Murray Dobbin

Murray Dobbin is rabble.ca's Senior Contributing Editor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for 40 years. A board member and researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, he has written five studies for the centre including examinations of charter schools, and "Ten Tax Myths." Murray has been a columnist for the Financial Post and Winnipeg Free Press and contributes guest editorials to the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and other Canadian dailies. He writes a regular "State of the Nation" column for the on-line journal theTyee.ca which is published simultaneously on rabble.ca. Murray has written five books, including critical profiles of Preston Manning, Kim Campbell and Paul Martin. His "The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen" has been described as a citizens' guide to globalization. He has also prepared radio documentaries for the CBC Radio's Ideas series on subjects including taxes, human rights and the right-wing regime in New Zealand. A long time social activist Murray has been involved in many movements from the anti-nuclear movement, to the fights against so-called free trade and public private partnerships. He is the founder of Word Warriors, a project which co-ordinates letter-writing to the editorial pages of newspapers across Canada. He is a Senior Advisor to the Rideau Institute on International Affairs.

Columnists

Campbell, last champion of financial deregulation

In the midst of the financial meltdown, one man, apparently, stands alone calling for more deregulation. While anti-government George Bush buys up banks and insurance companies, former Fed chair Alan Greenspan admits he was "partially wrong" in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry, and the crisis has caused right-wing French President Sarkozy to virtually denounce capitalism.

Yet, while everyone else is demanding the rogue financial industry be brought to heel, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell is actually pushing for even more financial deregulation right across the country.

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Left coalition badly needed

Was the federal election just a bad dream? After five weeks of fear and loathing, disappointment and disbelief, Canadians woke up to election results that were hardly different than when the election started. Most of the commentary since has been about numbers and pro-Harper media spin. The man who is claiming a new "enhanced" mandate actually received 168,737 fewer votes than last time but garnered an additional 19 seats. The turnout, at 59 per cent, was the lowest in our history, which means that the Harper Conservatives will govern the country with the support of fewer than 23 per cent of the eligible voters. Democracy in Canada has seldom seemed so corrupted or so unrepresentative.

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No evidence to show Canadians more conservative

Stephen Harper says Canadians have become more conservative in the past 20 years but he provides very little evidence of this.

In fact, even facing the weakest and most ineffective Liberal party in a generation, he cannot persuade more than 40 per cent of Canadians to say they will vote Conservative. In fact, all kinds of polls and in-depth studies of Canadian values suggest just the opposite: They are more progressive in their attitudes regarding the role of government.

The problem is, they have been convinced that their values will not or cannot find their way into public policy.

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Columnists

Tough luck, kids

You have to hand it to Stephen Harper and the Conservatives and their chutzpa at portraying themselves as pro-family. Virtually all their policies work to undermine the security of families and their quality of life. Unless, of course, you are talking about the families of the wealthy and privileged who have received about 70 per cent of federal personal tax cuts over the past 10 years.

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Has U.S. crippled NATO?

With the end of the Cold War, many analysts and policy makers imagined that the developed world might actually move away from its irrational attachment to militarization and war. The most optimistic envisioned a huge, international peace dividend, shifting untold billions previously spent on conventional and nuclear weapons to tackling poverty and inequality around the world.

Alas, the U.S. had no intention of dismantling NATO. For the U.S., it was simple: NATO provided the sheen of legitimacy for the extension of U.S.

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Columnists

Afghanistan transforms Canada

Some government policy decisions are so profound in their impact that they can actually change the nature of the country. Medicare was one such policy decision and so was the signing of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.

It could be argued that the decision to take on an explicitly war-fighting role in Afghanistan will turn out to be another watershed decision, this one at odds with Canadian values and Canadians' convictions about the military's role in the world and society.

It also is having the effect of transforming both our foreign policy and our foreign aid policy.

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Columnists

Will Canada last?

What will it take persuade Canadians that if they do not act soon to reverse the course of their nation, there will be nothing left to save? I am talking, of course, about so-called "deep integration" and its official expression, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

The SPP, moving inexorably on many fronts, is nothing less than a blueprint for the gradual dismantling of one of the most successful nations of the twentieth century, and its piecemeal distribution to the decaying empire to the south.

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Columnists

Colin Powell, keep out

Colin Powell, George Bush's former secretary of state and previously the general in charge of the slaughter of Iraqi troops in the first Gulf war, is scheduled to speak in Vancouver on June 12. Possibly setting a new standard for hypocrisy, the title of his talk is "Leadership in the 21st Century."

We shouldn't let him into the country, and here's why.

Powell has been dogged for years by accusations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and grave human rights abuses including torture.

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God's wrath, and the Tories'

With the country well into its third year of minority government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper there has been very little commentary on what may be the most important driver of his policies.

No other prime minister in our history has so strained the fundamental edict of the separation of church and state.

Perhaps that's because the church in question is not the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church — the ones that used to come to mind in such conflicts.

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Americanize me? No thanks

This week in New Orleans Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with George Bush and Mexican President Calderon at the fourth leaders' summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

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Murray Dobbin

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