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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 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 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 June 9, 2011, at 7:14 am |
Now that the Liberals are decimated and the Conservatives have a majority government, that once favourite whipping boy for raising donations among its base is gone, so it will have to revert to other boogey-people.
The NDP it won’t touch for another 3 1/2 years, so it’s decided that the new threat to Conservative Party values is the media:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is calling on supporters to dip into their wallets to help the party counter a new foe. In a letter sent out in the past few days, Conservative Party President John Walsh is urging supporters to help the party counter a “hailstorm” of [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on May 21, 2010, at 4:13 pm |
“Meeting celebrities isn’t my shtick. That was the shtick of the previous guy.” -Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007 when asked why he refused to meet Bono to discuss funding for AIDS research and prevention in Africa.
Pictorial evidence seems to contradict that statement however:
Some selective shtick.
I’m thinking the more accurate statement from Harper would have been to say: “Meeting celebrities that don’t agree with my political point of view or don’t offer the potential to increase my popularity or my electoral chances is not my shtick”.
H/T to my liberal friend D.
Posted by Scott Tribe on April 9, 2009, at 3:27 pm |
Related to the prior blogpost story, Gritgirl has come out with an update to the original video she did – an update made unfortunately necessary with today’s announced job losses that now are disappearing at the rate of the 1982 recession:
This is Harpernomics, to use a phrase from a few months ago.
(PS – I think it high time the Harper government stop resisting pressure to loosen the EI requirement eligibility, make it a bit more generous to help all these people losing their jobs, and stop insulting people when they say such measures are “paying people to not [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on April 2, 2009, at 1:08 pm |
Gritgirl is on the ball today:
This is of course in reaction to the story that broke this AM that the PM was late for his photo op with the G19 G-20. The BBC has reported it was because he was taking a bathroom break, while the PMO’s office claims it was because he was reviewing important details of the meeting.
Heck, maybe he was doing both.
UPDATE: I know Harper wants to get himself and Canada multiple world news coverage, but I’m not sure whether a debate over why he was late for a scheduled photo-op is exactly what he had in [...]
Posted by Scott Tribe on March 31, 2009, at 2:53 pm |
A well-timed new video release from Gritgirl with Brian Mulroney back in the news:
This video is well done showing the similarities of Harper vs Mulroney vis-a-vis the economy and how they’ve handled the recessions in each of their time frame as Prime Minister (or mishandled it/dismissed it, as it were). The only quibble I’d have with her description of this video is that I don’t consider the modern day incarnation of the current Conservative Party to be at all compatible with the nickname “Tory” to describe any of Harper and his bunch. That nickname died when MacKay sold out the Progressive Conservatives to the Alliance. [...]
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