It was at the G8 where my growing animosity toward Vladimir Putin would start to become public. I had been accused of having a Cold War mentality and bringing that to Canada’s relations with Russia. The charge was simply not true. My view is that Russia’s natural long-term gravitation should be toward the West, not against it. I believe the...
Welcome to Grand Strategy Fall. The Carney government is publishing some serious stacks of paper describing how it plans to make Canada relevant again, including a national security strategy, released on Thursday; a new defence policy, already in effect but not yet published; and a full foreign policy.
There are some things you just have to get done quickly, and there are others where you should take the time you need to get it right. The key is knowing which is which. But when it comes to the thorny issues involved in medical assistance in dying, or MAID, the federal government is showing it doesn’t know, or care...
“Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declined to let Quebec’s newly-elected separatist premier deliver a speech at the Canada-European Union Summit in Montreal this week, sparking a wave of backlash in the French-speaking province
It’s no great secret that David Eby and the BC NDP were the biggest losers in Saturday’s BC election, which saw Lorne Doerksen and the BC Conservatives swept into power. Eby’s name has now become a verb, and anyone associated with his decision to call a snap election should be sent to the political equivalent of the Night’s Watch. But...
The midterm elections next Tuesday could deal a deathly blow to Trumpism. Even political stats guru Nate Silver says it’s possible. A shellacking of the Republicans could convince the party that Americans are getting fed up with the White House gong show and want to move back to traditional conservative leadership. What jubilation that news would bring to the rational...
Former Alberta premier Ralph Klein would occasionally remark on the prosaic, conventional nature of the work he did as leader of his province. In 1998, Edmonton Sun journalist Neil Waugh wrote about Mr. Klein’s “good news” tour, during which the premier travelled across the province to spread the word about how “Albertans have turned their province into the envy of...
Some days it feels as if Canadian democracy is a complete farce. Provincial governments elected with near majorities on the strength of 28 per cent of the vote – the same 28 per cent that in another province is worth just two seats. Referendum ballots with 10 loaded questions, none of them binding. Party leaders elected by children, non-citizens, and...
David Eby, the outgoing premier of British Columbia, must regret his decision to call a snap election after being soundly defeated this past weekend by an interim party leader few people outside of his immediate family and constituents knew six weeks ago. Say “hello” to Lorne Doerkson, the leader of the B.C. Conservative Party who is now the province’s premier-designate...
As Conservative MPs gather for their weekly caucus meetings, some are attempting to read the tea leaves from last week’s Alberta referenda and British Columbia’s big Conservative win. Saturday, David Eby’s early election gamble — two years into his NDP government’s mandate — failed spectacularly. B.C. interim Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson won a majority after running a disciplined campaign and...
Apart from Alberta’s no vote on separation, this month’s elections and referendums have given progressive Canadians who care about climate little to cheer about. The country’s biggest oil and gas booster, Premier Danielle Smith is still ruling Alberta and her recent anti-immigrant referendum win, as narrow as it was, hasn’t totally dampened her intent to make new arrivals pay for...
If Mark Carney was anticipating a quiet, even raffiné Canada-EU Summit this week in this most European city of non-European cities in our most European country of non-European countries, he may already be disappointed. The Prime Minister, who recently accepted compliments from a reporter on his vastly improved French and credited his teacher for his fluency, may want to add...
British Columbians elected David Eby as their premier on Oct. 19, 2024. They elected New Democrat MLAs in 47 of 93 seats, giving his party a third term in government and a second consecutive majority government on that day. He was given a majority mandate to govern until 2028 if he wanted to. Speaking on election night, a freshly re-elected...
It’s time for the separatist factions to bring some intellectual honesty to their avowed separatism. There are lots of ways to do that, but the simplest and most effective way is that both parties to this never-ending debate resolve this situation one way or the other.
It may be the most Canadian ad of the U.S. midterms and it’s for a Republican. A man settles in at a neighbourhood bar with a Labatt Blue and the Red Wings game and tells us it doesn’t get any more Michigan than that. Then comes a line you wouldn’t expect: “Canada is not our enemy. We need to end...
British Columbians took a huge political gamble this weekend, handing power to someone they barely know who leads a party that looked like it was imploding only a few weeks ago. But such was the level of anger and disgust over NDP Leader David Eby’s move to call a snap election – amid provincewide municipal elections no less, and with...
Monday, a trial begins in Vancouver whose outcome could significantly alter climate change policies across the country. A group of youth are taking the federal government to court for failing to adequately address climate change, arguing that their Section 7 Charter rights — to life, liberty and security of the person — have been breached.
Jerry Andres watched the results roll in Monday night from his usual perch — at his computer, in his living room in Eckville, Alta., windows open to podcasters livestreaming on YouTube and Rumble. Anders, a retired oilfield worker, wasn’t surprised by the outcome, but he was disappointed. “To be honest with you, I’m more anti-Carney and the Liberals than I...
