SEPTEMBER, 2018 – It was not supposed to be this way. Through most of 2015, Justin Trudeau was seen by many as a lightweight, a Hail Mary throwback to the era of Trudeau the elder, trying to salvage a party that had been pushed into third place in the 2011 election. If any party was to challenge the Harper Tories, it would certainly be Thomas Mulcair’s New Democratic Party (NDP), building on the late Jack Layton’s breakthrough performance in the 2011 federal election, when the NDP became the official opposition—a breakthrough that came to be called the Orange Crush (a…
Comments closedTag: Tories
Alberta election – Party of Big Oil Defeats Party of Big Oil APRIL 30, 2012 – There was something absolutely wonderful about the failure of Wildrose to win the recent election in Alberta. The party is made up of a gaggle of mostly former conservatives – so extreme in their views that their party earned the nickname “Tea Party North”, and was touted by almost every polling agency to be headed for a convincing majority in the April 23 provincial election. But in the end, the pollsters were completely wrong, Wildrose winning only 17 seats and 34% of the vote…
Comments closedDECEMBER 5, 2008 – Stephen Harper won a seven week reprieve December 4, the Governor-General granting his request to prorogue Parliament until January 26. But the events of the past week have pushed him into a corner and he is fighting for his political life. The fight has revealed something many people already knew. Behind the fuzzy sweater donned during the last election, behind the “fireside chat” chumminess that he was trying to cultivate, behind this façade of polite civilized behaviour, there resides the same man who was cadre for the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance. That political formation built…
2 CommentsHere’s a nice thought for public education – let’s put automatic weapons into children’s hands, and let’s show them how to use them. Even better – let’s pay them $600 a week for the training. Sounds a bit wrong? Well, since 2006 it’s been the policy of the Toronto District Public School Board.[1] One other point – the students actually get credit for this, their placement with the military being done through the Army Reserve Cooperative Education Program. A similar program existed in the 1990s, but was terminated in 2002. In this earlier program, when placed with the military as…
Comments closedThe Mulroney-Schreiber affair has brought the little Central Asian country of Chechnya back into the headlines. Mulroney’s very bizarre defence for acting as Schreiber’s paid salesman, includes a reference to peddling military vehicles to Russia for use in “peacekeeping” in Chechnya. In this context, it is useful to look in some detail at the situation in Chechnya. The article posted here, makes the case that Russia’s oppression of Chechnya is a classic example of Great Power Imperialism. There is nothing remotely resembling “peacekeeping” in its actions there. This article (slightly revised with updated references) was originally written in February 2000.…
Comments closedMy daughter was born in 1988, the year of the second Mulroney majority election victory. Growing up as she did under the man who was ultimately to become one of the most hated prime ministers in history, it made absolute sense to her when we gave her a stuffed doll, with the Tory’s face on it, and the label “Lyin’ Brian” on the back. She and her friends got hours of pleasure from the little Tory doll. The doll would come in handy now, a generation later. Mulroney is today very publicly involved in an embarrassing dispute with international arms…
Comments closedJUNE 18, 1996 – June 24, thousands of workers from the Peterborough area will bring much of the area’s economy to a halt. Peterborough will be the fourth Ontario city in six months to be brought to a halt by a one-day general strike. Organizers expect most municipal services to be shut down. Early morning pickets will be thrown up to shut down the locks. Thousands of supporters will come in from cities in the province. It will be the largest protest ever seen in the area. And now we have an opportunity to move from city-wide actions to a…
Comments closedAPRIL 1, 1996 – A planned Toronto fund-raising party for the five-week old Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) strike last Saturday, turned into a celebration. The 500 strikers and supporters who turned out at the Music Hall were there to celebrate the solidarity which had forced the Tories to back down. The tentative agreement, reached hours before, had been ratified by an overwhelming 95% of the OPSEU members who voted.[1] On the Monday, contingents of strikers formed up outside their workplaces, marching into work as a bloc with their heads held high. This was not the outcome the Tories…
Comments closedMARCH 4, 1996 –If day one of the Hamilton Days of Action was a smash success, day two, Saturday February 24, was awe-inspiring. Organizers anticipated an anti-Tory demonstration of between 50,000 and 70,000.[1] Either figure would have made it the largest ever anti-Harris demonstration in Ontario. Wayne Marston, president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council, wouldn’t predict a number, except to say that it would be “broader” than the events in London.[2] By the end of the day, somewhere between 100,000 and 120,000 had tramped through the mud and streets of an eerily quiet downtown Hamilton to vent their…
Comments closedJUNE 12, 1995 – A horror movie has opened at Queen’s Park in Toronto. We’ll call it Return of the Living Dead. Its star is an impostor. He claims to be Mike Harris. We have actually uncovered that Mike Harris does not exist. He has been exposed as a monster we thought we had gotten rid of a few years ago. Mike Harris is – Brian Mulroney. We think. There is also a case to be made that the monster is in fact a disguised Preston Manning. The case for him being Manning is strong indeed. Just like Manning, he…
Comments closed