Dec 9 2019 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — Mon., Dec. 9, 2019timer4 min. read As Jason Kenney and a third of his cabinet attempt to smother Ottawa this week with charm and argument, it’s not just because environmentalists and Justin Trudeau have been breathing down his neck about emissions in the oilsands. That’s just nagging. The real driving force behind Kenney’s push is […]
Dec 9 2019 — Tonda MacCharles — Toronto Star — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney launched a full-court press on the Trudeau government Monday, arriving with a team of eight cabinet ministers, numbers and charts in hand, to warn that separatist sentiment in the Prairies is real and tied to federal policies that are crushing the energy sector. Kenney brought his pitch for a “fair deal […]
Dec 9 2019 — Robert Benzie — Toronto Star — Premier Doug Ford could balance the budget a year earlier than planned if the Progressive Conservatives can limit the growth of program spending and avoid cutting taxes, says Ontario’s fiscal watchdog. Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman said if the Tories can stick to their promised 1.4 per cent average annual increase, they could almost be […]
Dec 8 2019 — Tiffany Gooch — Toronto Star — Thursday’s speech from the throne spoke pointedly of a renewed national agenda aimed at rectifying the issues of yesterday, prioritizing the issues facing Canadians today and addressing the challenges that lay ahead of us in the decades to come. The speech opened by highlighting the differences in regional needs required across the country and established […]
Dec 8 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Successful political candidates require an ability to persuade, in this order, voters, media, party members and MPs. If you are the leader of a political tribe, that order is reversed. Outside the political world the power and authority of a caucus is not well understood. Even within, some party leaders, fail to acknowledge that these […]
Dec 8 2019 — Jaime Watt — Toronto Star — On Wednesday, video emerged of Justin Trudeau, accompanied by a group of world leaders at a NATO summit in London, poking fun at President Donald Trump. In the video, the prime minister made a jibe about Trump’s penchant for impromptu press conferences and his staff’s apparent dismay at yet another off-the-cuff pronouncement.
Dec 7 2019 — Edward Keenan — Toronto Star — Just over a week ago, when Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland jetted to Washington to meet with U.S. and Mexican officials on the eve of the American Thanksgiving weekend, it appeared a resolution to long-running trade talks was imminent. Canadian officials were saying it was close. American politicians measuring rhetorical distance in football metaphors […]
Dec 6 2019 — Chantal Hébert — Toronto Star — The first tug of war between Justin Trudeau’s new minority government and the opposition parties was over before it had even begun. By the time NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh showed up in the House of Commons lobby on Thursday afternoon to blast the Liberal speech from the throne the rug of the balance of power […]
Dec 5 2019 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — After more than a month of wide consultation and fierce bartering, the speech from the throne that Justin Trudeau finally pulled from the oven on Tuesday was missing a key ingredient: economic growth. Yes, it was mentioned a couple of times, but as a fait accompli rather than a goal. When it comes to prosperity, […]
Dec 5 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — The education of Justin Trudeau as prime minister is a tale that can now be told in two speeches from the throne — one in 2015, one in 2019. Other prime ministers have used the pomp and ceremony of throne speeches more frequently in their mandates for resets of their governments, halfway through their terms […]
Dec 4 2019 — Jeremy Nuttall — Toronto Star — The news earlier this week that Chinese tech giant Huawei is planning to move its research and development centre from the United States to Canada begs the question of whether Canada should welcome the expansion, experts say. Tuesday, the Globe and Mail ran an interview with Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, in which he said it’s […]
Dec 3 2019 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Every morning in Ottawa, thousands of public servants crowd into a new light-rail system that may or may not work, headed to jobs for which they may or may not be correctly paid. Between a shaky start for light rail this fall and the still-not-fixed Phoenix payroll debacle, the nation’s capital isn’t exactly a model […]
Dec 3 2019 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — It’s tempting to roll our eyes at the premiers this week for turning to the lazy common ground of holding their hands out to the federal government asking for more health-care money. It’s so predictable. Provinces’ demands for increased transfers are perennial and parochial, frequently ignored by the federal government as just noise. But there […]
Dec 3 2019 — Rob Ferguson — Toronto Star — Premier Doug Ford brushed aside controversial climate-change comments from his appointee heading the board of Ontario’s electricity agency as opposition parties said the evasion shows the government doesn’t take the problem of global warming seriously. The New Democrats zeroed in Tuesday on Joe Oliver, a Conservative and former federal finance minister who is now chair […]
Dec 3 2019 — Rob Ferguson — Toronto Star — The agency that operates Ontario’s electricity system is distancing itself from controversial climate-change comments made by its chair, Joe Oliver, a former federal finance minister appointed to the board last spring by Premier Doug Ford’s government. Concerns about how seriously the environmental challenge is viewed by the province grew Monday as opposition parties — who […]