Journalist without a cause
So the news breaks this week that Jason Kenney wants to force all people (read: Muslim women) to show their face during citizenship ceremonies. The reason given is that the Citizenship and Immigration officials need to see the soon-to-be-Canadians actually saying the oath.
Does that sound stupid to you? It is.
In April, Laurin Liu wasn’t expecting to go to Ottawa. In May, she wasn’t expecting to go to South Africa.
But on election night, Liu was elected as the New Democrat MP for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. She joined four other McGill students in the House of Commons.
And now, as deputy critic on the Environment, Liu is in Durban, South Africa for the most recent round of climate change negotiations.
“I hit the ground running when I got here,” Liu said in an interview with OpenFile over Skype.
You can read the full story over at OpenFile Montreal.
And keep checking back for updates. Here’s the Storify I’ve assembled for the conference. I’ll be adding to it.
Just dumping two links here,
One from my Rabble.ca post-debate round-up. Any dreariness in the piece is due to; having to watch 9 people violently agree with each other, and from having to write the entire thing on the bus ride home.
Not much [o]omph at the NDP leadership debate
The next phase of the New Democratic leadership race limped out of the starting gate Sunday afternoon in Ottawa.
The nine hopefuls vying to replace Jack Layton spent most of the two hours “agreeing violently,” as Nathan Cullen put it…
And that, in turn, got featured on The Mark’s post-debate recap. That’s pretty cool.
I’m hoping to liveblog as many leadership debates as I can get to. Montreal, definitely, Quebec City, hopefully.
Andrew Vaughn/The Canadian Press
Canadian Leadership. Travaillons Ensemble.
Those are some damn good slogans.
Whoever replaces Jack has got to be capable of crafting an equally brilliant two-word platform.
The 9-headed pack of social democratic do-gooders is set to take the stage this afternoon for tea, crumpets and debates about monetary policy and trade relationships.
Aside from the Macy’s Day Parade, this’ll be the most fun sunday afternoon all year.
So what should we be expecting from the candidates?
Stand in front of a mirror.
Yell:
“Bill C-10. Bill C-10. Bill C-10.”
Has Rob Nicholson jumped out and sentenced you to prison yet?
Nicholson, for those of you not living in fear like myself, will be our driver of the Omnibus stratight to hell.
A lot of hyperbole has come along with the debate around this package of new crime legislation.
No column inch has been spared to tell us about the seemingly-endless stream of regressive measures that will see us all imprisoned. And there’s also been plenty of documentation about why that’s bad.
But why, I wonder, does the Wicked Witch of the West Block want to enact such Draconian measures on us, the hapless peasants?
Two more stories. The final part to my feature on Ethical Oil (now under new leadership) and another OpenFile column about the untimely death of the Thomas Mulcair campaign.
Rumors of Thomas Mulcair’s Demise Have Been Greatly Understated. (Original title.)
The great New Democrat succession competition is now two months old. The field is crowded. All the candidates have announced their intentions (Pat Martin’s pussyfooting aside) – so why is Thomas Mulcair’s campaign already dead in the water?
Since the member for Outremont took to the stage with 33 fellow MPs in Côte-des-Neiges last month, hardly hide nor hair has been heard from the man who was, at one time, ‘the chosen one.’
Mulcair has spent November crossing the country. Headlines of small, local papers were made. And he doesn’t appear to have any upcoming events scheduled. Ever.
But, as conventional wisdom tells us, Mulcair is in charge of Quebec. New membership numbers show that La Belle Province has more than doubled its membership to over 5,500.
Read the rest over at OpenFile.
Ethical Oil: Party 3, NAFTA.
Trying to make sense of Canadian energy policy is not for the faint of the heart, so I called Gordon Laxer. The University of Alberta professor has spent the past 29 years in Alberta, having followed Canadian energy policy through the 60s to the first real emergence of a national plan in the 70s, followed by the wholesale auctioning of Canadian energy sovereignty in the 80s.
“We are basically an energy satellite or an energy colony of the United States,” he says.
“That’s the definition of a colony; when the people of a country don’t have first access to their own resources,” he says, laughing. “That’s what a colony is about.”
I agree with the Conservatives. And I’m not being faceitious.
Cut to a shot of me and Gerry Ritz doing a flying high-five.
The first date was enchanting. Over dinner, she was playing footsie with us and smiling coyly from across the table.
And then we bombed her house for two months.
Now, after violently murdering her ex-boyfriend, we’re trying to decide where we want our relationship to go.
I am, of course, talking about Libya.
