[NEWS] 15 links about Canada and Canadian politics (#cdnpoli)

• Scott Gilmore at MacLean’s notes how, in the United States, Canada as a model is a common idea among Democrats.
• David Camfield argues at The Conversation that the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike offers lessons for Canadians now.
• Le Devoir notes the recent argument of now-Québec premier François Legault that a Québec that was, like Ontario, a relatively wealthy province would be a Québec that would have fewer tensions with the rest of Canada. Is this plausible?
• Éric Grenier notes at CBC that, in Ontario, Andrew Scheer’s federal conservatives will need to draw voters from beyond Ford Nation.
• MacLean’s hosts the arguments of Frank Graves and Michael Valpy that Canadian politicians are not paying nearly the amount of attention to economic inequality that Canadians think they should.
• MacLean’s makes the point that Conrad Black seems to see much to like in Donald Trump.
• Ontario and the Canadian government are fighting over funding for the proposed Ontario Line, the Canadian government insisting it needs more information about the route. The Toronto Star reports.
• Facebook, it turns out, chose not to pay proper attention to sending officials to testify at a Canada government inquiry into fake news. Maclean’s reports.
• Justin Trudeau, speaking recently in Toronto, credited immigration for the success of the tech sector of Canada. CBC reports.
• Foreign workers turn out to play a critical role in staffing the lobster plants in the Acadian fishing village of Meteghan, in Nova Scotia. CBC reports.
• Canada and the United States are again disputing the claims of Canada to sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. Global News reports.
• MacLean’s interviews Northwest Territories premier Bob McLeod, who dreams of a massive development of Arctic Canada, including a goal of a million residents for his territory.
• Enzo DiMatteo suggests at NOW Toronto that the growing unpopularity of Doing Ford in Ontario might hurt the federal Conservatives badly.
• Could the Green Party go mainstream across Canada? The Conversation considers.
• The Conversation reports on what the national fervour over the Toronto Raptors represents, including the growing diversity of the population of Canada and the global spread of basketball.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Innisfil, Montréal, Yellowknife, Miami Beach, Plovdiv

• CityLab notes how the effort of exurban Innisfil to use Uber as a substitute for mass transit did not work as expected.
• HuffPost Québec looks at how the Québec government is prioritizing the REM suburban light rails over the proposed Pink Line.
• Yellowknife may see the construction of a decidedly green four-story building. CBC North reports.
• CityLab looks at the experience of Miami Beach in using public art to put itself on the map.
• Guardian Cities looks at how the city of Plovdiv, second-largest city in Bulgaria, is trying to attract past emigrants from the country.

[NEWS] Five #indigenous links: Nunavut, Haisla, Ken Hill, McGill Redmen, New Richmond

• This MacLean’s feature examines how, twenty years after the formation of Nunavut, some Inuit are considering new ways to make governance work in their interests.
• This National Observer article looks at how one Haisla band government sees hope in the construction of a pipeline, one that would provide the community with needed revenue.
• This Toronto Life feature by Michael Lista looks at the struggle by Six Nations-based businessman Ken Hill to avoid paying child support, using Indigenous sovereignty as a barrier.
• This National Observer article looks at the successful campaign, led by student Tomas Jirousek, to get McGill University to drop the name McGill Redmen for their sports team.
• CBC Montreal looks at the efforts to improve Indigenous representation on school curricula in the Gaspésie community of New Richmond.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Lethbridge, Tuktoyaktuk, Hong Kong, Berlin

• MTLBlog reports from each borough of Montréal to see what a monthly rent of $C 1000 can get a hopeful tenant. The results will shock you, especially if you are used to Toronto rents (or higher!).
• The Alberta city of Lethbridge hopes, coming the 2020 census, its population will finally reach the mark of one hundred thousand residents. Global News reports.
• The northern Canadian town of Tuktoyaktuk is literally falling into the Arctic Ocean, as the ground crumbles while the sea rises. The National Post reports.
• The aging of the population of taxi drivers of Hong Kong leaves open the question of who, or what, will take their place. Bloomberg reports.
• CityLab reports on the remarkable ambition of the new transit plan of Berlin.

