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Including our popular Dealing with Government series.
Abuse of Power: Budget Bill as contempt of democracy
July 22, 2010
Passing of the omnibus budget bill by a government-stacked Senate is another step in the destruction of the supremacy of Parliament.
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Federal government cripples Environmental Assessment Act
April 29, 2010
Buried in the Budget Bill, Harper government's crippling amendments to the Environmental Assessment Act are assured of passage.
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The bluest of budgets delivers a disappearing act
March 18, 2010
Elizabeth May takes a look at the federal budget.
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Dealing with government XXX: presenting the budget
March 18, 2010
Patrick Brown's tongue-in-cheek series looks at presenting the budget.
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Shenanigans on the hill: the ins-and-outs of prorogations, confidence votes, elections and senate appointments
February 4, 2010
There's more to shutting down Parliament than meets the eye. Patrick Brown explains the twists and turns.
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Talking About Ottawa: Fiscal Responsibility
February 4, 2010
Elizabeth May says that misuse of taxpayers money is continuing under the Conservative government.
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Pro-democracy vs. prorogation
January 21, 2010
Why Canadians care.
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Not such a free vote
December 3, 2009
Parliament's Second Reading of the bill to abolish the long gun registry was a finagle from top to bottom.
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May joins international figures in climate change debate
October 22, 2009
'Climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response.' On the eve of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, December 1, the prestigious Munk Debate features four internationally known figures: Elizabeth May, George Monbiot, Lord Nigel Lawson, and Bjorn Lomborg. The debate will be broadcast live by streaming video at wwwmunkdebate.com, and on CPAC cable-TV channel. The debate will be rebroadcast on CBC Radio's 'Ideas' program.
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GDP: Economics as if Nothing Mattered
October 22, 2009
GDP as a measure of society's well being is outdated; it simply measures the amount of money that changes hands. New indicators are ready to be used.
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Cod to Salmon
October 8, 2009
DFO is once again ignoring local knowledge and science in a fishery crisis. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's look at the demise of the east coast cod, shows us what not to do about Pacific salmon.
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Internet and cellphone surveillance would be increased by proposed legislation
October 8, 2009
Proposed federal legislation would force internet providers to gather client information without the necessity for warrants, even though law enforcement and CSIS officers can only view it with a warrant.
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Editorial: Parliamentary Farce
October 8, 2009
As shown by last week's confidence vote, the current shenanigans in Parliament are not effective minority government; just farcical party politics.
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New attempts to destaff lightstations
September 24, 2009
Once again there is coastal opposition to the destaffing of four lightstations; does the move spell the end of staffing for 23 more lights on the BC coast?
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May announces nomination in Saanich-Gulf Islands
September 10, 2009
Elizabeth May and Stuart Hertzog speak about their nominations to stand as Green Party candidates. Candidate selection is on September 19.
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R.I.P.
September 10, 2009
Two pieces of legislation: one North American, one British Columbian have quietly passed away. Both the Security and Prosperity Partnership and the Recognition and Reconciliation Act will be reincarnated.
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Political scene heats up; Liberals and Greens will both have candidacy races in Saanich-Gulf Islands
August 27, 2009
First comes the federal Liberal Party candidate election on September 12th between Renée Hetherington and Kit Spence. Nominations opened for the Green Party candidacy on August 25. Both Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and Stuart Herzog are expected to nominate; candidate election is on September 19.
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Elizabeth May: Canada fudges climate action at G8
July 16, 2009
By insisting on Canada's 2005 greenhouse gas emissions as a baseline instead of the 1990 baseline most countries agree upon, Canada has watered down G8 declaration.
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Elizabeth May: Green Party candidate for Saanich-Gulf Islands?
July 2, 2009
Editor Christa Grace-Warrick interviews the Leader of the Green Party of Canada about her plans for the next federal election.
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Losing Confidence
June 4, 2009
Patrick Brown reviews federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May's latest book, finding it an extraordinarily good read.
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Pension funds need reform
April 23, 2009
If the Canada Pension Plan Fund, begun in 1966, had continued its initial policy of investing contributions only in government securities, its value at the end of the last fiscal year, March 31, 2009, might be some 21% higher than what can be expected with its current diversified investment strategy.
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Secret agreement would extend TILMA-like penalties to all provinces
April 23, 2009
On December 5, 2008, federal, provincial, and territorial trade ministers signed two agreements extending the terms of the 1995 Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT). The first agreement was made public only after it was signed. The second agreement, in which penalties are patterned on those included in the Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) has not yet been made public.
