Democracy: Vox Populi

10/10/2019

These are some really phenomenal numbers. To have a net approval rating of +27% (up 50 points since the election was called) is not something that I can ever recall seeing. Singh really has caught fire.

"Jagmeet Singh’s “job approval” rating continues to increase and is literally “soaring”, like we have never seen before. Singh has gone from 22% (job approval) in early September to 33% in early October and since the English Leaders’ debate, has soared up to 49%. Elizabeth May has also seen a slight increase from 39% to 41% while Justin Trudeau is steady at 31%. Andrew Scheer is down 2% and now at 27%.

"Singh’s “job disapproval” has dropped, yet again, to 22% and his net “job approval” rating is an incredible +27. This is up from -13% (a net gain of 50 points from early September). This is great news for Singh and the NDP heading into the last 10 days of the campaign. Singh enjoys positive “job approval” ratings from both men and women and across all age categories." - Nick Kouvalis

Campaign Research has conducted a national public opinion poll of 3,147 Canadians.  Last week, before the English Leaders’ debate we picked up on a signif

06/07/2019

"The author of a new report on the construction and maintenance of Nova Scotia’s public highways predicts the cost of an upcoming twinning project in northern Nova Scotia could run almost $120 million over government estimates.

"The report, which was authored by Christopher Majka for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), says that sharing the cost of the project with a private company — a procurement method known as a public-private partnership (P3) — would be to blame for the cost overrun." – Taryn Grant

A researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the government should swear off using public-private partnerships for highway infrastructure projects like the upcoming expansion of the 104.

06/04/2019

Those concerned with public accountability – and also Nova Scotia politics – may be interested in a report I have written for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives which was released today: "Highway Robbery: Public Private Partnerships and Nova Scotia Highways."

My analysis shows that procuring the Cobequid Pass highway as a P3 project – a Public-Private-Partnership – will cost Nova Scotians $232 million more than what it would have cost to deliver the same highway by employing conventional government procurement. All of the purported advantages of P3s are shown to be either non-existent or are as easily achieved by conventional government procurement.

This analysis is given greater salience given the fact that the province has announced its intention to construct the new Sutherland's River to Antigonish Highway 104 twinning as a P3 project. What are the lessons that have been learned from the Cobequid Pass highway? How can we avoid making the same costly mistakes? And what are the systemic shortcomings of P3s?

This report examines the Highway 104 Western Alignment highway, known as the Cobequid Pass Toll Highway. The report reveals that it cost $232 million more to build, finance, operate and maintain

11/09/2018

I am pleasantly surprised and delighted that the Chronicle Herald decided to run the piece.

I think it's important to provide a reasoned rebuttal of the "it's not going to do anything," or "it's a tax on everything," or "we can't afford to do this" fallacies that abound with respect to taking action on climate change. These are poorly-considered and poorly-reasoned myths that need to be stopped in their tracks.

Bill Black, in his Oct. 27 column, “Carbon-tax shell game won’t save the planet,” argues that exemptions in the regimen have “been heavily influenced by political and economic considerations.” That may be so, but

05/08/2018

This extract from “A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things” by Raj Patel and Jason W Moore is a spectacularly well-researched and cogently written examination of the intersection between deregulated corporate capitalism and the extractivist mindset of industrial agriculture, with a further understanding as to how climate change is upsetting this grotesque applecart.

This is a long read, but supremely worth the time. If anything makes clear just how essential it is that we create a new economic and political system it is this. Deregulated corporate capitalism, and the neoliberal ideology that supports it are literally destroying the world. Is this to be the legacy of humanity? We need to change and we need to implement it right now.

The long read: This is what happens when you turn the natural world into a profit-making machine

04/12/2018

On the heels of recent reports about the much higher forecasted deficit of the Halifax Convention Center, Nova Scotians and HRM residents who are interested in the issue may be interested in my interview this morning on CBC's Information Morning discussing the economic basis of the project (from the perspective of both the province and the municipality), what the problems and pitfalls for both are, why Convention Center is destined to lose money.

This is based on my 2010 report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, "Convention Centre in Nova Scotia: Economic Wellspring or Bottomless Pit?"

If I had had time (the interview ran six and a half minutes) to make one further point I would have added the following: When the decision to go ahead with this project was made in December, 2010 the principal advocates for it (in the public sector) were Darrell Dexter and three or four members of his cabinet; Peter Kelley and three or four members of city council; and, on the federal side, Peter McKay. Ever single one of those people who sang its praises so tunefully, have now left the political stage.

