Chief scientist to meet Health Canada’s disgruntled scientists: and with Dodge gone from deputy ministers’ community, PCO reviewing membership to DM committee
Canada’s new Chief Scientist Dr. Kevin Keough foresees smoother relations at Health Canada between management and scientists — just don’t call him on ombudsman. With David Dodge leaving his post as Health Canada’s DM to take over as governor of the Bank of Canada, the Health Department is under new management. High-ranking Privy Council Office […]
Rod Love’s lessons from Campaign 2000? It was American-style: and it wasn’t pretty fighting a federal election campaign in the midst of a vicious national newspaper war
Come on, consider the circumstances: A new, untested leader of the Official Opposition. He brings with him a fresh new set of policies, a new staff and a team of eager and energetic candidates, many of them new. There is rising popularity in the polls for the newcomers and shaky poll numbers for a tired […]
“Merchant of Mud” still emerged in American-style election ads: desperate for attention, Conservatives’ spots dished up negativity rarely seen in Canadian politics
When it came to campaign advertising, the 2000 federal election saw the major parties bring new firms on board, employ different strategies from the ones that they had used previously — and, in some cases, get more aggressively negative than ever before. As was the case in the 1997 election, two well-financed parties were able […]
MPs to be moved into spiffy Justice Building as early as April
MPs could be moving into the newly-renovated Justice Building as early as the Easter break in April. Rene Crete, Public Works director general of Real Property Services for the Parliamentary Precinct, told The Hill Times that his department expects to have the Justice Building renovations completed by the end of February. The building will hold […]
Day raid on Alberta treasury will make people laugh, indeed
Stockwell Day has gone on welfare. Having allowed his tongue to run off with his brain, the Reform Alliance leader was sued for libel, prudently settled out of court and has been obliged to pay damages and costs. In order to finance his legal obligations, Day has billed the Alberta Big Mouth Fund, a welfare […]
So you want to lobby Ontario public officials? Here’s how
If, as one wag once opined, imitation remains the highest form of flattery, federal Liberals should feel pleased as punch by the lobbyist legislation offered up by Ontario’s provincial Conservatives. The Ontario proposals, with few exceptions, are virtually identical to the revised federal law that has been in place since 1995. The provincial law — […]
PM names “a very good person from Saulnierville” [Cabinet and senate appointments]
The Manila envelope…Prime Minister Jean Chretien polished his cabinet with the appointment of three new faces, among them Philippines-born medical doctor Rey Pagtakhan, a long-time Winnipeg back-bencher. He becomes secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific replacing defeated Liberal Raymond Chan. In announcing the appointment, the PM suggested Mr. Pagtakhan’s birthplace was his strongest qualification for […]
Public opinion polls now dominate election media coverage: pollsters may cloak themselves in lab coats and scientific process, but there are serious flaws in the process
Two days before the last federal election, the main front-page headline in The Globe and Mail read: “PM’s majority on razor’s edge.” The subhead was: “Campaign’s biggest poll finds Liberals in danger of minority status.” That poll, by Ipsos-Reid for the Globe and CTV, surveyed 4,102 Canadians and had the Liberals at 39 per cent, […]
Just who are these Alliance Stockwell Day dissenters? [Selective human rights enforcement]
Here’s a National Post front-page headline on Wednesday: “Some in Alliance see groundswell against Day.” Perhaps. But who are these Alliance people? Alas, Robert Fife’s story doesn’t tell us. There isn’t a single quote in the entire story from anybody expressing reservations about Day or his leadership. That’s because readers are told that “senior frontbench […]
Libs would benefit from Tory death: and Warren Kinsella says the Post “scaring people”
If the embattled Progressive Conservative Party is going to disappear, the political beneficiary will be the Liberal Party, says a top backroom Liberal strategist. Warren Kinsella, who helped run the Libs’ war room in the last election campaign and served as an architect for the Grit victory, said that the No. 2 choice of the […]
