Now that the federal New Democrats have selected Avi Lewis as their leader, Canadians know the leadership offering that they will be presented by the major parties in the next campaign. Now the race is on between the parties to try to frame the ‘ballot question’ of the next campaign – whenever that may be. But at this moment, given...
On Sunday, after his runaway victory in the federal New Democratic Party’s leadership race, Avi Lewis linked his own anti-Zionist views to an ancestor’s opposition to the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East. “My great-grandfather was a leader in the [Russian anti-Zionist] Jewish Labour Bund,” said Mr. Lewis, who noted that it was founded in 1897, five...
Alberta’s new legislation limiting “ideology” in classrooms is its own type of ideological flag – which is ironic, since one of the changes proposed by Bill 25 is to prohibit, with limited exceptions, the display of all flags other than Canada’s and Alberta’s. This Bill 25 flag, also known as the “Act to Remove Politics and Ideology from Classrooms and...
Alberta separatists aren’t just enthused by the fact they have apparently surpassed the necessary 177,000 signatures to force their referendum onto ballots — they’re also celebrating when they reached the target. Stay Free Alberta claimed that accomplishment a week before a judge in Edmonton hears a First Nation’s injunction bid against the citizen’s initiative on April 7, arguing that the...
If you want to know what Alberta Premier Danielle Smith really believes, you have to listen to her when she’s amongst her fellow travellers. We were afforded that opportunity last weekend, when Smith graced the Cornerstone Forum, a confab of conspiratorial alternative media personalities, with her presence. There, she echoed suspicions that Ottawa is preparing to round up pastors for...
Aaron Gunn wants a national energy program. He’d never describe it that way, of course, but the MP for North Island-Powell River is just the latest in a long line of Conservative politicians to unintentionally argue for the revival of Pierre Trudeau’s signature energy policy. With gas prices spiking above $2 per litre in his province, Gunn tried to blame...
There’s a scene in Prime Minister, the acclaimed documentary about Jacinda Ardern, where the former New Zealand prime minister is captured in a private moment: raw, unguarded, visibly carrying the weight of leading a country through catastrophe.
For more than two decades, I’ve travelled regularly to China. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s dramatic reboot of bilateral relations has increased both the frequency and the potential outcomes of my trips. I was present for the Prime Minister’s dinner event in January in Beijing. I’m back in Beijing this week, as is Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne. Mr. Carney has also...
Somewhere, James Laxer is shedding a wistful tear. Along with Mel Watkins, Cy Gonick and others, Mr. Laxer led the radical Waffle faction within the federal NDP in the late 1960s and early 1970s, whose mission was to pull the party sharply to the left. They advocated for nationalization of major industries, strict limits on foreign ownership, sharply higher taxes...
Avi Lewis is a truly unconventional politician. He has managed to make himself a champion of young Canadians, which is quite a feat given that he’ll be in his 60th year in May. They provided a lot of energy to his campaign but also tend to vote less and that could prove a challenge. Under his leadership, the NDP will...
In all the reflections pouring in at the passing of Stephen Lewis, you’ll be hard-pressed to find – notwithstanding his left-side politics, with which many differed – a negative word. It is testimony to his stature as a humanitarian giant. On the global stage, Canada never produced a more eloquent standard-bearer for social justice than Mr. Lewis. I first had...
Federal Liberals, who hoped the government’s pipeline pact with Alberta was a public relations effort that would never see the light of day, should brace for its approval — including, possibly, with public money. Three Liberals privately suggested to the Star that Prime Minister Mark Carney may put federal money behind a new pipeline to the west coast — despite...
If the Carney government was looking for a fool-proof roadmap on how to rein in large online platforms from knowingly causing harm to their users — including children — the recent judgments from California and New Mexico provide some excellent guidance. First, a jury in New Mexico found Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, liable for misleading its users...
