Blast Furnace Canada Blog

The Conservatives are vowing to filibuster attempts by the governing Liberals to reform the way we elect our MPs - be it alternative vote or some kind of proportional representation, unless there...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/should-there-be-referendum-on-pr.html

Before we went to a primary-style system of selecting party leaders, we were used to the idea of contested party leader conventions in Canada. Sometimes you just never knew who might win, and the...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-gops-worst-nightmare-brokered.html

Remember El Niño 1998? The mild winter where we got more rain than usual in most places, while Montreal got the ice storm? Well, if the weather predictors at NASA are right, this winter could ca...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/remember-el-nino-1998-mild-winter-where.html

Hamilton's airport isn't exactly a busy place. Although Westjet did run a lot of flights out of there for a while citing Toronto's massive landing fees, most flights eventually migrated to Pearso...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/weather-happens-but-customer-service.html

Yes ... Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, has announced that it is ending its ban on guns in dorms. Like this is supposed to make us feel any safer. They claim it's a stand a...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/falwell-u-allows-guns-in-dorms.html

It is decades overdue, but finally in response to a recommendation from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission the Trudeau government will move to repeal §43 of the Criminal Code, which allows ...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/libs-to-repeal-spanking-law.html

... yet since the Mike Harris days, people in Ontario have actually had the option of donating some or all of their tax refund to help pay down the province's debt. How much has been raised so fa...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/yeah-like-id-turn-over-my-tax-refund-to.html

... an opinion poll shows that 30% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats want to bomb Agrabah, Saudi Arabia. Just one problem - it's the fictional town in Disney's Aladdin. This canard was thrown i...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/first-they-want-to-ban-muslims-now-this.html

Seriously? Has Channel 11 finally gone off the rails? This is the station that gave Canada The Party Game, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, Tiny Talent Time, The Great Debate, The Party Game...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/what-is-going-on-at-chch.html

Kathleen Wynne seems hell bent to introduce an Ontario Retirement Pension Plan by the year 2017. The idea is if a company doesn't have a pension plan or deferred profit sharing plan of its own, i...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/12/make-orpp-voluntary-or-enhance-cpp.html

I'm still surprised by the results: Liberal - 184 Conservatives - 99 NDP - 44 Bloc - 10 Green - 1 Much has to do with some districts where the Lib candidate who was running in third throughout th...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/10/boy-did-i-dial-wrong-number.html

And here it is ...remember the Magic Number is 170. Liberals 143 Conservatives 132 NDP 55 Bloc 7 Green 1 My sense is that the Cons will do well at the expense of the NDP because large parts of Qu...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/10/my-fearless-prediction-for-decision-2015.html

Nothing partisan, I assure you. But it's obvious that unless hell freezes over we're looking at a minority situation - no one will get the magic number of 170. This is what I think will happen Mo...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/10/prediction.html

This will be my last post on the election until it actually happens ... barring a freak of nature. I will be working as a Deputy Returning Officer (i.e. I will supervise a poll and count the ball...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-to-vote-how-to-vote.html

So the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal has been initialled. I'm not prepared to discuss the merits of the agreement. But let's consider the countries that are in it, besides Canada: Australia, Bru...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/10/look-who-were-dealing-iwth-in-tpp.html

In last night's final debate, Tom Mulcair said if he's elected, then Quebec - and only that province - would get the option to opt out of new shared cost programs, including his $15 per diem chil...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/10/about-those-shared-cost-programs.html

Today, the PMS campaign announced if it gets re-elected on October 19th it will introduce legislation to make illegal "barbaric" practices. On the surface, this may sound, well, sound. There are ...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/10/whats-barbaric-exactly.html

Brian Stewart has a good op-ed piece on what Harper has said what he has done for Canada's military, and what has really been done. Three words: Stretched. Too. Thin. When you appropriate $10 bil...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/09/what-does-harper-want-from-our-military.html

Maybe it's me, but it seemed like awful timing when the Cons announced last week they were going to match donations to this year's Terry Fox Run, up to a ceiling of $35 million. Today, they retra...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/09/dont-match-donations-during-election.html

For so many years, we in Canada have been trying to get away from the whole "we versus they" mentality. That one group of Canadians are better than another - that we are all in it together. The o...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/09/for-so-many-years-we-in-canada-have.html

Yeah, it's been a while. But I had to take to my keyboard today because of the refugee crisis that is swamping Europe - since many of them may be headed Canada's way. And I never thought, a month...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/09/dont-let-refugees-down.html

In the three months since the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its decision on assisted suicide in Carter v. Attorney General of Canada, there has been a lot of thumb twisting about what to do...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/05/no-notwithstanding-clause-on-assisted.html

The income splitting option is not mandatory for those who qualify for it. Like any other tax credit, it's optional. Tax software will flag credits to make sure you get every loophole you're enti...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/04/you-dont-have-to-take-income-splitting.html

Is same sex marriage a recent phenomenon? Actually, it isn't. Let me explain. On Tuesday, the odd legal team of David Boies and Ted Olsen (who opposed each other in the infamous Bush vs Gore deba...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-same-sex-marriage-200-years-ago.html

To my knowledge, I have never met a transgendered person in my life. That does not mean I don't have respect or compassion for those who live the sex opposite of the one they are by birth, or for...

http://blastfurnacecanada.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-senate-and-transgenders.html