Apr 4 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — A half-hour into his presentation, Dr. Peter Donnelly reached slide 13. “I want to turn now to perhaps what might be the most disturbing slide in this deck,” the president of Public Health Ontario said, speaking evenly. “I think it’s important that we all are robustly realistic about the scale of the challenge that we […]
Apr 2 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — Asked on Wednesday how this crisis might end, the prime minister insisted the story was still being written. Challenged to explain what the future might hold, Justin Trudeau directed everyone’s attention to the present. The prime minister’s language on Wednesday was particularly stark. “This is the largest economic program in Canada’s history,” he said of […]
Mar 25 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — In the wee small hours of Wednesday morning, after a day of negotiations, members of the House of Commons met to discuss and pass emergency measures to address a global health emergency. The episode might someday serve as a case study in the politics of pandemic. The sitting and the dispute that preceded it were […]
Mar 23 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — The prime minister is a father of three young children and he’s spent the past week trying to mind the kids while working from home. So that rising note of frustration in his voice as he addressed the nation this morning is something he comes by honestly. “Enough is enough,” he said, citing a spate […]
Mar 21 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — It may be hard to believe now, but it was only a few weeks ago that some commentators were arguing over whether Canada was “broken.” Their concern at the time — a time that seems very distant now — was a series of rail blockades triggered by Indigenous peoples’ objections to a resource project in […]
Mar 19 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — On Tuesday afternoon, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland called U.S. Vice President Mike Pence with a proposal: could Canada and the United States agree to ban all non-essential travel between the two countries? The idea of a Canadian official pitching new border restrictions with the United States would have seemed profoundly strange until very recently. […]
Mar 18 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — Appearing in front of Rideau Cottage on Tuesday, Justin Trudeau offered another update on the latest actions the federal government is taking to assist Canadians. He also spent a significant portion of his remarks stressing what Canadians themselves can do — emphasizing an appeal that has been central to the government’s message since the beginning […]
Mar 17 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — If Friday seemed to offer a small moment of reassurance, the last few days reinforced the challenge now facing governments — to act quickly and intelligently in the face of a once-in-a-century global health emergency, and to do so while clearly explaining and justifying those actions. The first source of concern was the situation at […]
Mar 14 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — Justin Trudeau’s most significant display of leadership this week might have been inadvertent. The fact that his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, contracted COVID-19 is unfortunate and no doubt scary for the Trudeau family. But it also underlined for the public the seriousness of the situation and put the prime minister in a position to practice […]
Mar 12 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — Eventually, someone got around to asking Justin Trudeau how bad it might get. “I can tell you that there are a range of scenarios that we are facing,” the prime minister said on Tuesday morning. “The largest factor is actually Canadians’ own behaviour.” A day earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her fellow countrymen that […]
Mar 10 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — The crises of the first two months of 2020 — the shooting down of PS752 over Iran, the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in China, the Indigenous protests that blocked Canada’s major railways, the cancellation of the Teck Frontier oilsands mine — now seem like prelude to the grand global crisis that came into view […]
Mar 6 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — Peter MacKay isn’t saying he would do nothing to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. But he does have a narrow reading of the degree to which Canada shares the blame for climate change. While MacKay has said Canada has an “obligation” to do “our part,” he also has cast doubt on whether Canada can meet […]
Mar 2 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced today that the federal government will extend the business tax deduction for zero-emission vehicles and equipment to cover mining operations, as he argued that the sector will have an important role to play in the fight against climate change. Speaking in Toronto to a convention hosted by the Prospectors & […]
Mar 1 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — Rising in the House of Commons one night this past week, Elizabeth May sought to focus the conversation on the great crisis of the moment. “This is a very important debate and, even at this late hour, I do want to discuss the emergency,” the Green Party MP said. Officially, the topic of the emergency […]
Feb 25 2020 — Aaron Wherry — CBC — The spring of 2020 may be remembered as a pivotal season for both Justin Trudeau and the country — a time of reckoning and reconciling, of Wet’suwet’en and Teck Frontier and the future of the planet. These are trying moments for the country and its leader. But it might also be harder these days to […]