Pleased to recall that it was on this date in 2001 that Gordon Campbell was elected Premier of British Columbia after he and his party won a commanding 77 of the 79 seats in his province’s legislature. He would go on to serve a decade in BC’s top political job.

As winter melts into spring and vaccination rates rise steadily, the end of the pandemic has, mercifully, begun. The indescribable events we have lived through this past year and a half have shaken us to our core, leading us to question our most fundamental beliefs — about the role of government, business and other institutions, […]

The Americans’ Center for Disease Control and Prevention (the well-known CDC) had a major conversion this week. It finally let the science of COVID (and not the politics) drive its decision on what vaccinated Americans can and cannot do once they’ve had their shots. According to the CDC, fully vaccinated people have a very low […]

My parents bought a house in the early 1960s for less than $25,000. They sold it a quarter-century later for more than 30 times that amount. Compounded interest in any long-term investment would have been hard pressed to deliver that enormous increase. We bought a house in the 1980s for $250,000. It was recently sold […]

When it comes to political ethics, little is expected of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — and he seldom disappoints. For example, his conduct in the WE Charity affair. Contrary to myth, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion’s report on Trudeau last week was not an exoneration of Trudeau’s conduct, but a searing indictment of it.

The federal government has long looked down its nose at Newfoundland and Labrador as an economic sink-hole, so you can understand the pride premier Danny Williams must have felt when he told the Toronto Economic Club in 2007 that his province had “turned the fiscal corner.” Williams’ government recorded a budgetary surplus that year, allowing […]

How did it come to this? Leave aside, for the moment, the implications – for free speech, for Canada’s reputation, for net neutrality – of Bill C-10, the federal government’s misbegotten effort to catch the internet in the same regulatory web as that which has long enveloped the conventional broadcasting industry. Leave aside, too, the […]

In May 2019, 2,622 members of the Canadian Armed Forces filled out a survey on their feelings about their work environment and career prospects. In one question, respondents were asked whether they agree with the statement: “I have confidence in the leadership of the CAF.” Among regular force personnel, the term for full-time members as […]

There is a lot to unpack in Quebec’s just-unveiled overhaul of the province’s language law. At 100 pages, Bill 96 paves the way for months of debate in the national assembly and beyond. Here are five initial observations. Based on the initial reactions, this legislation is not poised to become as polarizing as the province’s […]

Did Mario Dion get it right when he exonerated Justin Trudeau, while finding Bill Morneau in breach of the Conflict of Interest Act, in the WE Charity affair? Based on the evidence the ethics commissioner presented, I would say so. Social media’s zombie army of the uninitiated is on the march already, claiming conspiracy, corruption […]