tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-306177542009-07-05T20:01:15.932-04:00James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16581079200019338423noreply@blogger.comBlogger255125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-65241996595411570612009-06-30T07:22:00.001-04:002009-06-30T07:28:32.922-04:00

A great experiment in part-time, adult education is coming to an end tomorrow. Atkinson College at York University, now called the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, opened its doors in 1962. While the name Atkinson---after Joseph E. Atkinson, the founder of the Toronto Star---will survive in the form of the Atkinson Centre for Mature and Part-time students (an advocacy body on

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-33097512091311972112009-06-18T13:16:00.001-04:002009-06-18T13:20:25.151-04:00

Michael Ignatieff has real trouble distinguishing between rhetoric and reality. At his press outing yesterday, where he explained the deal he had reached with Stephen Harper, he was asked how the unemployed would benefit from the decision of the Liberals and Conservatives to set up a Blue Ribbon panel to study qualifications for Employment Insurance. The panel will report in late September. On

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-62411390217265474962009-06-11T10:02:00.000-04:002009-06-11T10:03:47.166-04:00

(This is an excerpt from my new book Democracy, published earlier this spring by Groundwood Books.)The appetite for democracy arises not from political theory, but from the tangible needs of millions of people. Above all, democracy is advanced by the success of political movements whose goal is to improve the lives of the majority of the population in a myriad of ways. Democracy establishes the

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-65387136362153758212009-05-07T10:48:00.000-04:002009-05-07T10:51:29.469-04:00

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff would like Canadians to see him as the next Pierre Trudeau, a man of wisdom and learning who has returned to his native land after decades abroad to play the role of the Lawgiver, the Lycurgus, or the Solon of our age. The day Ignatieff announced that his party would vote in favour of the Harper government’s budget in January, he cut his ties with the

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-30410489959380103712009-04-25T09:31:00.000-04:002009-04-25T09:37:21.273-04:00

Janet Napolitano, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary recently informed a CBC interviewer that some of the terrorist-hijackers who carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001 entered the United States from Canada. This week Senator John McCain told Fox News: “Well, some of the 9/11 hijackers did come through Canada as you know.”Canadians, including government officials, journalists and

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-54231378422855242262009-04-17T17:40:00.001-04:002009-04-17T17:42:54.870-04:00

For half a century, the risk of catastrophe has loomed over the auto industry in Canada, those who work in the plants, their families and the communities where they live. Though it was not possible to predict when and in what precise form a transforming crisis would strike, the calamity that has befallen the industry and that threatens its future has been entirely predictable. The critical

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-40300011218713075652009-04-07T20:38:00.003-04:002009-04-07T20:39:49.578-04:00

I just discovered that CBC television is going to cancel CBC News: Sunday. Damnit! It’s the best public affairs show on the network. Evan Soloman and Carole MacNeil are superb interviewers and broadcasters. They bring freshness and excitement to the big questions that face the country and the world. I look forward to Sunday mornings to watch their documentaries and interviews that re-cast

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-57026984122596891212009-04-03T15:05:00.000-04:002009-04-03T15:06:20.687-04:00

Since the United States launched its invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the terror attacks on New York and Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001, the West has dispatched thousands of soldiers and has spent tens of billions of dollars to secure that unfortunate country. In addition to the young men and women in uniform and the tax dollars, the West has provided an oily propaganda screed

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-23865009274517681792009-03-30T16:13:00.002-04:002009-03-30T16:26:35.287-04:00

It may seem a preposterous proposition but the political perils in the path of Barack Obama are remarkably similar to the hazards that Bob Rae confronted during his years as an NDP premier of Ontario. Obama is in power during a period of deep economic crisis just as Bob Rae was in the early 1990s. Both leaders were swept into office by electorates that wanted to be rid of the old ways

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-55997520224383696302009-03-27T14:53:00.001-04:002009-03-27T14:55:55.989-04:00

Canada’s twin---the two were parted at birth---is Australia. Like all permanently separated twins, living very far apart, the differences between them are enormous. In Australia’s night sky, you see the Southern Cross, which Canadians never see, while Canadians look up at the Great Dipper and the North Star, which is never visible to Australians. In Australia, the sun always moves to the left

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-23610636241116136542009-03-10T09:48:00.001-04:002009-03-10T09:50:01.994-04:00

A world age ended with the Great Crash in the autumn of 2008. We live in a time when technology and science have given people in the rich countries the sense that, serious crises aside, things will go on as before, and life may even improve if technology, science and common sense are permitted to have their way. For Canadians, who last saw their world torn apart, and paid in blood with tens of

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-31620422829485717862009-02-07T12:48:00.003-05:002009-02-07T12:51:35.901-05:00

When the terrible Canadian job loss numbers for January came out yesterday, the horror of the economic crisis hit home as it had not before. The Canadian figures were worse than those in the United States. Canada lost 129,000 jobs last month, compared to 598,000 jobs south of the border. Ontario was hit with the loss of another 71,000 jobs. The manufacturing sector is not simply being hit.

