Introducing Globe and Mail columnist and CTV host Jane Taber on a CBC panel today, Sunday Edition host Michael Enright said the following: She is often accused by Tories of being a Liberal, and by Liberals of being a Tory, which means she is doing her job. This canard is so common among journalists as to qualify as hackneyed. If both sides in a dispute criticize you, you much be striking the right balance. But there is an obvious alternative explanation: You could be doing such a crappy job that all sides find something to attack in your work. Let me be clear...

27 September, 2009

Jeffrey Simpson delivered a devastating smackdown of Michael Ignatieff yesterday. Money quote: The rhetoric infecting these speeches suggests wide differences and new ideas. Strip the rhetoric away, and the differences narrow and the search for interesting new ideas shrivels. No question, Ignatieff is, to this point, a bewildering disappointment on policy and leadership, but there's one thing missing from Simpson's analysis. The old saw about Liberal Party strategy says, "Campaign left, govern right." These days, just about everyone campaigns moderate, even the Conservatives. Stephen Harper's main contribution to his party's revived fortunes has been the strategic good sense to slip a robe...

24 September, 2009

Contrarian is pleased to report, after a recent sojourn in Bayfield, Antigonish County, that Jim Nunn seems to be thriving in his newfound role as gentleman farmer. It's the best thing I ever did in my life. They send me a cheque every month, and I Don't Do A Single Thing for them. I should have done it years ago. We voiced admiration at the ripeness of the tomatoes on his windowsill. You should see my burpless cucumbers. They're huge. But it was dark and cold, and we gave the garden tour a pass. As for politics, Nunn thinks Harper is poised to beat...

22 September, 2009

Green Party leader Elizabeth May likes to deride clean coal technology as "George Bush's favorite techno-fix" for climate change. But a new documentary from the Australian Broadcasting Company says the Bush administration actually undermined clean coal, even as it pretended to support the technology. Coal is our most abundant conventional energy resource, also our dirtiest. It contributes about half of greenhouse gas production in Nova Scotia, about 30 percent worldwide. So a technology that let us use this resource without producing greenhouse gas emissions would be a huge breakthrough in efforts to slow climate change. In 2007, MIT produced a study called,...

20 September, 2009

The Times of London reports that the World Bank is pumping billions into the construction of coal-fired power plants in India, Botswana, and South Africa, despite a recent bank report citing the disproportionate impact of climate change on third world countries. The bank’s World Development Report says: “Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change — a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. Increasing access to energy and other services using high-carbon technologies will produce more greenhouse gases, hence more climate change.” The report says that between 75 and 80 per cent of...

19 September, 2009
Contrarian's submission to the National Consultation on Copyright focuses on an issue that has received little attention in the consultation, an area in which current Canadian law provides a striking lack of balance, an issue in which Canadian law is not decades but centuries out of date: the issue of Crown Copyright. To view the submission, please click the "read more" button.
13 September, 2009

For some time, Contrarian has been struck by the Parliamentary Press Gallery's abhorrence of elections. It seems they cannot resist any pretext to drum up a story about what an abomination it would be to let Canadians vote.  What would World War II vets make of this mindset.  Tories scarcely need to press this partisan talking point; the press gallery does all the heavy lifting for them. Could the media's incessant nattering on this point could be driving public opinion? Maclean's Magazine's ineffable Kady O'Malley wonders the same thing. Moneyquote: [I]s anyone else sick to death of hearing about how Hill...

10 September, 2009

Elizabeth May is moving to British Columbia. From both provinces' perspectives, it truly is more blessed to give than to receive....

10 September, 2009

Tucows Inc., the Toronto-based company best known for its online library of free and modestly priced software, has produced a trenchant submission to the federal government's copyright consultation. The company commissioned David Weinberger, renowned US Internet marketing pundit, to examine the contention that strong copyright protection and robust creativity march hand in hand toward the New Jerusalem. His witty, insightful rejection of that canard stands out from the pack in this debate. Moneyquote: The argument seems simple: (a) If every time you put apples out on your fruit stand, they’re immediately stolen, pretty quickly you’ll stop putting out apples. (b) What’s...

01 September, 2009
The Harper Government's consultation on proposed changes to Canada's copyright laws snuck into Halifax Monday for a secretive session with groups representing only industry's side of the copyright debate. There was no advance publicity, news release, or announcement, only private invitations to industry reps favoring greater copyright restrictions. The media and the public were barred, no dissenting voices were heard. University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, Canada's foremost expert on copyright reform, calls the closed-door Halifax session "by far the most one-sided of the consultation, with no voices representing users, libraries, education, or consumer groups."
12 August, 2009
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