The roots of Harper’s refugee conundrum
POWELL RIVER, B.C.—Watching the usually bold Stephen Harper scramble to deal with the refugee crisis is to be one of the most intractable and complex issues he has had to deal with. It has shone an extremely unwelcome light on one of the dirty little secrets of the prime minister’s old Reform Party political base: […]
Handcuffs aside, Bagnell and Leef aren’t taking any chances in Yukon
WHITEHORSE, YUKON—Larry Bagnell spent the entire afternoon knocking on doors. He got to 14. “Four weren’t home, but we did okay with the other 10,” says Bagnell, the much-liked former Liberal MP for Yukon. “That’s pretty good.” Welcome to Yukon. There’s a population of just more than 35,000 people here, and about 22,000 of them […]
Ontario biggest battleground, to determine who forms next government
TORONTO—Ontario is shaping up to be the big battleground that will determine who gets to form Canada’s next government. Yet the real economic challenges facing the Ontario economy are getting scant attention from the three major parties—and surprisingly, less from the NDP and Liberals than from the Conservatives when it comes to the all-important manufacturing […]
Minority government scenarios could make post-election more interesting than tight campaign
OTTAWA—Tom Mulcair didn’t mince his words. “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell,” the NDP leader said last week when asked if his party would prop up a minority Conservative government if Stephen Harper’s party fails to win a majority of seats on election day. “There are no circumstances in which I would support Stephen […]
Mulcair’s caution could be his undoing
GATINEAU, QUE.—Thomas Mulcair has been hugging the ideological centre since this interminable election began, but sometimes he appears to be actively discouraging progressive voters. If that isn’t his intention, it could be the result. Last week, for instance, the NDP leader chastised Justin Trudeau for promising to reject the expensive and trouble-plagued F-35 fighter plane. […]
Who’s who on Team Harper: a look at the 2015 Conservative war room
A lot of Cabinet and PMO staffers are on leave and working in the party’s war room in Ottawa to get the Conservatives re-elected, in a three-way race that pollster Nik Nanos recently described as “a knife fight in a telephone booth.” “A modern campaign has so many different moving parts, so many different facets […]
Former MPs running again, want back in the House
They want an encore. Some 20 former MPs are running in this federal election, some under new political stripes. Former five-term Conservative MP Inky Mark, who stepped down in 2010 and now is running as an Independent MP in the riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa, Man., said he’s running again because “people basically are sick and […]
PBO’s survival at risk without legislative change, says Page
The “weak” legislation underpinning the Parliamentary Budget Office means the institution’s survival is at risk, the former PBO says, and the political appointment process has left an unqualified successor. Kevin Page, whose tumultuous tenure as Canada’s first Parliamentary budget officer ended in March 2013, has written a cri de coeur about his time in the […]
Lobby firms seeking New Democrats in preparation for next Parliament, sources say
The 2011 “Orange Wave” that swept the NDP to official opposition status only made a small ripple in Ottawa’s lobbying business, with a few firms snatching up former New Democrats in the years that followed. But with the possibility of the NDP forming government for the first time after Oct. 19, more firms are positioning […]
GG would invite NDP, Libs to form government if Tories defeated on SFT: Ned Franks
If the Conservatives win a minority government on Oct. 19 and the opposition parties decide to defeat the government on the Throne Speech, Governor General David Johnston would not agree to call another election immediately and would instead invite other parties to form government if they can, experts say. Mr. Johnston “would not call an […]
