Oct 27 2020 — Robert Benzie — Toronto Star — Tue., Oct. 27, 2020timer3 min. read Premier Doug Ford is being accused of making “a backroom deal” to reward his controversial friend Charles McVety with the right to hand out university degrees at his evangelical college. “There’s no doubt that the fix is in,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Tuesday. “This is Taverner Two and […]
Oct 27 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — This COVID pandemic has been rewarding governments in power by giving them more power — a trend that will be put to its biggest-yet test next week in the United States. Justin Trudeau must be feeling decidedly ambivalent about the whole phenomenon. If it holds in Canada, it would be good for Trudeau’s Liberal government. […]
Oct 25 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Charles McCarry, one of the post-war giants in espionage — first as an agent and then an author — once laid out in stunning detail how to steal an American presidential election. In “Shelley’s Heart” he revealed the simple steps required to shift enough selected votes in selected precincts to flip the outcome. But he […]
Oct 25 2020 — Jaime Watt — Toronto Star — As the warmth of summer has faded and the chill of fall set in, we have felt a similar change in temperature in legislatures across Canada. From the House of Commons to Queen’s Park to the Alberta Legislative Assembly and the Quebec National Assembly. From provincial capitals to city halls, the tone of pandemic politics […]
Oct 25 2020 — Penny Collenette — Toronto Star — The leader of the NDP must wonder what it takes to get respect. You would think the man responsible for halting the putative “snap” election this past week would be a hero. Instead, Jagmeet Singh — who held most of the political cards — is accused by pundits and some partisans of being a “lapdog” […]
Oct 25 2020 — Toronto Star — To impose his will on the House of Commons this week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mortgaged the life expectancy of his minority government. And while he has had his way with the opposition majority in the short term, only time will tell whether the gamble was really worth it. What is undeniable is that the […]
Oct 23 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — For those of us sifting through the dregs of politics for glimmers of hope, the U.S. presidential debate on Thursday night was at least marginally rewarding. President Donald Trump not only seemed to take the advice of his advisers to tone it down a bit from the last time, he also played mostly by the […]
Oct 22 2020 — Alex Boutilier — Toronto Star — The Canadian Armed Forces has launched an internal probe into suggestions that one of its members belongs to a neo-Nazi extremist group and attempted to join militant white supremacists in the U.S. In leaked audio recordings obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the unidentified man — who goes by the name “Dakov” — claims […]
Oct 21 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — No time for an election, no time for each other. That, in a nutshell, is what we have learned about the state of federal politics after a puzzling few days of brinksmanship on Parliament Hill.
Oct 19 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Why, in the middle of the second wave of COVID-19, would anyone care about two Toronto by-elections? It’s a good question, but there are in fact a number of reasons to see next week’s votes in Toronto Centre and York Centre as significant political events in a very tumultuous year. They may not rattle the […]
Oct 18 2020 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — From a much-needed review of Canada’s foreign policy toward an increasingly aggressive China to a court-ordered rewrite of the medically assisted death framework and including the planting of at least one of the billions of trees promised to mitigate climate change, it is not hard these days to come up with a substantial list of […]
Oct 18 2020 — Tiffany Gooch — Toronto Star — When the Sipekne’katik nation opened the Mi’kmaw lobster fishery in southwestern Nova Scotia this September, it should have been a moment of celebration. Instead, it was the beginning of a horror story come alive, as fishers have been continuously targeted and terrorized by non-Indigenous fishers as they’ve tried to carry out their rights to earn […]
Oct 18 2020 — Jaime Watt — Toronto Star — It seems a safe bet that, if one were to survey Canadians, more of them would be able to identify Amy Coney Barrett than any one of the judges who sit on the Supreme Court of Canada. This may well be attributable to the fact that Barrett has, in many ways, become just another act […]
Oct 18 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Sixteen days from now, perhaps around midnight, the commentariat around the world — with the exception of Russia and a few other rogue states — will be exploding with relief, joy and anticipation. The celebration of Donald Trump’s defeat will quickly turn to how to clean up the mess he has left behind: with the […]
Oct 16 2020 — Alex Ballingall — Toronto Star — In duelling expressions of outrage, Liberals and Conservatives exchanged demands for opposing candidates to drop out of federal byelections in Toronto as advance polls opened on Friday. The Liberals took the first shot, when Quebec MP Greg Fergus — who is also the chair of the Parliamentary Black Caucus in Ottawa — condemned how the […]