Aug 13 2020 — Emma Teitel — Toronto Star — It’s not a secret that Canadians love to identify other Canadians who made it big in America, as in “Did you know that Ryan Reynolds is Canadian? Keanu Reeves? Kim Cattrall? Pamela Anderson? Michael J. Fox? Drake? Etc.” However, what is perhaps less known about this national pastime of Canadian-spotting is that its focus extends […]
Aug 12 2020 — Alex Boutilier — Toronto Star — Threats against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and federal cabinet ministers are on the rise, according to new RCMP data obtained by the Star. The RCMP’s protective policing division logged 130 threats made against Trudeau or members of his cabinet between January and July, up from 100 recorded during the same period in 2019.
Aug 12 2020 — Tonda MacCharles — Toronto Star — The beleaguered WE Charity says it has reimbursed about $22 million of the $30 million it received from Ottawa to mount the now-cancelled Canada Student Services Grant program. And in a statement to the Star on Wednesday, the charity said it intends to pay back the rest of the money as soon as the federal […]
Aug 12 2020 — Toronto Star — Canadians are no closer to knowing what due diligence was done by the public service at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s request that justified a decision by the Liberal government to award WE Charity the contract to deliver a proposed $544-million student volunteer program. Thousands of documents related to that mystery have still not been released. […]
Aug 11 2020 — Michael Coren — Toronto Star — Derek Sloan won’t win this month’s Conservative Party leadership, but the MP for Hastings—Lennox and Addington will be influential in deciding who does become the new leader of the opposition. The darling of social conservatives and the Christian right, he’s positioned himself as an almost Trump-like figure and was rightly criticized when he questioned the […]
Aug 10 2020 — Toronto Star — Billions of dollars are flying out of federal coffers as part of the government’s COVID-19 wage support program. But which companies are getting the money? Ottawa won’t say — at least not yet. According to Jeremy Bellefeuille, press secretary to National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier, it’s only a matter of time until it does. Bellefeuille […]
Aug 9 2020 — Tiffany Gooch — Toronto Star — Sun., Aug. 9, 2020timer3 min. read At each phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadians were told that the safest way of life was to “shelter in place,” but what happens when that shelter is snatched away? Thousands of families with eviction filings are anxiously queued up in Canadian courts; their cases began being processed this […]
Aug 8 2020 — Tonda MacCharles — Toronto Star — The notion that a crisis shouldn’t go to waste but can be used to do big, bold things is attributed to Machiavelli or alternatively to Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill. Right now, it’s on the mind of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Inside Trudeau’s Liberal government an age-old debate is alive: how not to waste […]
Aug 6 2020 — Rosie DiManno — Toronto Star — Cease and desist, dude. One can only visualize Neil Young, gobsmacked and gagging to hear President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign launched, continuing to barrelhouse along musically, to the tune of the singer’s iconic “Rockin’ in the Free World.” Seriously, is there any politician harder to imagine rockin’ to anything, His Orangeness bustin’ a move? Leader […]
Aug 5 2020 — Alex Ballingall — Toronto Star — It has been seven weeks since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised action “very soon” to address systemic racism in Canadian policing and other institutions. For Matthew Green, an NDP MP and member of the cross-party Parliamentary Black Caucus, “very soon” is now long past due — and can’t come soon enough. That’s especially the case, […]
Aug 5 2020 — Alex Boutilier — Toronto Star — The Conservatives face significant logistical hurdles in selecting their next leader, with COVID-19 dashing hopes of a traditional leadership convention in favour of mail-in ballots. But while the reliability of mail-in balloting is a hot political topic in Donald Trump’s America, the Conservatives are comparatively comfortable with the process. The party’s last leadership contest was […]
Aug 2 2020 — Toronto Star — Sun., Aug. 2, 2020timer4 min. read When the most powerful politician in Ottawa is up on the witness stand, it is fitting that comedy can be found in a power outage. A high point of Justin Trudeau’s 90-minute appearance before the Commons finance committee this week was the moment when the power went out in […]
Aug 2 2020 — Tiffany Gooch — Toronto Star — As a daughter of the Underground Railroad, the celebration of Emancipation Day has always had a close space in my heart. Over the past few years I’ve honoured a personal tradition of making my way to Queen’s Park and singing “Lift Ev’ry Voice” every Aug. 1 in commemoration. While James Weldon Johnson originally penned the […]
Aug 2 2020 — Heather Scoffield — St. Catharines Standard, Toronto Star — Conventional wisdom has it that a leader can’t oust his finance minister in times of economic instability because such a move would compound the instability. Traditionally, firing a finance minister signals to the world that something is dreadfully wrong, either with a country’s economic policy or with the governance of the country’s money. That’s not […]
Jul 30 2020 — Toronto Star — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he initially “pushed back” against the public service recommendation to award a $544-million grant program for student volunteers to WE Charity, a Toronto-based organization that works with his wife and had paid his mother and brother for appearing at WE-branded events. Making a rare and high-stakes appearance at a parliamentary […]