EI reform
EI 'reform' and Harper's election strategy in Atlantic Canada
The triumphal Harper plan -- trash the public sector and all its (Liberal) works, and let the oilsands economy pick up the slack while transforming Canada into a right-wing energy superpower -- is on the skids. The polls are reflecting it in the prime minister's and his party's slipping public confidence ratings. The Harper showpiece, the budget, is full of non-specifics and shoes-yet-to-drop and merely raises new questions. The real point now, I suggest, is how much damage is yet to be done by this government before its number is finally up in a couple of years.
Atlantic Canada's perilous future in the face of a hostile federal government
Budget time is approaching in Nova Scotia, as elsewhere. Not just any budget time, but that special variety that precedes an election (this fall, I'd guess). You can usually tell by the tension in the media/political complex. The government is preparing for the buckets of vitriol that will fall on its head when it announces that it can't balance the budget this year as promised, and there's a howl over a $27-million accounting error in last year's budget.
Harper gets failing grade
It's report card season and workers are giving Harper a failing grade. Ignatieff is also getting poor marks for a deal with the PM on EI reform. (Photo: http://canadianlabour.ca/)