Author | Lightnews

Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · 28d

Maybe I'm subconsciously motivated by my love of Christmas, but this change has suddenly turned me into a rabid traditionalist.

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Dale Smith @journodale.bsky.social · 28d

New ceremonial robes vs old ceremonial robes. #SCC

2026 photo of the Supreme Court of Canada, where the new robes are black with red piping.

2025 photo of the Supreme Court of Canada, with the red velvet and ermine robes.

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Aug 28

The Gazette did some very interesting work in selecting photos for this article. I have a feeling though that if this (just wildly unconstitutional) proposed bill ever does come to be though, that somehow many of these examples of public christian prayer will be exempted.

Steve Faguy @fagstein.bsky.social · Aug 28

The Quebec government is planning to pass a law to ban prayer in public, a move so blatantly unconstitutional I'm wondering if it's a joke. www.montrealgazette.com/news/provinc...

Legault government to table bill to ban prayer in the streets

The minister responsible for laicity plans to table a bill beefing up secularism this fall

www.montrealgazette.com

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Aug 20

I tried to use co-pilot to convert some multiple choice questions into a machine readable format for uploading to Moodle. Seemed to work great at first, but then started randomly skipping questions and swapping answers around. I can't fathom any serious use case it could be trusted for.

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Reposted by Michael J. Wigginton

Youth Political Representation Research Network @youthpolrep.bsky.social · Aug 8

🚨New Publication🚨

Interesting piece on why a legislator’s age matters:

@wigginton.ca re-conceptualizes youth representation in @repjournal.bsky.social

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

#youthpolrep

Why Does a Legislator’s Age Matter? Re-Conceptualising Youth Representation

Representation of young adults in legislatures has been the subject of increasing empirical study, with a growing number of studies addressing the causes of low rates of youth representation. While...

www.tandfonline.com

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · May 30

This little link was an absolute game changer for my Hull-CarletonU commute. Shaved off some considerable time, and made the commute a lot safer / more comfortable. Great to see the holes in the Ottawa-Gatineau bike network filled in!

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 25

Recently I was in a painted bike lane on Beechwood and had a car veer suddenly into my lane (and nearly me) as it prepared for a right turn. Painted lanes absolutely aren't sufficient, and it really doesn't help when they curve around car parking. Once the paint starts to fade the lane disappears

Google maps screenshot of the intersection of Beechwood and Springfield. Shows a painted bikelane which curves to accommodate a lane of car parking.

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 23

To me the bizarre thing is that experimental studies in social science are often *less* reliable than observational ones because of how hard it is to make a good experimental scenario. Voting in a simulation just ain't the same, and countries will not let me randomly assign candidates in real ones

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 20

PSA for people looking to vote this weekend: Elections Canada's data suggests that, unlike on election day, the evening of advance voting days is the least popular time to vote. So waiting until after 4pm might get you a better experience
(Election Day is of course also an option)

Elections Canada Graphic: Peak voting times on advance polling days (adjusted for the holiday weekend).

Early morning to 1 p.m.: red arrow indicating busiest period

1 p.m. to 4 p.m.: yellow arrow indicating a busy period

After 4 p.m.: green arrow indicating a low-traffic period

Elections Canada Graphic: Usual peak voting times on election day

Early morning: red arrow indicating busiest period

10 a.m. to noon: yellow arrow indicating a busy period

Noon to 4 p.m.: green arrow indicating a low-traffic period

After 4 p.m.: red arrow indicating busiest period

Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 19

I was recently without my bike for a week and was shocked by how bad my Hull-Carleton U commute was. 1hr by transit vs 30 mins by bike, assuming the bus actually came (it often didn't). And now OC Transpo is cutting that bus altogether. Hard to imagine ridership numbers will increase like this.

Toon Dreessen @toondreessen.bsky.social · Apr 19

Totally agree with @brigittepellerin.bsky.social here: we don’t get the service we pay for. 1/ ottawacitizen.com/opinion/oc-t...

Pellerin: OC Transpo's bus changes will frustrate you even more

In Ottawa, we get neither frequency nor reliability from our public transit, yet we pay through the nose for the commute.

ottawacitizen.com

Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 18

Debate conclusion: I learned roughly as much about the election from playing the video game as I did from watching the debate. Increasingly wondering if the debate format is at all productive for democracy, or if a series of interviews like 5 chefs, une élection would be a better use of time.

Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 17

Dual monitors have a lot of uses, but making following the debate less boring is an pretty great one.

Picture of my computer set up, with the debate on one monitor and the game Transport Fever 2 on the other

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 17

Dual monitors have a lot of uses, but making following the debate less boring is an pretty great one.

Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 15

Maybe I misunderstood your point, but there is a travel advisory for China and not for the USA? While they've added some language about increased scrutiny at the US border, the advisory for China is very clear about arbitrary law enforcement. If anything we're still understating the US situation.

