“Bardish never lost a vote,” whooped one uncharitable Conservative, as the opposition parties defeated the government in the first vote held in the 43rd Canadian parliament on Tuesday evening. It’s true that former Government House leader, Bardish Chagger, did not lose any votes in the House but she had the benefit of managing the Liberals’ […]

Connect the dots between the events of the first instructive week of the 43rd Parliament and the resulting picture is that of a House of Commons more apt to be relevant to the political conversation than it has been in at least a decade. Here are some highlights:

Politics really is a two-faced business. Just days after Donald Trump was calling Justin Trudeau “two-faced” for laughing behind his back at last week’s NATO summit, the two leaders were chatting on the phone and pulling together a renewed free-trade deal between their countries and Mexico.

Jason Kenney is a deft exponent of funambulism – the fine art of political tightrope walking. The Alberta premier’s high wire act requires him to be suitably outraged at Ottawa’s anti-energy policies but not so aggrieved that he incites what he calls “the fear and anger roiling the Prairies”. Kenney met with Justin Trudeau on […]

For the past 30 years, almost without interruption, Canada’s relationship with China has been determined by a closed-loop network of self-dealing and largely interchangeable players in the federal cabinet, the upper echelons of the Foreign Affairs bureaucracy, the Canada China Business Council and a handful of corporate law firms headquartered in Toronto and Montreal.

No zingers for the Dinger this day. We’ve come a long way from that moment in this column when Jason Kenney said Trudeau was an empty trust-fund millionaire with the political depth of a finger bowl who couldn’t read a briefing note longer than a cocktail napkin. Lots of cheers from the Alberta heartland for […]

Justin Trudeau cannot in this new session of Parliament rely on having the outcomes his father did in 1972. True, both he and Pierre Trudeau experienced the embarrassment of moving from a resounding popular victory in their first election cycle to near defeat in the second, after both had been considered the principle reason for […]

Do they actually have a section in the Prime Minister’s office called Annoy Alberta? You’d think so, given the timing of the new Liberal environment minister’s statements that LNG exports may not count toward emissions targets. Jonathan Wilkinson was just off to the Madrid climate summit when he said that to the Globe and Mail. […]

After months of talks, House Democrats and the Trump administration have agreed on revisions to the Canada–U.S.–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) that will likely clear the way for U.S. congressional approval. Although Canada was sidelined in these discussions, the Democrats won some significant improvements to the “New NAFTA” that will benefit Canadians. The biggest change is the […]

The speech from the throne, in 28 minutes of self-promotion and appeals to the left, avoided any meaningful discussion of four critical issues that will impact the lives of Canadians now and in the future. They are: economic and fiscal policy, national unity, natural resource development and Canada’s role in the world. On each of […]