Canadian Export Agency Downgrades Its Assessment of Saudi Arabia
Canada’s export financing agency is raising a red flag on doing business with Saudi Arabia in the wake of a feud between Riyadh and the Trudeau government. Export Development Canada “is currently off cover on all products in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the agency said on its website’s Saudi country profile Thursday night. “EDC […]
Rich investors granted Canadian residency despite suspicions of fake documents and dubious assets
Some rich foreigners seeking Canadian residency under a special Quebec program for wealthy investors couldn’t point to the province on a map, while others submitted fake documents or disguised their assets — yet many of them were still accepted for immigration, former civil servants say. The officials, charged with administering the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program […]
Rate of rejections for summer jobs funding higher in Conservative ridings
Organizations in Conservative ridings had disproportionately more Canada Summer Job funding applications rejected in 2018 due to their response to the Liberals’ hotly contested values attestation newly released documents show. According to numbers recently tabled in the House of Commons, Liberal-held ridings experienced the largest overall number of rejections. However, a CTV News analysis of […]
A year from now, we will likely be in the middle of the 2019 federal election. Over the past 5 days, we polled 2,000 Canadian adults how they are seeing their political choices and how they feel about their political leaders. Here are the highlights as we see them: If Canadians voted today, our latest […]
Read MoreDoug Ford‘s Progressive Conservative government has introduced legislation to put an end to the province’s Green Energy Act. The legislation was tabled just before 1:30 p.m. ET Thursday. A formal announcement was made by energy minister, Greg Rickford, and infrastructure minister, Monte McNaughton.
Read MoreThe study, which will be released next week, is by Canadians for Clean Prosperity, a non-partisan group led by Mark Cameron, ex-policy director to Stephen Harper. “Bring it on.” That was Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s response Wednesday to Justin Trudeau’s defence of the Liberal carbon tax and the Liberals’ willingness to fight the 2019 election […]
Read MoreMPs from all parties have unanimously adopted a motion condemning the acts of the Myanmar military against Rohingya Muslims as an act of genocide. Liberal MP Andrew Leslie, the parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister, stood in the House of Commons today to table the motion that officially endorses the findings of a UN […]
Read MoreThe company that owns the Toronto Star newspaper has signed a deal to buy iPolitics Inc., an Ottawa-based digital political news service. Financial terms of the deal were not immediately available. Torstar Corp. says once the deal closes its daily newspapers and websites across the country will soon begin publishing articles from iPolitics. Launched in […]
Read MoreCanada is extending an olive branch to Saudi Arabia after a diplomatic blowout, as the countries weigh whether they can potentially avoid a prolonged standoff affecting Canadian firms and Saudi students. Tweets about a human rights case erupted last month into an unusually public brawl between two Group of 20 nations — both a rebuke […]
Read MoreFeatured Ink
Alleslev defection an argument for banning floor crossing
When a Liberal MP marched across the House of Commons aisle to sit as a Conservative this week, reaction in the national press gallery was almost unanimous. Who’s that? Reporters blitzed Google for details on this unfamiliar face and debated how to pronounce Leona Alleslev’s last name.
Deeply flawed carbon dividend scheme draws flak from Conservatives
It’s a healthy strategy to be sceptical of anyone who says “the cheque is in the mail” or “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” — the more so if it’s someone from the government who tells you the cheque is in the mail. But distrust of the Trudeau Liberals doesn’t come close […]
Bernier on Identity and Diversity vs. What a Real Libertarian Might Say
For someone who calls himself a libertarian, Maxime Bernier seems remarkably uninterested in individual freedom. As the most adventurous experiment in generations unfolds around him, he spends his time writing tweets about diversity that would make a real libertarian blanch. So, what might a real libertarian say about freedom and diversity in reply? Let’s start […]
(Not)withstanding judicial overreach is healthy for democracy
Premier Doug Ford no longer needs to invoke the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Ontario Court of Appeal stayed the lower court’s ‘dubious’ ruling overturning legislation to reduce the size of the Toronto City Council. Since Ford said he might use it in other instances and because the issue is […]
Court ruling proof that use of notwithstanding clause was unnecessary
Wednesday’s Ontario Court of Appeal decision staying a lower court ruling that struck down a provincial bill redrawing the map for elections to Toronto city council is being greeted as a victory for the government of Doug Ford. And indeed the decision means the city election will almost certainly proceed, six weeks from now, along […]
Quebec provides a warning that Scheer should be careful about making immigration a campaign theme
Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives may want to push pause on plans to make immigration a signature federal campaign theme next fall long enough to take stock of the turn in the Quebec election conversation. Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault thought he was reaching for a low-hanging fruit when he embraced the issue. With less than […]
Canada aims for the minimum on Indigenous consultation
The Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) decision that quashed the federal approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and tanker project on August 30 was big news across the world, because the project has come to symbolize so many larger issues: from climate change to Indigenous rights and the nature of Canadian federalism.
