Aug 14 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — In the broad strokes, the report of the federal ethics commissioner, Mario Dion, into the SNC-Lavalin affair tells us nothing new. It was already clear to anyone with eyes to see — it was not even really denied — that the prime minister and his officials repeatedly and strenuously pressured the former attorney general, Jody […]
Aug 14 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Justin Trudeau has created an illusion of himself as a leader more noble and principled than the facts warrant. Yet, it can still be a shock when it’s revealed he’s as calculating as the most cynical of his predecessors, greeting each new situation with the internal question: “What can this do for me?” The mask […]
Aug 14 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Reading the electoral platform of Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party induces a slight throbbing about the temples. From his call for a “Canadian values” test for immigrants to lowering the number of newcomers accepted to “between 100,000 and 150,000” from the estimated 330,000 this year, Bernier has proven himself to be a cynical opportunist. This, after […]
Aug 12 2019 — Kelly McParland — National Post — Populism is getting a bad rap in Canada, unjustifiably so. According to my unaffiliated and wholly non-partisan online dictionary, populism is defined as “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.” That’s pretty much the whole world, outside a few billionaires, right? […]
Aug 9 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Canadians pay some of the highest cellphone prices in the world, while powerful telco companies make billions in profit, according to a central pillar in the NDP’s 2019 election platform. “And yet PM Trudeau refuses to do anything about it.” Jagmeet Singh should be careful what he wishes for. Industry sources suggest Canada’s premium carriers […]
Jul 29 2019 — Kelly McParland — National Post — Somewhere in a special nook at his official residence — not the crumbling, toxic mess at 24 Sussex, but the “cottage” across the street — Justin Trudeau should have a little table set aside with flickering candles, burning incense, and a photo of Doug Ford. Passing the little shrine each morning, girding for another day […]
Jul 26 2019 — Colby Cosh — National Post — On Thursday, the former MP Jay Hill, an Old Reformer from Fort St. John who rose to become Conservative Government Whip, published a Western separatist op-ed in the Calgary Herald. Well, the article is conditionally Western separatist, anyway. Hill writes that western independence is a “possible, some would say probable, consequence” of Justin Trudeau’s re-election […]
Jul 18 2019 — Marni Soupcoff — National Post — Save the date, Canadians! We’ll be going to the polls for our federal election this autumn on Monday, October 21. No one chose the date. At least not in the sense of sizing up the options and deciding Oct. 21, 2019 looked particularly propitious for exercising one’s franchise.
Jul 17 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Dominic LeBlanc is a subscriber of the view that politics should be fun — that politicians have no right to be pompous or po-faced. Visitors to the House of Commons are advised to disregard what passes for debate between the leaders and focus exclusively on LeBlanc, constantly taunting and teasing, ribbing and razzing his opponents. […]
Jul 16 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Every election campaign begins with the pollsters and the pundits attempting to divine the big issues that will decide how people vote. Some even try to predict what THE issue will be: the so-called “ballot box” question on which the election supposedly turns. This is a fool’s errand. The electorate is not a single collective […]
Jul 12 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Canada doesn’t have much leverage when it comes to the release of Canadian citizens detained in China, but one way of influencing Beijing may be lending diplomatic support to Taiwan. Since Canada recognized the People’s Republic of China nearly 50 years ago, it has had no official relationship with Taiwan due to the “one China” […]
Jul 12 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Well, this is odd. “Canada’s largest pension fund,” the Toronto Star reported last week, “has quietly divested from two American private prison operators deeply involved in the detention of thousands of Latin American migrants at the southern border of the United States.” The oddity: as late as last fall, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board […]
Jul 11 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Voters know there is no such thing as a free lunch — but that doesn’t stop them wanting one. Andrew Scheer’s climate plan plays on such grasping delusions — claiming to meet Canada’s Paris emissions targets at little or no cost. But a new assessment of the plan suggests the benign promise of achieving emissions […]
Jul 11 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Is it possible to reappoint John McCallum as ambassador to China just so he can be fired again? The politician turned diplomat turned neither, whose unfiltered musings on Sino-Canadian relations were his undoing earlier this year, has done it again. In a jaw-dropping interview with the South China Morning Post, McCallum volunteers that he has […]
Jul 9 2019 — John Ivison — National Post — Rhetoric is no substitute for reality, as the American social theorist Thomas Sowell said. It is the besetting sin of the Trudeau government that it has not lived up to its promises in so many fields of endeavour. In foreign affairs, this week gave us another reminder of the gap between what Justin Trudeau said […]