Sophie Grégoire Trudeau’s convention speech: “You can count on us, Justin and I”
On Friday night, at the Liberal Party national convention in Halifax, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau addressed a crowd of party members, following an introduction by MP Rodger Cuzner. For half an hour, speaking at times directly to her family seated before the stage, Grégoire Trudeau told personal stories and reinforced the importance of volunteers on the […]
Sober suits, no drama: how Trudeau got the low-key foreign trip he badly needed
The Official Opposition barely mentioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s foreign travel this week. Instead, Conservatives mostly used question period to rehash the PM’s excursion to India two months ago, and the unforced errors that plagued it. So the Trudeau government succeeded at least in not giving its enemies any fresh ammunition — which surely came […]
Federal government postpones study of airport privatization
The federal government is shelving its in-depth study of airport privatization after nearly two years of examining the multibillion-dollar potential of selling off the key federal assets. During a private meeting with airport executives in Ottawa this week, Transport Minister Marc Garneau confirmed that the Liberal government is not moving ahead with privatization at this […]
As the infighting over the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline heats up, the courts may ultimately do what the politicians in Alberta, B.C., Ottawa and − recently − Saskatchewan have been unable to do so far. Pending rulings could set the stage for killing or saving the $7.4-billion expansion of the 65-year-old link between Alberta and […]
Read MoreLiberal Party members have short-listed their policy priorities, with universal pharmacare, decriminalizing drugs and the sex trade, and an underwater tunnel link to Newfoundland making the cut. Today is the final day of a three-day convention in Halifax, an unofficial kickoff to the 2019 election campaign focusing on policy making and energizing the troops. About […]
Read MoreThe Canadian government will lead the first trade missions for women, Indigenous and LGBTQ businesses and entrepreneurs later this year, International Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Saturday. The announcement was part of a speech promoting the Liberal government’s progressive trade agenda at the party’s national convention in Halifax. Champagne offered no details about the missions, […]
Read MoreB.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver says Alberta and Saskatchewan’s threats to cut off oil and gas to his province are just tough talk and nothing more. “This is a lot of bluster — a big lot of bluster — and it’s just not helpful, to be blunt,” B.C. Green leader Andrew Weaver told CTV’s […]
Read MoreRe-election campaigns — like the one the Trudeau Liberals will embark on next year — hang on a government’s ability to convince voters that it still represents positive change, Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist David Axelrod said Friday. But since electoral success seems more and more these days to depend on offering voters something other […]
Read MoreThe president of Canadarm-builder MDA says setting up the company’s parent firm in the United States won’t have any impact on jobs in Canada. In October 2017, MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, based in Richmond, B.C., became Maxar Technologies Ltd. after it acquired DigitalGlobe, an American satellite imaging company. Maxar’s headquarters were in San Francisco before […]
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Supreme Court beer ruling ties the constitution in knots, and the economy with it
What is the worst part of the Supreme Court’s decision in R v Comeau? Is it the shoddy reasoning, the tendentious reading of simple declarative statements, the selective approach to history, the willful naivete? Perhaps it’s the grating hypocrisy: the lectures on the sanctity of precedent, from a court famous for discarding precedent when it […]
In beer ruling, Supreme Court delivers reminder Constitution does not cast provinces as junior partners in federation
At a time when federal-provincial tensions are on the rise, two court rulings this week offer a timely reminder that the Constitution does not cast the provinces as junior partners of a unitary federation. In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court found that New Brunswick is within its rights to forbid its citizens to bring […]
Supreme Court ruling didn’t free the beer, but might it free the pipeline?
As if the pipeline dispute between Alberta and British Columbia couldn’t get more muddled. Now, we’re throwing beer into the equation. I am talking about the “Free the Beer” Supreme Court of Canada ruling this week dealing with a New Brunswick man, Gerard Comeau, who in 2012 was stopped by an RCMP officer and fined […]
Albertans may feel like Canada is ‘broken,’ but Canada isn’t the problem
On Sunday morning, Jason Kenney — who would certainly be at the top of the board if there were betting on the next premier of Alberta — tweeted a link about the Trans Mountain pipeline crisis with the comment: “Canada is broken.” This seemingly flippant remark made a lot of people angry, and most everybody […]
Why is Doug Ford giving Kathleen Wynne a chance to invoke Donald Trump?
Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals are desperate. So it wasn’t much surprise this week when they seized on the slightest chance to compare Doug Ford with Donald Trump – Ms. Wynne delivering an overwrought statement to the effect that a comment by the Progressive Conservative Leader about how more Liberals would be in jail for their accounting […]
Doug Ford is brash, but he’s no Donald Trump
Earlier this week, Ontario PC leader Doug Ford made an announcement that sent a shock wave through the canyons of Bay Street. His first act, should he be elected premier, said Ford, would be to fire Mayo Schmidt, the president and CEO of Hydro One, and the company’s entire board of directors.