In fight over Toronto election, Ontario’s top court finds ‘unfair’ doesn’t equal ‘unconstitutional’
Unfair doesn’t equal unconstitutional, and the judge who equated the two almost certainly got it wrong. So says Ontario’s top court, ruling Wednesday that when voters go to the polls in Toronto Oct. 22, they will do so in a 25-ward election. The province and its largest city have been engaged in bitter battle over […]
Ottawa worried Ford’s Washington visit could impact NAFTA talks
Ontario Premier Doug Ford reportedly let Ottawa know late last week that he was headed to Washington on Wednesday to pay a call on the Canada-U.S. trade talks. Ford also assured reporters on Tuesday that he continues to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in the negotiations over NAFTA’s fate.
Liberals consider extending ‘leader’s courtesy’ to Jagmeet Singh in Burnaby byelection
The concept of “leader’s courtesy” may be about to make a come-back. It might sound as quaint and old-fashioned as monacles and top-hats but it is simply a form of parliamentary etiquette that means other parties don’t run candidates in byelections in which a rival party leader is running. Green leader Elizabeth May has already […]
Leona Alleslev, MP for Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, crossed the floor this week to join the Conservatives from the Liberal party. If she runs for re-election in 2019 under the banner of her new party, history suggests that there is a good chance she will lose her seat, despite the narrow margin between the two parties […]
Read MoreLeona Alleslev just became Canada’s newest floor-crosser, giving federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer the best day he’s had since he won the leadership. A rookie MP representing Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, Ms. Alleslev came out swinging hard against her former colleagues in the Liberal government, voicing her deep concern for the country and criticizing the government’s […]
Read MoreOntario Premier Doug Ford arrives in Washington on Wednesday to confer with Canadian officials on NAFTA negotiations. Justin Trudeau’s negotiators had requested to have the latest round of NAFTA talks take place on their own turf this time. Better, they thought, than again rushing down as colonial petitioners to the American capital. But U.S. trade […]
Read MoreThe script in the House of Commons is usually predictable and repetitive, as if designed for early learners. But Parliament retains the power to excite. Milling around in the foyer of the House Monday, it was suggested to me that I might want to be in the chamber at 1:30 p.m. I entered during the […]
Read MorePrime Minister Justin Trudeau once may have hoped to be a disruptive force in Canadian politics, but it’s hard not to notice that it’s his agenda that keeps getting disrupted. The newest disruption is the surprise floor-crossing by one of Trudeau’s own caucus members — Leona Alleslev, who announced on Monday she would in future […]
Read MoreThe current mess in Ontario is not just the work of one man. It is the product of all that has conspired to concentrate so much power in one man, that he could make such a mess. It is the predictable consequence of a number of deep structural flaws in our democracy, each one malign […]
Read MoreLegalizing nonmedical cannabis across Canada — safely and systematically — is a significant challenge for all orders of government. That challenge starts with the local governments on the front lines of the communities where cannabis will be legally produced, sold and consumed. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) serves more than 2,000 local governments representing […]
Read MoreThe federal ethics commissioner’s finding that cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc blundered into a conflict of interest over a fishing licence wasn’t much of a shock. Liberals are known for skating along the edge of rules designed to curb undue coziness between politicians and pals. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was taken to task for vacationing with […]
Read MoreLet’s say, for the sake of argument, that you have high hopes for the new Max Bernier Party. Perhaps you believe, as my colleague Andrew Coyne does, that there is still far too much fly-blown 1970s-style intervention and protectionism in Canada’s economy. Perhaps you are in favour of a more hard-headed approach to immigration policy, […]
Read MoreAndrew Scheer is leader of the Official Opposition. He’s supposed to be focused on opposing the incumbent Liberal government. And working to replace it. But he has other problems. Maxime Bernier problems. You’d assume the Bernier split from the Conservative Party would put Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the clear. And it might. But Conservative […]
Read MoreEntertainment Plus
KISS announces ‘End of the Road’ farewell world tour
KISS is saying goodbye once again — but first, the band is embarking on one more tour. The rock group announced the news of their final tour after a legendary 45-year career on Wednesday’s episode of America’s Got Talent. “This is going to be our last tour,” they announced onstage after performing Detroit Rock City. […]
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