trouble | Canadian-centric Blog Roundup for May 31, 2010

BC: A Living Wage By-Law Sets the Standard for Canada

For the past six years, British Columbia has had the worst child poverty rate in Canada when measuring the after-tax Low Income Cut Off (LICO) according to the First Call 2009 Child Poverty Report Card. This statistic is shocking considering that over half of the children living in poverty in the province of BC have parents that are working. Clearly this points to a problem with current wages, and campaigners for a living wage feel this is an opportunity for change in the right direction. The living wage initial 2008 report provides more details on these issues.

The Canadian Ministry of Truthiness

Context: NDP is left-wing-for-Canada, Conservatives are right-wing-for-Canada

For a very long time we have already suspected that some online commenters are paid hacks via the CPC. We have long suspected that political campaigns use online commenters and even radio calls to further their own agenda of misinformation."Bob from Burnaby" is one of the stars in the current BC Rail/Basri/Virk scandal trial.
Some have in fact been exposed as paid staffers...

Mike Brocking Questions State of Canadian Media Following Canwest Newspaper Acquisition

Last week, the Superior Court Judge of Ontario approved the modest $1.1 billion sale of Canwest newspapers, transferring control into the hands of American hedge funds. Yes, American. Well-known publications such as The National Post, Montreal Gazette, and Ottawa Citizen were a few of the many that came with the package deal. British Columbia's papers were no exception either, with The Province, Vancouver Sun, and Nanaimo Daily News also sold as part of the deal.

From last week: Be Fruitful and Multiple-lie

For two months now, the Conservative mouthpiece on all this, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda, has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the need for women to have choices, let alone suggest that the HarperCons will back family planning support in its oh-look-we-discovered-women maternal healthcare initiative.

Do you know about Open Parliament? I like this service so much I'm considering making it a .sig file on my DW.

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Browse MPs, or find someone quickly by entering a name or postal code above. See what your representatives are saying, and what laws they're proposing. Poke around.

According to it, the last time disability was mentioned in Parliament was on April 28, in another pissing contest between the Liberals and the Conservatives, both of which dodged each other's questions and used people with disabilities as a way to score political points!

The "conversation" itself is interesting, though.