Category: politics
Kalev brought this video to my attention: I find this video remarkable candid. Clark admits that when she was a politician, she voted against — and campaigned against — the Single Transferrable Vote (BC-STV) in the last referendum because the old system — First-Past-The-Post — served her interests as a politician, not because it served […]
Spent the evening going on a lovely walk with some fellow bloggers and some peeps from the BC Healthy Living Alliance (BCHLA). It was a really neat idea – with an eye to the upcoming provincial election, the BCHLA hosted a blogger walk in their neighbourhood, where they pointed out some features in the ‘hood […]
So along with our provincial election, we are having a vote on changing the way in which we elect our provincial politicians. Currently we use a first-past-the-post system – there are a bunch of candidates in your area (called a “riding”), you vote for one and then the candidate with the most votes wins the […]
NDP could win big if voters catch Canucks fever And speaking of the election, I’ve now seen a few lawn signs popping up. Unfortunately, since I live in the riding of an incumbent, who happens to be a Cabinet minister and it happens to be a pretty well-to-do riding1, so I don’t really have a […]
With the BC provincial election just more than a month away, there’s been surprisingly little said about it. I haven’t heard much in the news, I haven’t seen a single lawn sign and I don’t yet even know the names of the candidates in my riding1. So it was very much to my surprise when […]
… just like cancer or heart disease and it should be treated as such. So says the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA), who are calling on the provincial government to recognize that addiction is a chronic disease and that it should be funded as such, as reported in a Vancouver Sun cover story today. After […]
The Mental Health Commission of Canada is consulting with the public in order to set goals to guide a Mental Health Strategy for Canada: Canada is the only G8 country without a mental health strategy. The Mental Health Commission of Canada has been given the responsibility to work with Canadians to address this gap. The […]
Just listened to President Obama’s inaugural address. I didn’t get to watch it live because the class I’m teaching is from 8:00-9:30 a.m1. Pacific Time. It only occurred to me very early this morning that when they said the inauguration was at 11:30 a.m., they didn’t mean Pacific Time2. And that I’d still be teaching […]
This is why I’ve spent so much time lately explaining to dozens of people what a “constitional monarchy” and a “Parliamentary democracy” are. A recent survey shows that: Canadians don’t understand political system: survey Only 24% of those surveyed knew that the Queen of England is Canada’s head of state (not the Prime Minister and […]
… could we possibly have a new entry in my Prime Ministerial series soon? You would think, given that we had an election just over 6 weeks ago, that such a thing would be very unlikely. But, according to the Globe & Mail1, we might be getting one sooner than you think. Opposition parties are […]