However, HRM and Nova Scotia citizens have not, and however this project may unfold they are left holding the bag. So, the fact that public officials come and go with such rapidity (and, of course, bear no further responsibility for the project once approved), speaks to the importance of getting such decisions right at the outset – and this of course, means evidence-based policy making rather than policy-based evidence making.

12/15/2017

"For every dollar corporations pay to the Canadian government in income tax, people pay $3.50. The proportion of the public budget funded by personal income taxes has never been greater." – Marco Chown Oved, Toby A.A. Heaps, & Michael Yow

Canada's biggest corporations are using complex techniques and tax loopholes to pay far less than the official corporate tax rate. A Toronto Star-Corporate Knights

12/13/2017

This is as brilliant and incisive an analysis of American history and politics as I have read in some time. Omar El Akkad dissects that metasticizing nightmare that is Donald Trump and the spineless and craven Republican party showing how the current political "civil war" represents deep veins in American history and ideology. In Akkad's words:

"The history of the United States hinges on the worth of a mission statement both laudable and demonstrably untrue: that here, all men are created equal. The statement requires of its believer a kind of blindness to the fact that the modern United States achieved its geographic and economic expansion on the wages of genocide and slavery and that the echoes of this history are not only still resonant but central."

If you read nothing else today, read this.

Doug Jones becomes first Democrat to win any statewide office in Alabama in decades after Moore’s campaign for Senate marred by sexual assault claims

12/12/2017

How energy intensive is the "mining" of Bitcoins (the highly-intensive computer process that "creates" new Bitcoins)? There are a number of technical complexities associated with answering that question but one recently published estimate by Digiconomist puts the current annual electricity consumption at 32.56 terawatt hours (TWh). As a basis of comparison in 2015 Denmark consumed 30.7 TWh of electricity.

How much of this electricity is generated from fossil fuels difficult to ascertain, but it's clear that this "mining" process to "generate" what is arguably the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time is fantastically energetically wasteful and ecologically harmful.

However while electricity remains cheap and so long as the hyper-inflating bubble of Bitcoin value continues to inflate, it is economically profitable to continue this activity. This is the "wisdom" brought to us by the deregulated capitalist marketplace.

Does the crypto-currency Bitcoin really use more electricity than Ireland?

12/11/2017

"Brexit; the crushing of democracy by billionaires; the next financial crash; a rogue US president: none of them keeps me awake at night. This is not because I don’t care – I care very much. It’s only because I have a bigger question on my mind. Where is all the food going to come from?

"When I say this keeps me up at night, I mean it. I am plagued by visions of starving people seeking to escape from grey wastes, being beaten back by armed police. I see the last rich ecosystems snuffed out, the last of the global megafauna – lions, elephants, whales and tuna – vanishing. And when I wake, I cannot assure myself that it was just a nightmare." – George Monbiot

The Earth cannot accommodate our need and greed for food. We must change our diet before it’s too late, writes Guardian columnist George Monbiot

11/07/2017

In my view, David Moscrop writing for McLeans has it precisely right:

"In a speech to the Canadian Science Policy Convention this week, the viceregal representative affirmed that climate change is real and caused by humans, that junk science is junk, and that we noble beasts are the product of a random, natural process. All of this checks out according to, well, the scientific method and generally accepted facts.

"For Canadians who are used to most of their Queen’s representatives contentedly milling about the country as if they were participants in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show – a long, if not unbroken, tradition – her remarks and her delivery of them may be unfamiliar and upsetting, especially those who adhere to a faith that features a divine creation story."

In my view, what every public figure – including the Governor General – has a duty to, is truth, fact, evidence, and reason. If her *tone* in delivering this message upsets people – well we need much more of this steadfastly truthful tone in our Canadian and global discourse.

Opinion: The Governor General caused a stir with comments about climate change, evolution and medicine. But it’s the tone, not the facts, that should rankle

06/19/2017

"Whether B.C. is back at the polls right away or even a few months from now, if the B.C. NDP and Greens are serious about implementing their ambitious agenda, they may need to set aside their tribalism on the campaign trail. Otherwise they risk putting Christy Clark right back in the driver’s seat — and ready for at least four more years of driving the province in the opposite direction." – Matt Price

Don’t think for a second that it’s Christy Clark’s nature to go quietly into the night. In response, the B.C. NDP and Greens may have no choice other than to forge a pact to work together in a snap election. During the press conference in which Christy Clark responded to the agreement between the BC...