The question “Cui bono – who gains?” was a Roman judicial construct popularized by Cicero. Lenin made it famous in his 1913 article in Pravda on Russian society, “Who Stands to Gain?” The question has served for centuries as a starting point for evaluating strategic options. The prediction of unintended consequences has often served as a check point on the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is not oblivious. He knows, as any reasonable person would, that it looks terrible for one of his MPs to try to undermine an expert witness on forced labour in China during a parliamentary committee meeting. Last week, Liberal MP Michael Ma grilled Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, about whether she...
It’s back to the future for the NDP — and then some. Last weekend the party elected 58-year-old filmmaker Avi Lewis as party leader. During his campaign, Lewis pledged to impose a wealth tax, stop oil and gas exploration, implement national rent control, and set up public grocery stores. Ed Broadbent, the NDP leader who wanted to nationalize banks back...
Some Liberals, Conservatives and even New Democrats may be tempted to believe that the new NDP leader, Avi Lewis, is too far out there on the left to be a serious electoral threat. That underestimation may be a mistake. I’ve heard some serious people say over the course of the NDP leadership that a Lewis victory would spell the end...
Whenever and wherever U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up in Minneapolis this past winter, citizens pulled out their whistles – warning away the targets of U.S. President Donald Trump’s violent masked paramilitaries. Demonstrators attempted to block ICE from carrying out its work, while others served as witnesses, videotaping the agents to show their behaviour to the world...
The federal NDP, now run by cis male Avi Lewis, showed us two kinds of crazy at their leadership convention on the weekend. First, there was social crazy, with arguments over whose victimized identity deserved time at the mic. Delegates who have identified with the same gender assigned at birth — “cis” people — didn’t have much chance. Then came...
The federal NDP convention in Edmonton in 2016 was the scene of two fascinating events: the unceremonious dumping of Tom Mulcair as party leader and a rhetorical clash between Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and the supporters of a broad statement of principles known as the Leap Manifesto. Notley, less than a year into leading the first NDP government in Alberta's...
There are moments that reveal a nation’s character more clearly than any policy platform or political speech. One such moment came in the summer of 1972, when Idi Amin decreed the expulsion of Uganda’s entire Asian population, and the fate of thousands of terrified families hung in the balance. Discussions between Aga Khan IV and Pierre Elliott Trudeau – two...
With the easy part over, newly minted NDP Leader Avi Lewis knows his real challenge is just beginning. He inherits a divided party, a split Parliamentary caucus and provincial wings opposed to his agenda. The Alberta and Saskatchewan parties want nothing to do with him. Saskatchewan’s NDP Leader Carla Beck wrote to tell him Saturday that she won’t meet with...
Can Avi Lewis’ brand of left-wing populism win over Canadian voters? It’s what he and the NDP are hoping will happen, but as Lewis takes the reins of his party, he’s already causing division.
The conflict in the Persian Gulf and Iran’s missile and drone strikes on key oil and gas facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have caused fires, shutdowns, and extensive damage at major energy export hubs. Global oil and gas prices have surged. In addition to its impact on Canadian consumers, the crisis has driven up fuel and...
Imagine a Canada ruled by a “mini-Trump.” It’s not so implausible, lawyer Frédéric Bérard told the Supreme Court last week. Western nations are teeming with clones of the American president these days. If such an illiberal leader were to come here, Bérard argued, we would simply have to hope that our politicians do the right thing...
The president has dispatched thousands of troops to the Middle East where he is at war with Iran. There are wars of necessity, and wars of choice. Donald Trump has created a third category: wars of whimsy. When will Americans realize that three more years of Trump's chaos could end in unfixable catastrophe?
By now, it’s clear that no matter what kind of resolution U.S. President Donald Trump attempts to impose on his latest misadventure in Iran, this conflict and its global repercussions will be far from over. More likely, it will resemble George W. Bush’s infamous “mission accomplished” moment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003: a premature declaration of victory that...
