Nov 29 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — Who else has spent the last six weeks glued to the live feed of the Public Order Emergency Commission, watching dozens of progressively more senior civil servants and elected officials submit to hours of polite yet relentless questioning led by highly trained commission counsel? After that, it’s hard to tune into a House of Commons […]
Nov 22 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — When she rises in the House of Commons later this afternoon to launch the final round of debate on her backbench bid to protect workers’ pensions during corporate bankruptcy proceedings, Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu can take no small satisfaction in having achieved something that relatively few rank-and-file members will ever get the chance to do: […]
Nov 1 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — The commissioner has given us a hint. It’s been two and a half weeks since the independent commission tasked with examining Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s unprecedented invocation of the Emergencies Act began holding public hearings. Media coverage has, for the most part, focused on one simple but crucial question: Does the evidence submitted so far […]
Oct 12 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — The Liberal party’s much self-touted 2017 pledge to go above and beyond the law in ensuring “open and transparent” fundraisers no longer includes providing a public heads-up on the venue for events featuring Justin Trudeau. Previously, those listings — which can be found on the party website — included not just the date, time and […]
Oct 4 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — The fall sitting hasn’t even made it to the first extended time-out, but we’ve already watched two procedural battles play out on the floor of the House of Commons. It was just two days into the sitting when, as recapped by iPolitics’ own Jeff Labine, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis rose on a point of privilege […]
Aug 2 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — The prime minister may be officially off the clock — and, as Canadian Press reports, out of the country entirely as he vacations with his family in Costa Rica — for the next two weeks, but the summer ministerial circuit is still up and running as key front benchers hit the hustings to promote their […]
Jun 7 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — The Conservatives may have dropped their omnibus pitch to draft an off-season assignment list for committees, but the question of how to keep those Liberal feet to the fire until the fall is still a live one.
Jun 1 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — Is it time to pull the plug on virtual House proceedings? With the time-limited protocols that, for the last two-years-and-counting of pandemic-imposed restrictions, have allowed MPs to take part in Commons debates and committee meetings via video — and, as of last fall, vote remotely from anywhere in Canada using a custom-built mobile app — […]
May 23 2022 — Michael Coren — iPolitics — Political conservatism has come a long way, but, in the spirit of the word and the ideology, that doesn’t signify progress. In fact, the decline and decay of the organized conservative movement in the democratic world is one of the most worrying phenomena of contemporary politics. Worrying because, unlike the extremes of right and left, […]
May 17 2022 — iPolitics — Before we start digging into the question posed in this week’s headline, let’s pause for a brief opening tangent on just why picking a supply motion can be a more high-stakes call for the New Democrats than their Conservative or Bloc Québécois colleagues. In a nutshell: The parliamentary calendar allocates a certain number of supply […]
Apr 26 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — First off, a jurisdictional twist to the standard caveat: In general, Process Nerd’s self-proclaimed purview does not include provincial or territorial legislatures — or local councils, or the United States Congress, or any other legislative body outside the perimeter of parliamentary precinct. It does, however, cover fixed election dates — and specifically, the built-in limitations […]
Mar 29 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — Well, it was fun — at least for Process Nerds — while it lasted. But after a week of sporadic back-and-forth across the aisle over whether the confidence-and-supply agreement between the Liberals and the New Democrats constitutes a de facto coalition government, Deputy Speaker Chris d’Entremont has rejected a Conservative bid to remove the New […]
Mar 23 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — In the wake of the non-aggression pact between the Liberals and the New Democrats, there’s no shortage of speculation of how it could play out in the next election. From a purely Process Nerdly perspective, however, the more immediate — and no less intriguing — question is how it could change the power dynamics across […]
Mar 11 2022 — Michael Coren — iPolitics — Politicians can be sensitive souls. That, surely, was why Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis blocked me on Twitter last year after I’d written a column questioning some of her views of LGBTQ2 equality and women’s reproductive rights. I’ve never met the new MP for Haldimand—Norfolk, and the article was courteous — even flattering — but, […]
Mar 8 2022 — Kady O'Malley — iPolitics — As of Tuesday morning, there was still no word on when the newly struck Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency (DEDC) — which, as its name makes clear, has been tasked with reviewing the government’s unprecedented decision to invoke the Emergencies Act in response to then-ongoing anti-COVID mandate protests in Ottawa and across […]