Jan 23 2020 — Chris Selley — Postmedia — There is no “Donutgate.” It is not a thing. At a rough guess, perhaps five real people care that Justin Trudeau went to an upmarket instead of mass-market donut shop in Winnipeg to pick up treats for the Liberal cabinet retreat. Five people does not make “scandal,” “outrage” or “controversy.” Not even close. Donutgate is […]

Jan 23 2020 — Don Martin — CTV News — The nobodies are pounding on the door while the somebodies bolt for the exit in a Conservative leadership race hemorrhaging political status and credibility. The lineup is getting messier, murkier and less moderate by the day — and the only smiles are on Liberal faces. Former interim leader Rona Ambrose was the best hope for […]

Jan 22 2020 — John Ivison — National Post — Rona Ambrose is out and she wasn’t even in. The former Conservative minister ended weeks of speculation about whether she would run for the party’s leadership by saying that she is going to pass and “focus on making a difference through the private sector”. She said she struggled with the decision of whether or not […]

Jan 22 2020 — Policy Magazine — Jean Charest acknowledged one problem with the prospect of running for leader of the Conservative Party more than two decades after leaving Ottawa to become Liberal leader and three-term premier of Quebec. “It takes time to reintroduce yourself,” Charest said Tuesday after announcing his decision not to run for the Tory leadership, 22 years after […]

Jan 22 2020 — Susan Delacourt — Toronto Star — Canada’s top public servant has some words of advice to the rookie politicians first elected last fall, which they could print out and frame in their sparkling new Parliament Hill offices. “You are more than a mechanism to make Ottawa work,” Privy Council Clerk Ian Shugart warned at an orientation session for new MPs on […]

Jan 22 2020 — Michael Coren — Maclean's — It was largely inevitable that there would be a conflict between Doug Ford’s Ontario government and the province’s teachers. It happened under former Tory Premier Mike Harris, and it’s happened with various right-wing administrations in other provinces. Put simply, teachers are not popular with conservatives, and their unions have been used as scapegoats by conservative […]

Jan 22 2020 — Jim Stanford — Policy Options — It’s usually taken for granted that the world of work is being fundamentally transformed by the irresistible, tectonic force of technology. Automation and artificial intelligence will destroy some jobs and create others. Digitized business models and on-demand platforms will convert jobs into gigs. Huge gains in productivity could usher in abundant leisure time — or […]

Jan 22 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — As you will no doubt be aware, this month marks the 50th anniversary of the federal White Paper on Metric Conversion in Canada, kicking off what the Pierre Trudeau government called the “inevitable” transition to metric measurement. “All units of measurement used in Canada,” declared the Weights and Measures Act, passed later the same year, […]

Jan 22 2020 — Max Fawcett — CBC — Jason Kenney, it turns out, is not invincible. After two years of bending the political universe to his will, that universe started to fight back in 2019. His much ballyhooed “war room” keeps finding new and exciting ways to shoot itself in the foot, small business confidence is faltering, and the cuts to health and […]

Jan 22 2020 — Chris Selley — Postmedia — Certain pundits — well, one at least — had speculated in recent weeks that Jean Charest might be a plausible defender and leader of a Canadian conservative coalition that sometimes seems scared of its own shadow. If nothing else, it seemed reasonable to assume Charest appreciated the nature of that coalition. He lived its glory […]

Jan 22 2020 — David Staples — Edmonton Journal — The Trudeau Liberals will engage in a historic slap down of Canada’s Indigenous people if they rule against the Teck Frontier oilsands project. Teck negotiated for years with the 14 Indigenous groups that will live next door to the gargantuan $20.6-billion Frontier project. The company came to economic opportunity and environmental stewardship agreements with 14 […]

Jan 22 2020 — Heather Scoffield — Toronto Star — As Donald Trump brags to the world’s billionaires at Davos about his two newest trade deals — the revamped NAFTA and a new agreement with China — how should Canadians feel about these developments? Relief, no doubt. But a bit of trepidation, too. First, the relief. Since Trump came to power three years ago, vowing […]

Jan 21 2020 — Emma Teitel — Toronto Star — Social media can be a drag but there’s no denying that it’s made a lot of remarkable things possible: it’s launched political revolutions, given a voice to the voiceless, and as we saw this week, enabled yet another incident of misplaced outrage, this one involving a Prime Minister and several boxes of doughnuts. Call it […]

Jan 21 2020 — Paul Wells — Maclean's — It was helpful last week of Jean Chrétien’s former right hand Eddie Goldenberg to make, in detail, a case several of his contemporaries have been making piecemeal for more than a year: that taking Canada’s extradition treaty with the United States won’t get Canadian prisoners in Beijing released, so we should just do what Beijing […]

Jan 21 2020 — Stephen Maher — Maclean's — When Volkswagen Canada pleads guilty on Wednesday to illegally importing cars that were rigged to beat emissions tests, investigators and prosecutors may be tempted to celebrate. This is expected to be the biggest environmental fine in Canadian history. Volkswagen is facing 60 charges and each charge carries a maximum penalty of $6 million, so the […]