Ontario cuts conservation authority funding for flood programs
Ontario conservation authorities say the provincial government has cut their funding for flood management programs in half. Conservation Ontario, which represents the province’s 36 conservation authorities, said impacts of the cuts will be felt immediately, particularly in smaller and more rural areas. “Cutting natural hazards funding is particularly problematic right now in light of the […]
Government expects to award contract for new fighter jet fleet in 2022 (but admits it could face delays)
Though the federal government expects to award a contract for a new fleet of fighter jets in 2022, it admits that schedule is aggressive and could yet face further delays. A request for bids to provide 88 new jets to the Royal Canadian Air Force will be released next month, according to a new update […]
Flood waters take a life in western Quebec after rising river sweeps away road
Flood waters have taken a life in western Quebec after a road was washed out by rising river levels. Police in the Outaouais region confirmed the death on Twitter, along with a photo showing the extent of the washout. Authorities have released few details about the victim, saying the nighttime accident in the Municipality of […]
Canada’s border agency is about to shake up the way it tracks sex and gender information — which could lead to some awkward conversations with Washington. For the past two years, the federal government has been looking into how to introduce a third gender identifier across federal departments — something beyond checking off “male” or […]
Read MoreThe Ontario NDP wants Canada’s federal elections watchdog to look into whether Ontario Premier Doug Ford is violating federal election advertising rules with his anti-carbon tax sticker campaign. The Ontario budget included something called the Federal Carbon Tax Transparency Act, which requires all gas stations in the province to display a sticker on their pumps […]
Read MoreThe election is still five days away, but about a quarter of Prince Edward Islanders have already voted. Meanwhile, a new poll suggests the Green Party has a clear lead over the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals heading into the last weekend of the campaign. The NDP is well back — and focused mainly on […]
Read MorePrime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, when the latter visits Canada next weekend. Abe and Trudeau’s two-day meeting on April 27 and 28 will centre on the upcoming G20 summit in Osaka in late June, as well strengthening ties between the two countries. Trudeau’s office says in a statement […]
Read MoreThe case for ratifying the revised North American trade agreement got a boost Thursday with the release of a new analysis by the U.S. International Trade Commission that predicted economic gains for all three partners if its changes are implemented. “In light of the size of the U.S. economy relative to the size of the […]
Read MoreThe Ontario government has told local public-health units it is slashing provincial funding for programs such as food safety and water-quality inspections and immunization controls – cuts amounting to almost $200-million over the next two years in Toronto. Mayor John Tory condemned the move, which he said was “hidden” in the recent provincial budget and […]
Read MoreFeatured Ink
Trudeau could face a tough second election, just like his father did
It was a joke that only his father’s old friends would really get. Popping in for a surprise visit with veterans of Pierre Trudeau’s government at a lunch this week in Ottawa, Justin Trudeau said he had come up with the campaign slogan for the election later this year.
Justin Trudeau has only one option now: fight
Jason Kenney is about to become premier of Alberta because he managed to make the election into a referendum on who had a better plan for his province: him or Justin Trudeau. Until October, Trudeau will have to return the favour, campaigning against Kenney in the rest of the country, using Kenney as a rhetorical […]
Politics of fear backfired on Notley and will backfire on Trudeau too
Tuesday’s election win that gave Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party a majority government holds many lessons for those who engage in the politics of fear and smear. Not only does it not always work, it can backfire big time. The Alberta NDP ran a disgraceful, cynical campaign of attempted character assassination against United Conservative Party […]
How Jason Kenney’s win puts Justin Trudeau in a tight spot
The consensus forecast of the impact of a United Conservative Party victory in Alberta on the rest of the country was: trouble ahead. Hadn’t its leader, Jason Kenney, promised to “stand up” for the province’s oil and gas industry, and “fight for a fair deal” in the federation? Didn’t the party platform promise to cut […]
Rachel Notley helped strike a grand bargain on oil and the climate. Can Trudeau save it?
It’s still possible that Canada will emerge from 2019 with construction crews building a new pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast and a federal government committed to implementing a price on carbon and pursuing Canada’s international commitment to emissions reductions. If those things come to pass, it will be in no small part because […]
What Jason Kenney’s election in Alberta means for Justin Trudeau
Jason Kenney saved his vitriolic interventions in the Alberta election campaign for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rather than his opponent, NDP Premier Rachel Notley. This made sense — political attacks rarely work when the target is more popular than source and many voters held Notley in greater esteem than Kenney. But there was an edge […]
Alberta election signals volatile times in Canadian politics
And then there were none. As of the victory on Tuesday of Alberta’s United Conservatives, Canada’s first ministers’ club is once again male-only. Of the quartet of female premiers who led Canada’s largest provinces as recently as five years ago, not a single member is left at the table.
