Aug 21 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Even before the Liberals used their majority on a parliamentary committee on Wednesday to shut down future inquiries into the federal ethics commissioner’s scathing report about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the SNC-Lavalin file, there were signs that Mario Dion’s findings were not destined to become a turning point of the pre-election season. By […]
Aug 19 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Keeping track of Quebec and Alberta’s premiers these days is like watching two runaway trains on a pipeline-driven collision course. Neither Jason Kenney nor François Legault seems inclined to put his foot on the brake. It is not clear that either of them can alter course without derailing his agenda. By all indications, Canada’s s […]
Aug 19 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — In the lead-up to its first national campaign this fall, Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party had the opportunity to test the waters in four byelections. The sample was not scientific by any measure but the ridings in play featured a wide range of political dynamics. To wit, over the first half of 2019 the Liberals, the […]
Aug 14 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Where to start? The ethics commissioner report on the SNC-Lavalin affair contains the most damning findings ever rendered by an officer of Parliament against a sitting prime minister. Yes, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin were splattered by the sponsorship scandal. And Stephen Harper spent his last year in office embroiled in a senate scandal that […]
Aug 12 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Canada’s two main parties may be tied in voting intentions at the national level, but the pre-election season has so far been kinder to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals than to Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives. The subtext of the national polls is that the first are doing better than the numbers suggest while the second are running in […]
Jun 21 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — If every party that entered a pre-election summer with an edge on the competition had beat its rivals to the finish line, Ed Broadbent in 1988, Kim Campbell in 1993 and Thomas Mulcair in 2015 would have each been elected prime minister. Not only have campaigns been shown to matter but public opinion often gets […]
Jun 19 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — In the matter of whether the federal government should actively intervene to thwart Quebec’s bid to curtail religious freedoms in parts of its public sector, the ruling Liberals along with the main opposition parties have twice been saved by the bell. Two previous attempts foundered when their political authors lost power before the measures were […]
Jun 18 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — First a prediction: Justin Trudeau’s widely expected decision to relaunch the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion after a 10-month hiatus will not necessarily move the electoral needle in a big way. When it comes to this file the ruling Liberals paid the political cost up front, when they salvaged the project by taking the pipeline off […]
Jun 14 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — It was not for lack of being asked that Quebec premier François Legault declined to sign the letter five of his provincial counterparts and one territorial leader fired off at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week. The letter warned of an impending unity crisis should Trudeau proceed with two environment-related bills. It bore the signature […]
Jun 10 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — After a week’s consideration, it seems Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not completely convinced after all that Canada’s treatment of its Indigenous peoples amounts to genocide. The latter was the main and most controversial finding of the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The prime minister had […]
Jun 7 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — This is the time in the political cycle when the revolving doors of politics are in full swing. Dozens of Canada’s current MPs are saying farewell to federal politics this month with more retirement announcements expected to come over the summer. They are often leaving their parties with big gaps to fill. And that sometimes […]
Jun 6 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — As Doug Ford’s Tories celebrate the first anniversary of their election victory this week, the jubilation in federal Conservative backrooms at the return of their party to power in Canada’s largest province has given way to trepidation. Barely a year in his term, Ford has become more unpopular than the chronically unpopular Liberal premier he […]
Jun 3 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — As opposition leader in the lead-up to the last federal election, Justin Trudeau did not waste a single day to commit to implement the 94 recommendations of the truth and reconciliation commission. He made the promise mere hours after the commission reported on the damage inflicted on Canada’s Indigenous peoples by the residential school system […]
May 31 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not had that many good days over the past few months. It speaks to the difficult year he has been having on the domestic front but also to the energy expended on the Canada/U.S. file by his government that Trudeau owes the best two of those days — over as […]
May 28 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership has not emerged unscathed from his trouble-plagued pre-election season. With a possible Liberal defeat this fall in mind, some insiders are already strategizing a path to the party leadership for former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney. Carney is due to finish his current gig as governor of the Bank […]