Federal Politics

Balancing the interests of shareholders and workers in the platform economy

This post is about properly balancing the interests of shareholders and workers in the platform realm. The digital platform realm in Canada, much like that of the US, UK and Europe, currently has a regulatory framework for digital enterprises that strongly tilts towards the interests of shareholders. That said, things are beginning to change - most notably in the EU but also in Canada, the US and the UK. Recent initiatives in these jurisdictions seek...

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A message to Canada’s progressive political parties

In his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre is running a textbook campaign to appeal to the northern Trumpist crowd, a constituency with a populist, right-wing political outlook that has grown to be a substantial chunk of Canadian voters. And should he win, do not count a Poilievre led Conservative Party out in the 2025 federal election. Appealing to the Canadian Trump crowd may be a recipe for electoral...

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Pierre Poilievre and authoritarian populism in Canada

“In his quest for the national Conservative leadership it seems there are no limits on what Pierre Poilievre is prepared to say to curry favour with the angry anti-vax constituency in his party, the same people prone to disappear down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories about globalist plots to run the world,” the Star’s editorial board wrote on June 8, about the man who is the clear front runner in the federal Conservative Party...

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Why Ontario’s Covid strategy is failing to stop the spread of the virus

Summary Ontario's current strategy will fail to contain the Covid pandemic because it is not targeted at the dynamic that is driving the increase in "second wave" Covid cases in the province. The hard truth is that workers in food processing plants, warehouses, manufacturing plants and customer facing workplaces (retail, etc.) are taking the virus home with them to overcrowded, multigenerational households where they are unable to isolate. Because there is no ability to isolate,...

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Rise in September Covid caseload due to provincial government failure

On September 24, a news release put out by the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) on behalf of 38 infectious disease specialists and public health professionals called for the Government of Ontario to: "immediately place restrictions on non-essential businesses and activities that facilitate social gatherings and increase opportunities for exposure, including dine-in restaurants and bars, nightclubs, gyms, theatres, and places of worship. The province must also ask non-essential businesses to have employees work from home and...

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How much do we really have to shut down to keep Canada safe? When will life be able to return to normal?

As public demands escalate for governments to do more to combat the ever-worsening novel coronavirus pandemic, two distinct camps seem to be forming: one essentially calling for a lockdown of the country, the other demanding a massive expansion of testing, isolation and monitoring. In other words, some are urging a "close everything down - everyone stay at home" approach with all the economic and social fallout that portends, while others are urging an aggressive effort...

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The World Health Organization had a plan for the coronavirus but much of the world ignored it.

It is increasingly obvious that if there was a set of globally enforceable rules regarding public health practices that all nations had to implement at the first signs of a possible pandemic, we would not be facing the catastrophic health and economic crisis we are facing today with the coronavirus. What most people don't know is that in 2005, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) put in place a set of practices to prevent a coronavirus...

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Interim agreement reached in B.C. pipeline dispute.

On March 1, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and Ministers from the federal Liberal government and the B.C. NDP government, announced that they had reached a proposed arrangement in a pipeline dispute that has prompted solidarity protests and blockades across Canada in recent weeks. Federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and British Columbia Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser would not give details on the proposal, saying it first has to be reviewed by the Wet’suwet’en people. Fraser...

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Privacy watchdogs take on Clearview facial recognition

Four of Canada’s privacy commissioners have launched a joint investigation into whether a U.S. company’s facial recognition technology, which scrapes facial images from the internet, violates privacy laws in Canada. The federal privacy commissioner and commissioners in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec said Friday they are investigating Clearview AI about whether the company is collecting and using personal information without consent. “Media reports have stated that Clearview AI is using its technology to collect images...

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Broadcasting report calls for CRTC to expand mandate to include regulation of internet based content.

The Broadcast and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel released its much anticipated report last week. The report's recommendations call for substantially expanding the notion of what is considered broadcasting in Canada and consequently calls for a broader mandate for a renamed Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The expanded mandate of the renamed CRTC would include regulatory authority over internet based services such as Netflix, Facebook and YouTube - regulatory authority it does not presently have. The...

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