By Alison@Creekside Who didn’t see this coming? CP: Statistics Canada is cutting five of its surveys after being told by the federal government to chop its budget by $7 million. The surveys include environmental and business statistics, and are in addition to other belt-tightening at the troubled agency. As Pogge blogged back in July: “Harper […]
Canadian politics
The Librocons’ favoured tax haven
By Alison@Creekside A week ago Stephen Harper pledged to go after some 1,800 Canadian foreign bank accounts in Switzerland in a crackdown on off-shore tax evasion, amounting to an estimated $1 billion in lost federal tax revenues. The Cons — tough on white collar crime. Meanwhile back in the House, Lib and Con MPs are […]
Libs go AWOL on own war resisters bill
By Alison@Creekside For want of just eight more votes, Bill C-440 — the war resisters bill to give protection to US Iraq war deserters — went down to defeat on Wednesday 136 to 143. The following 18 Libs expedited that defeat by going awol on the vote: Michael Ignatieff, Jean-Claude D’Amours, Ruby Dhalla, Kirsty Duncan, […]
Marc Emery’s unlikely ally
By Alison@Creekside In a guest column in the Seattle Times on Friday, the former US attorney who indicted Marc Emery in 2005 for selling pot seeds over the internet wrote: “The U.S. war against marijuana has failed and actually threatens public safety and rests on false medical assumptions. Our marijuana policy is dangerous and wrong […]
Oil sands science seeps out
By Alison@Creekside Remember that two year Environment Committee study on the tarsands that was ultimately shredded because the four parties at the table couldn’t agree on the wording of the witnesses’s testimony? The Lib members of that committee have now released their own report on the testimony and, as Andrew Nikiforuk reports at The Tyee, […]
Canada: Please stop annoying Steve.
By Alison@Creekside “They don’t bother us. It’s just that they are annoying,” a “senior Conservative official” told the G&M’s Dear Jane yesterday about the public’s uproar in reaction to the Cons’ scrapping of the compulsory long-form census. “Census freedom,” this same anonymous Conbot amusingly called it. Apparently we the public are “annoying” to Steve now. […]
Airshow Mackay and the Red Barons
By Alison@Creekside Frankly I don’t think we can be expected to write a whole new blogpost every time Flying Ace “Airshow MacKay” and his trusty sidekick Woodstock Kory climb up on top of the Con doghouse to fight off the Red Baron yet again in the Arctic, so this time we’re just going with what […]
Munir Sheikh, StatsCan Jedi
By Alison@Creekside Munir Sheikh, head of Statistics Canada, in his resignation letter (which has already been removed from the StatsCan website): “I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue which has become the subject of media discussion. This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a […]
A G20 public inquiry? Not at this rate.
By Alison@Creekside A special meeting of the Public Safety and National Security Committee was held Monday, “Requested by Four (4) Members of the Committee to Undertake a Study of the Issues Surrounding Security at the G8 and G20 Summits.” Will there be a parliamentary study on G20 security issues? Well, first they had to agree […]
Has Richard Fadden styled himself after George Smiley?
These things don’t happen by accident. Related: Will Richard Fadden be McChrystaled?
