Month: September 2015

Vote Strategically

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So, the federal election campaign has suddenly got interesting.

To some extent it’s about competing polls. One surveying the national and province-by-province mood of voters was done by the polling firm Ekos for LaPresse newspaper in Montreal. The results were released just in time for the French language leaders’ debate this week. It polled 2,343 people for their voting intentions. The results are considered accurate 19 times out of 20, to within two percentage points, according to news reports. Continue reading →

Harper government played a cynical game with niqab ban

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The devout Muslim woman at the center of the controversy about the wearing, or not, of the face-covering niqab during public, Canadian citizenship oath-taking ceremonies said it best:

“I can’t even make sense of the statement, what the lawyer said about it, that it’s not mandatory,” a somewhat astonished – and for a few moments, speechless – Zunera Ishaq said earlier this week after a Federal Court of Appeal panel of three judges ruled against the Harper government’s ban on the wearing of the niqab.

If it’s not mandatory, Ishaq wondered, what’s “all this fuss” about?

What indeed? Continue reading →