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2007 federal election mysteries resurface
April 9, 2009
In the Saanich-Gulf Islands federal riding, questions about a last-minute telephone campaign for a candidate who had withdrawn, and the origin of four organizations who advertised for winning Conservative candidate Gary Lunn, still remain unanswered.
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Petrostate Canada
March 26, 2009
Andrew Nikiforuk's book, Tar Sands, should restart the national debate about the the problems the Alberta tar sands pose
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Water right of way threatened
March 12, 2009
The ancient common law right of citizens to travel Canada’s waterways may have been permanently damaged, particularly if they travel in small craft. Changes to the federal Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) will give the Minister of Transport the power to exempt waterways and specific projects from the Act, and consequently from environmental review.
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Is Canada still pushing mortgage deregulation?
October 16, 2008 | Ellen Gould
At home and abroad, Canada's record on bank deregulation is nothing to crow about.
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Effects of deep Integration and the SPP.
September 18, 2008 | Murray Dobbin
What will it take to persuade Canadians that, if they do not act soon to reverse the direction of their nation, there will be nothing left to save.
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Strategic voting necessary till we have proportional representation
September 18, 2008
The steady decline of voter turn-out means that Canada is now governed by a political party chosen by less than one in four eligible voters.
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Changingthe climate in Ottawa
September 4, 2008
The Green Party of Canada has its first MP. In a surprise move, MP for West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky Country Blair Wilson, joined the Green Party at the very end of August. He announced in Ottawa that he will sit as Canada’s first ever Green MP.
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TILMA Violates Constitution, says lawyer
May 29, 2008
Both the TILMA trade agreement and it enabling legislation violates the Canadian constitution by usurping the role of judges and endowing cabinet with too much power.
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War Is Peace—Orwell wrote the Harper doctrine
April 17, 2008 | Commentary by Murray Dobbin
Stephen Harper returned from last week’s NATO meeting with the commitments he says he needed to justify keeping Canadian forces in Kandahar. So Canadians will face having our troops act as combatants in the Afghanistan war for at least three more years in a mission that started in 2001. At 10 years it will be, by far, Canada’s longest war.
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No Guts, No Glory
April 3, 2008
In recent weeks, the government has given the appearance of having settled the issue of how long Canadian troops will remain in Afghanistan.
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NAFTA’s legacy: the worst agreement we ever signed
March 20, 2008 | Commentary by Murray Dobbin
In the aftermath of Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s threats to ‘renegotiate’ NAFTA—or pull out—the usual suspects have been activated to tell the world how wonderful the deal has been for Canada and the United States.
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Local government; local economy
February 7, 2008 | Commentary by Barry O’Neill
According to recent polls, a majority of Canadians believe that the federal government has too much power. Nearly as many believe that local governments—including school boards—should have more power. According to an Ipsos-Reid poll, commissioned last fall by CUPE BC, most people trust local school boards to make decisions about the education of their children; far more than they trust the provincial government to do so.
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Taxes are the price of a civilized society: why tax cuts make us weak
November 15, 2007 | Commentary by Murray Dobbin
So here we go again, another round of huge tax cuts as the country continues down the road to a neo-con dystopia. Over the next five years the revenue that pays for the things Canadians say they want will drop by $60 billion.
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Editorial: Bully Tactics
November 15, 2007
We’ve now had a couple of weeks of a dysfunctional House of Commons. Starting with the motion to adopt the Throne Speech, the minority Conservative government has made every issue a vote of confidence, and dared the combined opposition to defeat it. Mr Harper is a bully, leading a party of bullies.
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SPP-style, precautionary principle out the window
November 1, 2007 | Patrick Brown
It has been said that the Security and Prosperity Partnership is dead, because it is stalled. It may be that after George Bush has gone, the lavishly guarded ‘summit’ meetings will be discontinued in the face of US protectionism and paranoia.
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The fact of the Matter...
June 14, 2007 | Patrick Brown
The scene is Question Period in any legislative body. Or a media interview. Or a public meeting. The question is thoughtful and carefully framed. There is a short pause as it hangs in the air, tangible and curious.
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Opportunity for Minister Lunn, says Briony Penn
May 17, 2007
Federal Liberal candidate Briony Penn is urging Saanich-Gulf Islands’ MP, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn to fully reinstate Canada’s EnerGuide Program. Her call to action follows the release of the UN Climate Change report that confirms the importance of reducing heat loss from buildings.
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Oh! Oh! Hansard!
