Jun 7 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — For me, the three hours of testimony by David Johnston — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “independent special rapporteur” on foreign interference — before a House of Commons committee, jumped the shark an hour into the proceedings.
May 28 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — Ever since David Johnston delivered his 55-page report on election interference by Beijing, the fundamental question remains unchanged. Why is an unelected friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, chosen by the PM and paid for by taxpayers, in charge of deciding whether there should be a public inquiry into foreign interference, an option Johnston has […]
Apr 30 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — Federal Justice Minister David Lametti is right when he says passing federal legislation to toughen bail conditions for repeat violent offenders — which he says he will introduce during the current session of Parliament — won’t in and of itself address legitimate concerns about public safety.
Apr 9 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — As Upton Sinclair famously said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” That has been on full display among the chattering classes in Ottawa of late among politicians, rent-seekers and special interest groups whose political and economic fortunes depend on the public believing […]
Apr 1 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal carbon tax is the most efficient, market-driven way to lower greenhouse gas emissions — as he told us it was — why has his budget launched us into a 10-year, $83-billion, taxpayer-subsidized, bidding war with the U.S. to attract so-called clean energy technology?
Mar 23 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — Whatever happened to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise of “open and transparent government” when he was elected in 2015? “It is time to shine more light on government and ensure it remains focused on the people it is meant to serve,” Trudeau declared in his campaign platform that year.
Mar 19 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s appointment of former governor general David Johnston as his “eminent rapporteur” on foreign interference by China in the last two federal elections is a classic “wag the dog” political strategy. Wag the dog, short for the tail wagging the dog, means distracting from a politically damaging issue by creating a diversion.
Mar 12 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — As serious as the subject is, there’s an element of farce to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s sudden conversion to the reality that Canada’s democratic institutions are under threat from foreign powers like China. One illustration is that Trudeau is asking a parliamentary committee that he created in 2017 to investigate foreign interference in Canada’s elections.
Feb 26 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — Canadians are paying more and getting less from the Trudeau government, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. In a series of recent reports, testimony before parliamentary committees and media interviews, Yves Giroux — an independent, non-partisan financial watchdog of government spending — paints a grim picture of increasing expenditures borne by taxpayers and deteriorating public […]
Feb 19 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — What level of interference in Canada’s elections would China have to commit before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government tells us about it? According to reporting by Robert Fife and Steven Chase on Friday, CSIS documents seen by the Globe and Mail outline a highly organized campaign of interference in Canada’s 2021 election, where Beijing’s dictators […]
Feb 9 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait scored an own goal on Tuesday, handing Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre a powerful fundraising tool and making life harder for CBC journalists, particularly those in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. By attacking Poilievre in an interview with the Globe and Mail in an article ostensibly about the CBC’s plans for […]
Feb 5 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — Contrary to what was widely predicted, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s selective shunning of what he describes as the anti-Conservative media that dominate the Parliamentary Press Gallery hasn’t hurt him in the polls. That raises the question of whether he can win the next election without them.
Jan 29 2023 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — Can Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada’s 13 premiers and territorial leaders fix our health care system that decades of federal and provincial governments of all political stripes broke? Obviously it can’t all be done at once when they gather in Ottawa Feb. 7 to set the stage for a deal where the federal government […]
Dec 31 2022 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — Canada’s kid-glove treatment of violent criminals today — easy bail, soft sentencing, statutory release, early parole, special treatment for members of some minority groups, keeping the identities of young offenders secret even when they commit murder — didn’t happen by accident. They were the inevitable result of criminal justice, prison and parole measures passed by […]
Dec 29 2022 — Lorrie Goldstein — Sun Media — The United Nations has once again demonstrated its blatant anti-Semitism by passing more resolutions critical of Israel this year than all other nations on earth, combined. The UN General Assembly, consisting of 193 member countries, passed 15 resolutions critical of Israel in 2022, primarily for its treatment of the Palestinians, compared to 13 resolutions for […]