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-86067347171160362712009-01-29T16:15:00.001-05:002009-01-29T16:17:03.177-05:00

In this life, there are times when you have to make fundamental choices. You go one way or you go the other. The Liberal Party had such a choice to make: between the formation of a progressive coalition government with the NDP, or propping up the Harper government. The first choice would have allowed for the presentation of a budget to parliament that really would have offered hope to

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-87334476687976548682009-01-28T13:04:00.003-05:002009-01-28T13:05:39.594-05:00

Michael Ignatieff began his press conference in the National Press Theatre in Ottawa today by saying that the Harper government’s budget was deeply flawed. For a moment, I thought he was about to do something interesting, to propose serious and substantive amendments to the budget. But then he dropped the clunker. The Liberals, he said, will propose an amendment requiring the government to

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-32652988130915281642009-01-28T09:49:00.002-05:002009-01-28T09:52:10.551-05:00

Yesterday, after reviewing the Conservative budget, Michael Ignatieff posed a very perceptive question: "My concerns about the budget are have they underestimated the seriousness of the crisis? That affects all the numbers. If they make that judgment wrong, pretty well everything goes south, including their deficit projections." The truth is, and I am sure that Ignatieff understands

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-41389686333274221082009-01-27T16:54:00.003-05:002009-01-27T16:56:56.855-05:00

The Conservative budget, unveiled today in the House of Commons by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, will not mitigate the effects of the deepening economic crisis for Canadians. Members of Parliament should defeat this budget. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has a momentous decision to make. He will decide over the next few hours whether to support the budget and keep the Harper

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-79280845303400702212009-01-26T11:29:00.002-05:002009-01-26T11:34:13.378-05:00

As the Canadian economic crisis deepens with new layoff announcements every day, with the economy shrinking, and with Canadians anxious about their own future and the future of their communities, the Harper government still has not figured out how serious things have become. Today, on the eve of the budget, we already know enough to say that what the Harper government will unveil

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-19654853315327927932009-01-21T11:39:00.002-05:002009-01-21T11:39:56.283-05:00

Now that Barack Obama is in the White House, his single greatest challenge is to restart the U.S. economy, to turn it away from its descent into depression, toward sustainable recovery. Unlike the period of the Great Depression of the 1930s, when Americans held their ultimate fate in their own hands, they no longer do. Whether he fully appreciates it as he sets out on his presidency, much of

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-47863750245347744912009-01-12T10:52:00.002-05:002009-01-12T10:54:25.270-05:00

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has been saying lately that the budget the Conservative are drafting, to be presented to Parliament in a few days, is not his budget, it’s the Harper government’s budget. Fair enough, but if the Liberals vote for the budget, it will become their budget as well. That’s how a minority government works. You either support the basic program of the government or you

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-13722729941068750862008-12-28T13:45:00.000-05:002008-12-28T13:46:15.440-05:00

A few days before the October 14 federal election, in an interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, Stephen Harper gave Canadians advice on how to play the stock market. “We always know when stock markets go up, people end up buying a lot of things that are overpriced,” he opined “and when stock markets go down, people end up passing on a lot of things that are underpriced.”

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-50101295683888104202008-12-26T11:15:00.002-05:002008-12-26T11:18:57.479-05:00

(this post appears on rabble.ca.) One month from now, the fate of Stephen Harper’s government will be determined by a one person electorate consisting of Michael Ignatieff. There are three possible assumptions Harper can make about how he is doing as he campaigns for this all important vote: he can assume that nothing he can do will win the vote; he can conclude that he has

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-19721700522666996402008-12-24T13:33:00.002-05:002008-12-24T13:34:00.708-05:00

(this post appears on rabble.ca) Among the G 7 countries, Canada can make a good claim to being the longest continuous democracy. Germany, Italy, Japan and France are all knocked out of the running as a result of having been fascist or militarist dictatorships or as a result of being occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War. The United States lapsed into a vicious Civil War

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-84652454961147753622008-12-22T13:27:00.001-05:002008-12-22T13:33:23.875-05:00

(this post appears on rabble.ca) In 2006, which was a very good year at Merrill Lynch, Dow Kim, at the time Executive Vice President and President of Global Markets and Investment Banking, took home a modest salary, $350,000. But then he received a bonus that made things more comfortable for him---$35 million. That year Merrill’s profits came in at a record $7.5 billion.

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-88819995362734121092008-12-20T11:20:00.002-05:002008-12-20T11:24:32.418-05:00

(this post appears on rabble.ca) George W. Bush and Stephen Harper are once again (perhaps for the last time) partners in making economic policy. Now that the U.S. is providing a multi-billion dollar loan to General Motors and Chrysler, Canada is going to do the same. Priority one for Bush and Harper---make the workers take a hefty pay cut. Read the front pages of the

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30617754.post-80038937287682615892008-12-17T13:43:00.003-05:002008-12-17T13:44:58.428-05:00

(this post appears on rabble.ca) Today, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is meeting with provincial ministers of finance in Saskatoon. Why is this man still at the helm of financial policy making in Ottawa? This is the finance minister who earlier this year said publicly that he could see little reason why companies would choose to invest in Ontario. His cure for

James Laxerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11177908948911314714noreply@blogger.com11