Politics in Canada

Twitter was buzzing last night after comments by former Harper top advisor and campaign manager Tom Flanagan about child pornography. In response to a question, Flanagan said Wednesday: 

On the child pornography issue, since that was brought up... I don't look at these pictures. The closest I ever came to it ... it's a long story but I got put on the mailing list of the National Man Boy Love Association and I started getting their mailings for a couple of years, so that's about the closest I ever came to child pornography, so it is a real issue of personal liberty, to what extent we put people in jail for doing something in which they do not harm another person... 

The Globe and Mail has the story -- but note they've closed the comments section. All the more reason to discuss this here. 

A health care executive who Prime Minister Stephen Harper once appointed to oversee the national spy agency is now a wanted man.

This week I decided to look at whether supporters of various political parties had different news consumption patterns and compare them to undecided voters. To do this I'm going back to the Canadian Election Study 2011 data. Obviously, things may have changed since then, but this is the most current raw data source I have for this question. 

The first question I thought I'd look at is how much time people spent consuming news (Question 81 in the Post Election Survey(PES)) broken down by party self-identification.

Charts and the rest of the post can be found here. 

The Red Chamber is a lovely old room, in a most central location. What should be done with it?

(Note that this topic is in Banter, not Canadian Politics)

J/k not for gross incompetence or neglect of Aboriginal Peoples! 'Cause he wrote this one letter that one time.

Hunger Strike Helps Expose Deficient Conditions and Mistreatment at Central North Correctional Centre
For Immediate Release: Feb 9th, 2013  
Issued by the Support Committee for David Cedeño

Original blog post here

In 2008, Stephen Harper promised "a new relationship between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians."

In 2009, he stated that Canada had "no history of colonialism."

Former rabble blogger and lapsed babbler, Corvin Russell is joining us to discuss the groundswell of social protest in Canada and abroad @ 2pm EST.

Corvin, a long-time ally of indigenous struggles across Canada, will be talking about the transformative potential of #IdleNoMore and other similar struggles for Aboriginal rights, and their impact on broader social struggles. He can also answer any questions on the People's Social Forum which took place last weekend.

For some background, see Ethan Cox's column on PSF here.

Not shocking, but here's the story, as reported on CBC.ca: 

The delegation to three Chinese cities included 30 executives from major oil, agricultural and manufacturing companies as well as roughly two dozen members of the Chinese-Canadian cultural community.

Compare that with a 2009 trip to China — Harper's first — when he brought along eight people, including Laureen, his stylist and four Chinese-Canadian businesspeople.

Well it appears that the Tories have crossed yet another line.

In response to a MP Hélène Laverdière’s December blog post in the Huff Post, somebody at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) decided to post the Huff Post response by Julian Fantino, Minister of International Cooperation, directly on the CIDA website. There was also another partisan post on the CIDA website attacking the Liberals that stated “Liberals make promises,
Conservatives get results - Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)”.

Documentary
Planning
Stage 1

I am looking for volunteers who have knowledge of  abortion politics in the Maritime Provinces from the period 1969 to 1999. 

As a participant in this study, you have the option to: answer a questionnaire; and/or share your opinions and experiences through an interview. Some questions are of a personal nature and participants may skip them. For example, there are questions at the end of the survey that ask participants if they terminated a pregnancy between 1969 and 1999 and if they travelled far for the abortion.  These questions are meant to determine the availability of abortion services during this period.  

First post...