Strategists quietly plan Atlantic Canada visit for Manning
Reform Party Leader Preston Manning will tour the East Coast this fall. A Reform Party worker in Nova Scotia, who asked not to be identified, confirmed Mr. Manning’s upcoming trip, but strategists in Ottawa are keeping the party leader’s fall visit hush-hush. Said Jim Armour, Mr. Manning’s director of communications: “There’s nothing on the books […]
NDP MP calls for secretive Commons board to open up [John Solomon]
Secrecy still reigns on Parliament Hill, but an NDP MP wants to open up the secretive and powerful board that runs the House and has introduced a private member’s bill calling for its meetings to be public. NDP MP John Solomon (Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, Sask.), a second term MP, says it’s time for the Commons Board […]
House says it’s prepared for Year 2000
From preparing software upgrade packages to providing onsite notebook testing facilities, House of Commons information technology specialists are working overtime in a bid to ensure that the business of Parliament keeps on rolling when the clocks roll over at midnight on Jan. 1, 2000. As public and private sector organizations race to avoid the anticipated […]
Newly elected Liberal MP Sekora starts hiring staffers [Sophia Betegh hired as legislative assistant]
Brand, spanking new Liberal MP Lou Sekora is in the process of getting his office set up with the help of his legislative assistant, Sophia Betegh. Mr. Sekora swept up the vote in the federal byelection held in Port Moody-Coquitlam, B.C., on March 30, upsetting the Reformers and delightfully surprising the governing Liberals. Mr. Sekora, […]
So long Johnnie, access commish exits
Canada’s access guru steps down and privacy commissioner gets two-year extension last week Canada’s outgoing access to information commissioner of Canada, who will finally step down this week after more than seven years in the post, but his counterpart is staying behind. After two extensions, John Grace’s term as information commissioner of Canada expires on […]
Put more than your spin on the Web [Government on the Net conference]
At last week’s Government on the Net conference, I had the opportunity to address several hundred federal government IT experts in a session entitled, “Putting Your Spin on The Web.” If you consider that the Government of Canada has over 130 listings for federal organizations at its primary Web site (and several thousand sub-listings), you […]
Question period: if you were offered an appointment to the Senate, would you accept it?
“I guess if I thought I had something to offer, I probably would and I’d be totally dishonest if I didn’t say that because I think the Senate does play a useful role in the Parliamentary system and I know there’s others that think differently, but I think it’s an important role and a good […]
[At the cutting edge: the crisis in Canada’s forest]
Don’t expect an unbiased report from Elizabeth May. Ms. May, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, does with her book for the environmentalists what Maude Barlow does for Canada’s left-wing economists: she bolsters them with extensively researched facts and figures to argue against the powers that be. The powers in Ms. May’s case […]
Why we need a national convervative alternative
A credible challenge to the Liberals is a long way off, and certainly will not occur in the next federal election At the federal level, the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party is now vacant and a race is imminent. Preston Manning has responded by suggesting a United Alternative for all those who want a […]
Hip, hip, hooray for the political elites [Democracy and decision making can be rendered ineffective by public scrutiny]
The Northern Ireland peace talks have served to remind me of Preston Manning and many like him, and their frequent denunciations of “elites” and the preference, expressed by demagogues everywhere, for the imagined uncommon wisdom of the cheerfully ignorant and willfully uninformed. While the agreements reached in Belfast do not necessarily signal a sectarian peace […]