[ISL] Five #islands links: Iles-de-la-Madeleine, Nunavut, Vashon Island, St. Kilda, Sardinia

• In the wake of the disruptions caused by a recent massive winter storm, Le Devoir made the point that the Iles-de-la-Madeleine need better conditions to the mainland.
• The Island Review took a look at the work of Shona Main in Nunavut.
• CityLab took a look at how Vashon Island, in Puget Sound not far from Seattle, has to prepare for disasters in the reality that it might be cut off from support from the mainland.
• The Island Review shares some of the work, prose and art, of Brian McHenry on deserted St. Kilda.
• This OBC Transeuropa report looks at the Romanian immigrant shepherds of Sardinia.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that Israeli non-profit SpaceIL plans to launch a lander to the Moon in February.
• Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber writes about the material power of ideas and knowledge in 2019.
• D-Brief shares the latest images from Ultima Thule.
• Earther notes that temperatures in the Arctic have been higher than they have been for more than one hundred thousand years, with moss spores hidden by ice caps for millennia sprouting for the first time.
• Far Outliers notes the economic importance, in the early 20th century, of exports of tung oil for China.
• JSTOR Daily notes the uneasy relationship of many early psychoanalysts with the occult.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes an alarming report from California showing how the police have been deeply compromised by support for the far right.
• Gillian Darley at the LRB Blog writes about a now-forgotten Tolstoyan community in Essex.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution notes a new book by Kevin Erdmann arguing that the United States has been experiencing not a housing bubble but a housing shortage.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the Boomerang Nebula, a nebula in our galaxy colder than intergalactic space.
• Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy looks at libel law as it relates to the Covington schoolboys’ confrontation.
• Window on Eurasia notes a window, in the early 1990s, when the independence of the republic of Karelia from Russia was imaginable.
• Arnold Zwicky free-associates around blue roses, homoerotic and otherwise.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Iqaluit, Boston and Halifax, Orange County, Rome

• Some tour guides in Montréal think they should receive more training about their city’s indigenous history. CBC reports.
• After an arson that destroyed their warehouse, the Northmart grocery store in Iqaluit has reopened. CBC reports.
• Nova Scotia is preparing to send a Christmas tree to Boston, a seasonal tradition that started as a thank-you to New England for help to Halifax after the Halifax Explosion. Global News reports.
• Orange County, the Los Angeles Times has noted, has ended its history as a Republican stronghold. Demographic change has resulted in irreversible political change.
• Guardian Cities reports on the catastrophic state of public transit in Rome. Perhaps privatization might be a solution for this system.

[NEWS] Five Canadian politics links: Ontario, western Canada, the North

• iPolitics notes that Ontario may come out ahead with a federal carbon tax, here.
• Last month’s essay of Stephen Maher at MacLean’s suggesting the Doug Ford government’s approach to energy and the carbon tax will cost Ontario more than it might save looks positively prescient.
• I agree entirely with the argument of Karl Nerenberg at Rabble.ca that CBC should cover the municipal elections in Ontario: Local democracy matters, too.
• Global News reports that a recent Ipsos poll suggests western Canadians tend to identify more closely with their province than with their wider country. (Is this not the case generally in Canada, I wonder?)
• The Canadian program aiming to make food affordable in the north is, as minister Dominic Leblanc admits, in desperate need of reform. CBC reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Iqaluit, San Francisco, Sydnbey, Sihanoukville

• That the real estate market in Hamilton, Toronto’s traditionally more affordable western neighbor, is so strong that some people have been pushed into homelessness is a concern. The Toronto Star reports.
• Iqaluit is acting to deal with the threatened water shortages, but will it succeed in time to hold off this concern? MacLean’s reports.
• This Bloomberg View article suggesting the unaffordability of San Francisco came not so much as a result of the tech sector as because of Barry Bonds’ sports success is interesting. Thoughts?
• The extended fire season of Sydney, Australia, will force Sydneysiders to adapt to this dangerous new environment. Guardian Cities reports.
• The SCMP looks at how an influx of Chinese investment is transforming Sihanoukville, the leading deep-sea port of Cambodia.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Halifax and Dartmouth, Winnipeg, Iqaluit, St. Petersburg, Pyongyang

• Is a mysterious chair in Dartmouth a legacy of the Halifax Explosion? Global News reports.
• Who is Googling Winnipeg, and why? Global News reports.
• The Nunavut capital of Iqaluit faces a serious prospect of water shortages, as its water source Lake Geraldine cannot support growing consumption. CBC reports.
• Guardian Cities reports that the old Tsarist-era palaces of St. Petersburg face a grim future unless someone–artists, say–can rehabilitate these edifices.
• Guardian Cities shares photos of the subway stations of Pyongyang.