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 […]
May 27 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — In the big pre-election picture, the most significant call Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott made on the way to back-to-back news conferences on Monday was to remain in elected politics. That in itself was the bad news for Justin Trudeau, since most of the votes either of them earns as an Independent candidate in this […]
May 22 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Eight months after he bolted from the Conservative Party and with the clock ticking to the October general election, the buzz that attended Maxime Bernier’s stormy departure from Andrew Scheer’s caucus to create a rival conservative party has dissipated. Bernier has so far failed to parlay the significant political capital he had accumulated as a […]
May 16 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — It is not only on the pipeline front that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a politically critical call to make in the lead-up to the upcoming federal campaign. At some point in the not-so-distant future, he will have to decide whether to become more actively involved in Quebec’s ongoing securalism debate. That time is almost […]
May 13 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — Since a breach of trust charge against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman was dropped last week, the opposition parties in the House of Commons have been demanding an inquiry into potential Liberal interference in the judicial travails of the military’s former second in command. There is no doubt the electoral self-interest of the Conservatives and the New […]
May 10 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — On the day his party lost a B.C. seat to the Greens in a byelection this week, Jagmeet Singh took Justin Trudeau to task about climate change, an issue he raised again over the next two days. It was a change of pace of sorts for the NDP leader. There have been twenty-four House sittings […]
May 7 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — If there were any doubts that the upcoming federal election really has become Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives to lose, the results of Monday’s byelection in the B.C. riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith should have dispelled them. No, the last byelection to be held before next fall’s federal campaign did not feature a great surge to the right. The […]
May 3 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — As prime minister, Justin Trudeau is not one who is usually eclipsed on a Canadian stage — especially on Parliament Hill. The occasion of Jason Kenney’s return to his former haunts Thursday in his new role as Alberta’s premier was a clear exception.
May 1 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — There was a time not so long ago when the arrival on the scene of a provincial government as overtly unfriendly to Quebec or at least to its political class as that of Alberta’s Jason Kenney’s would have caused major ripples across the province. It is hardly unknown, especially in Quebec, for party leaders to […]