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September 08, 2008

Recommended reading for Election '08

Posted by Graham F. Scott at 10:16 AM ET

We're still getting up and running with our blog-based election coverage (check back soon!) but there are plenty of other places online to get your daily fix of electoral indignation. Our good friends at Rabble are running a great election blog with a stellar lineup of writers, at election.rabble.ca.

We're also fans of Maisonneuve magazine's MediaScout blog, which does daily dissections of the country's mainstream media outlets and does the kind of critical analysis of news coverage that seems sorely lacking in, well, most newsrooms.

I also wanted to alert you to this report from the Public Policy Forum, which compares the demographics of Canada's most recent parliament to the British parliament and the U.S. Congress. Interesting tidbits:

• 68 percent of Canadian MPs have a university degree;
• The average cost of running as a candidate in Canada is just over $61,000 ("The cost of running in an election has a direct impact on who can run — High cost of entry means candidates need to be independently wealthy or well-connected," says the PPF );
• 64 percent of Canadian MPs worked in private business before being elected, compared to 15 percent coming from either public service or non-profit backgrounds.

(Thanks to the always-excellent Slaw.ca for the heads-up on the PPF report.)

More entries on: Election 2008

Previous: Tangled up in the food chain at TIFF
Next: NDP and Tories should be embarrassed by the Green Party shutout

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Reader comments:

Two other places I've seen good stuff so far:
1. The Tyee has an election blog, The Hook, that covers a broad spectrum: not just the Canadian federal election, but BC's municipal elections and the U.S. race as well. It's at thetyee.ca/blogs/thehook
2. The Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy (LISPOP) has a federal election blog too, with some surprising findings. Visit www.wlu.ca/lispop/fedblog/ for that

Posted by: Mason at September 8, 2008 05:45 PM

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