Don’t you get tired of hearing about the “Liberal brand”? It comes up in editorials and TV commentaries all the time. We never hear about the “NDP brand” or the “Conservative brand” or the “Green brand” (unless you’re talking about a sticker you put on appliances.) Just the “Liberal brand”. Somebody in the media started
It was interesting watching the election coverage on the CBC last night. I think they did about 7 interviews with NDPers and maybe 3 with Conservatives. According to the coverage, the big story was the “orange crush” of the NDP. But once reality sets in time will demonstrate that there is not much substance to
Something has gone awry in the Conservative push for a majority over the last two weeks. That the NDP have made it a game is not news anymore. Why this is happening is another question. Blame the media, sort of The Canadian media have been a big part of this story. Everyone in Canada knows
Watching the leaders debate last night (the English version) I had the distinct impression that Harper “won” – at least in the sense that he presented the strongest case for why the Conservatives should continue running the party. The only other credible alternative is the Liberals, and Ignatieff had a difficult time IMHO saying just
The federal Liberals under Michael Ignatieff have issued a big chunk of their election platform. It is being called the “Liberal Family Pack” because it contains many “family-friendly” goodies: help for families with college-bound kids, more child care spaces, time off for family caregivers, pumped up CPP payments, and help for people wanting to make
Jack Layton recently kicked off the NDP federal campaign by announcing that they would put a cap on credit card interest – no more than 5% above prime. This “promise” has been trotted out by Layton in at least two previous elections. This proposal has about as much chance of being enacted – NDP or
Everytime we have a federal election in Canada the televised debates become a focial point of the rather short campaign. As I’m sure you know, these debates feature the leaders of the major parties who have representation in the House of Commons. Last time around (2008) Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party was officially
This week I’m on our annual March golf trip to Florida, and for my leisurely reading enjoyment I brought along the book called “Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler”, subtitled “The Age of Social Catastrophe”, by Robert Gellately, Florida State University Professor of History. Of course, like most of us I’ve heard that Joseph Stalin was perhaps
A few years ago it was not unusual to hear that leading conservative politicians in Canada were taking advice from U.S. Republican strategists – as though it was a big brother/little brother type of arrangement between conservatives in Canada and Republicans in the U.S. This was especially the case near the end of Preston Manning’s
The success of U.S. conservatives to carve out a respectable place in the hearts and minds of Americans is one of the most under-reported stories in American politics of the last thirty or forty years. It is nothing less than the gradual domination of the media by increasingly reactionary conservative pundits and spokespersons. While radio
The Canadian Royal Family – Sorry, no Canadians allowed. There are a couple interesting articles in the National Post today (Jan 21, 2011) about the rightful place of the British monarchy in Canada’s future. As I have expressed elsewhere a few times, I think the fact that our Canadian head of state is, according to
The women accusing Julian Assange of sexual misconduct were not initially wanting charges to be laid. I don’t want to dwell too much on the Julian Assange Wikileaks story, but here’s an interesting story in the National Post – Swedish women did not want Assange charged. The report says both women were associates (or admirers
Here’s a video interview of Julian Assange, the key spokesperson for Wikileaks. This video is from April 2010. It was originally broadcast on the English AlJazeera network. Believe it or not his cell phone rings near the beginning of the interview.
Is Wikileaks a much more sinister group than most people think? The release of sensitive (and classified) documents by Wikileaks last week was met with a relatively muted response from just about everyone. Perhaps it is because the general perception of Wikileaks is that it is an organization with what looks like an admirable objective
Canadians politicians and diplomats are generally relieved that the lastest disclosures from Wikileaks do not have much to say about Canada. Yes there are a grand total of 5 documents (out of a total of 2600) which contain some mildly critical comments and observations aimed at Canada. But that’s nothing compared to what they might
Since we’re talking about the monarchy a lot these days. I thought I’d make some proposals for “King of Canada”. I would like to see us start our own monarchy in Canada, and I can’t think of a better person than Don Cherry to serve as KofC. As we all know, Don even looks great
There’s an interstesting story about the Canadian cell phone business in the November (2010) issue of The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. The focus of the article is on Egyptian billionaire entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris and his upstart wireless company called Wind Mobile. The revelations about the Canadian wireless industry are intriguing, to say the
We’ve recently been bombarded with news of the upcoming British royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton, and there is suddenly renewed interest in the British monarchy. The CBC, for example ran a phone-in last Sunday in which people were asked “Will the royal wedding renew interest in the monarchy in Canada?” (or something
So today the Conservatives in the Canadian Senate voted down the NDP’s climate change bill that had been bouncing around for years. Big deal. Harper haters are up in arms about what they see as the anti-democratic nature of the move. A bill passed by a majority of elected MPs has now been quashed by