Justin Trudeau will have an election in mind as he heads to Halifax convention. But it’s not his own
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hauled out not one, but three of his 2015 election slogans last weekend when he held his pipeline-crisis meeting with the premiers of Alberta and British Columbia. He talked of “hope and hard work” and declared that “better is always possible.” Trudeau even urged the warring provinces to see their rivals […]
Canada stuck with overpriced beer and provincial monopolies
It was never just about the beer — although, as an occasional cross-border suds shopper, there may be a conflict of personal interest here. The case of Gerard Comeau was a crucial legal fight aimed at ending protectionism for a myriad of goods and services controlled by provincial monopolies or regulations which impose higher prices […]
Bernier and Simms offer a tale of two whips
Francis Urquhart, the fictional chief whip in the original (and the best) House of Cards, described his role thus: “A pat on the head and a biscuit here; a short, sharp shock there – and a good boot up the backside where indicated.” In recent days, both the Conservative and Liberal whips’ offices have been […]
Three points on the GST, to end poverty? Guaranteed income sounds like a good deal
One feature of the debate about the idea of a guaranteed annual income — minimum income, basic income, call it what you will — is wide disagreement about what it means, even amongst its supporters. How high or low would the maximum benefit, paid to those with no other income, be? How sharply or gradually […]
This is not a small thing that has happened to Maxime Bernier. It’s a brutal humiliation of a major figure in a national party. The man who led the federal Conservatives’ leadership voting last year for 12 consecutive ballots (using the party’s novel preferential voting system) before losing, narrowly, to Andrew Scheer on the 13th […]
Read MoreThousands of Liberals from across the country will descend on Halifax this weekend to plan their path to a potential electoral victory. It will be the final national meeting in advance of the next election and, in keeping with conventions of a party in government, will likely be non-controversial and inclusive. Most raucous conventions, where […]
Read MoreIt is rare that a single issue costs a federal ruling party its re-election. Based on the latest poll to measure the impact of the ongoing pipeline crisis on the political fortunes of its various protagonists, the fate of the Trans Mountain expansion is unlikely to alone determine that of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in next […]
Read MoreWith the Ontario election 50 days away, and the provincial Liberals trailing badly in the polls, Premier Kathleen Wynne did the inevitable: she played the Trump card. While making a health care announcement at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, the Liberal Premier compared PC leader Doug Ford to the US President. “Doug Ford sounds like Donald […]
Read MoreThe Liberals are torn. They’d like to live up to their own lofty rhetoric about building a shining beacon on Parliament Hill. But they’d prefer not to be constrained in any way by the inconvenient logistics of Parliament. The government’s latest attempt to circumvent the scrutiny of the House of Commons is a streamlining of […]
Read MoreOver the next 18 months, at least four elections will shape the future of this nation. Starting in Ontario, followed by Quebec, Alberta and the country as a whole, voters will go to the polls. New Brunswick also votes this year and another vote in British Columbia cannot be ruled out. But with these key […]
Read MoreNew data on tax expenditures released by the federal Department of Finance on April 16 show that one of Canada’s most generous tax breaks for the very affluent continues to swallow more and more tax revenues and to increase the income gap between the top 1% and the rest of us. Income from capital gains, […]
Read MoreSince early April, the concerns over the fate of the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline in the face of the British Columbia government’s objections have been elevated to the level of a constitutional and political crisis, driven by an artificial deadline set by the pipeline’s Houston-based owner. The hyperbole about how the fate […]
Read MoreAs RCAF01 taxied down the runway at Le Bourget airport here, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emerged from his cabin to come to the rear of the plane where his political staff, bureaucrats and journalists sit. He was seeking out Gabrielle Cesvet, one of the speechwriters on his staff, to present her with a signed copy […]
Read MoreThe question now is, will Justin Trudeau blink? The prime minister talked a good game on the weekend about how the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion will be built, no matter what. Full stop. Now, it is one thing to invite B.C. Premier John Horgan into the same room, have a polite discussion about the pipeline, […]
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Nova Scotia politician files complaint with talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel
A provincial cabinet minister in Nova Scotia has written a letter of complaint to talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel, saying he didn’t appreciate a recent segment that made light of the Halifax Explosion. The letter from Labour Minister Labi Kousoulis says even though the disaster happened more than 100 years ago, Nova Scotian families still live […]
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