The timing was admittedly not the best. Shortly after the premier of Quebec, Francois Legault, declared his opposition to reviving the mothballed Energy East pipeline, which would have transported western Canadian oil through Quebec to refineries in New Brunswick — there was no “social acceptability” for such “dirty energy” in Quebec, Legault sniffed — the […]

Andrew Scheer’s schadenfreude is showing. You don’t need to speak German to understand the malicious pleasure the official Opposition leader is taking from the misfortunes suffered by the Trudeau government. The problem is the government’s fiscal problems could boomerang back on him, as he gears up for next year’s election. In question period on Wednesday, […]

The end of the last full parliamentary year before a general election finds the NDP in dire straits, the Conservatives in dubious company and the Liberals in worse shape than many of them would like to believe. It will make for an eventful campaign year.

Massive home renovations can test even the best of relationships. So it could be a bit of a democratic-relationship experiment to see who and what gets tested when a very long renovation gets under way soon in the home that belongs to all Canadians — Parliament Hill’s Centre Block.

MPs were told that parliamentarians and the public will finally be consulted on the Centre Block rehabilitation. The details of the process are still hazy. There are lot of 11th-hour trips up the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill this month, a lot of group photos being taken in the halls and one-last-meals among colleagues in […]

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have finally outlined in recent media interviews what Canada’s carbon pricing/tax policy will look like if the Liberals win next year’s election. McKenna told The Canadian Press last week that by the end of 2020, a re-elected Trudeau government will introduce tougher industrial greenhouse gas emission […]

Sound familiar? Just ask our American friends, who have been wrestling with the spectre of obstruction of justice ever since Donald Trump won the presidency — and trampled on the FBI by firing its director, James Comey. Now, Ontarians are facing their own moment of truth as the layers of deception are peeled back from […]

Last week, a two-decade old recording of Jason Kenney, Alberta’s United Conservative Party leader and one of the most prominent figures in Canadian conservatism, came to light. It contained some deeply disturbing comments. The tape reveals Kenney boasting of his helping to organize a petition demanding a referendum to repeal an ordinance that gave hospital […]

I doubt Andrew Scheer is old enough to have much first-hand memory of George H.W. Bush, whose death produced a surprising outpouring of U.S. national emotion. Scheer was born in 1979. By my calculation that takes him half-way through his second year on the planet when Ronald Reagan, with Bush as his running mate, clobbered […]

The Liberals should not set a target date for a balanced budget, but they should take action in the 2019 budget to eliminate “unannounced” spending, included in the 2018 Budget and 2018 Update, in order to reduce the deficit in future years. In the weeks leading up to the Fall Update, the Conservative opposition has […]