Richard Martineau
Vous vous souvenez des Plouffe ?
Il y avait Guillaume, le cancre débrouillard qui avait les deux pieds sur terre. Et Ovide, l'intellectuel ridicule qui avait les deux pieds dans la même bottine.
Eh bien, on a beau avoir troqué la Grande Noirceur pour l'économie du savoir, l'éducation est toujours mal perçue.
Il n'y a toujours pas de place pour les Ovide Plouffe du monde entier.
Vous parlez bien ? On vous traite de maudit Français qui pète plus haut que le trou.
Vous préférez la bibliothèque au gym? On vous harcèle dans la cour d'école.
Rick Bell on the anti-Bush protest in Calgary.
Two guys, one against and one for the former president, chinwag so vigorously it looks like someone will take it on the beak.
A cop tries to calm them. They defend themselves. He yelled first. No, he did.
"Look. I get yelled at all the time," says the police officer. One individual pipes up: "What, are you married?"
All right, protests have their funny side.
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"When we privatized liquor stores there was a bigger protest." Yes, in Edmonton.
James Travers believes that the childishness of Iggy, Harper and the rest of the partisan hacks is going to be a major reason recovery takes so long in Canada. Which is disappointing because:
Minority governments have in the past risen to pressing occasions. But, barring a surprise change of course, this one will miss the opportunity that comes with every crisis. Rather than peer farther ahead than the next election, rather than test the country's strength and will, those who flatter themselves as leaders are content mucking in the political margins while Canada is dragged along by what is self-evidently an economic revolution.
Andrew Hanon on the white pride rallies in Calgary.
But a U of A sociologist is warning that while hate groups are relatively small and inactive, the tanking economy could drive more people to them.
"We've got an economic downturn and the banks are at the centre of that," said Steve Kent. "And conspiratorialists are going to blame Jews. And of course, white racists are upset about Obama's (U.S.) presidency, and he's bailing out high finance."
Lawrence Martin: The failure of the media is Canada is their own fault for becoming biased, right-wing claptrap
Canadian journalism moved to the right of the population. In the United States, Fox News and the like-minded encouraged a climate in which Wall Street and the Pentagon ran rampant. And now, after the Bush nightmare and Iraq, there's the market convulsions and AIG that should have the Fox breed running away from every mirror in sight. We could be at the tipping point wherein a counterculture wave rolls in. More courage and daring and Jon Stewart-type outrage is in order - new rogues of journalism to set us straight. From those corporate owners who sought to impose their bias, the media need regain its independence.
Canadian journalism hasn't been caught off guard to the American degree. But through much of the Republican wreckage of the past eight years, we were well short of impressive. As George W. Bush brought down his country and, by extension, damaged this country's interests, our journalistic voices were tame in charting his folly. Those who tried to hit hard had to listen to sophomoric garbage about being "anti-American." Of course, telling the truth about the Bush administration was about the most pro-American thing anyone could do.
No better moment summed up our wimpishness than when a cabinet minister had the courage to suggest that Mr. Bush was a failed statesman. Our media practically had a colonial conniption. The minister was pilloried. How dare he say that about George?
Greg Weston
Indeed, the feisty budget officer has taken to complaining publicly that his operations are being starved for cash and his office lacks the necessary independence enjoyed by the auditor general and other officers of Parliament. Instead, he is beholden to the parliamentary library, one of the most controversy-averse branches of the entire government.
At a time when the state of the nation is a tangle of contradiction and political spin, Harper owes it to Canadians to give Page what he needs do the job, even if the truth occasionally stinks up the picnic.
Otherwise, the Conservatives' pledge to accountability is as hollow as their budget projections.
Margaret Wente wishes the Toronto municipal government would find something more important to work on then ensuring street food is "diverse enough."
Rick Bell: More than $115 million in bonuses from taxpayers' money? during a recession? AIG? No, APCG (Alberta's Progressive Conservative Government.)
Meanwhile, under the legislature dome in Edmonton, the premier and his Tory buddies have the gall to flap their gums about the need to tighten the belt and tell us about how they're burning the midnight oil eyeballing the budget line by line and how this coming year they will have to spend savings to make the books balance.
Now we see these bonuses, $110 million-plus over the last three years.
This year the bonus bucks are set at $40 million while senior snivel servant salaries with those extra dollars... well, in recent years, the individual with the fancy-pants title of deputy minister of executive council has gone from $301,000 a year to $376,000 to $401,000 to $460,000.
Nice work if you can get it. Don't bother. And how do we find out about this bonus bonanza? You'd be right if you guessed the Tories didn't stage a spin doctor extravaganza to roll out the barrel.
Haroon Siddiqui:
Canada used to have a more balanced view than the United States of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now both the Conservative government and the Liberal opposition are competing to see who can be more pro-Israel. That's their right. They will reap their reward or take their lumps in the next election.
But equally clearly, their narrative is divorced from the reality of the conflict: the reality of how most of the world, including human rights organizations, views what Israel did in Gaza, and the emerging reality of a policy shift in Europe and even the U.S.
The Tory-Liberal position is also out of tune with Canadians in general and a grassroots movement in particular, including an increasingly vocal minority of Jewish Canadians, against Israeli excesses.
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Israel's rating: on average, 21 per cent positive, 51 per cent negative. In Canada, the breakdown in attitudes toward Israel was 28 per cent positive, 52 per cent negative.
And that was before Gaza.