Reading coverage of the Ontario leaders debate, one would be forgiven for thinking that it came out a wash, with no leader really picking up support out of the televised platform. In a Globe article published this morning Adam Radwanski even opined that “despite their better efforts, they [the Leaders] most likely succeeded in hardening their own support rather than moving votes”. Now, it’s easy to doubt your own instincts, or be confused about the victor in this debate, especially if you missed the show. After all, each party’s spin teams took to twitter and other social media platforms with a vengeance before the debate even ended, pronouncing it a decisive victory for their candidate. But the proof is in the pudding, as they say, and for that I turned to the only comprehensive and scientific post-debate poll…
Tag: Canada
On mergers and other idiotic ideas…
There’s been talk of union, of merger, between the Liberal Party of Canada and the federal New Democrats now that a grand iconoclast has passed into the great hereafter. Perhaps it will be developed into a kind of ‘unite the left’ initiative, much like the successful ‘unite the right’ campaign of the late-1990s. In fact, if there is serious consideration of a merger between the Grits and NDP at the federal level, there’s little doubt in my mind that it will be subsequently marketed specifically as a united alternative to Stephen Harper and the ruling Conservatives…
I want my TV for free, just like it used to be
We all know those people. The kind that proudly don’t own a TV, don’t need one and don’t want one. I know people like that and I sympathize. I agree that TV can be an intrusive presence and a real conversation stopper, not to mention it’s a medium dominated by corporate advertising which I despise.
Still, I never counted myself among those ranks because there is something mind-numbingly pleasing about watching a good show, even a cop show. Yes, this anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate activist likes him some CSI.
We also all know people who feel that owning a TV is…
Sleeping with the Elephant: Ending our dependence on the U.S. before it rolls over…
About twenty-five years ago Canada was ruled by a charismatic and media-savvy Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney. He was a man hand-picked for his ability to unite a somewhat reluctant progressive Conservative base in Québec with Western ‘provincialists’ and stand as a distinct yet casual alternative to the staunchly intellectual federalism of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. More or less exactly twenty years ago the sheen of the go-go eighties was gone, an economic recession was in full swing on both sides of the 49th and Mulroney, like his much-maligned American counterpart George H.W. Bush, was embroiled in scandal and generally poor approval ratings…
Closing the window on Irene
As the remnants of Tropical Storm Irene pounded Montreal this past Sunday, I hunkered down in my apartment. Listening to the winds blow and the rain fall, I thought to myself: “I should really close the living room window, my roommate’s XBox is getting wet.” If you were expecting my rainy day thoughts to be something more profound or at the very least profound-ish sounding and dealing with the nature of nature and its relationship to our very unnatural culture, well, that’s not the case here. And why should it be? Yeah, I had been outside earlier in the day. I had felt slightly stronger-than-usual winds press up against me as I ran some errands. I witnessed the closest thing my neighbourhood got to destruction…
A true progressive: remembering Jack Layton
The second last time I saw Jack Layton was at a garden party at Stornoway in late June. Speaking under a vast white tent as desultory raindrops punished the exiled mass of smokers, he declared his and Olivia’s new house, the residence of the leader of the official opposition, to be “the people’s house.” Shortly afterwards I caught him on his way out and sheepishly asked for a photo. I can’t say why really, I suppose I was overcome by the emotion of the moment. In seven years…
Victory Over the Sun: From Harper to Horton to Ford, is Platonic Montreal the way out?
Have you considered the Tory Omnibus Crime Bill? It’s not exactly light bedtime reading, but it’s worth knowing about. It is above and beyond all else a testament to absurdity. It is absurd yet delivered in such a fashion so as to seem sensible. It is irrational, illogical and yet is designed to seem appropriate. It succeeds because the intended audience is often so incredibly uncritical, of their actions inasmuch as those of government, that they will believe known falsehoods simply because it takes less mental effort than to formulate even a basic critical response…
How Sweet it is: Canadians Reject Harper’s Big Fat Smear on Turmel
In politics smears have a tendency to work. That’s why attack ads and mudslinging are the norm down south, and a growing trend here. It doesn’t really matter if an accusation is true, studies have shown that people are far more likely to pay attention to the original, shocking, smear than to any subsequent correction. With the debut of Fox News North (aka Sun News) and the success of Stephen Harper’s cheap shot politics, it’s fair to wonder if our smug sense of superiority about the gullibility of our neighbors to the south is warranted. Sure…
Corporate sponsored animal abuse for a good cause
“Rednecks are a dyin’ breed ya know,” a sweaty, fat man in a white cowboy hat called ‘Cousin’ explained to me, as he aggressively scrubbed the last of the bean sauce off of the bottom of a pot, “except here in Calgary, they flourish!” His entire body laughed. He knew I was a rookie.
Before the Stampede I hadn’t thought much about Calgary really. I knew what most native Montrealers know about the city. I knew it was where Steven Harper lived and that oil and gas money built the tallest buildings and greased the economy. I’d heard about the Stampede of course, people in South Africa have heard about the Stampede, but aside from casually tuning in to…
Religious moderation and Ghana’s quiet war
As fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims unite to attempt to “get rid of these people in the society,” a statement both ugly in composition and in sentiment, the small and mostly silent homosexual community in Ghana finds itself on the brink of persecution. It is for this reason, that while I still maintain that violence is not the property of any single group of people, I must admit that if religion is not a necessary cause for violence and oppression, it is at the very least a sufficient one…