Karl Nerenberg

Karl Nerenberg joins rabble to cover news for the rest of us from Parliament Hill. Karl has been a journalist for over 25 years including eight years as the producer of the CBC show The House. He has written scripts for documentary films and long-form television reports for such shows as Le Point and Actuel on Radio Canada television and The Journal on CBC-TV. Karl also founded and, for five years, edited the magazine Federations: What's new in federalism worldwide. Karl has been awarded a Gemini award, a Best International Documentary Series award (from "la communauté des televisions francophones"), a CBC Radio Award for Best New Series (C'est la vie) among others. As a broadcaster, Mr. Nerenberg produced and directed television series and documentaries in a wide range of genres and on a great variety of subjects -- from civil war in Central America, to the crisis in South Africa's Apartheid system. Karl works in both English and French, and can be reached at karl@rabble.ca

Public squabbles over public transit

The national president of CUPE walks out of a House Committee meeting on public transit after Tory MPs bait him.

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Omnibus bill sells crime and punishment in a bundle: Hill Dispatches

Police preparing to clear the Free Speech Zone during the G20 mass arrest in Toronto, June 2010. Photo: Nicolai Grut/Flickr

Crime and punishment sold in a bundle

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federal election crime police harper majority Safer Streets and Communities Act

Parliament resumes with a tribute and a glimpse of future debate

Flowers grace Jack Layton's desk in parliament shortly after the NDP leader's death in August.

Parliament resumes -- without Jack Layton.

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federal politics parliament Canadian parliament Hill Dispatches

Six key points for understanding Harper's Senate scandal

Karl Nerenberg

| May 23, 2013

What did Harper know and when did he know it? Our parliamentary reporter looks at this and five other key points in the growing Senate expense scandal.

1. Rules for all Senators "very clear" -- except for Senator Duffy

The Conservative majority on the Senate Committee on Internal Economy said the rules on housing allowances for Senators were "very clear" and "unambiguous."

That is, they were clear and unambiguous for Senators Harb and Brazeau.

They were somehow not so clear for Senator Duffy.

We already have enough facts to know Harper is the true author of Senate scandal

Karl Nerenberg

| May 22, 2013

There is lots of talk about what Prime Minister Harper may or may not have known about the $90,000 his chief of staff gave Mike Duffy.

Although it is an open secret that the Prime Minister runs a pretty tightly controlled operation, it is always plausible that his chief of staff might have decided to get involved in the affairs of one Senator without telling the boss.

But it doesn't ring true, especially when one considers Duffy's comment about keeping quiet on the "orders of the Prime Minister's Office."

We will likely never get at the bottom of what role the Prime Minister and his office played in this affair.

How to provoke race hatred: On the Roma, Sun TV and the responsibility of broadcasters

Karl Nerenberg

| May 21, 2013

The documentary that bears the lurid title 'Gypsy Child Thieves' -- originally commissioned by the BBC -- was written and directed by Liviu Tipurita, and released in 2009.

From its title you would think it was a piece of extreme right, racist propaganda.

The filmmaker did not have racist intentions, however.

Tipurita insists he intended to give a fair account of the lives of Romanian Roma (or Gypsy) children who are exploited as thieves and beggars in such cities as Milan and Madrid.

In his mind, the writer-director cared about these children, even as he showed them harassing people at bank machines and lifting wallets from the pockets of commuters and tourists.

L'affaire Duffy: Will Harper be held to account?

Karl Nerenberg

| May 16, 2013

When the Prime Minister appointed longtime journalist and broadcaster Mike Duffy to the Senate it was to represent Prince Edward Island (PEI), not the province where Duffy actually lived, Ontario.

Duffy was born and raised in PEI and still has, we are told, deep connections there.

The original Canadian Constitution, the British North America (BNA) Act, says a Senator must "reside" in the province she/he represents. But the notion of "residence" is, apparently, "undefined."

The Conservative Leader in the Senate, Marjorie LeBreton, and Prime Minister Harper have argued that Duffy's intimate connections to the Island qualify him to represent it in the Senate, even if he is not a resident in the "normal" sense of the word.

Who needs science? Not the Harper government!

Karl Nerenberg

| May 13, 2013

The 19th century British schoolteacher, social reformer and mathematician George Boole was not what you would call a 'market-oriented' kind of guy.

His life and work had little connection to the worlds of business and entrepreneurship, and the profit motive was almost entirely alien to his central preoccupations.

And yet, nearly 160 years after his death, Boole is viewed as one of the fathers of computer science -- the scientific foundation of the hugely profitable, multi-trillion dollar business of digital electronics.

Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, IBM, Intel -- they all owe their existence to an obscure mathematician who died in 1864.

You can't get more market-oriented than that.

Who cares about growing inequality in Harper's Canada? The Finance Committee gets an earful!

Karl Nerenberg

| May 9, 2013

A lot happens in Parliament, aside from the theatre of Question Period and the now ritualized scrums that follow in the lobby of the House.

Some of it is sublime; some, ridiculous.

Some of it is enlightening; some, mind-numbing.

And most of it happens far from the gaze of the media or the public.

On April 25, for instance, the House Finance Committee heard from a number of expert witnesses on -- believe it or not -- the subject of inequality.

How and why -- in this time, and with the current Conservative Party in power -- a House of Commons committee decided to even talk about such a subject is a bit of a mystery.

It happened, however, and it was an exercise that might have merited a bit more attention.

Safe country? World Jewish Congress fears Hungary will relive 'darkest era in European history'

Karl Nerenberg

| May 6, 2013

On Saturday, the former chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Bernie Farber, tweeted: "Large anti-Semitic rally in Hungary by Fascist, Jobbik Party. Same Hungary that Immigration Min Kenny says is a safe country."

Hungary's rising and increasingly powerful extreme right Jobbik Party organized the rally to coincide with the World Jewish Congress (WJC) holding its plenary assembly in Budapest.

The Conservative Hungarian governing Party, Fidesz, headed by Prime Minister Victor Orban, formally disassociates itself from Jobbik's extremism.

Karl Nerenberg

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