Senate Page Brigette DePape
(or is it Brigette Marcelle? there appears to be some conflict on the point of her surname)
I would like to extend this young woman my thanks for her moral courage and wit.
May hers be only the first of many barbs sunk deep into the hide of Stephen Harper and his Government.
Showing posts with label Democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democracy. Show all posts
Friday, 3 June 2011
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Colour me shocked: Harper & Senate Appointments.
What. A. Surprise.
Scarcely any time at all has passed and lo and behold, our all-powerful, well-coiffed Prime Minister has decided that he will go ahead and make some appointments to the Senate after all.
Rather than wait and begin a process to make the Senate more democratic, Stephen Harper has decided to appoint a trio of Senators from the ranks of Conservative candidates who lost their ridings. I suppose there had to be a use for all those failed candidates, and after all two of them are previous Senators.
Look forward to more of this in the next five years. There are a LOT of Senate retirements scheduled before the next election: twenty five, to be precise. The Conservative majority in the Senate is going to last a long, long time.
Add in the three Supreme Court appointments that our right honourable Hagfish-with-a-Haircut will be making over the summer and Canada is going to have a very different political landscape by the time the next election rolls around.
I'm really not certain what we can do to fight this? A legal omnibus bill chock full of nasty little goodies like Internet Lawful Access (1984 is 2011?) will just be the beginning. Op-eds in favour of healthcare privatization are already being published, just to prepare the ground for an eventual assault on our hard-won universal medical programs.
Is there going to be anything left of my country by the time the Conservatives come up for reelection? Or will Harper and his fascist little gang have carved out the heart and soul of my nation?
(Sources with far more details than my own rant. They do the heavy lifting so we don't have to, bless their hearts: CBC News, The Sixth Estate)
Scarcely any time at all has passed and lo and behold, our all-powerful, well-coiffed Prime Minister has decided that he will go ahead and make some appointments to the Senate after all.
Rather than wait and begin a process to make the Senate more democratic, Stephen Harper has decided to appoint a trio of Senators from the ranks of Conservative candidates who lost their ridings. I suppose there had to be a use for all those failed candidates, and after all two of them are previous Senators.
Look forward to more of this in the next five years. There are a LOT of Senate retirements scheduled before the next election: twenty five, to be precise. The Conservative majority in the Senate is going to last a long, long time.
Add in the three Supreme Court appointments that our right honourable Hagfish-with-a-Haircut will be making over the summer and Canada is going to have a very different political landscape by the time the next election rolls around.
I'm really not certain what we can do to fight this? A legal omnibus bill chock full of nasty little goodies like Internet Lawful Access (1984 is 2011?) will just be the beginning. Op-eds in favour of healthcare privatization are already being published, just to prepare the ground for an eventual assault on our hard-won universal medical programs.
Is there going to be anything left of my country by the time the Conservatives come up for reelection? Or will Harper and his fascist little gang have carved out the heart and soul of my nation?
(Sources with far more details than my own rant. They do the heavy lifting so we don't have to, bless their hearts: CBC News, The Sixth Estate)
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Something to take careful note of
Six thousand, two hundred and one.
That's the margin of victory. Something is very, very wrong when such an insignificant number can change the course of a country's politics.
The U.K. are looking at electoral reform and in four years time Canadians need to make a reform of our First-Past-The-Post system a major election issue.
Alternative Voting for Cats?
That's the margin of victory. Something is very, very wrong when such an insignificant number can change the course of a country's politics.
The U.K. are looking at electoral reform and in four years time Canadians need to make a reform of our First-Past-The-Post system a major election issue.
Alternative Voting for Cats?
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