Legislative primer: here’s what you need to know
PARLIAMENT HILL—MPs return to Ottawa after a six-week break since they met briefly in December and they finally get down to work, three months after last fall’s surprising majority election win for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Here’s The Hill Times’ primer on what to expect on some of the major policy files in this session. Legislative […]
An obligation to defend: court confirms telecom companies must stand up for customer privacy
OTTAWA—In today’s communications-driven world, no one collects as much information about its customers as telecom companies. As subscribers increasingly rely on the same company for internet connectivity, wireless access, local phone service, and television packages, the breadth of personal data collection is truly staggering. Whether it is geo-location data on where we go, information on […]
Innovation
Liberals fail badly on innovation strategy
TORONTO—The Liberal government portrays itself as the champion of the middle class. Indeed, it can barely utter a promise without declaring how it will benefit the middle class. Yet, unless it can encourage a much stronger growth path for the economy, it will fail the middle class. Modest middle-class tax cuts won’t do it. An […]
So you want to be a chief sciences adviser?
OTTAWA—Kirsty Duncan, the new science minister, has been mandated by the PM to appoint a chief science officer—more commonly known as a chief scientist or science adviser. We’ve had them before: they didn’t work. Why you may ask? There are a number of reasons—most of which have to do with the demand and receptor capacity […]
Nobel win reflects Canada’s potential for world-leading research
On Thursday, academics and dignitaries from around the world gathered in Stockholm for the annual Nobel Prize ceremony. Among this year’s laureates is Canadian Arthur B. McDonald, a professor emeritus at Queen’s University and co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics. I was fortunate to attend the ceremony and, as I watched, I quite […]
Top 10 observations about Syrian refugee crisis response
OTTAWA—This is an unprecedented national project that will go down in history with the other great refugee experiences from the past that brought in people from Vietnam, Uganda, and Kosovo; and is a counterpoint to Canada’s rejection of The St. Louis in 1939 when we sent back to Germany a boatload of 908 Jewish refugees. […]
Aerospace
Innovation
It’s 2015, what’s all the kerfuffle about gender parity in Cabinet about?
Forty-seven years ago, Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s first Cabinet had no women. Here we are in 2015, and the current Liberal leader back in June promised he would have a Cabinet of an equal number of men and women if elected. It hardly got reported. Justin Trudeau formed government, and suddenly there’s all this chatter […]