May 17, 2007 | Patrick Brown
Hansard is the name given to the verbatim transcript of proceedings of Parliament and the Legislatures in the UK, Canada, and most countries that follow the British parliamentary tradition.
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Penn applauds Green/Liberal agreement
April 19, 2007
Briony Penn, federal Liberal candidate in Saanich-Gulf Islands, has commended the agreement reached between Stéphane Dion and Elizabeth May. With this agreement, neither party will run a candidate in the other leader’s riding in the upcoming federal election.
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For the People
April 4, 2007 | Editorial
We may appear to complain much about government. It is time that we remind ourselves what government is for.
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Penn seeks federal nomination
March 22, 2007
Well known Salt Spring environmentalist Dr Briony Penn will seek the Liberal nomination in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding in the next federal election, expected soon. The nomination meeting is on March 31.
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The Eighth Day of the Week
March 22, 2007 | Muriel Wiens
Time’s up. As I watched on CPAC the woeful dragging of feet on the part of the Conservatives and the representatives of the energy industry in the parliamentary committee which is supposedly rewriting the hot air bill, it reminded me of the totally different response of our government in 1939 to Hitler’s threat to take over the planet.
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Elephant Hunt—SPP and TILMA Trade Agreements
March 8, 2007
On CBC radio the other day, Tom D’Aquino, of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, defended the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).
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Liberal motion would hoist new Fisheries Act for six months
March 8, 2007
On the first day’s debate of second reading of the minority Conservative government’s proposed new Fisheries Act, Bill C- 45, the Liberal opposition introduced an amendment that would delay further parliamentary debate on the Bill by six months.
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Kwan calls for public hearings on TILMA
February 22, 2007
NDP MLA Jenny Kwan says that there has been no public forum in which to debate TILMA, the contentious BC/Alberta trade agreement. ‘British Columbians have questions and concerns about the impact TILMA will have on our province’, says Kwan MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant.
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Forty Questions about Canada’s environmental record by David Boyd
January 25, 2007
Canada’s new Environment Minister John Baird has his work cut out for him, and not just in terms of repairing the Clean Air Act and grappling with Canada’s legal obligations under Kyoto. Baird claims that he will clean up Canada’s environment this year, a feat that would require divine intervention. More modestly, Baird could start by answering the following vexing questions about Canada’s ongoing failures in the realm of environmental protection.
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Breakthrough Green vote in London North Centre; Dion’s green Liberal breakthrough
December 14, 2006 | Patrick Brown
Green Party leader Elizabeth May finished a strong second in the November 27 London North Centre federal by-election, capturing 25.8% of the vote and trailing Liberal Glen Pearson by only 9.1%. The Ontario by-election demonstrated that the Green Party platform and May’s style of leadership appeal to a substantial number of London voters.
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Canada’s Afghanistan Responsibility
November 30, 2006 | Editorial
The US mid-term election has come and gone. The results confirm that a substantial majority of Americans did not agree with the direction that their all-Republican government (president, senate, and house of representatives) was taking. This is a ‘victory for democracy’ far greater than anything the Americans have achieved in many overseas adventures.
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Race is on to elect first Green MP
November 16, 2006
Elizabeth May, new leader of the Green Party of Canada is a candidate in the London Centre North (Ontario) federal byelection on November 27. May has been making a showing in the mainstream media since her election to leadership in August. May founded the Sierra Club of Canada and worked as its executive director for 17 years.
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Government by Minority
November 16, 2006 | Editorial
Canadians need to get used to minority government. With four viable federal political parties, and a fifth (the Green Party) in the wings, there seems to be a fair chance that the next election...will not result in a majority.
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Deep Integration-Beyond the Economy?
November 2, 2006 | Patrick Brown
The North American Free Trade Agreement was legislated into effect ten years ago by Parliament, the US Congress, and the Mexican legislature, most of whose members had never read the treaty. It was too long and complicated for easy understanding, yet it covered just a small part of the relations between the three countries.
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Editorial: Harmonizing Below Radar
November 2, 2006
We’d like to call your attention once again to a current trend in political power—the circumvention of representative government.
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Alberta BC investment deal threatens local governments
November 2, 2006 | Murray Dobbin
Last April the provincial government signed the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, or TILMA, with the province of Alberta. It may well be one of the most radical investment deals ever signed...
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Branding Government
October 5, 2006 | Patrick Brown
... Mr Harper’s group has decided to call themselves ‘Canada’s New Government’ (‘Le Nouveau Gouvernement du Canada’). This is a ‘brand new’ piece of promotional branding.
