LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Liked NDP MP Charlie Angus story Re: “MP Angus says Kashechewan is ‘Paul Martin’s New Orleans’” by Bea Vongdouangchanh (The Hill Times, Nov. 7). Thanks for the coverage of the Kashechewan nightmare. But will anything actually happen? Meanwhile, Liberal strategists are complaining that the NDP forced an election so that their party will not be […]
House Affairs blasts Federal Ethics Commissioner Office
The House Affairs Committee blasted the Office of the Federal Ethics Commissioner last week for lax handling of Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai’s case in which he was accused of allegedly accepting $40,000 to fast-track immigration paperwork for a relative. The House Affairs Committee, headed by government backbencher Don Boudria , found that it is essential […]
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 […]
The Spin Doctors: “What’s your party’s campaign slogan for the next election?”
Leslie Swartman Liberal Strategist “Here are my picks. Given the season we are in, I’ve decided to base them on traditional Christmas carols: “Stack the halls with fawning voters, fa la la la la, la la la la.” “O come all ye faithful, vote early and often, o come ye, o come ye to mark […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
Recently released [Access to Care, Access to Justice] [A Soldier’s View] [Angels, Mobsters and Narco-Terrorists] [A Perfect Hell] [The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper] [Starlight Tour] [Too Close for Comfort] [Holy Terror] [Rescuing Canada’s Right] [Searching for Justice] [Bora Laskin] [Life on a Press Pass] [Confessions of an Innocent Man]
Access to Care, Access to Justice: The Legal Debate Over Private Health Insurance in Canada, edited by Colleen M. Flood, Kent Roach and Lorne Sossin. University of Toronto Press, 611 pages, $35. From the preface: “In its best light, the Supreme Court’s majority decision of June 9, 2005, in Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General), should […]
