Editorial, John Deverell, Catch 22 central team

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As Elizabeth May knows, the standard for “free and fair” elections in Canada is low.

In Canada about one million supporters of her party – one in 12 voters – can mark their ballots for Green Party candidates without electing a single member of Parliament. Their fair representation, if all citizens were equal, would be 24 Members of Parliament.

Canadian citizens…

In an election which could produce a Stephen Harper phony majority, or a Groundhog Day, citizens of Edmonton-Strathcona are setting an example for the entire country. 

The district is the only one of 28 in Alberta not held by the Harper Conservatives. The New Democrat MP, Linda Duncan, edged Conservative Rahim Jaffer by a whisker in 2008. She had multi-partisan support then, and again this time she’ll need every Green and Liberal vote she can round up to beat the energetic and focused…

Editorial by John Deverell, Catch 22 team

 Stephen Harper, you are either remarkably inventive or arithmetically challenged.  You want a majority government and you’ll happily accept it, without majority popular support, as “the will of the people.

If you’re held to a Parliamentary minority, as you were in 2006 and 2008—you’ll trumpet that too as the automatic right to govern,  “a democratic mandate.” If the majority of MPs in the next Parliament somehow…

Murray Dobbin is a member of the Catch 22 team. While Harper has cried the loudest that he doesn't want an election, is actions show the opposite.

Layton pulls the plug on Harper…

MPs' report finds government in contempt

The Conservative government should be found in contempt of Parliament, a committee of MPs decided Monday.

The procedure and house affairs committee began meeting early Monday morning to debate and finalize a draft report that had been prepared over the weekend following two days of hearings last week. The committee…

Gary Shaul, Catch 22 campaign

Stephen Harper claims that Canadians only care about the economy. He decries any criticism of his government as nothing more than a form of partisan hooliganism meant to sully his government's reputation and defeat him in the next election. If Canadians only care about the bread and butter issues, then why is Harper stepping up the personal attacks on Liberal Party of Canada leader Michael Ignatieff and his family? …

Gary Shaul, Catch 22 campaign

Amid all the self-congratulatory hype that the Harperites bestow on themselves as good fiscal managers, the Pembina Institute has released Reducing Pollution, Creating Jobs, a new report that confirms just the opposite.

Brits fund a report that shows weakness in Canada’s…

In a rare show of partisan unity and unanimity, the governing Conservatives and all three opposition parties are supporting Canada's participation in the UN Security Council no-fly zone operation in Libya. Canada has deployed 6 fighter jets.

Harper heads to Paris meeting on Libya

Harper announced Friday morning his government authorized the deployment to support…

While many signs seem to be pointing toward an election, a number of different factors will determine the actions of the parties. Pundit's Guide has an excellent post on the yin and the yang of election cycles, particularly in a minority government situation. This is well worth reading.

Election Cycles and Timing the Political Market

Many observers…

MPs weigh contempt charges against Harper government

Facing the possibility of being defeated as early as next week, the Tories are eager to disprove accusations by rivals that they are autocratic and undemocratic for withholding information. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Justice Minister Rob…

Transparency? We think not. We already know about "redacted" documents released by the federal "Harper" government. While there's an official Freedom of Information Office that…

Even some former HarperCons are saying it. Inky Mark did so most recently in a letter to the editor to several Manitoba newspapers.

Akin: Former Tory MP says his party is anti-democratic

Dear Editor:



Re: No Democracy in Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette



The Conservative Party nomination process again is a sham.  There was no real open nomination  to elect a…

For the past 5 years, the Harper government has been whittling away at the fabric of the country. Every week, we hear about another person fired or another group who's had their funding cut. Of course, cuts are not universal. Some, like large corporations in energy, banking and the arms industry have made off like bandits with billions of dollars in tax cuts and subsidies.

The following list was compiled by Judith Szabo and by Pearl Eliadis for Voices, a coalition of organizations and…

On February 24, four senior Conservative Party leaders were charged under the Elections Act with a number of violations related to the "in and out" imbroglio related to the 2006 elections. Could criminal charges for forging invoices also be laid again the Cons?

Elections…

Cross-posted from Murray Dobbin's blog

     What has happened to this country? Stephen Harper seems able to carry out the most outrageous acts, week in, week out, and there seems to be barely any consequence. From the breaking the law and lying about it (dismissing charges laid on the election financing case as all about accounting), to publicly condoning (and almost certainly ordering) Bev Oda’s…

Just noticed a suggestion from a reader of my rabble.ca blog.

Use numbers that are meaningful to families.  For example, if one takes a family of four,

• the G20 weekend cost $114
• Fighter jets will cost each family…

When will it end? Here's a Con ad doubling as a "Minister's Award of Excellence" from Jason Kenney. It was given to  to an Ottawa resto in 2008. Notice that the Con logo is larger than the emblems of any of the provinces and even the House of Commons. Impolitical has got the story. How many more of these ads, er, awards, are hanging in "ethnic" restaurants across the…

A couple of good articles today that list the Harper regime's undemocratic indignities. Lawrence Martin argues that the Harperites have already surpassed anything that the Liberals did when they were in power. He suggests that sooner or later, the chickens will come home to roost and Canadians will turf them out on their butts.

On the road…

Today is International Women's Day. This is the 100th anniversary of IWD which is a recognition and celebration of the accomplishments of women as well as an opportunity to take stock of the challenges that lie ahead.

Author and social change activist Judy Rebick gives a brief history of IWD in Canada and internationally.

Feminism’s many…