- Marc Lee writes that British Columbia has learned nothing about the dangers of staple economics. But Christy Clark has certainly learned something from her predecessor's playbook: one term after Gordon Campbell's promise not to impose an HST fell by the wayside immediately after he'd secured another four years in office, Clark is abandoning her supposed concern for the environment in order to facilitate wholesale shipment of oil products by pipeline, rail and tanker.
- Meanwhile, Dallas MacQuarrie discusses the heavy-handed RCMP response to peaceful protestors challenging fracking on First Nations land in Rexton, New Brunswick.
-Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on the Cons' continued delays in presenting election legislation. But while Craig Scott is concerned about the possibility the Cons won't present anything that can be implemented in time for 2015, I'd be even more worried about the risk they'll offer up yet another agenda of three parts voter suppression and one part Senate posturing (with precisely zero extra authority or resources for Elections Canada) - then ram it through without debate or amendments by claiming it's too late for thoughtful discussion.
- Scott Sinclair asks and answers ten key questions about the CETA.
- Finally, Marina Adshade observes that a lack of child care combined with a need for two breadwinners per family results in limited choice for actual and potential parents - and that in the absence of that choice, more and more middle-class women are rationally deciding to have fewer and fewer children:
The relationship between family size and the cost of child care is now starting to show up in the data in another, surprising way.
In recent history, family size was negatively correlated with income. The lowest-earning households had the most children and the highest-earning household had the fewest.
But today, specifically among women in the cohort now in their early 40s, those living in households with income above $150,000 had an average of 2.1 children. That’s more children than women in any other income group, and significantly more than women in middle-income households, who raised an average of 1.8 children.
To me, this is the long-run implication of not having access to affordable daycare. In this economic environment, having large families is a luxury to be afforded only by high-income households, which either can afford childcare or don’t require two parents in the workforce, and low-income households, which are more likely to include family members who aren’t working.
I suppose it is difficult to blame them (politicians) for such hypocrisy when they get reelected with a comfortable majority after years of lying. My dark side wants to say that the people of BC deserve whatever they get.
ReplyDeleteSo does mine. Sure, Dix ran a lousy campaign, but really, so bloody what? After all these years of the Liberals mucking everything up and lying their heads off, a sane electorate would have grabbed any plausible lifeline even if he wasn't reminding them of all the stuff they should have known already.
DeleteInstead they elected a hairdo with a corporate mouthpiece underneath. Nice going, my fellow British Columbians.
Mr. Poilievre appears to have decided to play a chess game against a formidable team whose members can easily defeat him. My prediction is that Mr. Poilievre will wait until he is one move away from being checkmated, sweep the pieces from the board and stomp out of the room. Thus ensuring that electoral reform will not take place before the next election. That could be, in fact, his Cabinet assignment.
ReplyDeleteThat could well be the case. But I'm skeptical about trusting the Cons to merely preserve the status quo when they can actively tilt the system in their favour - and they may have an opportunity to do that if the opposition demands action of some sort without a clear enough statement as to what needs to be done to clean up the electoral system.
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