Did Jody Wilson-Raybould understand her role as attorney-general?
The reputation and integrity of the administration of criminal justice in Canada has recently been challenged by critics who betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the responsibilities of key participants in our justice system. Regrettably, these misconceptions have been fuelled by our former attorney-general, Jody Wilson-Raybould. There is no question that the attorney-general must exercise her […]
After Alberta’s election, ‘nothing good to come’
If you look up the Alberta government’s own economic review and indicators, you eventually land on a page filled with headlines like this; Alberta labour market softening, Alberta inflation cools, Trade sector stabilizing following recent weaknesses, shipments fall with lower energy prices, Alberta employment starts 2019 on a weak note.
Jason Kenney, from unity schemer to unity premier
In the end it was as written. The ultra-hard final numbers in the Alberta election, as faithful readers have been warned, are going to take a while to arrive. But it became apparent shockingly early on Tuesday night that the United Conservative Party would secure a comfortable majority in the Alberta legislature, completing Jason Kenney’s […]
The metaphor of a marathon doesn’t begin to describe the journey Jason Kenney embarked upon to become Alberta’s 18th premier with a resounding majority government, making the Alberta NDP the only one-term government in the province’s 114-year history. Even an Ironman metaphor doesn’t adequately symbolize the onerous odyssey that Kenney has undertaken to ensure Premier […]
Read MoreThey arrived on a wind of change in 2015, only to be blown out of office four years later by an even more powerful gale. Rachel Notley’s New Democrats, with all their dreams and hopes and agonies, succumbed exactly as UCP Leader Jason Kenney said they would, overwhelmed by a united conservative bloc that is […]
Read MoreJustin Trudeau isn’t looking for a new Gerald Butts. It’s been two months this week since the SNC-Lavalin controversy claimed Trudeau’s right-hand man, and the Prime Minister’s Office is confirming that no new principal secretary will be coming in soon to replace Butts.
Read MoreCanadian steel producers and their workers have launched a full court press to persuade the Minister of Finance to introduce without delay “permanent” safeguard measures on imports of non-NAFTA steel. This is a popular initiative with politicians of many stripes supporting it only a few months before the next Federal Election. But extending safeguards for […]
Read MoreInteresting how the term “white nationalism” has somehow begun to supplant the more honest phrase “white supremacy,” both here and in the United States. Everyone seems to be using it now. It will be an election campaign topic in our general election this fall, and the American one late next year. And let’s be clear, […]
Read MoreI encounter Conservative friends and associates every day. Aware that we all have different leanings, we nevertheless roll up our sleeves and get to work building our community, our world. So many of the London Food Bank’s volunteers, donors and clients are conservative in temperament and in political leaning and they help the organization to […]
Read MoreA month ago, tens of thousands of Quebec students inspired by a Swedish teenage activist abruptly left their schools and spilled into city streets across the province to demand action on climate change and place blame on their parents’ generation for neglect. It’s not just students on a tear.
Read MoreThe Nov. 30, 2015 election that brought the Liberal party to power in Newfoundland and Labrador marked the demise of the last nominally Conservative government in the country. After the election of a Liberal federal government the previous month and the defeat of the once-mighty Alberta Progressive Conservatives in the spring, observers wondered whether Conservatism, […]
Read MoreAfter more than two months — and a remarkable tally of political casualties — the SNC-Lavalin affair at last appears to be entering its final stages. Aside from its immediate impact on the reputation and electoral fortunes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government, the controversy is certain to be examined for years to […]
Read MoreThe war on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax got several degrees warmer Monday as Ontario officially began a court challenge to the federal carbon tax. “The federal government’s carbon tax is forcing Ontarians to pay more to heat their homes, drive to work and buy groceries. It’s simply not fair to hardworking individuals, families […]
Read MoreEntertainment Plus
Bradley Welsh, ‘Trainspotting’ actor, shot dead in Scotland
“Trainspotting 2” star Bradley Welsh has been shot dead in Scotland, the UK’s Press Association agency has reported. The actor — who appeared as gangland figure Doyle in the sequel to the hit movie about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh — was killed in Scotland’s capital on Wednesday night, the agency said. Police […]
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