Jun 16 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — Want to know why federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna turned down the bulk of important amendments to the Liberal government’s Bill C-69 – the pipeline assessment legislation that will make approval for new projects so complicated it has been dubbed the No More Pipelines Act? McKenna rejected nearly 80 amendments – the ones designed to […]
Jun 12 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — The anti-Tory ads from Engage Canada, that began airing Monday during Game 5 of the NBA Finals, are probably only moderately useful to the cause of those groups that paid for them – mostly Unifor and other large unions hoping to prevent Andrew Scheer from becoming prime minister this fall. The ads claim Scheer is […]
Jun 4 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — To understand why it is a bad idea to bring back the hate speech provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act – as several witnesses before the House of Commons Justice committee have requested this week – it is worth revisiting why the provisions were deleted in the first place. It might sound like a […]
May 29 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — The very second last November when the five-person national executive of Unifor (Canada’s largest, private-sector union), decided to post a photo online proclaiming themselves to be “The Resistance,” and boasting they would be “Andrew Scheer’s worst nightmare” in the 2019 federal election — that very second — they became utterly unqualified to sit in judgment […]
May 12 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — The Aboriginal Healing Foundation, an Indigenous-run corporation set up in the 1990s to help mitigate the harm done by residential schools says, “The students’ experiences of residential schools were not all bad. Different people had differing experiences. Many dedicated, good people worked in the system.” Of course, the AHF also points out that the schools […]
Apr 28 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — Have you ever heard of “Duff’s Ditch?” Technically it’s called the Red River Floodway (or Canal de derivation de la riviere Rouge). It’s a 47-kilometre-long manmade channel that redirects floodwaters from the Red River around Winnipeg. The floodway was constructed after disastrous floods in the 1950s left large sections of Winnipeg underwater from spring runoff […]
Mar 30 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — There’s a problem for the federal Conservative Party in Justin Trudeau’s nosedive: The badly damaged PM may not survive long enough as Liberal leader to lead his party into the next election. And that would end the Conservatives’ best chance of defeating the government. There is talk in Liberal circles (and so far I’m sure […]
Mar 24 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — House of Commons committees have to be reformed. They have to be made fully independent. Opposition committee members have to have the authority to call witnesses whether the government majority approves or not. We saw what a partisan farce a Commons committee could be when the Liberal majority on the Justice committee voted last week […]
Feb 18 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts, has resigned. But, he says, it’s not because he’s done anything wrong in the SNC-Lavalin/Jody Wilson-Raybould affair. Uh, huh. Powerful people with nothing to hide resign all the time. In his resignation letter, posted online on Sunday, Butts insisted allegations he improperly pressured former Attorney General Jody […]
Feb 15 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault was among the Liberal MPs on the House of Commons Justice Committee who Wednesday blocked a formal investigation into whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau improperly pressured former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to end the criminal prosecution of the influential Quebec corporation SNC-Lavalin. This committee is “not an investigative body,” Boissonnault […]
Jan 23 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — It sounds huge (and vaguely terrifying), which is how it’s meant to sound. Last week, several newspapers reported on a study from a NASA researcher that claimed in the past decade the Antarctic icecap has been melting six times faster than it used to. An “alarming” rate according to the Washington Post.
Jan 16 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — Give us your tired, your poor, your fashionistas yearning to shop freely. To be honest, I’m glad Canada stepped up and offered asylum to Rahaf Mohammed, the 18-year-old Saudi woman who claimed to be escaping abuse in home country. But why the haste? Why the bypassing of ALL our refugee regulations? Why the hero’s welcome […]
Jan 6 2019 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — At the end of every year, Radio-Canada does a satirical send-up of major newsmakers called “Bye-bye.” Every New Year’s Eve millions tune in to see who will be skewered this time. The politician who came in for the greatest mocking this year was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over his Mr. Dressup tour of India last […]
Dec 30 2018 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — Maybe 2019 will be a better year than 2018, politically and economically. When our editors asked me to write a column about the biggest stories of the year just past and predict the ones that will be big in the year ahead, I came up with two. In Alberta, of course, pipelines dominated most people’s […]
Dec 23 2018 — Lorne Gunter — Sun Media — It’s possible, I suppose, that the federal Liberals’ new drunk driving law will be upheld by the courts. Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould believes it will be even though it clearly seems to violate the Charter’s protections against unreasonable searches. The Charter itself recognizes that no right is absolute. Section 1 says all rights are subject […]