May 29 2020 — John Ivison — Postmedia — There was a wonderful incongruity to Justin Trudeau’s latest pitch for Canada’s bid to win a temporary seat on the UN Security Council. It came on the International Day of the Peacekeeper, at a time when Canada’s contribution to a force it helped create in 1956 is at its lowest ever level. Canada has just […]
May 27 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The reality, which must be clear to everyone at the cabinet table, is the values of a law-abiding liberal democracy and a revisionist autocracy are irreconciliable. The reaction of the Global Times to the news that Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou had lost her extradition hearing anticipates the fury that can be expected to emanate from […]
May 27 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — China is trusting the pandemic will divert the free world’s attention away from efforts to expand its influence in Hong Kong and the South China Sea. The Trudeau Liberals – along with their willing accomplices in the NDP and Green Party – gave Beijing a helping hand in the House of Commons this week. The […]
May 25 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The Chinese navy garrisoned on Woody Island in the South China Sea revealed last week that it had managed to grow cabbages on sandy beaches using new “sand to earth” technology. It means that the military forces on an island bristling with J11 fighter jets and H6 bombers will no longer rely on imported vegetables. […]
May 22 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — One of the few pleasant surprises to have emerged from the pandemic is that predictions of food shortages have proven overblown so far. Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino told the House of Commons agriculture committee that 30,000 temporary foreign workers have been approved, and more than 20,000 have already arrived in Canada to help plant and […]
May 21 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The latest snapshot of Canadian public opinion suggests Justin Trudeau is having a good pandemic. Even after the Liberals were re-elected last fall, more people disapproved of his government, and of him personally, than approved. But since the onset of COVID-19, that evaluation has inverted – 58 per cent of Canadians now approve of the […]
May 20 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The age of international air travel has quickly become the symbol of a bygone era, like steam locomotion or cash. Most of us haven’t ventured further than the local grocery store in two months, but it turns out more than a quarter of a million passengers have disembarked from international flights at Canadian airports in […]
May 15 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — Arthur C. Clarke once said the use of the words “don’t panic” by fellow science fiction writer Douglas Adams was the best advice that could be given to humanity. (Adams claimed in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that one reason the fictional guide outsold its competitors was because it had the words “Don’t Panic” in large, […]
May 13 2020 — John Ivison — Postmedia — Extreme diseases require extreme remedies, but the debts racked up by Canadian governments to respond to COVID-19 run the very real risk of ruining the next generation. National Bank Financial warned this week that Canada’s triple-A credit rating could come under review because combined federal and provincial deficits this year could add up to $350 […]
May 12 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The Trudeau government has finally released its plan to backstop big businesses hit by the COVID crisis. It should have been a moment of consensus, a rare instant of accord when all Canadians agreed that the federal government’s ability to borrow money cheaply should be used to provide bridge financing to the country’s major employers. […]
May 7 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — Elizabeth May has provoked outrage by claiming “oil is dead.” It is not entirely clear why. It’s like the Pope proclaiming the Bible as the fount of spirituality. May is the country’s environmental conscience — the demise of fossil fuels is an article of faith for her. But she is guilty of wishful thinking. The […]
May 6 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte’s recent experience should act as a warning to anyone reading too much into opinion polls during a national crisis. At the height of the country’s COVID outbreak, 94 per cent of Italians supported Conte’s measures and 71 per cent approved of him personally. Yet, as the health emergency has receded […]
May 5 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — Working from home affords the luxury of being able to watch the garden birds nest-building, as they try to protect their unborn young from predators. An expansive new poll by Leger Market for the Association of Canadian Studies suggests Canadians have been gripped by their own nesting instinct – in this instance to protect their […]
May 4 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — Speed trumps perfection in emergency management and the Trudeau government deserves credit for the haste with which benefit cheques were dispatched. But we are moving beyond the initial phase of the COVID pandemic and the government is obligated to be more prudent with the way it employs the public purse going forward. The International Monetary […]
May 1 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The initial reaction on reading the new report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer was to curl up into a ball and turn out the lights. The “illustrative scenarios” presented by the PBO reveal the combination of the COVID pandemic and the oil-price shock has put Canada on course to rack up a deficit of $252.1 […]