Guelph Politicast #2.6 - Chris Turner, The War on Science

With Earth Day tomorrow, it's a great reminder that environmental policy in Canada has been stuck in a rut for the last eight years, coincidentally the same amount of time that Stephen Harper has been Prime Minister. One of the people that took notice was writer and journalist Chris Turner, who last year released a fairly scathing tome on the subject of Canada's government and the environment called The War on Science: Muzzled Scientists and Wilful Blindness in Stephen Harper's Canada. For the latest episode of the Guelph Politicast, I got a chance to take to Turner from his home in Alberta to talk about the War on Science, what it means for the general public, and what it will take to make it an election issue in 2015.

The BTBB Awards for 2013

I'm writing this both as a way of organizing my own thoughts and encapsulating the year that was according to the criteria of the annual "Beyond the Ballot Box" Awards show. These year end analyses are always tricky; a balancing act of what was important, what was fascinating and what was overlooked. For this year's awards show, I was very conscious to sidestep around the words "Rob Ford," as he could have easily taken the prize in two, maybe three, of the categories. The truth is that even without RoFo, there was still a lot of material out there. I'll be interested to hear what the rest of the gang has to say, and who they give out their awards to (and by the time this article goes live, we'll all know). For now though, here's my BTTB Award winners, and my reasoning for their getting the laurels.