Fourth year of governing more crucial than first three combined, says Dalton McGuinty, tougher as partisanship spikes
Parliament’s challenge in the last year of the Liberal mandate will be “to govern despite ourselves” and avoid the “toxicity that has taken over much of political debate” as all parties turn to election readiness, says NDP MP Nathan Cullen. “Fourth years of Parliaments tend to exaggerate the differences because people are trying to make […]
Senators push back on Liberal plan to expand voting rights for Canadians abroad
As Senators begin their committee study of the Liberals’ elections bill, some don’t seem convinced that opening up voting rights to more Canadian citizens living abroad is the right move. Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould (Burlington, Ont.) and various officials—including elections commissioner Yves Côté—faced a barrage of questions last week from Senators on the Upper […]
Liberals call Ford’s ‘interlaying’ with federal Conservatives ‘unprecedented,’ but say they’re not worried
The extent of Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s public posturing against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and declaration that he wants to see Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer as Canada’s prime minister in 2019 is unprecedented and the rationale behind the strategy is unclear, say Liberal MPs, but Conservatives says Kathleen Wynne used the same strategy as premier […]
Niki Ashton to meet Bernie Sanders in Vermont
NDP MP Niki Ashton is travelling to the Green Mountain State–Burlington, Vermont, to be exact–on Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, to attend a gathering of progressive leaders at U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders‘ think tank. Ms. Ashton will participate in an international roundtable at the Sanders Institute Gathering with Mr. Sanders, as well as former Greek […]
Trudeau to call remaining byelections in January, to take place in February: feds
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to call three byelections—including a highly anticipated contest in Burnaby South, B.C.—in early January for the following month, The Hill Times has learned. “We will be calling all three byelections, all three remaining ones, in January—early, early new year—for them to all take place in February,” said a senior government […]
To save a buck, Ford triggers waves of indignation
Make no mistake. By putting Ontario’s francophone minority on his fiscal hit list this week, Premier Doug Ford has placed his federal ally Andrew Scheer in harm’s way. In Thursday’s fiscal update, Ontario’s Tory government put plans for a long-promised French-language university on the chopping block, in the process reversing Ford’s campaign commitment to the […]
Are Canada’s newsrooms ready to tackle fake news, cyber threats, ‘foreign adversaries’ ahead of 2019 election?
Hill newsrooms are still in the early stages of contending with issues around potential interference during the 2019 election, but as the vote draws closer, a few have signalled they intend to have a game plan to anticipate the spread of misinformation. In a report last year about cyber threats to the democratic process, the […]
Revisiting the Florida recounts
For anyone who lived through the Florida presidential-election recounts of 2000, just the words “Florida recounts” can conjure dizzying flashbacks of lawsuit blizzards, paid sideshow protesters, and hanging chad overload. As former George W. Bush aide Matthew Dowd, who was there for the Mother of All Recounts, quipped ruefully during an ABC interview on Nov. 10 on the latest […]
Feds face test in developing ethical standards for AI use
Every second, there are 8,262 tweets posted, 879 Instagram photos uploaded, 3,462 Skype calls made, 64,187 GB of internet traffic, 76,254 YouTube videos viewed, and 2.7 million emails sent. By the time you finish reading this, there will have been approximately 41 million Google searches. According to a 2016 estimate from IBM, 90 per cent […]
‘The risk is there’: marijuana legalization unpopular in ridings with high Chinese-Canadian populations, says former Ontario Liberal minister Chan
Federal Liberal ridings with high proportions of Chinese-Canadians could be in jeopardy in 2019 if the party fails to do more to explain the rationale behind marijuana legalization, because Chinese-Canadians have deep-rooted apprehensions about drug use of any kind and some incorrectly see it as a “precursor to cocaine legalization,” say politicos. “They [Chinese-Canadians] don’t […]
