What’s needed to change Ottawa’s culture of secrecy
Canada’s Access to Information Act needs a drastic overhaul unless Canadians want to continue to be left on the outside and to be uninformed. Current government thinking is pro-secrecy, despite the Gomery hearings helping to raise the ante for more open and honest government. For instance, the Martin government is thinking of making internal audit […]
Political parties crank up war room preparations
With the threat of an upcoming election around the corner, all parties are working to finalize the list of people who will work in their respective campaign ‘nerve centres’ also known as war rooms. With the threat of an upcoming election around the corner, the strategists of the four political parties were working quietly last […]
Prof. Kay’s House of Commons seat projections Liberal win
If an election were held days after Justice John Gomery released his first report on the sponsorship scandal, the Liberals would have won another small minority government, said Barry Kay, a political science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. “The Liberals lost a bit of ground, most of it in Quebec, but gained […]
The Secret Mulroney Tapes doc an oral history ‘of some of the most controversial, dramatic years in Canadian political history’
The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister has been on best-seller lists since its release in September. On Nov. 21, Canadians will get a chance to hear the unmistakable deep, coffee and ex-cigarette smoker voice of Brian Mulroney, Canada’s 18th Prime Minister, talking candidly about politics while he was in office with […]
HOUSE VOX POPULI
“A woman cannot be half pregnant.The government either has the confidence of the House or it does not.” – Liberal MP Roy Cullen “This ridiculous statement that somehow the Liberal government has fixed an election date, the Liberals do not even believe in fixed election dates.The Liberals have never supported fixed election dates, but somehow […]
The week ahead in Parliament: Will the government be defeated this week?
The government will be busy trying to stave off defeat this week, as a number of confidence tests are expected to come up. Finance Minister Ralph Goodale gave notice of a ‘ways and means’ motion to implement the tax measures he released last week in his economic statement. This, by convention, is a confidence vote […]
Coderre says he’s not ‘the kind of general’ who stays in the tent
While his political enemies wouldn’t describe him like this, Liberal MP Denis Coderre, a veteran political scrapper, who was born under the sun sign of Leo, describes himself as someone who gets an inordinate pleasure from helping others, is ambitious, enthusiastic, determined, and, right, stubborn. “I always think of the saying, ‘Politics is local,’” Mr. […]
Liberals sell their policies to web surfers on the Net: Finance Minister taking money with one hand and returning taxes with the other
TORONTO – The Liberal secret weapon for the fight against patronage and corruption is the internet. Whenever you ask them about a controversial contract or a wild expense, the template for the answer, lately, is all the same: Everything is above board. There is no secret about it. We follow the rules and – here […]
Lobby firms set up war rooms as 39th general election looms
Lobbyists’ clients are asking: Why is this happening, and what does it mean to me? So lobby firms set up war rooms to keep them in the loop on next election campaign. With the date of the next election call all but certain, political Ottawa is agog with a mix of anticipation and dread as […]
PARLIAMENTARY CALENDAR: GRIC’s Duguay to speak at the National Press Club: ‘Who you know or what you know? What lobbyists really do for a living, not the myths’
MONDAY, NOV. 21 Western ADM Seminar-In collaboration with the governments of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, the Public Policy Forum is organizing a three-day seminar for newly-appointed Assistant Deputy Ministers from the three western provinces. For more information, please contact Julia Oliveira at julia.oliveira@ppforum.ca. Canadian Club of Ottawa Lunch-Alberta Premier Ralph Klein will speak at […]
