Month: January 2013

Is Chief Spence setting a good example for aboriginal girls by threatening suicide?

Terry Glavin makes a not insignificant point about the potential harm Chief Spence’s hunger strike might have on First Nations communities:

Aboriginal teenagers in Canada are perhaps six times more likely to kill themselves than non-aboriginal youth. Among the Inuit, youth suicide is 11 times the national average. Between 2005 and 2010, Health Canada spent $65 million on a National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy. The kids kept on killing themselves, and in 2011 the Ontario Chief Coroner’s Office released a 215-page report on aboriginal suicides in Northern Ontario. One of the report’s key recommendations: the creation of a national suicide prevention strategy.

Then along comes Theresa Spence, the elected chief of the forlorn and remote Northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat. Since Dec. 11, Spence has been camped in a teepee on an island in the Ottawa River, threatening to starve herself to death — to kill herself — unless the prime minister and the Governor General accede to her variously contradictory and ambiguous demands ..

Read the rest: Idle No More? Let’s get serious.

Here comes Battleground. My new show for political junkies


If you’ve been watching my 6 pm show on Sun News Network for the few weeks before the Christmas break, you’ve probably got the hint that we’ve got a new name and brand for the program. Well, tonight’s the night we’re rolling it out.

Some backstory first: For the few months preceding the U.S. general election, the hour-long Monday-to-Friday show at 6 p.m. was called  Road to the White House and focused exclusively on that race. Lots of you watched (thanks!). So the new show is going to try to do something similar: Focus on political horse-races. We’ll talk about  campaign strategy, the ads, the personalities, election issues – real political junkie stuff. The new name of this new show? Battleground. (You need to say it loud with your deepest, “Ted Baxter” TV anchor voice for best effect — see video above!). Continue reading Here comes Battleground. My new show for political junkies

Reaction to resolution of U.S. fiscal cliff drama

Late last night, the U.S. Congressed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. Read more about that here.

Here’s a comment on that Act this morning from BMO Capital Markets economist Michael Gregory (my emphasis):

“The bottom line is that taxes will be going up for most Americans, ranging from a 2 percentage point increase in payroll taxes for all employees, to higher tax rates on ordinary income, capital gains and dividends for those making above $400k …[There are] more fiscal battles on the horizon. For now, however, we can relish in the fact that the fiscal cliff was averted, political compromise was achieved (yes, 85 of 236 House Republicans voted in favour), and America’s finances are starting to move to a firmer footing.”

Here’s Scotiabank’s Derek Holt and Dov Zigler in their morning note on yesterday’s theatrics in Washington: Continue reading Reaction to resolution of U.S. fiscal cliff drama