Are Canada and Europe really “besties”? That is certainly the message that Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Union President Ursula von der Leyen hope to convey when they meet for their much-anticipated Canada-EU Summit in Montreal this Thursday and Friday. But whether this budding romance between Canada and Europe becomes a serious relationship will depend on a host of...
Partisanship may have finally peaked. It’s about time. It can be hard to hear anything over U.S. President Donald Trump’s bluster. But look closer. A fascinating trend is emerging ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, with wider implications. A handful of candidates are galvanizing voters by ditching their party’s jersey altogether.
Mark Carney’s government was perhaps an hour old when he first laid out an intimate shared narrative of Canada and Europe that he has returned to and refined, again and again. “The ceremony we just witnessed reflects the wonder of a country built on the bedrock of three peoples: Indigenous, French and British,” he said as he began his first...
Referendums tend to raise as many questions as they answer. And so it may be for the 10-part questionnaire that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith put to her province — although with a series of no's Albertans have seemingly foreclosed on a number of possibilities. "I am well aware that not every grievance Alberta has with Ottawa has been resolved," Smith...
Danielle Smith wanted to walk into the coming first ministers meeting armed with the tools to start prying open this country’s lock on the Constitution. Alberta voters didn’t give her those tools. With almost all the votes counted, the referendum results show that all of Smith’s proposed constitutional reforms have been rejected. On Senate abolition and on giving the province...
It wasn’t all bad for Danielle Smith Monday night. True, Albertans voted massively to “remain” a province of Canada, thus depriving her of the bad cop for whatever good-cop, bad-cop routine she might have hoped to play with the rest of the country. And yes, Albertans voted to reject all four of the constitutional proposals the Premier had also put...
Pete Hoekstra, U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Canada, is apparently ticked off that no one took his warning about alleged Canadian meddling in the U.S. midterm elections seriously. So he had his embassy issue a profoundly unserious “fact sheet” this week backing up his claim. It’s tempting to brush off the document — a list of nine “FACTS” in...
If Canadians focused solely on recent commentary from union leaders and their lawyers, they’d be forgiven for thinking the current Liberal government has been engaged in a long battle against workers’ rights, culminating in a final charge against the right to strike.
The decisive, pro-remain result of 75% in the Alberta referendum has prompted two questions, one in that province and the other in Ottawa. The Alberta question is whether Premier Danielle Smith can remain in office after telling separatist members of her United Conservative Party (UCP) to “join a different party” if they can’t accept the referendum results. “The United Conservative...
Using her toughest words yet, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith decreed to United Conservative Party members Wednesday: get on the federalist train or get off the platform. No candidate, provincial board or constituency association board member would be permitted to publicly argue for anything other than a stronger Alberta within a united Canada, she said. But a parsing of Smith’s words...
Amid all the attention paid to her mildly salacious revelations about Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland has been saying stuff that’s much more relevant to our current moment. At every tour stop to promote her new book “Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider’s View of Dealing with a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People,” the former federal cabinet titan has been going...
A spectre is haunting the United States — the spectre of Canada. At least, that’s according to the American embassy in Ottawa. In a new memo published Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. has directly accused Canada of meddling in their domestic affairs.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is like the arsonist who tries to play the hero because they helped put out the flames of a fire that they started. Don’t be fooled, she’s anything but a hero. She set things in motion towards the potential breakup of Canada, then fought against her own referendum question. She doesn’t deserve any credit. That goes...
One of the striking things about the Alberta referendum campaign was the media frenzy it triggered: wall-to-wall coverage, over-the-top headlines that declared Confederation was at stake. The outcome was never in doubt. As every poll testified, the result would be a rout. The hard-right separatists had about as much chance of victory as Eddie the Eagle winning the ski jump...
I believe the correct word is debacle. As in, “comprehensive failure, humiliating defeat, fiasco.” The secessionist campaign that Albertans have, in their wisdom and their mercy, dispatched to the hereafter is far from the only victim of the grotesque pantomime of democracy – 10 questions, none of them of any legal or practical effect – the province’s Premier saw fit...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith fed a stray cat, in hopes that it would go away. But stray cats don’t do that. They eat until their bellies swell, then saunter away to go sleep it off. The next morning, however, they’ll come back for another meal, screeching by the side door until someone appears with a plate. And then, the next...
The separatists lose huge and now it's how Danielle Smith plays the cards she has in this game of high-stakes political poker
Similar levels of support launched secessionist parties in Quebec and Scotland decades ago, and both are in power today
Plenty will be claiming victory now that Alberta has voted against separatism, but the days and weeks ahead will show what’s been lost too with this democracy gambit. The decisive majority — over 75 per cent with most polls reporting — is a clear win for Mark Carney, whose stock in Alberta has only climbed throughout the referendum campaign. The...
