Harper stubbornly insists populism can be managed
TORONTO—Can Donald Trump be managed? Can so-called “populists” be persuaded to moderate their so-called populism? Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to politics, in the past two years, knows the answer. The answer is no. But the optimists—mainly traditional conservatives, like former prime minister Stephen Harper—stubbornly persist in a decidedly Pollyanna-ish outlook. Against all available […]
CAQ victory not an automatic win for Scheer, say strategists
Being aligned on the political spectrum might make the Coalition Avenir Québec and the federal Conservative Party natural allies, but strategists say the CAQ majority win in this month’s provincial election isn’t automatically good news for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer. The Oct. 1 election results were more about kicking out the Quebec Liberal Party, in […]
NAFTA deal a win for Trudeau, but not a get-out-of-jail-free card
OTTAWA—Justin Trudeau has a trade deal. Over the weekend, Canada and the United States were able to come to a preliminary agreement on a successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), henceforth to be known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). While its acronym could be confused with a Village People song popular […]
Quebec may face same situation as N.B.
Is Quebec about to follow in New Brunswick’s footsteps and become the second province to hold a fall election that fails to sort out which party will run its government for the next few years? With less than a week to go until the Oct. 1 vote, the possibility that Monday’s election will see a […]
Putin in ‘most dangerous’ mid-life crisis in history, says Tom Nichols
The goal of Russian interference and misinformation in Western democracies is to decrease civic engagement, says a former cold warrior. Speaking at a talk on ‘Russia’s Challenge to North American and European Security’ put on by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute on Sept. 27, Tom Nichols, a Sovietologist and professor at the U.S. Naval College, said Russian […]
New directors named for ministers Petitpas Taylor and MacAulay
Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor promoted Adam Exton to take over as director of parliamentary affairs in her office last month. Up until recently, Mr. Exton was a senior parliamentary affairs adviser and Ontario regional affairs adviser to Ms. Petitpas Taylor. He joined the health minister’s office from the get-go as a special assistant for […]
Maybe the 2019 ballot question should be about politics itself
If you weren’t aware before last week that Canada’s federal politicians are now in election-countdown mode, the event that greeted MPs returning to the House of Commons after the summer of killer heat waves (or the “summer of failure,” depending on what you spent your vacation tweeting about) will have instantly acclimatized you to our […]
Balancing the budget is not Canada’s top economic priority
TORONTO—The Conservatives say they would like to make the economy the issue in the next federal election, about a year from now. But if they simply want a return to the discredited austerity policies of the Harper government, which slowed Canada’s recovery from the Great Recession and kept too many Canadians unemployed for too long, […]
Quebec expected to be two-way race in 2019, all eyes on Québec City region, say strategists
Quebec is on course to be a two-way race between the Liberals and Conservatives in the 2019 federal election, say strategists, and the Québec City region is likely to be a hotly contested battleground amongst the federal parties. Despite the reunion of the Bloc Québécois on Sept. 17—with five MPs who had split from the […]
Floor-crossing MP never raised concerns over used fighter jets purchase with procurement minister: spokesperson
Ontario MP Leona Alleslev cited the Liberal government’s defence record in announcing her decision to cross the floor from the Liberals to the Conservatives last week, but a spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough says the MP never raised questions over Canada’s purchase of used Australian FA-18 fighter jets with the minister while […]