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Choosing a Side in a Proxy War
August 10, 2006 | Patrick Brown
My Prime Minister doesn't speak for me when he expresses his unwavering support for Israel in the current conflict...
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Gazumphed
June 1, 2006 | Patrick Brown
There is, amazingly, a reasonably polite word for what the Prime Minister did to Parliament on May 18, 2006. The word is gazumph, a fine old English term, probably of Yiddish origin, generally meaning to swindle; to ‘put one over’ on you so fast you were powerless to resist; to co-opt; to spring a trap; to force an uninformed decision.
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We Are Wrong in Afghanistan
May 18, 2006 | David Orchard
In international law, labelling a country a haven for terrorists is not sufficient grounds to justify an invasion of, or an attack on, that country.
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Bias and Officials in a Decision-Making Process
April 6, 2006 | Harry Lipetz
Canadian courts have had to consider many instances where allegations of bias were advanced to disqualify an elected official from participating in a decision-making process.
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Still Square Dancing
January 19, 2006 | Patrick Brown
This election campaign is so long I get a second kick at the cat. Or whatever animal it is—something from the Burgess Shales, that fossilized treasure trove of improbable creatures that all look as though they were designed by a committee, and a dysfunctional one at that.
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Editorial: A Strategic Choice for the Islands
January 19, 2006
At this point in the never-ending countdown to Canada’s latest federal election, the odds are in favour of a minority government. Just whether it would be a Liberal or a Conservative minority is uncertain.There seems to be little real difference between their platforms.
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Passing the Buck
September 22, 2005 | Patrick Brown
Well, if you don’t like the way things are going, you can always write to the prime minister. As readers will know, I felt quite strongly about the lockout at the CBC, so I did just that—thought I’d give it a try.
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Public Knowledge vs. Private Secrecy
March 24, 2005 | Patrick Brown
Advocates of privatization are fond of repeating the mantra that government should not be carrying out any function that can be done by the private sector.
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Representative Government and the Islands Trust
October 7, 2004 | Patrick Brown
The principle of Representative Government is that we nominate and elect representatives to represent us...
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The Mission Statement
August 12, 2004 | Patrick Brown
One of the chief tools of management nowadays, in both the public and private sectors, is something called the ‘Mission Statement.’
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The Five Ages
April 22, 2004 | Patrick Brown
Democratically elected governments, no matter what their majority, must govern for all the people, not just those who voted for the ruling party...
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The Incentive Plan
March 25, 2004 | Patrick Brown
The gleeful celebrations by BC’s provincial Liberal government over the doubtful achievement of a ‘balanced budget’ quickly fade...
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Fatal Management Incompetence
August 29, 2002 | Patrick Brown
Three government departments have similar operations with similar objectives, in the same geographical area...
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Confidential Policy Memo
April 25, 2002 | Patrick Brown
Our public cabinet meetings have been very successful in enabling the government to communicate its agenda to the public...
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Running it Like a Business
October 25, 2001 | Patrick Brown
For many years, political parties supported by business have advocated running government like a business.
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Avian Genocide
April 6, 2000 | Patrick Brown
It’s some combination of competitive politics and budget restraints that has led to the continuing popularity of decisions designed to kill two (or more) birds with one stone.
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Damage Control
February 24, 2000 | Patrick Brown
Recently, we’ve seen a number of examples of what is known in government as ‘damage control’.
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The Precautionary Principle and Sovereignty
January 27, 2000 | Patrick Brown
You may recall some earlier musings on the ‘precautionary principle’: the principle being that if you aren’t sure what the results of an action might be, don’t do it.
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The Cynics' Revenge
October 21, 1999 | Patrick Brown
If you’ve read any previous pieces under this heading, you may be forgiven for reaching the conclusion that this writer was a little cynical...
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Who's on First?
September 23, 1999 | Patrick Brown
The Ottawa-based Alliance for Public Accountability recommends strongly...
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Lingo Limbo
June 17, 1999 | Patrick Brown
One of the difficulties in dealing with government is that its pronouncements often emerge in a lingo...
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May 6, 1999
Divining the Purpose ~ Patrick Brown
It’s sometimes all too easy to get the impression that the process of government...is random...
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Delay
March 25, 1999 | Patrick Brown
‘Let’s put it behind us, and move on.’ How often have we heard this?
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Denial
Febrary 25, 1999 | Patrick Brown
Among the tactics used by government, institutions and corporations...
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Transparency and Democracy
January 28, 1999 | Patrick Brown
If you have the feeling that you understand less and less about what your governments are doing, you are not alone.
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