The House comes back [Committees to be reduced, list of bills]
A more prickly partisan House of Commons returns today after a three-month summer break and as the controversial bank merger issue gets thrust to the top of the legislative agenda, government MPs are lobbying to get on the House Finance Committee. “That’s all where it’s going to happen for the next two years,” predicted Liberal […]
Building a government [Special advertising supplement]
In just over six months, the map of Canada will change, and so will the way the huge Northwest Territories is governed and administered. The two new territories that will emerge from the present Northwest Territories represent a step forward in shaping Canada as we approach the next millennium and beyond. It will mark a […]
Dinners are the ticket to lobbyists’ dollars: Grits and Tories lead the way in association funding
They attend more committee meetings than some MPs, they hold lobby days on the Hill and they have clocked mile after mile around the corridors of power, trying to build support for their respective positions. They are Canada’s trade, industry and advocacy associations, and last year they handed out more than a quarter of a […]
Feds sell ad space on Web sites
Who says government can’t be bought? I had an interesting conversation with Allan Schweyer (Schweyer.Allan@ic.gc.ca) the other day. He is the director of Industry Canada’s career and recruitment network. Whether he realizes it or not, Schweyer is responsible for a watershed moment in federal government operations: the advent of advertising on government web sites. Read […]
Ivy League journalists just don’t get it
I think they should impeach Kenneth Starr. So saying, I have not read his documented, detailed, prissy, prurient”report” on the activities of the U.S. president and the Intern. I’m not about to read it; I’ll wait for the movie. Not that I haven’t read of it, heard of it, been told of it. On the […]
PM appoints new senators, Reformers vow Alberta won’t forget it
Prime Minister Jean Chrtien appointed four new senators last Thursday, including one for Alberta, causing an uproar among Reformers in Alberta gearing up for an election to select two”senators in waiting” on Oct. 19. Reform Party strategists failed to get an injunction from the Federal Court in the summer preventing the prime minister from appointing […]
MPs flock to freebie trips to Taiwan [Includes list of third-party trips from January 1997 – May 1998]
Nothin’ like a free lunch…Taiwan was the most popular destination for MPs this session. According to the MPs Travel Registry kept by the House of Commons, 20 MPs have registered for 22 trips which are paid for by third parties in the first session of the 36th Parliament. Fourteen of these excursions were to Taiwan, […]
Newspapers take full-bore approach on Clinton
Records, as they say, are ultimately made to be broken. For example, it took Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa some 37 years to break Roger Maris’s coveted home run record of 61 home runs. But it only took Bill Clinton a little over a year to supplant the death of Princess Diana as the most-covered […]
Liberal backbenchers prepare to run for leadership [of regional caucus chairs]
Vote for me…With the House back, government backbenchers will step up their lobbying efforts for the regional caucus chairs this week. Votes are expected to be held before the House rises for the Thanksgiving break in the second week of October. National caucus chairman Joe Fontana said he wants to take a crack at a […]
Government MPs give thumbs down to bank mergers [House finance committee hearings]
Some skittish government backbenchers criticized the widely-publicized MacKay task force on financial institutions report released last week and one suggested that its findings fly in the face of Liberal party politics. Said Liberal MP Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood, Ont.) of the report:”It’s a joke.” For the outspoken Liberal member”this whole notion of an orange light, a […]
