COMMENT: Canada’s reckless banks inflate house price bubble
The whole issue of the housing bubble, its extent and whether there will be a soft landing as predicted by many wishful thinkers has resulted in many interesting headlines in recent weeks – including some high on the delusional scale. One suggested that house prices are a mere 20% overvalued (if you believe that, I have a...
COMMENT: The tyrant's poison pill
The West’s hypocrisy and oil-greed are coming home to roost with a vengeance in Libya as the Arab spring in that country turns into a nightmarish winter characterized by armed gangs, economic collapse, a decline in services by an incompetent government and increasing political domination by radical Islamists. Whether or not...
WHO REALLY OWNS CITY HALL 1: Look in the mirror
The last section in the Municipal Act calls on the Minister to “establish a process for the review of this Act” within 10 years after its adoption. The Act was adopted in 1998, and by the time the Minister complied with section 371, that deadline had long ago expired. However, the review process is now underway and although...
COMMENT: Brazeau, Harper and Idle No More
The Brazeau affair — sad, repugnant and bizarre all at the same time — shines a light on two aspects of Canadian politics that desperately need some exposure. One is what it reveals about the state of “official” aboriginal politics and its relationship to the Canadian state. The other, the almost exclusive focus of the media,...
COMMENT: 2013 should be the year of the democracy coalition
When historians write the chapter on the current period of social democracy in Canada they might well conclude that the worst thing that happened to it was the 2011 election when the NDP got 103 seats it hadn’t really earned. It was such an unexpected event that the NDP could not cope with it. You could see it in the euphoria...
COMMENT: The power of Idle No More's resurgent radicalism
The remarkable Idle No More movement is the biggest and most important national outpouring of grassroots aboriginal anger ever seen in Canada. Not since the late 1960s when Indians (as they then referred to themselves) and Métis confronted governments with demands for justice has such a dramatic and passionate expression of...
OP/ED: Stephen Harper’s Christmas sermon--Why deny climate change?*
Canada is blessed. God has given us so many things that other countries want. And it’s all just there for the taking. Above the ground we have trees galore, waiting to be chopped down, water waiting to be piped to California. In the ground we’ve got gold and silver, copper and iron, uranium and asbestos. The list is almost ...
COMMENT: Thank you, Julian Fantino
The International Co-operation Minister caused a ruckus last week when he said that the Canadian International Development Agency should actively promote the country's interests abroad rather than primarily focus on poverty reduction. Fantino defended "aid" that was given to groups partnering with Canadian companies building...
COMMENT: Time for an adult conversation about taxes
The suggestion that we need to raise taxes in this country has become so taboo in the nation’s politics that even talking about it is seen as tantamount to political suicide. The right and its benefactors, the wealthy and large corporations, have had the field to themselves for a long time. Their framing of taxes as a “burden”...
OP/ED: A Trudeau insults the West--so what else is new?
At least his father waited until he was in power before he gave the West the finger! But, just as I had suggested, Trudeau the Younger is so arrogant, so self-absorbed, and so dumb he has already insulted--and politically dismissed--an entire Western province, well before seeking the Liberal leadership, let alone becoming...