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Who says you can’t go home?
Some guy named Michael Ignatieff weighs in on the life of Canadians living outside the country: I was away a long time in Britain and the States, it’s true, but I kept coming back, writing for Canadian newspapers, broadcasting on the CBC, summers teaching at Banff, lectures everywhere, writing several books on Canadian themes. I […]
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Could Have Been Elections: The Liberal-Democrats
In response to my previous “what if” post on running elxn41 under a preferential ballot, a few blog readers wondered how the election would have turned out had there been a Liberal-NDP merger. The challenge with that kind of analysis is that we have no real way of knowing what 1 + 1 equals. Even […]
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Change that puts people first
The Ontario NDP release their platform, chalk full of policies that are great news if you own a big house, drive a gas guzzler, or like coal power. Partisan jabs aside, Andrea Horwath could do some serious damage in this fall’s Ontario election – she’s a far more impressive politician than Howard Hampton, and thanks […]
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The Toughest Job in Politics
I won’t say I feel bad for Pauline Marois – seeing the PQ implode a few weeks after the BQ was all but obliterated is Must See TV. But when looking at the problems besieging her, it’s important to remember that Marois has the toughest job in politics. Consider this. The PQ has knifed every […]
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What to expect in the Liberal leadership marathon
The best way to think about the Liberal leadership race is like those velodrome cycling races you see at the Olympics. The gun sounds and two cyclists crawl around the track, quietly jockeying for position and looking over their shoulder to see where the field sits. Then, out of the blue, one racer starts sprinting […]
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Mark Your Calendars
Liberals have voted to pick a new leader sometime between March and June 2013. I was personally hoping for a shorter timeline but my sense from yesterday’s conference call is Liberals are ready to get to work rebuilding the party in the interim. I think it’s a little naive to assume no one will think […]
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Friday Link Grab Bag
A few random Friday thoughts: 1. Don’t expect this weekend’s NDP convention in Vancouver to be nearly as exciting as Wednesday night. Still, the possibility for riots and/or make out sessions does exist when delegates begin debating a motion to repeal the Clarity Act. 2. Speaking of the NDP convention, FarandWide has a good blog […]
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Not a Leader
That was how Stephen Harper described Stephane Dion in 2008, when “unelected” and “unaccountable” Liberal senators blocked Harper’s senate reform legislation. I look forward to the new attack ads: Tory senator questions colleagues’ loyalty to Harper OTTAWA — A Conservative senator is calling into question his colleagues’ loyalty to Prime Minister Stephen Harper after Tory […]
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What Could Have Been: Elxn41 Under a Preferential Ballot
One of the democratic reform initiatives that never seems to get much publicity is the preferential ballot. Yet it’s simple, assures the majority of the riding backs the winning candidate, and helps avoid some of the dangerous strategic voting mis-steps we see all too often. It’s how parties elect their leaders, yet we assume Canadians […]
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Who’s on top?
Macleans updates it’s 1997 list ranking Canada’s Best PMs, and produces the following top 10: 1. Wilf2. Johnny Mac3. The Lyon4. Mikey B5. PET6. JC7. Uncle Louis8. Robbie B9. Lyin’ Brian10. The Chief From top to bottom, it’s a well researched and thoughtful list. As someone who has read many Prime Ministerial bios and studied […]