Thursday, November 14, 2013

Worth Reading - November 14, 2013


Dear God, this week was as close to madness as one could reasonably expect when it comes to news coverage. The self-immolation of Rob Ford is as disturbing as it is fascinating. With that said though I constructed a list of OTHER stories that came out this week that may interest you.

This is a sleeper story that will bother anyone concerned with progressive urban development. Years ago the McGuinty government of Ontario set in place a Green Belt to control the sprawl of the 905 suburbs. However, according to this Toronto Star articles the measure has been entirely ineffective because the province refuses to enforce it. About a decade has been lost now and sprawl has produced worse urban form and cost billions of dollars.

Just before Remembrance Day David Frum wrote in the National Post on the important of forgotten or overlooked Canadian contributions in World War One. Frum posits that Canadian contributions may have ultimately been a greater cause of German collapse than the American entry.

A little bit of northern issues. According to the Arctic Institute neither Canada nor the United States are ready for an active Arctic shipping lane

Former Premier Bill Davis spoke at an event celebrating TVO, an institution he founded, and offered some pointers and harsh pointers for today’s provincial leaders

Brampton is finally beginning the Bovaird expansion of the Züm bus rapid transit program. I wish they had this up and running when I was still in the city, it would have easily cut 45 minutes from my commute.

From the Fort Smith based Northern Journal, Dene leaders in the Northwest Territories mark the anniversary of Idle No More

Also from the Northern Journal, Northwest Territories MLAs ignore changing electoral boundaries at the risk of a major court challenge. It’s interesting trying to offer representation in such a massive area.

From TVO’s The Agenda blog, the hypersexualization of girlhood

Samara had a great article this week about how to reinvigorate civic participation. Three cheers for these six ideas.... is that three cheers then, or eighteen cheers? ...

From 308 Blog, changes in polling numbers for the provincial parties means there is a great deal of uncertainty, particularly the surge in the ONDP numbers, bringing them to 31%. 

From Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star, Trudeau is making rookie mistakes that create a bad contrast for Liberals between him and the NDP. 

Again, I talked about this video in my Tuesday post, but if you skipped over it I invite you to watch. Andrew Coyne offers a speech titled, “The Alarming State of Canadian Democracy”. 



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