May 18 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Joe Biden is rumoured to have made his pick for the next U.S. ambassador to Canada — David Cohen, a senior executive with the Comcast telecommunications firm and a big Pennsylvania-based fundraiser for the president. Canada hasn’t been notified as of this week about the choice, either formally or informally, sources in Justin Trudeau’s government […]
May 14 2021 — Susan Delacourt — YorkRegion.com — Everything anyone needs to know about friends and politics was captured before the cameras on Thursday when Premier Doug Ford explained how he had to let down his “buddies” who want to golf during the now-extended lockdown. “I talk to my buddies. I know what happens,” Ford said. “They pick up another buddy, two or […]
May 11 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Donald Trump doesn’t get a say over Canada’s controversial new legislation to regulate the internet. Even if the former president did have an opinion, he wouldn’t be able to post it on Facebook or Twitter, where he’s banned. A Trump test may not be the perfect way to take the measure of Bill C-10, now […]
May 8 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau’s government has fired off a letter to Ontario this weekend, asking Doug Ford and his cabinet to identify which international travellers they want banned from entering the province. The letter from Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, shared with the Star, is a reply to Ford’s escalating bid to pin the blame on Trudeau […]
May 7 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Whenever the explosives experts are summoned in action movies, their job appears to involve knowing which wires to clip and which ones they shouldn’t touch. Katie Telford, chief of staff to Justin Trudeau, took on a similar task when she made a rare public appearance on Friday at the Commons defence committee. Telford was trying […]
May 5 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — If someone had to shout the F-word in Parliament this week, it probably should have been Health Minister Patty Hajdu. At the very moment that federal politicians were gathering for Question Period in the virtual Commons on Monday, the government’s own vaccine-advisory panel dropped a bombshell — some shots, it said, are better than others, […]
May 4 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Vaccination passports are coming for all those Canadians who are dreaming of foreign travel, Health Minister Patty Hajdu confirmed over the weekend. But what about all those people whose postvaccination dreams are more modest — those looking forward to the day when they can hug their loved ones or invite family or friends over for […]
Apr 28 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Education experts have thought a lot over the past decades about the best way for children to learn from their mistakes. Canada’s political debate over child care could use some of that thinking right now. In the 10 or so days since the federal Liberal government announced its intention to deliver a national child-care program, […]
Apr 26 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The pandemic has officially turned the rules of Canada’s federation upside-down — Ontario is now a have-not province in COVID-19’s brutal third wave. Not long after mighty Newfoundland and Labrador sent in a team of reinforcements to Ontario’s sagging health-care system on Monday, the province revealed it had formally asked the federal government to call […]
Apr 21 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — One measure was missing in this week’s something-for-everyone federal budget — an extension of the looming income-tax deadline. It is such an obvious way to give relief in this third, relentless wave of the pandemic that its absence in Monday’s budget opus seemed like a mistake.
Apr 19 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Justin Trudeau must have learned to enjoy all those talks he has been having been with the provinces throughout the pandemic. Much of his government’s big plans for the post-COVID-19 future, as laid out in the colossal 2021 budget unveiled on Monday, will force Ottawa to do a lot more talking with the provinces — […]
Apr 18 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole loves the colour blue. He is so fond of it that even his new green plan is true blue. That’s not just an observation on the colourful layout of the 15-page document that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are dismissing as a mere pamphlet, not a plan. O’Toole’s new climate change policy really […]
Apr 15 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Well, it was fun while it lasted. For four years, with Donald Trump in office, Canada basked in the comparison — peace, order and not-so-chaotic government here, relatively speaking. But now, with Trump not even 100 days out of office, American superiority to Canada is rearing its head again and Canada, alas, has lost its […]
Apr 11 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Everyone has spent a lot of time over the last year remembering what life was like before the pandemic. So too has Justin Trudeau, apparently. The prime minister’s big speech to Liberal party troops this weekend was filled with all the usual rallying cries for some future election, but it was also strewn with souvenirs […]
Mar 28 2021 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Federalism is a messy business. This week, in what future historians might well see as a milestone day in Canada’s federal-provincial relations, the squabbling factions in this federation were warned — repeatedly — to clean up their act. Thursday, March 25 was a remarkable day in Canadian politics; so filled with news that an announcement […]