Sep 10 2019 — David Akin — Global News — A four-way race on Vancouver Island. Fierce two-way races in suburban Toronto. Hardly a race at all in Alberta, Saskatchewan or Montreal. Welcome to Canada’s 43rd general election, which, perhaps more than ever, will actually be a collection of as many as a dozen regional races, each with its own dynamics, its own set of […]
Sep 3 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Liberal MPs and ministers finished their summer with a flourish of spending announcements that, in many cases, focused on regions of the country where the governing party will be most active seeking votes in the coming election.
Aug 30 2019 — David Akin — Global News — It is not exactly a mystery when the 43rd general election will be held. For four years now, we’ve all known — thanks to the fixed-date election law brought in by the Harper government — that Canadians will go to the polls on Oct. 21.
Aug 26 2019 — David Akin — Federal Liberal ministers and MPs continued their cross-country spending announcement tour last week, making 277 spending commitments on everything from fixing up bus stops in London, Ont., to building new dressing rooms at a hockey rink in western P.E.I., to funding a youth exchange program to be run by Tides Canada. Those 277 spending commitments […]
Aug 20 2019 — David Akin — Global News — The numbers hardly budged. Polling firm Ipsos jumped into the field last week immediately after Parliament’s ethics commissioner Mario Dion found that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had violated the Conflict of Interest Act (again) by trying to influence former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in favour of Montreal construction giant SNC-Lavalin.
Aug 19 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Politicians in any government at any time will spend their summers doing the barbeque circuit, often with federal cheques in hand to fund any number of local projects. But this summer, days away from the beginning of what looks to be a very tight federal election contest, the Liberals are pouring it on with spending […]
Jul 9 2019 — David Akin — Global News — On Monday, the minister of tourism, Melanie Joly, travelled from her riding in Montreal to Salmon River, N.B., in the riding of Fundy Royal, where she and the local MP, Liberal Alaina Lockhart, announced $1.7 million in federal funding for tourism projects, some of which were in Lockhart’s riding but most of which were not.
Jul 5 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in his own riding in Montreal on Thursday to confirm that the federal government will spend $1.3 billion to extend a subway line. For voters in Trudeau’s riding of Papineau who want their MP to bring home the bacon, it doesn’t get much bigger than this. That’s because, among other […]
Jul 3 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Canada’s small business minister Mary Ng wrapped up a two-day visit to China to promote Canadian small business Wednesday, even as the Chinese government was scolding Canada for trying to get U.S. President Donald Trump to help spring two jailed Canadians, one of whom is a small business operator.
Jun 30 2019 — David Akin — Global News — In 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party — then the third party in the House of Commons — leapfrogged over Thomas Mulcair’s NDP to lead a coalition of progressive voters who had had enough of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Trudeau was rewarded with a strong majority government as many progressive voters took him at his word, for […]
Jun 28 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Former prime minister Jean Chretien and one of his former ministers, John McCallum, have been publicly and privately musing that Canada should just start patching things up with China by releasing Meng Wanzhou. “I think it’s shocking,” said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran. “I think that’s absolutely inappropriate. If they want to make […]
Jun 20 2019 — David Akin — Global News — If there’s a precedent for a premier or a prime minister leading a majority government in this country to fire the finance minister in Year 1, I don’t know it. But that’s just what happened on Thursday at Queen’s Park when Premier Doug Ford upended his cabinet, demoting not only the minister who tabled his […]
Jun 19 2019 — David Akin — Global News — The top bureaucrat at Global Affairs Canada urged Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland last summer to champion freedom of expression at the United Nations Human Rights Council — yet also cautioned that too firm a push could threaten Canada’s campaign to win a seat on the UN Security Council.
Jun 10 2019 — David Akin — Global News — Six premiers asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday to change or bury two pieces of federal legislation that critics of both bills say could hurt Canada’s energy and natural resources sectors. The two bills are C-69, legislation that would change the way regulatory authorities evaluate and assess proposed new major resources projects, and C-48, […]
Jun 10 2019 — David Akin — Global News — A new third-party political action group will make its television debut Monday night ahead of the Raptors playoff game with two 30-second spots that attack Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Global News has learned. The ads come from a group called Shaping Canada’s Future, and they reprise the cast and theme of some advertising run by […]