If you don’t want people pouring sewage on your lawn, if you don’t want people dumping carbon into the air, the answer is the same. You either force them to stop, or make them pay for the cleanup.
The Carbon Tax
Free Speech
They can speak, but if you raise your voice in criticism, you are the one blocking free speech. Because the first principle of free speech under this sort of regime is that ‘you do not speak back to power’. Especially if they are questioning your right to exist.
What Justin Trudeau Should Do
Trudeau should say that he appreciates the presence of strong caucus members and ministers, that they serve a valuable purpose in correcting mistakes, and that the fact that he ultimately left the decision up to Wilson-Raybould is proof of this.
SNC-Lavalin
We should do business properly and ethically in Canada. That means penalizing companies that perpetuate shady business practices. Because companies that get away with bribing officials in Libya won’t think twice about doing the same in Canada.
Groundhogs
I don’t want to sound like a crank, but, why on earth are we depending on groundhogs this day every year to tell us whether we will have more winter?
Andrew Scheer
Scheer is taking the unthinking and irresponsible route in an effort to attract attention and gain media clicks. In doing so he is debasing not only his own party but conservatism in Canada in general.
Brexit
What does matter is that they get the vote right. Run it cleanly. Ensure there isn’t a nest of Russian trolls, or an Australian media troll, with a thumb on the scales. Make a vote with open eyes and a fair count.
The Plant
As a part of a progressive industrial policy, we should be looking to convert Canadian production from an industrial model to a cooperative model, from a model based on wealth and power to one based on community and consensus.
The Pipeline
we don’t actually have a strategy that takes environmental stewardship seriously. We have, at best, a strategy based on a hope that market forces (along with carbon pricing) will fix this on their own. Oh, they may fix it, but what we know about the market is that it doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process.
CEO Freedom Day
Sure, taxes raise money for the provision of common services, but this is something we’d need to do no matter what. The main beneficial effect of taxes is to limit the gap between rich and poor, to ensure that we don’t reach unsustainable levels of inequality.