Defeat of Bills C-31, C-32 ‘a shot across the bow’ to ‘arrogant’ Libs
The governing Liberals’ surprising and embarrassing defeat of last week’s bill to split Foreign Affairs and International Trade was a “shot across the bow,”from opposition parties to arrogant Liberals who think they can still ram legislation through the House even though it’s a minority government, say opposition MPs and even some Liberals. Liberals say the […]
Parliament must do what Department of Foreign Affairs cannot do: reform itself, says former DFAIT bureaucrat
Congratulation to Canada’s opposition parties for defeating the government’s timorous plans to re-organize a department that is in desperate need of a major makeover. Good for them! Now, perhaps they will also demand a real policy review that is more than a justification for maintaining the status quo. Any policy review must not only define […]
Food Inspection Agency quietly seeks long-term shelf life: Bill C-27 will legalize CFIA arrangements with private associations, insider food quality
Ottawa’s real legislative intents are not always obvious, transparent, or, necessarily conducted solely with the public interest in mind. Some initiatives are deliberately very low-profile and barely heard of in the current swirl of sponsorship hype and same-sex legislation debate. So it is with Bill C-27, billed as simply a housekeeping update to consolidate and […]
Martin’s rewriting of equalization rules ‘has opened up a can of worms and Trudeau would be horrified’: Gossage
TORONTO – “John Tory has them running for cover and he hasn’t been elected yet. Do they really think that attempting to weaken us will be helpful to their re-election? I mean, after our election?” The comment comes to me from an Ontario federal Liberal MP who expressed in a very pointed way the general […]
Sgro gets $10,000 for legal costs: Former Cabinet minister Judy Sgro in lawsuit
Liberal MP Judy Sgro, who was forced to resign as Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister on Jan. 14 after a Brampton Pizza owner, Harjit Singh accused her of reneging on a deal to assist him in his long-standing immigration problems in exchange for supplying free pizzas and volunteers in her re-election campaign, will receive $10,000 […]
Bonwick, Goldenberg now registered as lobbyists
After a narrow defeat at the hands of Conservative rookie MP Helena Guergis in Simcoe-Grey, Ont., in last June’s federal election, former Liberal MP Paul Bonwick is back on the Hill on a regular basis in his new role as consultant lobbyist. Last month, Mr. Bonwick registered on behalf of four clients: Treadway Exports, Access […]
Only two governments have fallen because of federal budgets
Ministers of Finance of Canada Ralph Goodale, Dec. 12, 2003- John Manley, June 2, 2002-Dec. 12, 2003 Paul Martin, Jr., Nov. 4, 1993-June 2, 2002 Gilles Loiselle, June 25, 1993-Nov. 4, 1993 Don Mazankowski, Apr. 21, 1991-June 25, 1993 Michael Wilson, Sept. 17, 1984-Apr. 20, 1991 Marc Lalonde, Sept. 10, 1982-Sept. 16, 1984 Allan MacEachen, […]
So-called missile defence useless: regular reader [BMD to be hot issue at Liberal convention, January 31, 2005]
Regarding “BMD to be hot issue at Liberal convention,”(The Hill Times,Jan. 31), by F. Abbas Rana. Graham Allison, former U.S. assistant secretary of defence and now director of the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, writes in his new book Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe: “The nuclear weapon that terrorists would […]
Tory, Grit House relations hit new low: Libs to approach votes in House with far more caution
Relations between the House officers in the Liberal and Conservative parties hit a low last week after the Tory caucus changed its mind at the last minute about sending two government bills that formalize the split of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to committee for study. The bills are now dead, giving […]
Sponsorship scandal changed paradigm of federal-provincial relations, likely to resonate through system for years to come in politics
In the year since Auditor General Sheila Fraser set a political tsunami in motion with her report on the sponsorship program, there have been times when it seemed she herself would be a casualty of its debris. Just two weeks ago, former prime minister Jean Chretien used his testimony at the Gomery Commission to take […]
