Institutionalized Graft Part II

I’m not an accountant but I can’t believe that the cost of constructing a $5 billion bridge can be done without cost to the taxpayers. Where will the initial capital come from? Who will pay for the design, materials, salaries, equipment etc? The Tories have stated that an initially two-dollar toll will be collected and that will pay off the bridge “without cost to the taxpayer”…

SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, C11 and all the other letters and numbers they can throw at us be damned! The Net’s Not Gonna Change

To paraphrase Micheal Corleone’s only noteable line in Godfather III: “Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in!” I had to paraphrase it because I wouldn’t dare embed the YouTube clip these days and am even a little skittish about a direct quote from such a heavily copyrighted film. Yes, we all know that SOPA and PIPA got shelved in the US, thanks in large part to sites like Wikipedia going dark for a day and showing everyone just what a heavily censored and regulated internet might be like. But that doesn’t mean they’re done for good…

Harper Kowtowing to US War on Drugs With Crime Bill

Why can’t this country do what so many others in the civilized world (i.e. California, Belgium, Holland, etc.) have done and stop this senseless and costly persecution of otherwise law abiding and tax-paying citizens for indulging in the odd puff of mother nature’s finest? Allow me to illustrate my personal crackpot conspiracy theory in the matter, by way of an analogy with the struggle of Canadian women for the right to choose an abortion…

The good, the bad and the ugly: The Trials of 2011 in Retrospect

I know that these year in review columns, annoying though they may be, are all the rage around New Years (apologies for the lateness). Also, that they remain a cheap way for hack journalists and bloggers to basically recycle the past years work while, at the same time, attempting to pass it off as new content. So, without further ado, here are my personal top Canadian legal highlights for the year 2011 (in no particular order)…

2011 Year-In-Review: News

With revolution in the streets from the Middle East to middle America, a major power shift in Ottawa and a smattering of other events that would have stolen the headlines in any other year, 2011 will be largely remembered as the year that got the ball rolling for the future, good or bad…

Quiet Mike’s Year in Review

I figured, what better way to celebrate the Holidays than with a look back at the year that was with a little humour. I hope you all enjoy!
Have a Merry Christmas, A Happy New Year, A Happy Hanukkah, A kick-ass Kwanzaa and to my Atheist friends, have a beautiful… ordinary day!

From Ottawa With Love: A Radio-Friendly NDP Leadership Debate

Since the Kennedy-Nixon debates of the 60s, politics have been almost all about what the candidates look like, and how they hold themselves on camera. Sure, what they have to say…

BC Supreme Court draws line on freedom of religion when it comes to polygamy

The provincial government of British Columbia basically posed the following question to the court: Is section 293 of the criminal code, which prohibits polygamy.
Liberals always seem to squirm a little bit when questions of religious freedom come into conflict with other rights that they cherish (i.e. gender equality), the way they did last week when the British Colombia Supreme Court handed down its epic reference on the legality of polygamy in Canada. I suppose the situation is bound to cause…

Enigmatic Zeitgeist: A reflection on the Occupy Movement

I feel we’re not that different you and I, at least I hope not. We’re both here, so there must be something that unites us. And even if it is difficult to pinpoint what precisely brought us here, perhaps that’s only an indication of just how grave the situation truly is. A uniting force we can’t yet properly define is braiding together diverse yet inter-related interests into a solid bond. And yet, all I can see for the moment are individual fibres, weak, limp, useless by themselves. I’ve been reflecting. Haven’t come up with much – nothing but an endless series of questions whose answers elude me…

New Canadian Surveillance Bill Recipe for Government Abuse of Power

When Harper’s anti-terrorism czar Vic Toews tells Canadians that they should trust their government not to abuse the new set of Orwellian measures that he is proposing with his online surveillance bill, you know it’s time to sound the alarm! In much the same way the Government deliberately stokes hysteria over terrorist threats to legitimize the re-enactment of the invasive clauses of the Anti-Terrorism Act, by claiming falsely…

Vengeance First: the Ominous Omnibus is at the Gates

The Conservative government is about to take yet another step to the right of their American cousins. Bill C-10, the ominous Omnibus bill now tumbling down the pipeline is a mish-mash of nine unrelated bills that form the centrepiece of the Conservative’s fear based “Law and Order” agenda. The American style bill would increase incarceration rates by adding new and longer sentences for drug related crimes, increasing mandatory…

An Ironic Coup: Omnibus Bill Uniting the Opposition

If there’s one thing I love, its getting caught off-guard and surprised, especially when it comes to Canadian politics, which I generally find infuriating, pedantic and riddled with pseudo-scandals. The events of the past couple weeks, instigated by the Québec justice minister and subsequently supported by the Premiers of Ontario and British Columbia with regards to the Tory ‘omnibus crime bill’…

Ethical Oil, Part Two: The Trade

In part one, I introduced everyone to Alykhan Velshi and Zoe; two ideological zealots engaged in a war of words over the nature of Canadian oil production.

Velshi is the captain of the good ship Ethical Oil and Zoe is, of course, Ezra Levant’s fictitious and quintessential environmentalist.

So, not happy with having such an important debate boiled down to a never-ending back-and-forth of pontificating and self-righteousness, I wanted to know where our oil actually comes from.

Our underlying issue is one of supply and demand: Canadians are demanding oil, and we’re supplying it to…

Ethical Oil: Part One, The Debate

It’s not easy being green. Yet, somehow, I think Alykhan Velshi gets along okay. The self-styled social justice activist has made it his altruistic goal to ensure that every man, woman and child in the world is burning only the most sin-free petroleum. Velshi has grabbed the banner of Ethical Oil, taking inspiration from the book of the same title written by tarsands troubadour Ezra Levant. The 27 year-old former aide to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is out to convince the country…

Justice Moldaver: An Injustice Waiting To Happen

When is Canada going to learn what Québec already seems to understand: that Harper and his Tories were never really serious about ensuring that recognition of Québec as a nation ever become more than a bone one throws at the proverbial dog that you otherwise ignore. After appointing a unilingual Anglo judge and Attorney General (Judge Moldaver & Michael Ferguson, respectively), it’s now blatantly obvious that the PM is thumbing his nose at official bilingualism, an institution that not only directly affects Québec but also the 1 million, francophone’s scattered throughout the country…

Institutionalized Graft Part I

Let me get this straight. Tories do not favour so-called socialist state-economic planning??? That said, we’re in the midst of a global economic depression and Canada must find ways to stimulate its own economy in order to survive. Ergo, the federal government must set an economic policy in place that allows core industries to continue operations while further providing stimulus to at-risk industries. As it so happens, the Tories have decided…