Jul 4 2019 — Peter McKenna — Chronicle Herald — If the current public opinion polls are accurate, Conservative party leader Andrew Scheer could be prime minister in four months or so. Of course, one of the critical challenges for any new Canadian prime minister is how best to manage our vital relationship with the United States. That challenge is particularly acute in the age […]
Jun 10 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — There’s no respect for language in these uncivil times of ours, least of all in politics, where words and ideas are subjected to violence every day of the week. Think “alternative facts,” “fake news” and “truth isn’t truth.” In the blind partisanship of 2019, formerly reliable terms like conservative, socialist, liberal and populist get bruised […]
May 13 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — Trumpism isn’t taking over in Canada, thankfully, and for good reasons, even if its vile effects have taken root among the gullible. Side-effects are not a movement, especially given revulsion here at the mess Donald Trump is making of the once-great U.S. Fewer than one in four Canadians approve of Trump’s American madness: the lawlessness […]
Apr 29 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — Huzzah for Alberta, which has elected Jason Kenney and soon will resume its status as an energy superpower. To restore Albertan glory, Kenney plans to take on unions and cut regulation, lower business taxes to laughable levels, battle environmental groups, all the while intimidating other provinces and Ottawa into compliance with his goals. Good luck […]
Apr 15 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — The online hate and mischief industry is hitting a rough patch, Iím happy to report. Society is waking up to the damage caused by online bigotry, harassment and malicious political meddling. The sooner those modern plagues are fenced in, the better. Much damage has already been done but finally political, legal and law-enforcement authorities in […]
Apr 1 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — To review: the Jody Wilson-Raybould affair so far has not improved the processes around ministerial confidentiality or bolstered government accountability. It hasn’t made the corporate world more honest or improved the process for appointing Supreme Court justices. It certainly has not improved the re-election chances of the Liberals, who now trail the Conservatives in the […]
Mar 18 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — It is the season, once again, of potholes, dirty snow and fading playoff hopes, when March Break briefly frees the children and finance ministers everywhere blend reality and fantasy to come up with their annual budgets. It will be thus in Ottawa tomorrow when Finance Minister Bill Morneau presents his budget, with the overarching goal […]
Mar 4 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — This Jody Wilson-Raybould fiasco might not have happened in the bad old days, not this way at least. There might have been pressure put on attorneys-general over the years, but back then, you wouldn’t have heard about it. Time was that ministers fought their fights behind the scenes and kept disputes in the family. For […]
Feb 18 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — As federal scandals go, the rampaging furor over who said what to influence a decision by former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould feels familiar. The facts are only vaguely understood, subject to partisan and geographical interpretation and the whole thing is drenched in hypocrisy. It seems likely that some sort of pressure was indeed applied to […]
Feb 11 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — I hate to be the bearer of bad news, friends, but that’s what columnists do. The bad news must be borne. That’s why it has a bearer, if you get my drift. So I’ll break it to you straight up. This mega-political year of 2019 will swamp us with rhetoric, propaganda, fake news and outright […]
Feb 4 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — Pity the poor Westerners — besieged at every turn, struggling valiantly against adversity, generous to a fault yet unloved by their ungrateful fellow citizens. No wonder they’re alienated, again. More evidence of Western malaise, if we needed more, has emerged in research from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute suggesting that Canadians west of Ontario are […]
Jan 21 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — The lie of the century, so far, is that facts don’t matter and that the line between truth and lies has been blurred into insignificance. All opinions are equally merited and anything goes, supposedly. You might even consider yourself entitled to a personal set of “facts,” to use the old-fashioned term. Some people further believe […]
Jan 14 2019 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — Justin Trudeau is lucky he’s facing voters this year and not in 2020, when the air will be so full of lies and fallout from the U.S. presidential campaign that political messages in Canada risk being obscured. For now, Trudeau’s Liberals are staying sunny. They’re leading the polls against lacklustre opposition, even while facing a […]
Jan 12 2019 — Jim Meek — Chronicle Herald — Scott Brison, who hails from an area of Nova Scotia where the phrase “old Tory warhorse” might have been coined, marked his resignation from cabinet this week by celebrating his husband Maxime Saint-Pierre and their twin daughters. Brison’s story — he ran for the leadership of Canada’s two major political parties and became its first […]
Dec 17 2018 — Dan Leger — Chronicle Herald — It is not an axiom of international diplomacy that “no good deed goes unpunished,” but perhaps it should be, especially deeds undertaken on behalf of our dear ally the United States under its bumbling leader, Donald Trump. Last week, two Canadians were detained by security agencies in China, questioned and thrown into gulags. As this […]