesy of Mark Hume and the Globe and Mail
Mark Hume of the Globe and Mail has done an outstanding job of taking the Sea to Sky highway shadow toll story to an entirely new level in the Monday edition of the paper, and managed to get some rather creative answers from both Macquarie and the BC government. Truly,creative doesn’t even begin to describe […]
Tick-tock: let James run out the clock
Make no mistake about it: Carole James will be gone as NDP leader well before the next provincial election. But remember: in politics, like comedy, timing is everything. And the next BC election isn’t scheduled until Tuesday, May 14, 2013. Yes, 2013. So for the NDP there’s no rush: in fact, it would be politically dumb to replace James […]
Harper’s flip-flop on Afghanistan
We should have known it was too good to be true. Harper’s many, many repetitions of his government’s commitment to get all the troops out by July 2011 are well known. I think he may actually have meant it because by these repeated statements he framed the issue so strongly that all Canadians expected – […]
Campbell's resignation must not kill the BC Rail story
Now that I’m back from some well-enjoyed fun in the sun, I am amazed at the number of people who have suggested the biggest story that happened in BC in the past few weeks was the decision by Premier Gordon Campbell to step down. They are wrong. As repeatedly explained on this blog long […]
This is the security state that Steve built...
For those considering issue triage — picking five or six issues to focus on — in the fight to rid the country of the current government, one area that is critical to the outcome is exposing the Harper government’s construction of the national security state. I am referring here to the commitment of the […]
Potash and the Canadian corporate elite
So the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan drama is about to come to a head Wednesday with the Harper government’s decision on whether or not to approve the takeover bid by Australia’s mega corporation BHP Billiton. Most are predicting that Harper will cave under the pressure from Brad Wall, Saskatchewan Party premier and...
The Potash contradiction: Cracks in neo-liberal ideology?
I have argued that ideology makes you stupid and if you have power it makes you dangerous. One of the best examples is the idiocy of more and more tax cuts with the supposed goal of making Canadian business internationally “competitive.” First, tax rates regularly come about sixth or seventh down the list of factors that […]