Jul 2 2022 — Robert J. Currie — Policy Magazine — As has been widely reported, the House of Commons recently passed Bill C-19, a budget implementation act that also contains measures empowering the Canadian government to create special economic sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This mechanism originated in work done by the World Refugee & Migration Council (WRMC), which underpinned a bill of […]
Jun 29 2022 — Marjory LeBreton — Policy Magazine — The Conservative Party of Canada is in the throes of an identity crisis. I have been a Conservative all of my adult life, witnessing firsthand the party’s evolutions and iterations over 60 years. Throughout that time – as I went from being a secretary at party headquarters and in John Diefenbaker’s office through years as […]
Jun 28 2022 — Policy Magazine — The housing and climate change crises are wreaking havoc on the Canadian economy. On the one hand, the country is losing affordable housing units faster than new ones are being built. On the other hand, it is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. Among all the G7 countries, Canada has the […]
Jun 28 2022 — Elizabeth May — Policy Magazine — Before approaching any relative weighing of the climate plans of leading candidates for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership, one should consider the most fundamental question: “Compared to what?” To anyone paying attention to the latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the only sensible answer is “Compared to what is required.” […]
Jun 25 2022 — Lisa Van Dusen — Policy Magazine — Within the dystopian melodrama of the Supreme Court of the United States v. America, in the specific case of Friday’s previously telegraphed ruling on abortion rights, there has a been a secondary narrative emerging. The hashtag for that knock-on narrative is #Elections Matter, meaning that, if American voters had elected Hillary Clinton in 2016, this […]
Jun 24 2022 — Policy Magazine — Ten years after he left active politics following nearly a decade as Liberal premier of Quebec, Jean Charest is a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party whose Progressive Conservative forerunner he led out of the wilderness during the 1990s. Policy Editor L. Ian MacDonald spoke with Charest in Montreal on June 16th.
Jun 24 2022 — Policy Magazine — Canada’s cannabis legalization review was due in October 2021. It has yet to commence. In 2018, Canada became the second country in the world after Uruguay to legalize possession and use of recreational cannabis. There was a general consensus that this was the best way to protect public health (especially of the young), to control […]
Jun 21 2022 — Lisa Van Dusen — Policy Magazine — First, the conventional wisdom on midterm elections. Traditionally, midterm or off-year elections in the United States — in which the 435 seats in the House of Representatives contested every two years and a portion of the 100 Senate seats contested every six years are up for grabs — almost always register a loss for the […]
Jun 19 2022 — Charlie Angus — Policy Magazine — New Abacus Data polling reveals some pretty sobering findings on the state of the Canadian political landscape. According to the survey, 44 percent of Canadians now believe that a secret group of elites is controlling elections, recessions and wars. Thirty-seven percent are inclined to believe the racist “white replacement theory”. The poll also found that […]
Jun 11 2022 — Policy Magazine — A successful commercial Indo-Pacific Strategy for Canada should be measured not by the number of trade agreements we sign but by the steps we take to improve Canada’s internal capacity to trade with the region. This is not to say ratification of trade agreements is unimportant. Canada’s commercial presence in the region, notably anchored through […]
Jun 11 2022 — Policy Magazine — On March 1, 2022, Canadians heard some eerily familiar talking points in President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Interspersed among his administration’s goals and accomplishments were references to strengthening the Buy American Act, returning supply chains to American soil, and making more products in the United States. The rhetoric harkened back to the […]
Jun 11 2022 — Policy Magazine — Kevin Lynch, a former clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet, once said about Canada’s position as 14th on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index: “Fourteen is a very Canadian number.” After a series of noteworthy achievements by Canada from 1945 to the early-2000s – wherein Canadian John Humphrey drafted the […]
Jun 6 2022 — Kevin Lynch — Policy Magazine — To set the context: in March 2020, the potential devastation of a virulent global pandemic became a worldwide reality. Economies shut down, hospitals filled up, societies were frozen in place, uncertainty was the order of the day, and governments reacted. Why governments acted is pretty clear: to save lives and livelihoods, to prevent economic collapse, […]
Jun 3 2022 — L. Ian MacDonald — Policy Magazine — As Ontarians proved in multiple elections during the years when Bill Davis ruled at Queen’s Park and Pierre Trudeau reigned in Ottawa, they have their own version of political checks and balances: Blue provincially and Red federally. And they’ve just done it again, re-electing Doug Ford’s blue Progressive Conservatives for a second consecutive majority mandate, […]
Jun 2 2022 — Kevin Page — Policy Magazine — The governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, has announced the third rate hike in four months. The interest rate tightening cycle is maturing quickly. The policy rate (the overnight lending rate to banks that is used as a benchmark for household and business lending rates) now stands at 1.5 percent — up 50 […]