Today Jack Layton announced the composition of the shadow cabinet that will take on the Conservatives when Parliament resumes on June 2. For those who don’t obsessively follow politics, a shadow cabinet is the group of MPs who will serve as critics to the government’s ministers. A critic is tasked with holding their government counterpart to account, and is the main voice of opposition on issues relating to the ministry for which they are responsible. For the first time in their history the NDP are the Official Opposition, and the government in waiting for the next four years…
Category: Politics
On Israel: Obama is Right and Wrong
Last Thursday, US President Barack Obama gave a stirring speech on the “Arab Spring” and America’s policies toward it. Unfortunately the only part of it that made headlines was his comment calling for any peace deal between Israel and Palestine to be based on the 1967 borders. His annotations angered Zionists, Republicans, right wing Jews and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What Obama said however was nothing new; negotiations based on the lines of 1967…
Rapture regrets and accomplishments
If you’re reading this, you’re a godless heathen who has been left behind. I’m either at the top of Mount Royal with enough provisions to last me a few days or out looting. After all, I did say I’d attend post-raputure looting on Facebook and we all know to say one is “attending” something on Facebook is a sacred trust. Yes, the rapture happened yesterday at 6pm eastern, according to various people online and some guy who already predicted it would happen once before and that’s good enough evidence for me to write this post in advance and head to the hills. While I’m sure the next seven years of planetary destruction…
Zionism, and The Art of the Rant
Sometimes I simply get caught up in the emotion of my ranting and say something stupid, or dangerous, or something I’ll regret later. I also might embellish it here and there for flavour. Rants are rants, and therefore don’t always have to be 100% fact-based when dealing with my own prejudiced opinions. I do, however, realize that the correct facts must be there, and that editing is often needed, especially when information needs to get updated. I also realize that my rants don’t always make sense, and can seem biased. Even I don’t always agree with what I write.
Leave Them Kids Alone
What an election, huh? Quebec went from light blue to orange, Ontario went from red to dark blue and British Columbia now has a shade of green. If I were a religious man I’d say it’s a sign of the apocalypse. The Conservative Majority aside though, the biggest surprise was obviously Quebec’s orange crush. I thought the NDP would do well, but going from 1 to 59 seats is unheard of.
Anatomy of a Campaign
To listen to the experts, this election would change nothing. The same parliament, in the same proportions – give or take a few. Instead, it went from, as the media were so fond of repeating, the “election about nothing”, to the most significant realignment of the Canadian political landscape in decades. The Bloc Quebecois dropped from a commanding 47 of Quebec’s 75 federal seats to 4, leading them to lose even their status as an official party in the House of Commons…
The Murder of Osama by Obama
Last week, to the amazement of the entire planet, Barack Obama took to the airwaves to announce the death of Osama Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man. Within minutes of Obama’s announcement, Americans took to the streets to celebrate, with chants of “USA, USA, USA” starting up in New York and Washington, much like al-Qaeda chanted “death to America” nearly ten years prior in Afghanistan. Nearly nine months in the making, Barack Obama finally decided to act on intelligence that Bin Laden was held up in a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Navy Seals were sent…
It was the perfect storm until the shit hit the fan: 2011 Canadian Election Results
By all accounts, this looked like it was going to be an election that would really change the political map in Canada, and it was. It looked like some political careers would be over, and a slew of new MPs would come to Ottawa. That happened too. It looked like an unstoppable wave would sweep through Quebec, then head west and not stop until we had a new Prime Minister with a new vision for a better Canada, and that’s exactly what happened – at least, the first part happened, then something went wrong, really wrong…
Please Don’t Forget The Box Ballot
Today is Election Day in Canada and tomorrow the Canadian political landscape may be drastically different. What seemed like an ordinary campaign at the start with predictable results similar to those attained the last time around has been flipped on its head and might just take a sharp turn to the left before…
Supreme disappointment?
An electoral campaign dominated by talk of coalitions, corporate tax cuts and care for seniors has sidelined an issue crucially important to the future of the country: court appointments to Canada’s highest judicial body.
With four of nine Supreme Court Justices approaching the mandatory age of retirement in the next four years, and eight of nine eligible for retirement with full pension by the end of 2011, Canada’s next Prime Minister will likely wield an inordinate influence over the country’s judicial landscape for years to come.
In Canada, the Prime Minister appoints judges to the Supreme Court with no formal checks and balances. While the Supreme Court Act requires that three of the nine judges be from Quebec and that all nominees must have been members of the bar for at least ten years, the appointment process is otherwise uninhibited…