Author Archives: Rob

What a coaltion House of Commons would look like

Above reflects the proposed Canadian government made up of coalition partners Liberal and New Democrat parties, with the Bloc Quebecois party, which has agreed to support the coalition in Parliament.

Whereas the above reflects the current composition of the Canadian Parliament resulting from the 44th general election held in October, 2008.
Legend

Proposed Coalition (including Liberal, NDP and [...]

Open letter to President-elect Obama

Avaaz has built a huge wall near the White House in Washington DC where they are posting signatures from their online petition and personal messages from around the world. They’ve also asked Obama to personally receive the petition from a group of Avaaz members. They are hoping for 1 million signers and messages to Obama. [...]

American friends? Convince them to vote with humour.

How often do you get to see your name on the cover of the New York Times! Check out this viral video developed by Moveon.org to get out the vote in the US election.
Customize Videos For Yourself And Your Friends
This news video is a fun, memorable way to show your friends what might happen if [...]

Obamingenuity

While the Department of Culture from the outset advocated critical action on broader social issues than just the arts, the arts have become so fundamental to the economy, to the identities and productivity of nations, that attention understandably returns to the arts time and time again.
Yet, while Canadians waited in vain for the major political [...]

Time for an electoral reform?

Dr. Don Ferguson has a prescription for Electoral Dysfunction.
“Thanks to our dysfunctional first-past-the-post system, the disconnect between how we marked our ballots and what we got was stunning, as usual. The Conservatives won 143 seats, when they deserved only 117. The Bloc won 50 seats when they deserved only 28.
“On the other side of the [...]