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 15

It's ultimately just a simple typo, but given that the point of this press release is to pander to Quebecers, it's pretty funny that they got the French version of the headline so wrong.

English announcement from NDP, calling for the French debate to be rescheduled to avoid a conflict with the Habs game

French version of the same announcement, the headline of which calls for the debate to be rescheduled to *cause* a conflict with the Habs game

Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 15

Yeah the sudden request for rescheduling seems very amateurish. If they were going to object on that basis they should have done it well before now.

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 15

I have no memory of it, but apparently we've done almost this exact thing before. Sometimes our politics can stray into self-parody territory.

www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Leaders' French debate bumped by NHL playoffs | CBC News

The French-language televised leaders debate — originally scheduled for Thursday — will be moved to Wednesday due to a conflict with the NHL playoffs.

www.cbc.ca

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 14

Thought about this a bit more, and now I think I actually might have read that he did this for people he appointed to the Senate, either in addition to or in place of cabinet. Just in case that helps you in searching.

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 14

I can offer up that I've definitely also read this before, but can't figure out where. It feels like an anecdote that would have been in Governing From the Centre but a quick ctrl +f tells me it's not.

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 11

#votewell.ca handles this a lot better imho, and just tells voters that they don't have any reason to vote strategically in this riding.

A screencapture from votewell.ca, showing the same figures as the previous picture, but with the advice to "please vote for your preferred candidate"

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 11

I'm lukewarm on strategic voting overall, but if orgs like @smartvoting.ca are going tell people to do it they should be more nuanced about it. Voting 'strategically' to keep the CPC out of a seat they have no hope of winning makes no sense, as does picking one party out of a 3-way statistical tie.

Screencap of Smartvoting.ca's recommended vote in Berthier—Maskinongé. It shows the BQ at 29%, LPC at 28%, NDP at 28%, and CPC at 12%. It advises that the Bloc are the strategic vote choice.

Available at: https://smartvoting.ca/ridings/federal-2025/24012

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 11

Le PQ, qui veut que le Québec soit indépendant du Canada, trouve ça injuste que le Québec ait sa propre politique sur le prix du carbone, et suit pas celui du RoC 🤨

Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Apr 2

So now that it's April 2 @theconversationca.bsky.social are going to reveal that this was just an April Fool's joke and not a serious article, right? Because surely a publication based on "academic rigour, journalistic flair" would not publish this tripe as serious analysis. Surely. Right?

The Conversation Canada @ca.theconversation.com · Apr 1

Canada a 51st state? Here’s how American annexation could actually benefit Canada

The notion of a friendly U.S.–Canada merger invites reflection since both countries are economically interlocked and geographically co-located, though culturally distinct.

theconversation.com

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Mar 28

I can be a bit of a stickler for citations when I teach, but this National Post article is full of some incredibly weak accusations. The example below is a formulaic stock phrase, not an original thought. Nowhere near the sort of conduct that gets degrees revoked.
nationalpost.com/news/mark-ca...

“The setting for the game is a pure exchange economy with a finite number of states.” — H.S. Shin, “News Management and the Value of Firms,” The RAND Journal of Economics, 1994, p. 60.
Article content

“The setting for the game is a pure exchange economy with a continuous number of states.” — Carney thesis, 1995, p. 211.

Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Mar 25

I also find some of their stances for the parties questionable. In a question about funding for universities, they rely on Singh saying tuition should be free. In questioning if our hate speech laws go too far, they rely on parties stances on a *proposed* law. Neither exactly matches the actual Q

How much federal funding should universities receive?
NDP: Much more
Source: Analysis

Jagmeet [Singh] has a plan to make sure post-secondary is accessible which includes: Making post-secondary education part of our public education system; [...] Working towards a future where tuition is free.

Canada's laws against hate speech place too many limits on freedom of expression.
CPC: Strongly agree
Source: Analysis

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Wednesday his party is vehemently opposed to the government's forthcoming online harms legislation, a bill designed to combat hate speech, terrorist content and some violent material on the internet. Saying he won't accept "Justin Trudeau's woke authoritarian agenda," Poilievre said the prime minister and his government shouldn't be deciding what constitutes "hate speech" online and called the legislation an "attack on freedom of expression."

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Mar 25

Tried out CBC new vote compass and I found some of their indicators this year odd. Multiple Qs on hate speech laws, but none on housing policy? Banning puberty blockers, but no high speed rail? Are these really the salient ballot questions this election? I worry they over-represent the culture war

Vote Compass - 2025 Canadian Federal Election

Use this interactive survey designed by political scientists to calculate your alignment with the candidate platforms.

votecompass.cbc.ca

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Michael J. Wigginton @wigginton.ca · Mar 21

I think there's probably something to this idea, particularly the idea that vesting one person with too many roles and powers makes it easier for them to slide towards being an autocrat. Still, Pakistan has a parliamentary system and Russia was only semi presidential; it's far from robust protection

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