Dec 7 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — What is the point of a First Ministers Conference? There is no actual necessity for them, you understand. The federal and provincial governments are quite able to function within their respective jurisdictions without their leaders dashing off across the country at regular intervals to quiver their jowls at each other. The first such meeting was […]
Dec 6 2018 — John Ivison — National Post — John F. Kennedy once explained that America’s founding fathers sacrificed efficiency for liberty, dividing power as a guarantee against ill-considered action. Canada has been similarly hamstrung by its constitution when it comes to getting anything done. Trying to explain to a Chinese diplomat this week why this country cannot build an oil pipeline to saltwater […]
Dec 5 2018 — John Ivison — National Post — The late Christopher Hitchens called conspiracy theories the “exhaust fumes of democracy” — the unavoidable result of large amounts of information circulating among a large number of people. The latest conjectural haze drifting in from the fringes of the political spectrum is that the United Nations’ agreement on migration, which Canada is set to sign […]
Dec 5 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Since he became Conservative leader, it has been a matter of speculation: how far would Andrew Scheer go to pander to the populist-nationalist right, specifically on the matter of immigration? His predecessor had pulled in both directions at once, one minister building bridges to immigrant communities even as another was blowing them up. But candidates […]
Dec 5 2018 — National Post — The following eulogy was delivered in Washington Wednesday by former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney at the state funeral of president George H. W. Bush: Do you remember where you were the summer you left your teenage years behind and turned 20? I was working as a labourer in my hometown in northern Quebec, trying […]
Dec 4 2018 — John Ivison — National Post — One passage of the new report on Justin Trudeau’s trip to India deals with the public testimony given by Daniel Jean, the former national security adviser, before the parliamentary oversight committee on national security last April. It reads: “As the NSIA (Jean) stated during his testimony: ‘***’.” The words of the statement that the now-retired […]
Dec 4 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Last week’s announcement by General Motors that it would close its vehicle assembly plant in Oshawa brought the usual flood of instant lessons and easy remedies. From the right, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer blamed the federal carbon tax, on the basis of precisely zero evidence. From the left, there were demands for governments to “get […]
Dec 3 2018 — John Ivison — National Post — We’ve all been there — on the sofa, watching a charity concert, when the celebrity host urges you to dial in and make a donation toward the worthy cause in question. You reach for the phone or computer and make a pledge. The problem in this case: the commitment was for $50 million of other […]
Dec 1 2018 — National Post — It hasn’t been a good fall for Gavin McInnes, the Canadian gadfly of the U.S. far right. First, several members of the group he founded – the Proud Boys – were arrested last month after a brawl outside one of his speaking appearances. Then a report emerged suggesting the FBI had designated the organization an […]
Nov 30 2018 — Tom Blackwell — National Post — The Toronto-area city of Brampton has asked the RCMP to look at a multimillion-dollar land deal after confidential information on the transaction was passed to local Liberal MPs Navdeep Bains and Raj Grewal, sources confirmed Friday. City council referred the matter to the Mounties at a special meeting Tuesday, sources confirmed to the National Post. […]
Nov 30 2018 — Tyler Dawson — National Post — As Saskatchewan prepares for a legal battle over the federal carbon tax, Alberta’s opposition party is hoping to join in more than just rhetoric, having officially sought status as an intervener in the case on Friday. Alberta’s United Conservative Party and the Ontario government, which had previously applied to be an intervener, filed documents opposing […]
Nov 29 2018 — John Ivison — National Post — While a politician may wish something to be true, simply saying it in the House of Commons does not make it so. Bill Blair, the newly-minted minister for border security, made a claim about the refugee system in question period Thursday that cannot be supported by the available facts. “The system is working,” he said.
Nov 29 2018 — Tom Blackwell — National Post — A Conservative senator and his aide say they were told 18 months ago that Liberal MP Raj Grewal was under investigation for his prodigious casino gambling, and argue it is “unbelievable” that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office didn’t know at the same time. And if the PMO knew then, they say, it should not have […]
Nov 28 2018 — Brian Platt — National Post — At 2:07 p.m. on Nov. 17, 2015, a public servant named Matthew Matchett emailed a prominent Ottawa lobbyist to relay some exciting news. “I got everything — the motherload,” Matchett’s email said. But it also said his BlackBerry phone was “caput,” and he needed to know where to drop off the material. One minute later […]
Nov 28 2018 — John Ivison — National Post — Rachel Notley came out of the West with all guns blazing. At a lunch-time speech in Ottawa, the normally affable Alberta premier said the Canadian government is “wilfully” holding Alberta’s economy hostage because of its inability to follow through on its constitutional responsibility to transport resources across provincial boundaries. The lack of a pipeline to […]