As Antoinette Siu writes in her first post for the excellent Online Journalism Blog, “Transcribing audio is one of the most time-consuming tasks in a journalist’s job. Switching between the audio player and the text editor, rewinding every 20 seconds in, typing frantically to catch every syllable—repeating these steps back and forth, and back and forth… in an age of so much automation, something isn’t quite right.”
In her post, Siu looks at a new online tool
Updated most recently in April, the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada is a very long guide for any and all bureaucrats who must tell us what their departments are doing.
I have some advice.
Continue reading Communications Policy of the Government of Canada: Some advice
Michael Ignatieff, writing at the blog for the New York Review of Books, looks at Great Power Diplomacy and Syria and has some rather dire observations: Continue reading A sobering verdict on Russia and China from Prof. Ignatieff
Canada has had a federal Access to Information law for nearly 30 years, long enough for University of Laval political scientist Anne Marie Gingras to review the act and the ongoing tensions between governments that do not want to release information to citizens and citizens who believe governments have a duty to do so.
Gingras’ reviews the Act in the essay, “Access to information: An asset for democracy or ammunition for political conflict, or both?” published in the latest issue of Canadian Public Administration. Continue reading 30 years of ATI: And it's getting worse
I really like David Cole‘s writing about the failures of the George W. Bush administration when it comes to Guantanamo, torture, and the extra-constitutional activities the White House of the day engaged in in the name of the war on terror. In essays like, “They Did Authorize Torture, But …“, Cole is pretty hard — and rightfully so — on Bush.
Now there’s a Democrat in the White House and, lo and behold, Obama — winner of a Nobel Peace Prize — may be even more of an “extra-judicicial” hard-ass than Bush was. But Cole, in his most recent essay, Obama and Terror: Hovering Questions — seems ready to give the Democrat the qualified pass that he was not prepared to give to the Republican.
Continue reading Bush sent them to Gitmo; Obama sent them to their maker
Just discovered this fascinating site, The Living Room Candidate, which contains the TV ads from presidential campaigns stretching back to 1952. Check out the one below from the 1952 Eisenhower campaign in which he criticized Democrats for too much debt and lousy economic conditions. Sound familiar?
The Center for Responsive Politics finds a bunch of SuperPACs obeying the letter of the law when it comes to transparency of donors in U.S. politics but doing whatever they can to ignore the spirit of the law. Notably, all but one of the SuperPACs fingered for exploiting a disclosure loophole are pushing Republican candidates. So a question to Republican candidates and donors: Why are so afraid about telling voters where the money is coming from? Continue reading In the US, SuperPACS find a way to skirt disclosure laws
Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the tiniest of tweaks to his cabinet yesterday, moving Julian Fantino from his job as Associate Minister of Defence (procurement) to Minister of International Co-Operation, a job that came open with Bev Oda quit. Bernard Valcourt will move into Fantino’s old defence spot while holding on to his previous duties as minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
Plenty of us here in the Ottawa press gallery thought Harper would do something much more radical to his cabinet. Today, in Calgary, Harper spoke to talk radio host Dave Rutherford about his cabinet shuffle and prorogation plans. (Transcript courtesy of the PMO) Continue reading Harper: Expect major cabinet shuffle, agenda change in "mid-term"
Obama’s [decision to suspend the Keystone XL decision] marked a triumph of campaign posturing over pragmatism and diplomacy, and it brought U.S.-Canadian relations to their lowest point in decades. It was hardly the first time that the administration has fumbled issues with Ottawa. Although relations have been civil, they have rarely been productive. Whether on trade, the environment, or Canada’s shared contribution in places such as Afghanistan, time and again the United States has jilted its northern neighbor. If the pattern of neglect continues, Ottawa will get less interested in cooperating with Washington. Already, Canada has reacted by turning elsewhere — namely, toward Asia — for more reliable economic partners.
– Derek Burney and Fen Hampson, “How Obama Lost Canada”, published June 21, 2011 by Foreign Affairs
The thesis put forward by Burney — a former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. and Hampson – an academic at Carleton University — has generated some pushback. Continue reading US Ambassador pushes back on "Obama lost Canada" meme
Elections Canada has posted the financial returns for most federal parties at its Web site.
The NDP asked for and received an extension to file its financial returns after the July 3 deadline set for the 2011 financial statements.
But we do have enough info we can start looking at the numbers and seeing how parties did. The first thing we should note, of course, is that 2011 was an election year. Typically, all parties will have better fundraising numbers and donor numbers in an election year.
Dollar amount of all contributions:
Total number of donors
Average donation:
Percentage increase in contributions (2010 vs 2011)
Percentage increase in number of donors (2010 vs 2011)