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Posted by Scott Tribe on February 6, 2012, at 8:50 am |
Here is a very hard-line piece from David Olive today in the Star about what the Canadian government should do about Caterpillar – a tone I’m not used to seeing Olive, the Star’s business columnist, come out and write in his pieces, so he’s obviously ticked off:
We could nationalize EMD, for which there is abundant precedent across the continent. America’s third-largest bank, biggest insurer and dominant home-mortgage guarantors are now wards of the state. Short of nationalization, Ottawa could impose prohibitive tariffs on all Cat products. That might eventually bring Athabasca tarsands production, heavily reliant on Caterpillar equipment, to a halt. Which would be a useful topic of [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 2, 2012, at 7:17 am |
Conservative MP’s are often described as parrots for doing nothing but repeating scripted phrases over and over again in defense of their government, or being not the brightest bunch in the world. However, they are smart enough to recognize when the voters get mad, and concerned enough about their own electoral well-being to bring it up to Harper:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s musings about possible changes to Old Age Security have resulted in a public backlash — and complaints from his own MPs. Conservative MPs have been overwhelmed with emails and phone calls from constituents who have been concerned about their retirement pensions since Harper mused on the need [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on February 1, 2012, at 7:19 am |
I had to laugh when I read this:
..Clement will be hosting a conference in Ottawa next week on open government. “As a minister, Clement has pushed forward with initiatives to enable Canada’s public servants to use social media in the workplace and a broader initiative to introduce open government principles to the Government of Canada,” says promotional material for the event at the National Arts Centre.
This coming from the guy who just refused this:
The New Democrats are calling on Treasury Board President Tony Clement to bring the same sunlight to salaries in the Prime Minister’s Office as the government shone on the highly-paid staff at the [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 30, 2012, at 7:13 am |
Parliament resumes very shortly as of this writing. It is to be hoped that Stephen Harper will deem Parliament important enough to reveal the details on his very public musings in Davos Switzerland last week about Old Age Security needing to be “reformed” – an announcement that couldn’t wait for Parliament to re-open this week, apparently.
It should be hoped that Harper’s “plan” consists a bit more then this:
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 26, 2012, at 7:12 am |
I was reading a column that Martin Reg-Cohn wrote yesterday on the continuing saga in London where as those who’ve followed it know, Caterpillar has locked out it’s workers in a draconian effort to get them to slash their wages by half – this as the CEO earns a million $ salary and the company worldwide made profits in the billions of dollars.
I agree with the column where he says it is now time for the Premier and by extension, his Labor Minister Linda Jeffery, need to do something more then just issue statements saying they are “hopeful” the 2 sides will moderate their tone. Let’s cut to [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 24, 2012, at 7:12 am |
I’ve not seen another article come out yet on the meeting that Harper had with the First Nation’s Chiefs other then this one, but from the First Nations perspective, their concerns appear to have been taken rather lightly by the PM, to say the least:
First Nations leaders will be listening closely to the words Prime Minister Stephen Harper chooses in his speech at the Crown-First Nations gathering Tuesday after he left chiefs feeling underwhelmed by his response to their presentations during a special, two-and-a-half hour meeting with a delegation Monday. Harper told chiefs that they should consider contacting their MPs and that he can’t just focus on Aboriginal [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 23, 2012, at 7:05 am |
Who made that declaration a couple of days ago in the US? The Nation? Daily Kos? Some other left-wing publication?
Nope. Slate did – and Slate isn’t exactly known for its left-wing tendencies. A rather unflattering portrait of it’s northern neighbour:
It’s well known that America’s dependence on foreign oil forces us to partner with some pretty unsavory regimes. Take, for instance, the country that provides by far the largest share of our petroleum imports. Its regime, in thrall to big oil interests, has grown increasingly bellicose, labeling environmental activists “radicals” and “terrorists” and is considering a crackdown on nonprofits that oppose its policies. It blames political dissent on [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 19, 2012, at 6:52 am |
Those are the findings of one specific poll. First the poll #’s and the pollster’s speculation:
Buoyed by high approval ratings for interim leader Bob Rae, support for the federal Liberals is on the rise, according to a new poll. The Forum Research survey found support for Rae’s Liberals at 25 per cent, a four-point increase since the pollster’s last survey in mid-December. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives received 35 per cent, Nycole Turmel’s NDP had 28 per cent, while the Bloc Québécois and Green Party earned 6 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively….Bozinoff suggested the Liberals’ popularity increase may be attributed to Rae — the interim leader’s [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 17, 2012, at 7:18 am |
I’ve seen this logo floating around on some blogs - a suggestion to upgrade the Liberal Party logo:
I’ve seen it on some Blogging Tory blogs critical of the legalizing marijuana resolution that was passed, and on some Liberal blogs with people just having fun with it.
Personally, I think our Blogging Tory friends should be careful of passing that logo around too much; when the National Post unexpectedly comes out with an editorial supporting the Liberals stance on marijuana, you know the Liberals might be onto something that helps more then hurts them.
[...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on January 16, 2012, at 7:29 am |
As you might expect, though I was not at the Convention in Ottawa this weekend, I did monitor how events went, and here is my take on things:
Things I liked:
- The election of Mike Crawley as Liberal Party President. It was a bit of a surprise win, according to some I was reading at the Convention. One statement I read from an observer was that a lot of Liberals expected Sheila Copps to win, but they all voted for Mr. Crawley. Apparently, enough like-minded people did the same thing, and we now have a President who was preaching renewal, and also was promising to do it behind [...]
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