Nov 12 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — As a professional newspaper columnist, it’s my job to detect and warn of malodorous currents threatening to despoil our political waters. It’s a time-consuming occupation. Take this Tony Clement mess, where he got kicked out of the Conservative caucus for his online lechery. Clement, 57, exposed himself to blackmail after he exposed himself in photos […]
Nov 5 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — For Canadians, observing U.S. politics is a bit like watching a movie scene where the hero is being stalked by some fiend whom we can see but the hero can’t. You yell: “Don’t open the door!” But the hero can’t hear you because it’s a movie. Then he opens the door. In movies, the hero […]
Oct 29 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — With less than a year to go before voting day, themes are already emerging for the coming campaign. We’re told to expect either a dirty campaign or a decent one, which will be all about carbon tax grabs or saving the planet or perhaps more traditionally, about who can best steer Canada in these dangerous […]
Oct 8 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — If there’s one lesson learned from scrapping with the United States over trade, it’s that Canada needs to find new partners and new places to do business. It’s time to move on, because America might never be cured of its malignant Trumpism. The talks for a new NAFTA exposed what President Donald Trump is doing […]
Oct 1 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — One of my earliest political memories is of my late father kicking a politician off the front porch. This was in Moncton, in the 1960s. Dad respected almost everyone, but not that politician, Leonard C. Jones Jr. Jones was campaigning door-to-door. Dad shut ours. “I’m not talking to him,” he said, and stalked off down […]
Sep 29 2018 — Peter McKenna — Chronicle Herald — You’d have to go way back to the years 1980-82 for the last time that Canada’s relationship with the United States had hit such a bilateral low. Right now, the two longstanding friends are barely speaking to one another. At the recent gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York, beleaguered U.S. […]
Sep 24 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — Forget the midnight flights to Washington and the clumsy presidential threats, the phoney deadlines and blatant negotiating ploys. If Canada is to achieve a renewed continental trade agreement under viable terms, it has to shrug off American pressure tactics and stay focused. There is no rush to get a new NAFTA because there are no […]
Sep 17 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — The federal ethics commissioner’s finding that cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc blundered into a conflict of interest over a fishing licence wasn’t much of a shock. Liberals are known for skating along the edge of rules designed to curb undue coziness between politicians and pals. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was taken to task for vacationing with […]
Sep 10 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — I challenge anyone to accurately and fairly describe the madness of politics in the time of Donald Trump. In the era of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” when “truth isn’t truth” in the “rigged witch hunt,” so little of it makes sense that words fail. But let’s try anyway. We could call the Trump presidency […]
Sep 1 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — Justin Trudeau has had the political week from hell. Factors not within his control conspired to defeat his Western pipeline plan and foil the latest round of NAFTA talks in the U.S. The way things look now, despite Canada’s summer of trade frustrations, a new deal with the Americans will get sorted before the Trans […]
Aug 26 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — Canada’s two largest political parties are playing with fire when they spin diversity, immigration and border issues into partisan strategies. Driving votes, they risk driving social divisions and internal schisms, as the Conservatives learned last week. On culture and diversity, the increasingly angry, name-calling debate between Liberals and Conservatives echoes the 2015 election. The Conservatives […]
Aug 20 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — I don’t mean to sound alarmist, friends, but you need to know this. We are about to be exposed to Conservatives. Try not to worry. The Conservative Party of Canada assembles in Halifax this week for its pre-election policy convention and many members are far from home. The nearest Conservative seat is 800 kilometres away, […]
Aug 6 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — Is Canada being scorned at the NAFTA party? Are Canadians to be left sobbing on the sidelines while our erstwhile best friend forever, Mexico, makes a deal without us? Or is this just another twist from the Donald Trump regime? It’s possible for any of the above situations to be true. That’s how things work […]
Jul 30 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — You probably weren’t wondering, but in case you were, the term “whipping boy” is an actual thing. Whipping boys’ fates could be cruel. In days far past, a designated friend of lesser status could be punished in place of a sinful prince. Even lords didn’t dare strike a God-appointed future monarch and they knew boy […]
Jul 23 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — I have a nomination in the unsurprising headline sweepstakes of 2018: “Poll Says Few Canadians can name Spy Agency.” If the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is doing things right, that’s probably how it should be. Last week, CSIS released the findings of a public opinion survey conducted by EKOS Research that suggested Canadians don’t know […]