What Singh is really saying about Old Age Security
New Democratic Party federal leadership candidate Jagmeet Singh is unorthodox in more ways than one. So far, the newest entrant in the four-person race to replace Tom Mulcair has been deemed noteworthy for his style (natty) and his religion (Sikh). His supporters—and Singh himself—argue that the 38-year-old Brampton politician is best-positioned to persuade younger voters, […]
Feds get ‘some’ credit for economic success, but cautioned on deficits, including $28.5-billion this year
Economists say the Bank of Canada’s recent interest-rate cut is a sign of Canada’s economy being the strongest it’s been in years, and most say the Trudeau government can take some credit while also saying it should be careful about the deficit spending it has planned for the foreseeable future. On July 12, the Bank […]
Time for Trudeau to produce results on indigenous issues
Justin Trudeau has made reconciliation with Canada’s indigenous people one of his top priorities, though for some, he’s either not moving fast enough or the effects of his efforts aren’t reaching enough people. As Canadians celebrated the country’s 150th anniversary on July, there was a big elephant in the room; indigenous people in this country, […]
Liberals expect to make department spending reviews permanent
The Trudeau government is planning to repeat a round of audits of federal departments and agencies promised in this year’s budget in future years as well, putting multiple government institutions in the crosshairs annually. Jean-Luc Ferland, press secretary to Treasury Board President Scott Brison (Kings-Hants, N.S.), said the three departments selected for review this year […]
Meanwhile, in a parallel reality where the world’s not getting Punk’d by a president…
For all the clichés about the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos being a Gulfstream G550 traffic jam, important news can get made in the Swiss Alps in January. There was the moment, in 2009, when then-Turkish prime minister-now-President-for-Life Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed off the stage in a brouhaha with then-Israeli president Shimon Peres […]
A tale of two House committees
When Dickens wrote the opening to A Tale of Two Cities, set more than 200 years ago, he described an age of contrasts—wisdom and foolishness, belief and skepticism, hope and despair. He also wryly observed that this could be said of any era. It certainly seemed true to whistleblowing advocates attending two sets of recent […]
Liberal Senator urges colleagues to stand up against government pressure on voting decisions
Cabinet ministers’ “systematic lobbying” of Senators on government legislation could undermine the independence of the Red Chamber and it’s up to each Senator to ensure they maintain independence in their voting decisions, says a Liberal Senator from Quebec. “You have to use that vote for the purpose for which you’re called in the Senate, which […]
Parliament adjourned for summer, government’s controversial budget bill passed without amendment
PARLIAMENT HILL—The House adjourned for the summer Wednesday evening after an acrimonious spring sitting, and the Senate followed suit the next day after voting not to insist upon its changes to the government’s 300-page omnibus budget implementation bill after the House rejected them. The House had rejected the Senate’s amendments to remove the so-called escalator tax increases […]
Defence is not the sole guarantor of our security
The new foreign aid policy foresees that for every dollar of federal income, defence, which is now receiving just shy of seven pennies, will increase significantly while international assistance remains frozen at around 1.7 pennies. Defence is not the sole guarantor of our security. International assistance plays a key role in establishing a world that is more […]
Mining group tells government to stand at wrong end of elephant
The Mining Association of Canada is apparently concerned that the Canadian government may be ready to introduce a human rights ombudsperson for the extractive industries that is actually effective. Model legislation proposed by the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability late last year would give such an ombudsperson the mandate to carry out independent investigations in […]
