Justin Trudeau clearly had at least two elections on his mind when he did his big, new cabinet shuffle — next year’s federal vote, for sure, but also the election just over in Ontario. The more you look at this so-called pre-election shuffle, the more you see Doug Ford’s victory rippling through the some of […]

It was like one of Donald Trump’s verbal intensifiers. Before Wednesday’s cabinet shuffle the Liberals were focused on growing the economy and strengthening the middle class; after it, they became very, very focused. Before, they were great at being the government; now, they will be “super-duper,” to borrow from the president. The shuffle provided the […]

In appointing Bill Blair, the MP for Scarborough Southwest, as minister of border security and organized crime reduction‬, Justin Trudeau has sent an experienced and controversial player into the political battles leading up to next October’s federal election. But what’s most striking about the new minister is the deep animosity between Blair and the new […]

So far Donald Trump has followed the same script, in the wake of the Helsinki disaster, he has followed on every previous occasion, after he has said or done something unusually appalling: after insulting the grieving parents of a fallen war hero, or bragging of his ability to “grab them by the pussy,” or blaming […]

The critics are in high dudgeon. Our prime minister appears to be applying rules to his own conduct that are different from the ones he established for his own MPs. When he gets accused of groping a young reporter many years ago, he writes it off as a misunderstanding. Meanwhile, when members of his own […]

The Ontario sex-ed curriculum has been dogged by controversy since the start – thanks in part to a flawed consultation process. When Doug Ford repealed it last week, he also instructed his new education minister, Lisa Thompson, to fix the process. It’s a worthy task. As someone who does engagement for a living, I’d like […]

If you believe some of the statements that have been made recently, you can barely move for all the refugees. On Twitter last year, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau needed “to address the illegal border crossing crisis.” On Monday, the federal Conservative Party posted — then deleted — a tweet showing […]

By all measures, Jason Kenney should be feeling pretty good these days. His United Conservative Party recently won two by-elections in Alberta by whopping margins. Sure, they might have been in extra-safe seats, but still, the magnitude of the victories was notable. In one, the UCP candidate was 73 points ahead of the NDP’s sacrificial […]

The Lord may not yet have answered the prayers of a thousand Alberta bumper stickers but a rising oil price suggests he is listening at least. The plea for a divinely-inspired oil boom, in exchange for the assurance that this time it wouldn’t be “pissed away,” is bearing fruit. There has been a nine-month run-up […]

Canada, like most federal countries, needs equalization to ease the consequences of regional inequalities, namely the uneven quality of public services across provinces and significant population retention problems. They stem largely from the uneven strength of regional economies and population centres and the uneven territorial distribution of wealth, including natural resources. The federal equalization program […]