Oct 20 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — Justin Trudeau was once one of the loudest voices opposing the government wanting to force veiled Muslim women to uncover their faces. Now that he has a tribune as Prime Minister, his response to Quebec’s Bill 62 has been muted. The fear of being cast in Quebec as an interfering federal leader has softened his […]
Sep 4 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — As they head toward the midpoint of Justin Trudeau’s mandate, Liberal MPs seem to think the public credits them with getting the big things right but a bunch of smaller things wrong. In Mr. Trudeau’s circle, that’s supposed to be a win. The Prime Minister’s advisers say one of his political mantras is “Get the […]
Aug 31 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — There goes Kellie Leitch, who tried to climb the greasy pole of political leadership by pandering to anti-Muslim fears but instead slid to the bottom of the Conservative Party heap. New leader Andrew Scheer, faced with the choice of which of 35 shadow-cabinet roles to give to Ms. Leitch, gave her nothing. Mr. Scheer faced […]
Aug 25 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — Senator Mike Duffy was acquitted in a court of law. A judge even declared it was Stephen Harper’s PMO that was really to blame. But now Mr. Duffy wants to be declared the real victim here, and collect about $8-million. Let’s just guess that most people in this country will find that too much to […]
Aug 21 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s senior aide Gerald Butts took to Twitter to defend the appointment of his friend to a diplomatic post in San Francisco at a pay rate nearly double the official salary scale, arguing his compensation is in line with others the Liberals have recruited from outside the government – and that they […]
Aug 21 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — The well-connected former Liberal candidate who was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to a plum diplomatic posting in San Francisco is being paid nearly twice as much as the job’s official salary rate. Rana Sarkar, a long-time Liberal who is close to Mr. Trudeau’s top aide, principal secretary Gerald Butts, was named consul-general to […]
Aug 7 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — The latest spate of asylum seekers crossing the border over dirt paths in Quebec has once again sparked some, including Conservative politicians, to ask why Ottawa doesn’t press Washington to allow those people to be turned back to the United States.
Jul 5 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — “Odious” was the word used by Jason Kenney, the current Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leader and former federal minister, to describe a $10.5-million settlement for Omar Khadr. Yet at the time Mr. Kenney was a minister of the Crown, the lawyers dispatched by the federal government kept losing.
Jul 3 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — The campaign to sway public opinion behind a Canada-China free-trade deal is all proceeding according to plan, as long as the plan was to make it look like policy wonks, CEOs and government officials are plotting to tell ordinary Canadians what’s best.
Jun 26 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — Last week, Maryam Monsef, the Minister of Status of Women, announced a strategy to address gender-based violence. Two weeks earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered a speech declaring that women’s rights are at the heart of Canada’s foreign policy, and a few days later, International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced a “feminist” foreign-aid policy.
Jun 22 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — For a moment, the Senate threatened a summer cliffhanger: Would it refuse to pass the government’s budget bill? And though the threat fizzled as Senate threats often do – with an agreement to break for summer – it underlined the Liberals’ frustrations in Parliament.
Jun 12 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — Billions for the military and a lump of coal for foreign aid. Justin Trudeau has turned out to be hard-nosed enough to make Liberal foreign policy more hard-nosed when he had to – in the dog-eat-dog world of 2017. But politically, that’s not where he wants to be when he heads for re-election in 2019. […]
May 15 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — The two ends of the Conservative Party used to be the Red Tories and Reformers. Now, the two poles in the party’s leadership race are libertarians and social conservatives. In one corner, there’s Maxime Bernier, the free-market libertarian who says he is fighting for individual freedoms, who promises to slash government, abolish untouchable policies like […]
May 11 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — “As the head of government, the Prime Minister represents all Canadians and should be directly accountable to all Canadians,” the Liberals’ 2015 election promised. “We will introduce a Prime Minister’s Question Period to improve that level of direct accountability.” So step right up, Canadians, and peer into that new wellspring of direct accountability. Take a […]
May 10 2017 — Campbell Clark — Globe and Mail — It was a strangely passive-aggressive, non-committal kind of resignation. Senator Don Meredith sent out a statement to say he had decided not to fight his expulsion from the Red Chamber, to move on with his life, and that he would not “engage” in the Constitutional battle for his seat. What he didn’t say explicitly in […]