Friday Afternoon Links

To help pass the time until the event apparently taking place at midnight.

- Aaron Wherry's year-end column is well worth a read in general. But it's particularly worth highlighting this piece:

(F)rom the far end of the room, often this year there was Mr. Harris and his gruff Newfoundland brogue (or perhaps it’s more of a twang). Here sometimes seemed a man who would set his teeth into your pant leg and not let go. That he and (the NDP) refused to go along with the negotiated agreement that followed the Speaker’s ruling and that they now pursue the participants from the outside is perhaps the only reason to believe the process will come to anything. Surely, if only to avoid proving them right, the Liberals and Bloc will be compelled to carry out their duties. Such is democracy. Or so we can hope.

Not that there's been much reason for optimism yet, mind you...

- LRT has some ideas on how an effort to offer big political choices rather than the usual microtargeted minutiae could result in much-needed change.

- Kelly McParland nicely illustrates why it's a sucker's bet for a self-identified progressive party to go out of its way to try to please the corporate sector. After a year where the McGuinty government gave business billions in free money by both slashing corporate tax rates and implementing the HST which exempts it from paying consumption taxes, it's treated to this from somebody who would seemingly agree entirely with its direction:

(W)e would settle for an incremental change: If Mr. McGuinty merely ceased forcing the province's corporations to pay for his grandiose ideas, Ontario might once again attract the investment it needs to be the engine of our economic growth.

- And finally, now's the time to get in one last donation in 2010.

Well done

Not surprisingly, I'll join the chorus offering kudos to the members of all three opposition parties for acting on the Cons' blatant violations of Parliamentary privilege. It's worth keeping in mind that the contempt motions are just the start of the process, and indeed the more important question is the willingness of the entire House of Commons to back up the motions presented today - but this morning's events made for a necessary step in actually preserving some semblance of Parliamentary supremacy.

The reviews are in

Norman Spector (!):

Perusing reports of Janine Krieber’s anti-Ignatieff missile, er missive, this morning, I notice a discrepancy in the English- and French-language coverage.

In La Presse, we read that Stéphane Dion’s wife may be thinking about joining the NDP — a point that Chantal Hébert also makes on her L'actualité blog . In English, there’s no mention of what would be a rather startling development should it come to pass.
...
The more likely explanation for the discrepancy in the coverage is the longstanding tendency of the media to give short shrift to the NDP — a tendency that is less and less evident in Québec.
...
Let’s be frank: Whether you agree with them or not, the NDP has been consistent in its opposition to the Afghanistan war — even after the 9/11 attacks, when it was not easy to take this position. And it was also noticeable, last week, that the NDP was the first party in Ottawa to call for a public hearing into Mr. Colvin’s allegations — a bandwagon that the other opposition parties quickly jumped on to.

One of the NDP spokespersons, Paul Dewar, radiates sincerity on the issue — as opposed to the faux outrage one normally sees on our television screens coming from Ottawa. And, in Jack Harris, the Dippers appear to have an MP who can match Bob Rae in competence.

So let’s give credit where credit is due. And, with the NDP riding high in the polls and even outscoring the Liberals in the Hochelaga by-election, isn’t it also time for the media to take the party more seriously and give them a bit more coverage?