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Freedom Party Media Release: Election Highlights Two Major Flaws in Canada's Electoral System

October 15, 2008 by · 1 Comment 

Freedom Party of Canada leader, Paul McKeever, is calling upon the Harper government to introduce a new 155 candidate rule for inclusion in televised leaders debates and to repeal the federal political party allowance.

“If this election tells us anything, it is that at least two structural flaws are undermining the democratic process in Canada, and the unity of Canada”, says McKeever. Read more

The Canadian Leaders Debates & What the Left Needs to Take Away from Them

October 3, 2008 by · 1 Comment 

This week’s leaders debates in Canada made two things painfully obvious. First, Canada has a de facto two-party system. Second, the rest of this election is about whether Stéphane Dion or Jack Layton will lead the de facto opposition party following this election. Read more

Winning the Leaders "Debates"

October 1, 2008 by · 2 Comments 

In Canada, the leaders of Canada’s five largest federal political parties will participate in two televised leaders “debates” this week. Owing to the fact that Canada has had two official languages for the last few decades, questions and answers at the October 1st debate (8:00-10:00 PM EST) will be given in French; the English-language debate will occur on October 2 at 9:00-11:00 PM EST. What must each leader do to “win” these debates? Read more

Freedom and the Proper Regulation of Speech

September 24, 2008 by · 9 Comments 

Freedom of speech. Ironically, it is a political subject about which most people talk without saying anything.

“Freedom of speech has limits”, some say, just before, reflexively, they trot out the inevitable “for example, you can’t yell fire in a crowded movie theatre”. I always imagine them silent, feeling legally bound not to tell anyone in the theatre that the snack bar is on fire. Read more

Beer, Gas & Leviathan

September 19, 2008 by · Leave a Comment 

My September 13th article and video “Canada’s 2008 Election: Green? Shift?” led one of my FaceBook friends, Alex, to make the following comment: Read more

Reason versus "Self-Ownership"

September 16, 2008 by · 6 Comments 

There are those who believe that the mind cannot exist independently of the activities of the brain; that the mind and the brain are one; that the mind and the body are one. There are also those who believe that the mind and the body are separable or separate – for example those who believe that there is a soul which inhabits the body at birth, or perhaps at baptism, and which leaves the body when the mind dies. Your position on the separability of mind and body has a logical implication for your position on “self-ownership”. The reverse is also true: your position on the validity of the concept “self-ownership” implies your agreement with, or disagreement with, an underlying assumption concerning the separability or non-separability of mind and body. Read more

Elizabeth May: You're Stupid, So Vote Green

September 15, 2008 by · 7 Comments 

History teems with philosophers – still highly regarded by many – who proposed that the universe is entirely different than how it appears to human beings; that it is a chaotic flux; that time and space really do not exist; that reality is full of irresolvable contradictions. They tried to make room for mysticism in an increasingly scientific era by telling us that our sensations and perceptions of the world do not accurately describe the universe as it really exists; that our senses, in effect, lie to us. Of course, it is not reality that is rife with contradictions, but the philosophies themselves, but their authors were careful to ensure that they presented their philosophies as wordy Gordian knots, which makes them capable of passing that test of truth most highly honoured among morons and swindlers alike: if you cannot understand it, it must be true, especially if it was read in university or in church. Read more

"Green Shift": Not Green, No Shift

September 13, 2008 by · 1 Comment 

September 13, 2008, Oshawa, Ontario – Paul McKeever, an employment lawyer in the auto-industry City of Oshawa, today released a video that uses a simple demonstration to help Canadians understand Stephane Dion’s Liberal “Green Shift” carbon tax plan: Read more

On Inclusion in Televised Leaders' Debates

September 11, 2008 by · Leave a Comment 

Yesterday, the “consortium” of government-owned or government-licenced television companies that host one televised debate per election among the leaders of some political parties reversed a decision to exclude Green Party leader Elizabeth May from the debate. Explaining that the leaders of the Conservative and New Democratic parties had threatened not to attend were Ms. May to be invited to the debates, they had announced earlier this week a list of invitees that included only the leaders of parties that won seats in the Canadian Parliament back in 2006. May played the “sexism” card – because the consortium decision makers and the other parties leaders are all male. Within hours, the Conservative and NDP parties – clearly not wanting unjustly to be smeared as sexists – dropped their opposition to May’s inclusion. That deprived the consortium of its excuse du jour for excluding other parties. As a result, it announced that – due to the change of the two parties’ minds – they were happy to have her join the stage (i.e., they effectively pretended that they would have had her on the stage all-along had it not been for the bad bad mean old Conservative and NDP parties). Read more

Freedom versus Freedumb

September 10, 2008 by · 2 Comments 

Over on the National Post’s Full Comment blog, Gerry Nicholls has published what he wishes to be the “hidden agenda” of the Conservative Party of Canada, post election (should they win a majority). One of his wish list items is to “introduce free market principles into [Canada’s socialist health care] system”. He seeks a contradiction, of course (i.e., a “free market” in a state-imposed monopoly), but the mere mention of the term “free market” spurred individualist and collectivist readers to start into the old “debate” about the meaning of words like “liberty” and “freedom”. Read more

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