Neville delivers bottom line on gun costs
OTTAWA–The furor over the gun registry boondoggle continued unabated last week, with the oppositions clamouring louder than ever for a better picture of what the government has spent on the ill-fated program to date. On two successive days, Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville, Sask.), his party’s firearms and property rights critic, nearly turned blue in […]
Alliance targets riding: Entire caucus to go to Perth-Middlesex
OTTAWA–The entire Canadian Alliance caucus will hold a special meeting in Stratford, Ont., on Friday, April 4, in an effort to give a boost to their party candidate’s campaign in the as-yet uncalled byelection in the riding of Perth- Middlesex, Ont., illustrating the party is working hard to win the riding which has been held […]
Backroom maneuvers
The Alliance went to great lengths last week to make sure this week’s vote [March 25] to give the troubled gun registry another $59-million will be as dramatic as possible. One of its staffers, Darcy Walsh, camped out at 5 a.m. on Friday morning outside the Commons’ Journals Branch to ensure his party was the […]
Gallery bans honoraries, for now: Members also move to strip parking privileges
OTTAWA -The Parliamentary Press Gallery approved a temporary ban on new “honorary” and “life” press passes last week, judging that the time had come to review whether these members, who boast a minimum of 10 active years of experience on Parliament Hill, should enjoy the same privileges as active members. The moratorium, approved at a […]
Breathless U.S. back-patting
In the Canadian Alliance’s breathless leap to attack Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s move not to support the U.S.-led war in Iraq, it has proceeded to accomplish exactly what it daily accuses the Liberals of doing: insulting and belittling our friend and neighbour the United States of America and its president. Certainly, this is all about […]
Canada’s stand is not anti-American: Iraq war has fermented some uncomfortable upheavals on international scene
OTTAWA–Canada did well to stay the UN course on Iraq. This was endorsed by a 153-50 vote in the House of Commons last Thursday on a Bloc Quebecois motion calling on the government “not to participate in the military intervention initiated by the United States in Iraq.” The vote is the reflection of Canadian public […]
Canuck budget process impresses Aussie official: Compared to other countries, Canada enjoys a conflict-free budget process
OTTAWA–What makes Canadians so easy-going and adverse to confrontations? It’s a question that has long preoccupied those with a keen interest on what happens within the large country. Although hard-and-fast answers have been hard to come by (with apologies to Seymour Martin Lipset), the perception has stuck and rarely stopped those who study Canada to […]
Listen to the people, do the right thing PM
PARLIAMENT HILL–As we count down the days and months before Jean Chretien leaves office as Prime Minister and Paul Martin takes over, a major challenge faces both men. Will Chretien’s legacy be the weakening and dismantling of medicare, our universal public healthcare system, aided and abetted by the massive funding cuts by Paul Martin? Or […]
Cataclysmic news events
TORONTO–The 1991 Gulf War began in the skies over Baghdad on a Saturday night, mid-way through the first period of Canada’s Holy Grail — Hockey Night in Canada. What did the CBC do? It immediately broke away from the action on the ice to the action in the other arena. About 10 minutes later, it […]
Eves blasted for lack of Parliamentary respect
KINGSTON, ONT.–Betty Boothroyd is not amused. Reached in London, the home of the Mother of All Parliaments at Westminster, Ms. Boothroyd, who is “the Baroness Boothroyd of Sandwell” now, and at the House of Lords to boot, says she knows full well what would happen if a British Chancellor of the Exchequer tried to pull […]
