University of Northern British Columbia: Open Journal Systems
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An energy superpower or a super sales pitch? Building the case through an examination of
No full textIn 2006, Stephen Harper boldly pronounced Canada as an “emerging energy superpower” to a variety of international audiences, including the G8 meeting. While this label is likely more representative of a marketing campaign than reality (Hester, 2007), it is important to understand the degree that the Canadian media have embraced it. This paper determines the extent to which Canada’s national newspapers, The Globe and Mail and the National Post, adopted the “energy superpower” frame in their reporting about Alberta’s oil sands over a 25 month time period. The oil sands were selected as a case study because proponents of Canada as an “energy superpower” cite the development of Alberta’s oil sands as a key component of the country’s new-found status. To discover how this new label was intertwined into the broader discourse on oil sands development, I used content and discourse analysis to examine newspaper stories over 300 words in length that contain “oil sands or tar sands” in the lead paragraph and/or headline. While my study found few instances of the national newspapers using the term, it did find the national newspapers more closely adopted Harper’s underlying ideas about what an energy superpower was than the more activist state traditionally associated with the term
On their best behaviour? Newspaper journalists' coverage of women municipal candidates in Alberta
Get PDFDo women in municipal politics encounter the same level of media bias as women in national politics? Does every type of newspapers exhibit a bias against women municipal politicians, if at all? These questions guided a study of how three daily and three community newspapers portrayed women council candidates during the 2007 Alberta municipal elections. Using content and discourse analysis, the study compared how journalists reported on female and male candidates’ personal traits such as age, appearance, family situation, gender, and emotions as well as their policy ideas and public utterances. Results from the study indicate that while local women politicians do face a subtle sexism, the media environment they encounter while campaigning is generally more gender-neutral and hospitable to them than the one awaiting women vying for elite national office. Thus, women contemplating a bid for council should not be concerned that local journalists will obsess about their looks or otherwise overtly disadvantage them before prospective voters
The Internet and Electronic Democracy in Canada: Reaching the Limits of E-Government and the False Promise of Digital Democracy?
Get PDFThe 2010 Provincial Election in New Brunswick
Get PDFFor the first time in New Brunswick history, a government was defeated after its first term in power. David Alward, leader of the Progressive Conservatives, defeated Shawn Graham and his Liberal government on 27 September 2010, winning 42 of 55 seats. The Liberals won the remaining 13. Despite boasting a small lead in the public opinion polls, the Liberals were in serious electoral trouble going into the election campaign. A series of misfires and policy reversals, culminating with the disastrous proposal to sell the province’s publicly-owned power utility NB Power to Hydro Quebec, had destroyed the Liberal government’s credibility. Indeed, its low credibility might well have been what motivated the Liberals to try to sell NB Power in the first place: running out of time in its four-year mandate, the Graham government was desperate to find a single “quick-fix” which would reverse party fortunes. However, the gamble backfired, and the 37th General Election provided the Liberals with its lowest vote percentage (34.4%) in their history
Ragnok in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Revenge of the Hrimthursar
Get PDFIn April 1815, a volcano on the Indonesian island of Tambora erupted, devastating that region and causing a major climate change: 1816 was known in across the Atlantic as the “year without a summer.” While many scholars have interpreted the notorious weather of that year as the catalyst for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, scholars are only beginning to examine the depth to which that weather penetrated her work. This paper explores the ways that Victor Frankenstein’s creature resembles a Norse weather monster, an Hrimthursar or a frost giant, and examines Shelley’s distinctive message about the trauma of “a year without a summer.
Solidarity Revisited: Organized Labour and the New Democratic Party
Get PDFThis article seeks to engage Jansen and Young’s recent research on the impact of changing federal campaign finance laws on the relationship between organized labour and the New Democratic Party. Jansen and Young use models from mainstream comparative politics to argue that unions and the NDP retain links due to a “shared ideological commitment” to social democracy, rather than an expectation of mutual rewards and despite changes in the global economy. We critically assess the evidence, method of comparison, and theoretical assumptions informing their claims and find many aspects unconvincing. Instead, we propose that better explanations of this enduring yet strained relationship can be formulated by drawing insights from Canadian political economy, labour history and working class politics, and comparative social democracy
Elementalisms: Competing Solutions for Water Scarcity in Vandana Shiva and Jack London
No full textAs the world’s fresh water supply grows increasingly threatened and access to that supply is mediated more and more by private organizations, multiple attempts have been made to establish permanent trade links between water-rich and water-poor regions, though these attempts have thus far been defeated by environmental, economic, or nationalistic factors. Corporate control of water, as a basic element of human life, holds menacing consequences in terms of humanitarianism and ecological stability. This intent of this article is to investigate several recent corporate successes in the arena of bulk water export from various locations in Alaska, beginning with Eklutna Lake outside of Anchorage and proceeding to current trade contracts in Sitka and future contracts on Adak Island. Alaska holds, by some estimates, 40% of the United States’, and 20% of the world’s, water supply, and it is thus far the only governed entity that has successfully sold water in bulk. Following Vandana Shiva’s advocacy of a “culture” of water in Water Wars (2002), this article suggests that the criteria enabling the recent, troubling boom in Alaskan water sales may be cultural as well as practical or economic. A close reading of Jack London’s “A Relic of the Pliocene” (1901) concludes that London, like Shiva, endorses a culture of unmediated contact and elemental interdependence between man and nature. However, while Shiva’s elementalism leads to a new culture of respect and reverence for water resources, London’s elementalism acts as a shield and justification for exploitation of natural resources, an attitude that speaks strongly to Alaska’s interest in privatizing its water supply
An energy superpower or a super sales pitch? Building the case through an examination of Canadian newspapers coverage of oil sands
Get PDFIn 2006, Stephen Harper boldly pronounced Canada as an “emerging energy superpower” to a variety of international audiences, including at the G8 meeting in London. While this label is likely more representative of a marketing campaign than reality (Hester, 2007), it is important to understand the degree to which the Canadian media has embraced it. This paper determines the extent to which Canada’s national newspapers, the Globe and Mail and the National Post, and its largest paper, the Toronto Star, adopted the “energy superpower” frame in their reporting about Alberta’s oil sands over a 25-month period. The oil sands were selected as a case study because proponents of Canada as an “energy superpower” cite the development of Alberta’s oil sands as a key component of the country’s new-found status. To discover how this new label was intertwined into the broader discourse on oil sands development, I used content and discourse analysis to examine newspaper stories over 300 words in length that contain “oil sands” or “tar sands” in the lead paragraph and/or headline. While my study found few instances of news stories containing the term, it did find that these newspapers more closely adopted Harper’s underlying ideas about what an energy superpower is than the more activist government traditionally associated with the ter
Benedict Spinoza on the Naturalness of Democracy
Get PDFBenedict Spinoza is arguably the first important political philosopher to endorse democracy as the best government. He does so primarily on the basis of the claim that it is the most natural regime. However, there are features of Spinoza’s argument that complicate efforts to interpret his understanding of the naturalness of democracy, especially (i) the tension between his claims about the naturalness and rationality of democracy; and (ii) uncertainty about Spinoza’s attitude toward the natural end or goal of political life. This study argues that Spinoza’s claims about the naturalness of democracy are only fully intelligible in light of the connection between his metaphysics, on the one hand, and his conception of political right, on the other. We conclude that Spinoza believed the naturalness, and hence superiority, of democracy rests on its capacity to promote a formative purpose that includes both the perfection of social construction in the state and the intellectual and moral development of individuals