Jun 1 2020 — Brian Platt — National Post — The first debates of the Conservative leadership race will be held June 17 and 18 in Toronto after being delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The French-language debate will be Wednesday, June 17, with the English-language debate to follow the next night. Both debates will be live-streamed on the party’s website; neither will have an […]
May 30 2020 — Andrew Potter — National Post — One thing we’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is the depths of the contempt that Canada’s professional class has for the practice of politics, our political parties and even Parliament itself. In the early days of the pandemic, this contempt largely emanated from journalists, but it appears to have now spread to members of the […]
May 30 2020 — National Post — The travel and border restrictions currently in place due to COVID-19 risk derailing Canada’s strategy of growing the economy through high levels of immigration, says a new report from RBC Economics. The effect on Canada’s economy will depend on how long the restrictions stay in place and how quickly economic activity recovers from the downturn. […]
May 27 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The reality, which must be clear to everyone at the cabinet table, is the values of a law-abiding liberal democracy and a revisionist autocracy are irreconciliable. The reaction of the Global Times to the news that Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou had lost her extradition hearing anticipates the fury that can be expected to emanate from […]
May 27 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — China is trusting the pandemic will divert the free world’s attention away from efforts to expand its influence in Hong Kong and the South China Sea. The Trudeau Liberals – along with their willing accomplices in the NDP and Green Party – gave Beijing a helping hand in the House of Commons this week. The […]
May 26 2020 — Tom Blackwell — National Post — Conservative governments are among the more generous and some Liberal-run provinces are taking the toughest stance. The federal government’s emergency-response benefit was originally pitched as a buffer for employed people who lost their jobs because of the pandemic and lockdown. But thousands of Canadians on welfare and disability benefits are also receiving the $2,000-a-month payments, […]
May 26 2020 — Colby Cosh — National Post — It’s true that I became irascible when I read a sister newspaper’s headline calling Nazanin MacKay “Canada’s potential first lady.” I mean no disrespect to Mrs. MacKay here. For all I know it is a serious flaw in our democracy that we are speaking of her, and not her husband, as a potential prime-ministerial spouse. […]
May 26 2020 — Jesse Snyder — National Post — Canada cannot afford to completely shut down the economy in the event of a second wave of the coronavirus, according to a group of academics and executives headed by a former Bank of Canada governor. A new report by the C.D. Howe Institute warns the Liberal government against “turning one-off deficits into structural deficits” as […]
May 25 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The Chinese navy garrisoned on Woody Island in the South China Sea revealed last week that it had managed to grow cabbages on sandy beaches using new “sand to earth” technology. It means that the military forces on an island bristling with J11 fighter jets and H6 bombers will no longer rely on imported vegetables. […]
May 22 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — One of the few pleasant surprises to have emerged from the pandemic is that predictions of food shortages have proven overblown so far. Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino told the House of Commons agriculture committee that 30,000 temporary foreign workers have been approved, and more than 20,000 have already arrived in Canada to help plant and […]
May 22 2020 — Sean Speer — National Post, Sun Media — The prevailing view that Andrew Scheer and the Conservative party have performed poorly in the COVID-19 crisis is mostly unjustified but the problem with conventional wisdom is that it ultimately becomes convention. Recent polls show that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has completely rebounded from his “blackface” scandal and would now win a major election victory […]
May 21 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The latest snapshot of Canadian public opinion suggests Justin Trudeau is having a good pandemic. Even after the Liberals were re-elected last fall, more people disapproved of his government, and of him personally, than approved. But since the onset of COVID-19, that evaluation has inverted – 58 per cent of Canadians now approve of the […]
May 21 2020 — National Post — A growing chorus of voices is demanding Ottawa force airlines to reimburse cash-strapped travellers the cost of trips that were cancelled because of the pandemic, rather than offering a 24-month travel credit. Just on Wednesday, support for a House of Commons petition demanding the federal government require airlines to refund trips jumped from 500 in […]
May 20 2020 — Jesse Snyder — National Post — Rising household debts are set to heap even more strain onto the Canadian economy in coming months, leaving the Liberal government to grapple with the difficult question of how and when to unwind its massive support programs, economists say. Canada has for years held some of the highest household debt levels among developed nations, something […]
May 20 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — The age of international air travel has quickly become the symbol of a bygone era, like steam locomotion or cash. Most of us haven’t ventured further than the local grocery store in two months, but it turns out more than a quarter of a million passengers have disembarked from international flights at Canadian airports in […]