The thing about Mark Carney’s government is that he’s not subtle about what he’s interested in – and what he’s not. When his cabinet was sworn in, the Prime Minister issued a single mandate letter for all his ministers containing just seven priorities wrapped relentlessly around economic development and sovereignty. And the way Mr. Carney has gone about tackling that...
While Liberal MP Michael Ma has belatedly apologized for questioning the veracity of expert testimony at a Commons committee hearing that China uses forced labour — claiming that was not his intent — cozying up to China has been mainstream Liberal thinking in a line stretching from Justin Trudeau to Mark Carney.
Standing in front of a massive pipe organ at Winnipeg’s Knox United Church on Thursday evening, NDP scion Avi Lewis was preaching to the converted. It was the eve of the party’s leadership convention, one that party members believe could seal the NDP’s fate. Will the next leader revive a nearly moribund federal party by inspiring new and past voters...
There is nothing really new about the New Democratic Party, founded as it was in 1961. Nor with six seats, is it an official party, according to the status rules of the House of Commons. It is however, still democratic and the leadership vote culminating this weekend will point the way to where the NDP — and the progressive left...
No one knows where Donald Trump got the notion of annexing Canada. It hasn’t been seriously suggested by any significant figure in American politics for at least a century. There has been next to no take-up of the proposal, even among his MAGA followers. But the underlying premises – the idea that America must have complete dominion over the Western...
Here is an evergreen news story if there ever was one: the Prime Minister’s official residence has problems. Yes, we are talking about that again – the PM’s digs. Except this time we aren’t talking about 24 Sussex. We’re talking about the cottage that the Prime Minister of Canada had to move into on the grounds of the Governor-General’s residence...
Sunday's coronation won't revive a dead federal party, but his extremist agenda will absolutely tank their provincial success stories. Pundits love to overcomplicate politics, but the math for this Sunday’s NDP leadership vote is painfully simple. For Avi Lewis to be denied a first-ballot victory, the other four candidates on the ballot need to somehow scrape together 50% plus one...
Impressive ambition. A needed boost for Canadian sovereignty. Some hope for industrial transition. But when you get down to the math, there is only half the equation. The figures are big. After touring a Royal Canadian Navy ship on Thursday, and boasting that Canada has finally met the NATO target for defence spending, Prime Minister Mark Carney made a point...
In a way, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer came full circle this week. In February 2013, as the term of the first parliamentary budget officer neared an end, the Official Opposition put a motion before the House of Commons calling for the independence of the office to be reinforced and for the term of Kevin Page to be...
The Supreme Court spent most of this week hearing oral arguments in what is widely known as the Bill 21 case, after the infamous Quebec law banning the wearing of religious symbols in much of the public sector – effectively a hiring bar on observant members of certain religious minorities. Only it isn’t really Bill 21 that is at issue...
I once predicted semi-seriously in a long-ago column that climate change and calm — or a combination of temperature and temperament — would make Canada a 21st-century superpower. Donald Trump may have achieved it in half the time. The term “New World Order” went viral not long after the dawn of 2026, when Prime Minister Mark Carney used it to...
MY EXCELLENT FRIEND and former colleague Steve Walt of the Harvard Kennedy School calls them the predatory hegemons. America, China, and Russia are prowling the world, turning a rule-ordered playing field into a jungle in which the rule of the strongest prevails. The middling powers Prime Minister Mark Carney talked about at Davos are scrambling to escape the jungle. Carney’s...
For years, the dismal state of 24 Sussex Drive has been a recurring punchline, a symbol of political paralysis, and a quiet national embarrassment. I spent years inside the machinery of government, close enough to watch good policy die, not from bad ideas, but from political timidness. The file on 24 Sussex is one I know well. It remains, after...
Those who aspire to lead democratic nations are tested from the moment they declare their candidacy. Does he speak well? Is she good on her feet? How will he handle the economy? Will she be trusted in a crisis? Each candidate is sliced and smeared and pressed onto a slide, so that the electorate can inspect every personal and professional...
