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Opinion

Why more tar sands pipelines will only bring disaster for B.C. and Canada

Graphic from Tanker Free BC.

Canada once had a vibrant manufacturing sector, growing economy and about 20 oil tankers per year passing through Burrard Inlet in B.C., mostly delivering refined products to coastal communities. Today, Canada has a declining manufacturing sector, growing unemployment, and over 70 crude oil tankers per year transiting Burrard Inlet. What happened?

The tar sands happened. Canada took the lure of globalization and raw resource export. Over a decade ago, the world's largest oil companies decided to exploit the black bitumen tar buried under Alberta's boreal forest, and to ship it from Canada with minimal local economic benefit.

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BC Politics bcpoli Canadian politics climate Climate Change Enbirdge environment Kinder Morgan pipelines tankers Tar Sands
Opinion

Will Canada respond to terror like the United States or like Norway?

A memorial for vicitms of Norway's 2011 massacre.

Last week, the National Post's Christie Blatchford wrote about Canada's response to the alleged Al Qaeda-linked terror plot to derail a Via Rail passenger train.

In the piece, she referenced Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz's fist-pump inducing speech at Fenway Stadium in which he told fans that, "This is our fucking city, and nobody gonna dictate our freedom."

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9/11 Bill S-7 Canadian politics civil liberties civil liberties watch Norway politics in Canada terror plot United States
Karl Nerenberg

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

By
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.

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Daniel Wilson

Making Canada work for all

By
Daniel Wilson
| May 3, 2013

Warnings have come from business and Indigenous leaders, from ordinary citizens and official institutions, from across the country and the political spectrum.  Canada is at a turning point in its relationship with Indigenous peoples. 

While the Harper government remains stubbornly in denial of Indigenous rights, committed to provoking confrontation and unable or unwilling to change, industry is becoming increasingly nervous about the threat that situation presents to natural resource development in Canada.  

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Karl Nerenberg

Read the Broadcasting Act! Explaining the CBC to Stephen Harper

By
Karl Nerenberg
| May 2, 2013

Are the Conservatives interfering with the CBC in a dangerous way -- or just seeing to it that salaries at crown corporations fall in line with those in the private sector?

One thing is certain: this government is definitely inserting itself into collective bargaining at the CBC, and at other crown corporations -- entities which, historically, have operated at arm's length from government.

The Conservatives are quite unabashed about this, and they are not fazed by the argument that this sort of interference has never happened before.

Predictably, Parliamentary Secretary (and Harper's current chief purveyor of anger), Pierre Poilievre, characterizes this Conservative initiative as taking on the "union bosses."

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Karl Nerenberg

Peter Kent refuses to correct Conservative MP's crackpot views on polar bears

By
Karl Nerenberg
| May 1, 2013

The story about the Yukon Conservative MP Ryan Leef's letter to a constituent saying that the polar bears of Canada are doing just fine thank you very much is now widely known.

Leef quoted so-called "research" by a marketing expert, an astronomer and an economist -- none of them Canadian, and climate change deniers all -- that showed there is nothing in the status of polar bears today to worry "decision-makers."

In addition, the Yukon MP claimed, without citing any scientific evidence, that the polar bear population has quadrupled over forty years.

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May Day 2013 in Canada: Solidarity against austerity

Just like last year, May Day in Ottawa will include a march on the Prime Minister's Office. (Photo: www.psac-afpc.com)

Related rabble.ca story:

Cause for celebration this May Day: Marginalized workers find new ways to get organized
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Canadian politics federal politics labour may day

Video: Full speech by Allan Gregg on the Harper government's Orwellian assault on reason

Full video of the speech by Allan Gregg to the convention of the Alberta Federation of Labour. Gregg, a former 'At Issue' political panelist on CBC's The National, criticized the "assault on reason" by the current federal government: "I came here to talk to you about a troubling trend, an assault on reason that doesn't look like much different than the one described by George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984..." 

Video posted by the Alberta Federation of Labour. 

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Canadian politics Allan Gregg Stephen Harper federal politics politics in Canada
Elizabeth May

Elizabeth May: Why I voted against the NDP climate motion

By
Elizabeth May
| April 30, 2013

Goodness knows, I wish the NDP had put forward a motion I could have voted for. We need a good debate on climate and we need a strong call for government action. But, I couldn't vote for that motion.

Here's the text of the motion:

That this House:

1. agree with many Canadians and the International Energy Agency that there is grave concern with the impacts of a 2 degree rise in global average temperatures;

2. condemn the lack of effective action by successive federal governments since 1998 to address emissions and meet our Kyoto commitments; and

3. call on the government to immediately table its federal climate change adaptation plan.

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politics

Scrap the cuts: Changes to EI drive down wages for all

In the current economy, we are told, it is unlikely that you will make it through your life without being laid-off and have to search for a new job. In fact, we are told that this will actually happen more than once or twice, it will be a rather regular.

The reason for this is not that we are all bad workers, but rather because that the nature of capitalism. The economic system imposed on us has brought with it a reduction in secure employment and a massive increase in precarious work.

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Canadian politics CommonCauses cupe EI federal politics labour labour movement politics in Canada
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