-
Grownup Politics
Chris Selley recaps an interview given by Britain’s opposition leader David Cameron, then adds the following: “Reticent” isn’t a word that comes to mind. What comes to my mind instead is that if either Michael Ignatieff or Stephen Harper had given that interview, Canadian politics-watchers would still be picking themselves up off the floor, and […]
-
Shatner Reads Sarah Palin’s Farewell Speech
There are certain things you just know are going to be funny… Hat tip – Equivocator UPDATE – Now with working video!
-
Electoral Reeeeeeform
Even though I don’t agree with the man’s politics, I maintain it’s a crying shame Preston Manning didn’t run for the Alberta PC leadership in 2006, out of fear some chap named Dinning would beat him. Hindsight being what it is, it seems obvious Manning would have won, and his time as Premier would have […]
-
Numb3rs: Incumbency
After a quick look at competitiveness last week, I wanted to touch on incumbency effects today. First of all, the technical part – if this bores you, just scroll down to the bolded line below. I won’t think any less of you. To see how important an incumbent is, we need a way to calculate […]
-
Bah, Stephen Harper was saying the same thing 10 months ago
Again showing how ahead of the curve he is… The recession is over, the Bank of Canada said in its quarterly Monetary Policy Report released Thursday. After shrinking since the last quarter of 2008, the Canadian economy will grow by an annualized rate of 1.3 per cent in the current quarter, the bank said. Bank […]
-
Random Wednesday Links
1) I’ll give Flaherty props for the home reno tax credit in this year’s budget – it seems to be having the desired effect. As for the Tories’ festival funding…not so much. 2) Notice how it IS Tony Clement now making the funding decisions. Looks like Brad Trost may have been right about the Ablonczy […]
-
Vancouver Interviews: John McCallum on the Economy
My interview with John McCallum, discussing what the Liberals would have done differently in this year’s budget and the need for more stimulus spending. See also: Ralph Goodale on Western Alienation, Scott Brison on the economy, Carolyn Bennett on the Change Commission, Justin Trudeau on youth in politics
-
Competitiveness
Rather than run my usual summer voting contest (“Pick Canada’s greatest Minister of Veterans Affairs…March Madness style!”), I think I’ll spend the summer political slow down playing around with my election spreadsheet…or actually slowing down the blogging frequency, and instead enjoying Toronto in all of its garbage-scented glory. I do have the last three elections […]
-
Boutilier Gets The Boot
And then there were 70. Alberta’s Tory caucus is one man smaller after Ed Stelmach’s booting of Guy Boutilier over the weekend: Premier Ed Stelmach is suddenly doing politics on steroids. Against a flood of public anger, and to the shock of some Tory MLAs, he kicked out a veteran Conservative for challenging him to […]
-
This Week in Alberta – It’s Not Easy Being Green
The Alberta Greens are de-registered as a party. From their website: The “Alberta Greens” Green Party of Alberta has been de-registered by Elections Alberta as a political entity in the Province of Alberta. De-registration of the party is an administrative opportunity to re-organize and rebuild the party into a viable political organization. The importance and […]