Igantieff putting colleagues up for sale in online auction
People remember former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau for many things-pirouettes behind the Queen’s back, driving a convertible Mercedes, single red roses. MPs who knew him in Question Period might remember one day in February, 1971 best, when he was accused of telling opposition Members to “fuck off.” Or, as transcribed in Hansard, the official […]
Parliamentarians go to South Africa
A delegation of MPs is headed to South Africa this week to meet with their Parliamentary counterparts from Aug. 27 to Sept. 3. House Speaker Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands, Ont.) is leading the delegation to Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria. Conservative MP Jay Hill (Prince George-Peace River, B.C.), Liberal MP Karen Redman (Kitchener […]
Bernier joins Summa Strategies
Last week, Summa Strategies announced that it hired Tory Daniel Bernier, formerly chief of staff to Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, to head up the firm’s new research division. The Hill Times caught up with Tim Powers, vice president at Summa. HT: What was the impetus for creating the new research division? Will it be servicing […]
Liberals are united and ready to fight Conservatives: Goodale
After a productive caucus meeting in Vancouver, the Liberal Party is getting its groove back, says Liberal MP Ralph Goodale (Wascana, Sask.). “The one thing that I’ve noticed from this caucus and I felt it growing since June, through July, through August, is a very real sense among liberals that we’re getting our morale, our […]
Catherine Clark to host CPAC show
CPAC announced last week that Catherine Clark, daughter of former prime minister Joe Clark, will host a new, weekly phone-in public affairs program called Sunday Sound Off. The live, weekly, bilingual program is scheduled to start on Sept. 17 on CPAC. “I’m looking forward to speaking with Canadians from one end of the country to […]
Tories more ready than any other party for an election: MP Turner
Conservative MP Garth Turner (Halton, Ont.) says the Conservatives are “more ready” for a fall election, from strategy to organization, than any other political party. “My knowledge is that we are more ready than anyone else for an election this fall. We have had an election readiness team in place since about March. We have […]
Visible minorities continue to be underrepresented in the federal public service: Employment equity report to Parliament
The federal public service has met its targets to hire women, aboriginals and persons with disabilities to reflect the Canadian population, but the statistics are nothing to be proud of, especially since visible minorities continue to be underrepresented, says one of the largest federal public service unions. The 2004-2005 annual report, Employment Equity in the […]
To the best of my knowledge, I’m not aware of any MP in the Liberal caucus who represents the riding of Lebanon South
The non-events of last week at the Liberal caucus retreat in Vancouver have confirmed what we knew since Jan. 23. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will lose his job only if he decides to quit after winning a Lotto 6/49 jackpot (and that’s an unlikely possibility), or if some hotheads in his caucus accumulate nostalgic feelings […]
With the 2006 election over, who can complain about its media coverage? Not the Conservative Party
Political parties invariably resent the coverage they receive from the media. They feel as though they are forced to fight election campaigns on two fronts, the first against their political opponents and the second against a press corps reflexively opposed to their ambitions for office. Now that the 2006 federal election is history, who has […]
CONSERVATIVE NOMINATION CONTESTS UNDER FIRE
A Conservative Party member says he is “very disappointed” in his own party after his nomination papers for potential candidacy in a B.C. riding were rejected “without any specific reason” last week. “I’m very disappointed, I’m hurt, I’m a longtime member of the party. This is not a way to treat someone who’s volunteered thousands […]
