May 19 2023 — Policy Magazine — Lee Richardson has been a conservative for about just as long as he’s been anything at all. Executive assistant to John Diefenbaker at 25, chief of staff to Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed, deputy chief of staff to Brian Mulroney, then, federal Progressive Conservative MP for Calgary Southeast, Richardson is as closely associated with Alberta Conservatism […]
May 18 2023 — Lisa Van Dusen — Policy Magazine — The leaders of the G7 nations of Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and France — along with the usual ancillary institutions and observer states — are gathering in Hiroshima this weekend for a meeting framed in some quarters as less a Hiroshima, Mon Amour whirlwind love affair than a sort […]
May 17 2023 — Brian Bohunicky — Policy Magazine — It’s the heart and the muscle of everything our government does, so if reform of the federal public service is “having a moment” as some observe, that’s to the good. But it needs a lot more than a moment. Real reform needs political leadership. The core function of the bureaucracy is to serve those elected […]
May 15 2023 — Eddie Goldenberg — Policy Magazine — The rise of China in the 21st century not only as an economic superpower but also as a rapidly emerging military superpower is so significant that future historians are likely to look at the period we are now living in as a turning point in world history. How to deal with China going forward will […]
May 15 2023 — Sarah Goldfeder — Policy Magazine — The re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, now USMCA/CUSMA/T-MEC, re-defined the rules of origin for the automotive sector, ensuring the survival of North American manufacturing. It also added a consideration for labour value content, new in this agreement, that effectively upped the ante, requiring that at least 40 percent of the value of […]
May 12 2023 — Lisa Van Dusen — Policy Magazine — During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, the unprecedented political stylings of Donald J. Trump – from his characterization of immigrants as rapists during his campaign launch to that instant-classic pussy grabbing tutorial — were so relentlessly outlandish that, at a certain point, it became both editorially sensible and just plain fun to change his […]
May 10 2023 — L. Ian MacDonald — Policy Magazine — As the once-mighty Quebec Liberal Party continues to sift through the entrails of the worst electoral showing in its 155-year history, it has turned to a white knight at once surprising and entirely logical. On Monday night in the Unitarian Church hall in Westmount — Montreal’s leafy bastion of Liberal solidity both federal and provincial […]
May 5 2023 — L. Ian MacDonald — Policy Magazine — Justin Trudeau does not perform so much as deliver a speech. It’s simply not his style. And the prime minister was in high form Thursday evening a he gave the keynote address at the Liberal Party policy convention in Ottawa. And Trudeau had plenty of help for the occasion. From Quebec, Francois-Philippe Champagne reiterated that […]
May 3 2023 — Lisa Van Dusen — Policy Magazine — There has been a rhetorical trend among well-intentioned leaders to blame democracy for the ongoing global war on democracy, as though democracy was dressed too provocatively, or perhaps left its widescreen TV sitting out on the lawn. The gist of this argument is that democracy has failed to deliver, and therefore made it easier for […]
Apr 24 2023 — L. Ian MacDonald — Policy Magazine — Welcome to the convoluted Canadian conversation about what to do with official residences in Ottawa and the people who live in them. None more so than the Prime Minister and the Governor General, the former living in a guest house, Rideau Cottage, on the hallowed grounds of Rideau Hall. One is a 14-room red brick […]
Apr 11 2023 — Lisa Van Dusen — Policy Magazine — When we think of peace, especially in the context of negotiated peace agreements, silence is the most obvious evocation of the word. After all, if the cessation of hostilities means anything, surely it means an absence of gunfire, explosions, screaming, wailing sirens and all the other audible evidence of war. “When the battle’s lost and […]
Apr 3 2023 — Policy Magazine — A new Middle East is taking shape. We outline why it’s time Canada’s Middle East policy caught up, or risk being irrelevant. First, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly deserves credit for landing a solid Indo-Pacific strategy early in her mandate. A re-aligned Middle East policy is essential not only to a successful Indo-Pacific strategy but to […]
Mar 31 2023 — L. Ian MacDonald — Policy Magazine — Perhaps the funniest comment on Donald Trump paying $130,000 hush money to Stormy Daniels weeks before winning the 2016 US presidency was the porn star’s remark two years ago that having sex with him “was the worst 90 seconds of my life.” That’s a keeper, and so is the Manhattan district attorney bringing criminal charges […]
Mar 30 2023 — Policy Magazine — The federal budget released on March 28 confirmed in dramatic fashion that Canada is facing a major construction challenge. Our electric power grids, which provide essential power services across the country, will need huge upgrades over the next 26 years. “Canada’s electricity demand is expected to double by 2050” the budget predicted, saying “our electricity […]
Mar 30 2023 — Colin Robertson — Policy Magazine — As presidential visits go, the nearly 30 hours that Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden spent in Ottawa last week was as good as it gets. And while the optics were so exuberant and the mood so jubilant that it may actually go down in history as the “Fun Summit”, the substantive takeaways attest to […]