Jul 18 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — The critics are in high dudgeon. Our prime minister appears to be applying rules to his own conduct that are different from the ones he established for his own MPs. When he gets accused of groping a young reporter many years ago, he writes it off as a misunderstanding. Meanwhile, when members of his own […]
Jul 9 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — You could see it coming miles away. Even before assuming office, our newly minted premier announced that government officials were no longer “going to live high off the hog with taxpayers’ dollars.” Laying down the law, he asked Ontario’s top civil servant to issue a directive that, among other things, banned the serving of free […]
Jun 29 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — Today marks a very significant day in Ontario politics. After 15 years of power, Ontario Liberals will no longer be leading our province. Doug Ford and a new Progressive Conservative government will be assuming the reins of power. And as we look ahead there are two certainties. The first is that the new […]
Jun 20 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — Is representative democracy in Canada in trouble? The Samara Centre for Democracy, a Canadian charity working to improve politics thinks so. Their recently released report, Flip the Script, paints a grim picture of Canada’s system of elected representation. Based on interviews with 54 Members of Parliament exiting after the 2105 federal election, it portrays a hyper-partisan House […]
Jun 9 2018 — John Milloy — Hamilton Spectator — Elections by their very nature produce those who are victorious and those who are defeated. For both, the resulting upheaval to their lives can be dramatic. Thursday’s provincial election was no exception. For some, it means heading to Queen’s Park as a newly elected Member of Provincial Parliament. For others, it marks the end of […]
May 12 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — Ontario’s election campaign has officially begun and those poor souls who have decided to put their names on the ballot are about to start one of the most intense periods of their lives: The equivalent of being asked to write a final exam, play the star forward in a championship game, and shine on a […]
May 9 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — Doug Ford’s turfing of his controversial candidate, Tanya Granic Allen, is probably good news for Ontario’s conservatives. The PC leader will no longer need to defend this rogue candidate whose controversial statements on everything from sex education to the Muslim faith have often gone beyond the pale. It is also good news for those of […]
Apr 25 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — Should Pope Francis visit Canada and apologize for his church’s role in the horrors of the residential school system? The ham-fisted way that Canada’s Catholic bishops have handled this question is threatening to destroy any remaining credibility they have on Indigenous issues and is undermining their influence in other public policy debates. The request seems […]
Apr 15 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — Ontario seems to be heading into one of the most polarized provincial elections in years. For more and more voters, the choice they make on June 7 is going to be between good and evil. For some, it’s about voting for Doug Ford, the ordinary person’s champion, who will respect our tax dollars and get government off our […]
Mar 10 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — As the Ontario PC leadership contest draws to a close, I have a confession to make. In a weird way, I kind of envied the candidates. They have all been able to promise absolutely anything, and if asked how they were going to pay for it, they all had the same easy answer — eliminate […]
Feb 27 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — We live in a world of public outrage. Whether we are talking about sexual misconduct, the US gun culture, injustices against Canada’s Indigenous Peoples or even efforts by Tim Hortons to penalize their lowest-paid employees, people are saying: Enough is enough – this kind of behaviour must stop! In the words of Howard Beale, the […]
Feb 16 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — Watching the three-ring circus that passes for Ontario politics these days, you forget that the legislature hasn’t even started its spring session. When it does begin next week, it is certain to be a wild ride. With an election in early June, the stakes are high. And for the PCs, caught in a leadership soap opera, this […]
Feb 7 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — As someone who was a political staffer at both Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill and later employed political staff myself as an elected official, I am disgusted by the sexual misconduct allegations level against various politicians. I feel great sympathy for any woman who has been mistreated. Sexual misconduct, however, is only part of the […]
Jan 12 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — “Political party infighting” might be the most boring phrase in the English language. For many, it’s up there on the excitement scale with debates over the best brand of lawn seed or watching darts tournaments on TV. Ontarians, however, might want to take a closer look at an internal fight within the Ontario Progressive Conservatives; […]
Jan 10 2018 — John Milloy — National Newswatch — There is something unsettling about recent changes to the federal government’s Canada Summer Jobs Program. Wanting to ensure that pro-life organizations are ineligible to have their summer students’ wages subsidized, applicants must now attest to the fact that they support “the values underlying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” including “reproductive rights” and the […]