I get it. I even sympathize. You have only one vote and you don’t want to waste it. But how to choose? That is the question without easy answer this federal election. Let’s assume for the moment you see yourself as a moderate political progressive, likely more progressive than partisan. You know what you don’t...
What to do about Justin?
Last week's Blackface/Brownface controversy raises the complicated question of how we navigate our way through all the competing, compelling, often contradictory private and public actions of our politicians to determine who — if anyone — deserves our vote.
Voting is easy. Choosing who to vote for? Not so much… In our federal parliamentary, first-past-the-post system, we each get just one vote to elect our local member of parliament who is supposed to both represent our personal views and also be a puzzle piece in a national numbers game that will ultimately determine which...
Politicians criticizing Israel: When 2019 becomes 1984 all over again
We've already begun another wild modern election ride during which outrageous old social media posts have and will come back to haunt candidates and the political parties that nominate them. But what happens when the outrage is misplaced and the goal seems to be to shut down legitimate differences of opinion?
Let’s begin with a pop quiz. During the 2015 Canadian federal election, how many candidates for the highest offices in our land were hoist by the petard of their own social media posts before voters could say yay or nay to them at the ballot box? On a roll? Then let’s go international. And get...
Can we talk about Israel and the Palestinians? No?
Between Rana Zaman’s nomination as a federal NDP candidate in May and the end of June, someone dredged up a number of her impassioned social media posts, which focused on Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. The NDP almost instantly dumped her. But what had she said that was so awful?
Canada’s New Democrats made a mistake. Not with their nomination last week of Emma Norton, a 28-year-old climate change activist and Ecology Action Centre staffer who decided to seek elective office this spring because she felt betrayed by Justin Trudeau’s “market-based, incrementalist” approach to climate change. I’m certain she will be a fine candidate in […]